short stories for students: presenting analysis, context, and criticism on commonly studied short...

ShortStoriesStudentsfor

National Advisory BoardDale Allender: Teacher, West High School, Iowa

City, Iowa.

Dana Gioia: Poet and critic. His books include TheGods of Winter and Can Poetry Matter? Hecurrently resides in Santa Rosa, CA.

Carol Jago: Teacher, Santa Monica High School,Santa Monica, CA. Member of the CaliforniaReading and Literature Project at Universityof California, Los Angeles.

Bonnie J. Newcomer: English Teacher, BeloitJunior-Senior High School, Beloit, Kansas.Editor of KATE UpDate, for the Kansas As-sociation of Teachers of English. Ph.D. candi-

date in information science, Emporia StateUniversity, Kansas.

Katherine Nyberg: English teacher. Director ofthe language arts program of Farmington Pub-lic Schools, Farmington, Michigan.

Nancy Rosenberger: Former English teacher andchair of English department at ConestogaHigh School, Berwyn, Pennsylvania.

Dorothea M. Susag: English teacher, Simms HighSchool, Simms, Montana. Former presidentof the Montana Association of Teachers ofEnglish Language Arts. Member of the Na-tional Council of Teachers of English.

1 1

ShortStories

for StudentsPresenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism onCommonly Studied Short Stories

Volume 8

Ira Mark Milne, Editor

THOMSON

GALE

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10987

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Guest Foreword"Why Study Literature At All?"Thomas E. Harden

Introduction

Literary Chronology

Acknowledgments

Contributors

vii

ix

xiii

xvii

xxi

Table of Contents

Blackberry Winterby Robert Penn Warren 1

Flowering Judasby Katherine Anne Porter 24

The Garden Partyby Katherine Mansfield 49

The Grand Inquisitorby Fyodor Dostoevsky 69

How I Contemplated the Worldby Joyce Carol Gates 97

In Another Countryby Ernest Hemingway 120

The Legend of Sleepy Hollowby Washington Irving 139

The Lifted Veilby George Eliot 165

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T a b l e o f C o n t e n t s

The Magic Barrelby Bernard Malamud

The Man to Send Raincloudsby Les l i e Marmon S i l ko

The Masque of the Red Deathby Edgar Allan Poe

Mateo Falconeby Prosper Merimee

Mrs. Bathurstby Rudyard Kipling

196

217

232

261

274

A New England Nunby Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

Redemptionby John Gardner

Residents and Transientsby Bobbie Ann Mason

Silent Snow, Secret Snowby Conrad Aiken

291

308

323

343

Glossary of Literary Terms

Cumulative Author/Title Index

Nationality/Ethnicity Index

Subject/Theme Index 381

V I S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s

361

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Why Study Literature At All?Short Stories for Students is designed to pro-

vide readers with information and discussion abouta wide range of important contemporary and histori-cal works of short fiction, and it does that job verywell. However, I want to use this guest foreword toaddress a question that it does not take up. It is afundamental question that is often ignored in highschool and college English classes as well as re-search texts, and one that causes frustration amongstudents at all levels, namely—why study literatureat all? Isn't it enough to read a story, enjoy it, and goabout one's business? My answer (to be expectedfrom a literary professional, I suppose) is no. It isnot enough. It is a start; but it is not enough.Here's why.

First, literature is the only part of the educationalcurriculum that deals directly with the actual worldof lived experience. The philosopher Edmund Husserlused the apt German term die Lebenswelt, "theliving world," to denote this realm. All the othercontent areas of the modern American educationalsystem avoid the subjective, present reality of eve-ryday life. Science (both the natural and the socialvarieties) objectifies, the fine arts create and/orperform, history reconstructs. Only literary studypersists in posing those questions we all askedbefore our schooling taught us to give up on them.Only literature gives credibility to personal percep-tions, feelings, dreams, and the "stream of con-sciousness" that is our inner voice. Literature won-ders about infinity, wonders why God permits evil,

wonders what will happen to us after we die. Litera-ture admits that we get our hearts broken, thatpeople sometimes cheat and get away with it, thatthe world is a strange and probably incomprehensi-ble place. Literature, in other words, takes on all thebig and small issues of what it means to be human.So my first answer is that of the humanist—weshould read literature and study it and take it seri-ously because it enriches us as human beings. Wedevelop our moral imagination, our capacity tosympathize with other people, and our ability tounderstand our existence through the experienceof fiction.

My second answer is more practical. By study-ing literature we can learn how to explore andanalyze texts. Fiction may be about die Lebenswelt,but it is a construct of words put together in a certainorder by an artist using the medium of language. Byexamining and studying those constructions, we canlearn about language as a medium. We can becomemore sophisticated about word associations andconnotations, about the manipulation of symbols,and about style and atmosphere. We can grasp howambiguous language is and how important contextand texture is to meaning. In our first encounter witha work of literature, of course, we are not supposedto catch all of these things. We are spellbound, justas the writer wanted us to be. It is as serious studentsof the writer's art that we begin to see how the tricksare done.

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Why S t u d y L i t e r a t u r e At A l l ?

Seeing the tricks, which is another way ofsaying "developing analytical and close readingskills," is important above and beyond its intrinsicliterary educational value. These skills transfer toother fields and enhance critical thinking of anykind. Understanding how language is used to con-struct texts is powerful knowledge. It makes engi-neers better problem solvers, lawyers better advo-cates and courtroom practitioners, politicians betterrhetoricians, marketing and advertising agents bet-ter sellers, and citizens more aware consumers aswell as better participants in democracy. This lastpoint is especially important, because rhetoricalskill works both ways—when we learn how lan-guage is manipulated in the making of texts theresult is that we become less susceptible whenlanguage is used to manipulate us.

My third reason is related to the second. Whenwe begin to see literature as created artifacts oflanguage, we become more sensitive to good writ-ing in general. We get a stronger sense of theimportance of individual words, even the sounds ofwords and word combinations. We begin to under-stand Mark Twain's delicious proverb—"The dif-ference between the right word and the almost rightword is the difference between lightning and alightning bug." Getting beyond the "enjoymentonly" stage of literature gets us closer to becomingmakers of word art ourselves. I am not saying thatstudying fiction will turn every student into a Faulkneror a Shakespeare. But it will make us more adapt-able and effective writers, even if our art form endsup being the office memo or the corporate annualreport.

Studying short stories, then, can help studentsbecome better readers, better writers, and evenbetter human beings. But I want to close with awarning. If your study and exploration of the craft,history, context, symbolism, or anything else abouta story starts to rob it of the magic you felt when youfirst read it, it is time to stop. Take a break, studyanother subject, shoot some hoops, or go for a run.Love of reading is too important to be ruined byschool. The early twentieth century writer WillaGather, in her novel My Antonia, has her narratorJack Burden tell a story that he and Antonia heardfrom two old Russian immigrants when they wereteenagers. These immigrants, Pavel and Peter, toldabout an incident from their youth back in Russiathat the narrator could recall in vivid detail thirtyyears later. It was a harrowing story of a weddingparty starting home in sleds and being chased bystarving wolves. Hundreds of wolves attacked thegroup's sleds one by one as they sped across thesnow trying to reach their village. In a horriblerevelation, the old Russians revealed that the groomeventually threw his own bride to the wolves to savehimself. There was even a hint that one of the oldimmigrants might have been the groom mentionedin the story. Gather has her narrator conclude withhis feelings about the story. "We did not tell Pavel'ssecret to anyone, but guarded it jealously—as if thewolves of the Ukraine had gathered that night longago, and the wedding party had been sacrificed, justto give us a painful and peculiar pleasure." Thatfeeling, that painful and peculiar pleasure, is themost important thing about literature. Study andresearch should enhance that feeling and never beallowed to overwhelm it.

Thomas E. BurdenProfessor of English andDirector of Graduate English StudiesThe University of Toledo

S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t sv I i i

IntroductionPurpose of the BookThe purpose of Short Stories for Students (SSfS) isto provide readers with a guide to understanding,enjoying, and studying short stories by giving themeasy access to information about the work. Part ofGale's "For Students" Literature line, SSfS is spe-cifically designed to meet the curricular needs ofhigh school and undergraduate college students andtheir teachers, as well as the interests of generalreaders and researchers considering specific shortfiction. While each volume contains entries onclassic stories frequently studied in classrooms,there are also entries containing hard-to-find infor-mation on contemporary stories, including worksby multicultural, international, and women writers.

The information covered in each entry includesan introduction to the story and the story's author; aplot summary, to help readers unravel and under-stand the events in the work; descriptions of impor-tant characters, including explanation of a givencharacter's role in the narrative as well as discussionabout that character's relationship to other charac-ters in the story; analysis of important themes in thestory; and an explanation of important literary tech-niques and movements as they are demonstrated inthe work.

In addition to this material, which helps thereaders analyze the story itself, students are alsoprovided with important information on the literaryand historical background informing each work.

This includes a historical context essay, a boxcomparing the time or place the story was written tomodern Western culture, a critical overview essay,and excerpts from critical essays on the story orauthor. A unique feature of SSfS is a speciallycommissioned overview essay on each story by anacademic expert, targeted toward the student reader.

To further aid the student in studying andenjoying each story, information on media adapta-tions is provided, as well as reading suggestions forworks of fiction and nonfiction on similar themesand topics. Classroom aids include ideas for re-search papers and lists of critical sources that pro-vide additional material on the work.

Selection CriteriaThe titles for each volume of SSfS were selected bysurveying numerous sources on teaching literatureand analyzing course curricula for various schooldistricts. Some of the sources surveyed include:literature anthologies, Reading Lists for College-Bound Students: The Books Most Recommended byAmerica's Top Colleges; Teaching the Short Story:A Guide to Using Stories from A round the World, bythe National Council of Teachers of English (NTCE);and "A Study of High School Literature Antholo-gies," conducted by Arthur Applebee at the Cen-ter for the Learning and Teaching of Literatureand sponsored by the National Endowment for theArts and the Office of Educational Research andImprovement.

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Input was also solicited from our expert adviso-ry board, as well as educators from various areas.From these discussions, it was determined that eachvolume should have a mix of "classic" stories(those works commonly taught in literature classes)and contemporary stories for which information isoften hard to find. Because of the interest in expand-ing the canon of literature, an emphasis was al-so placed on including works by international,multicultural, and women authors. Our advisoryboard members—current high-school teachers—helped pare down the list for each volume. Worksnot selected for the present volume were noted aspossibilities for future volumes. As always, theeditor welcomes suggestions for titles to be includ-ed in future volumes.

How Each Entry Is OrganizedEach entry, or chapter, in SSfS focuses on one story.Each entry heading lists the title of the story, theauthor's name, and the date of the story's publica-tion. The following elements are contained ineach entry:

• Introduction: a brief overview of the storywhich provides information about its first ap-pearance, its literary standing, any controversiessurrounding the work, and major conflicts orthemes within the work.

• Author Biography: this section includes basicfacts about the author's life, and focuses onevents and times in the author's life that mayhave inspired the story in question.

• Plot Summary: a description of the events in thestory, with interpretation of how these eventshelp articulate the story's themes.

• Characters: an alphabetical listing of the char-acters who appear in the story. Each charactername is followed by a brief to an extensivedescription of the character's role in the story, aswell as discussion of the character's actions,relationships, and possible motivation.

Characters are listed alphabetically by last name.If a character is unnamed—for instance, thenarrator in "The Eatonville Anthology"—thecharacter is listed as "The Narrator" and alpha-betized as "Narrator." If a character's first nameis the only one given, the name will appearalphabetically by that name.

• Themes: a thorough overview of how the topics,themes, and issues are addressed within thestory. Each theme discussed appears in a sepa-

rate subhead, and is easily accessed through theboldface entries in the Subject/Theme Index.

• Style: this section addresses important style ele-ments of the story, such as setting, point of view,and narration; important literary devices used,such as imagery, foreshadowing, symbolism;and, if applicable, genres to which the workmight have belonged, such as Gothicism or Ro-manticism. Literary terms are explained withinthe entry, but can also be found in the Glossary ofLiterary Terms.

• Historical and Cultural Context: This sectionoutlines the social, political, and cultural climatein which the author lived and the work wascreated. This section may include descriptionsof related historical events, pertinent aspects ofdaily life in the culture, and the artistic andliterary sensibilities of the time in which thework was written. If the story is historical innature, information regarding the time in whichthe story is set is also included. Long sections arebroken down with helpful subheads.

• Critical Overview: this section provides back-ground on the critical reputation of the authorand the story, including bannings or any otherpublic controversies surrounding the work. Forolder works, this section may include a history ofhow story was first received and how percep-tions of it may have changed over the years; formore recent works, direct quotes from earlyreviews may also be included.

• Sources: an alphabetical list of critical materi-al quoted in the entry, with bibliographicalinformation.

• For Further Study: an alphabetical list of othercritical sources which may prove useful for thestudent. Includes full bibliographical informa-tion and a brief annotation.

• Criticism: an essay commissioned by SSfS whichspecifically deals with the story and is writtenspecifically for the student audience, as well asexcerpts from previously published criticism onthe work.

In addition, each entry contains the followinghighlighted sections, if applicable, set separate fromthe main text:

• Media Adaptations: where applicable, a list offilm and television adaptations of the story,including source information. The list also in-

S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t sX

I n t r o d u c t i o n

eludes stage adaptations, audio recordings, mu-sical adaptations, etc.

• Compare and Contrast Box: an ' 'at-a-glance''comparison of the cultural and historical differ-ences between the author's time and culture andlate twentieth-century Western culture. This boxincludes pertinent parallels between the majorscientific, political, and cultural movements ofthe time or place the story was written, the timeor place the story was set (if a historical work),and modern Western culture. Works writtenafter the mid-1970s may not have this box.

• What Do I Read Next?: a list of works thatmight complement the featured story or serve asa contrast to it. This includes works by the sameauthor and others, works of fiction and nonfic-tion, and works from various genres, cultures,and eras.

• Study Questions: a list of potential study ques-tions or research topics dealing with the story.This section includes questions related to otherdisciplines the student may be studying, such asAmerican history, world history, science, math,government, business, geography, economics,psychology, etc.

Other FeaturesSS/S includes "Why Study Literature At All?," aguest foreword by Thomas E. Barden, Professor ofEnglish and Director of Graduate English Studies atthe University of Toledo. This essay provides anumber of very fundamental reasons for studyingliterature and, therefore, reasons why a book such asSSfS, designed to facilitate the study of literature,is useful.

A Cumulative Author/Title Index lists the au-thors and titles covered in each volume of theSSfS series.

A Cumulative Nationality/Ethnicity Index breaksdown the authors and titles covered in each volumeof the SSfS series by nationality and ethnicity.

A Subject/Theme Index, specific to each vol-ume, provides easy reference for users who may bestudying a particular subject or theme rather than asingle work. Significant subjects from events tobroad themes are included, and the entries pointingto the specific theme discussions in each entry areindicated in boldface.

Entries may include illustrations, including anauthor portrait, stills from film adaptations (when

available), maps, and/or photos of key histori-cal events.

Citing Short Stories for StudentsWhen writing papers, students who quote directlyfrom any volume of SSfS may use the followinggeneral forms to document their source. Theseexamples are based on MLA style; teachers mayrequest that students adhere to a different style, thus,the following examples may be adapted as needed.

When citing text from SSfS that is not attributedto a particular author (for example, the Themes,Style, Historical Context sections, etc.) the follow-ing format may be used:

"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras Coun-ty." Short Stories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson.Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1997. 19-20.

When quoting the specially commissioned es-say from SSfS (usually the first essay under theCriticism subhead), the following format maybe used:

Korb, Rena. Essay on "Children of the Sea." ShortStories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson. Vol. 1.Detroit: Gale, 1997. 42.

When quoting a journal essay that is reprintedin a volume of Short Stories for Students, thefollowing form may be used:

Schmidt, Paul. "The Deadpan on Simon Wheeler."The Southwest Review XLI, No. 3 (Summer, 1956),270-77; excerpted and reprinted in Short Stories forStudents, Vol. 1, ed. Kathleen Wilson (Detroit: Gale,1997), pp. 29-31.

When quoting material from a book that isreprinted in a volume of SSfS, the following formmay be used:

Bell-Villada, Gene H.' 'The Master of Short Forms,"in Garcia Marquez: The Man and His Work (Univer-sity of North Carolina Press, 1990); excerpted andreprinted in Short Stories for Students, Vol. 1, ed.Kathleen Wilson (Detroit: Gale, 1997), pp. 90-1.

We Welcome Your SuggestionsThe editor of Short Stories for Students wel-

comes your comments and ideas. Readers whowish to suggest short stories to appear in futurevolumes, or who have other suggestions, are cor-dially invited to contact the editor. You may writeto the editor at:

Editor, Short Stories for StudentsThe Gale Group27500 Drake Rd.Farmington Hills, MI 48331-3535

V o l u m e 8 x i

Literary Chronology1821: Gustave Flaubert is born in France on De-

cember 12.

1843: Henry James is born in New York, NewYork, on April 15.

1861: The U.S. Civil War begins when Confederateforces capture Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

1862: Edith Wharton is born in New York, NewYork, on January 24.

1865: The U.S. Civil War ends; Abraham Lincoln isassassinated.

1877: "A Simple Heart" by Gustave Flaubert ispublished in his Three Tales.

1880: Gustave Flaubert dies on May 5.

1882: James Joyce is born in Dublin, Ireland, onFebruary 2.

1885: Isak Dinesen is born in Rungsted, Denmark,on April 17.

1885: D. H. Lawrence is born in Eastwood,Nottinghamshire, England, on September 11.

1891: Zora Neale Hurston is born in Eatonville,Florida, on January 7.

1897: William Faulkner is born in New Albany,Mississippi on September 25.

1899: Vladimir Nabokov is born in St. Petersburg,Russia, on April 23.

1899: Ernest Hemingway is born in Oak Park,Illinois, on July 21.

1902: John Steinbeck is born in Salinas, California,on February 27.

1903:' 'The Beast in the Jungle'' by Henry James ispublished in his short story collection, The BetterSort.

1911: "The Odour of Chrysanthemums" by D. H.Lawrence is published in the English Review.

1912: The U.S.S. Titanic sinks on her maiden voyage.

1914: With the assassination of Archduke Ferdinandof Austria, long-festering tensions in Europeerupt into what becomes known as the Great War.

1914: ' "The Dead'' by James Joyce is published inhis short story collection Dubliners.

1916: Henry James dies in London, England, onFebruary 28.

1916: "The Easter Rising," in which Irish national-ists take control of the Dublin post office anddeclare a provisional government apart fromBritish rule, takes place on April 24.

1917: Russian Revolution takes place. Czar Nicho-las II abdicates the throne and a provisionalgovernment is established.

1918: World War I, the most deadly war in history,ends with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.

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L i t e r a r y C h r o n o l o g y

1920: The 18th Amendment, outlawing the sale,manufacture, and transportation of alcohol—known as Prohibition—goes into effect. This lawled to the creation of "speakeasies"—illegalbars—and an increase in organized crime. Thelaw is repealed in 1933.

1920: The efforts of the Women's Suffrage move-ment, directed by women such as Susan B.Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, finallysucceeds. The 19th Amendment, which grantedthe right to vote to women, is adopted.

1921: Edith Wharton wins the Pulitzer Prize forfiction for her novel The Age of Innocence.

1925:' 'Spunk'' by Zora Neale Hurston is publishedin Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life.

1925:' 'A Guide to Berlin'' by Vladimir Nabokov ispublished.

1927: "Hills Like White Elephants" by ErnestHemingway is published in the magazinetransition.

1928: Gabriel Garcia Marquez is born in Aracataca,Columbia, on March 6.

1929: The stock market crash in October signals thebeginning of a worldwide economic depression.

1929: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkneris published.

1930: D. H. Lawrence dies of tuberculosis in Vence,France, on March 2.

1930: John Barth is born in Cambridge, Maryland,on May 27.

1930: "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner ispublished in Forum.

1931: "Pomegranate Seed" by Edith Wharton ispublished in Ladies' Home Journal.

1937: "The Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeckis published in Harper's magazine.

1937: Edith Wharton dies in St. Brice-sous-Foret,France, on August 11.

1938: Raymond Carver is born in Clatskanie, Ore-gon, on May 25.

1939: World War II begins when Nazi Germany,led by Adolf Hitler, invades Poland; England andFrance declare war in response.

1940: John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prizefor Fiction for The Grapes of Wrath.

1941: James Joyce dies in Zurich, Switzerland, onJanuary 13.

1941: John Edgar Wideman is born in Washington,D.C., on June 14.

1945: World War II ends in August with the atomicbombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

1947: Octavia Butler is born in Pasadena, Califor-nia, on June 22.

1949: William Faulkner wins Nobel Prize forliterature.

1950: Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin setsoff the "Red Scare" that leads to governmenthearings and blacklisting of suspectedcommunists.

1952: Rohinton Mistry is born in Bombay, India.

1953: Ernest Hemingway is awarded the NobelPrize for Literature.

1954: United States Supreme Court, in Brown vs.Board of Education ofTopeka, rules unanimous-ly that public school segregation is unconstitu-tional under the 14th amendment.

1958:' 'The Ring'' by Isak Dinesen is published hershort story collection Anecdotes of Destiny.

1960: Zora Neale Hurston dies in Fort Pierce,Florida, on January 28.

1961: Ernest Hemingway commits suicide inKetchum, Idaho, on July 2.

1962: John Steinbeck is awarded the Nobel Prizefor Literature.

1962: William Faulkner dies in Byhalia, Mississip-pi, on July 6.

1962: Isak Dinesen dies in Rungsted, Denmark, onSeptember 7.

1963: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated inDallas, Texas, on November 22.

1967: "Lost in the Funhouse" by John Barth ispublished in the Atlantic Monthly.

1968: "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is published.

1968: John Steinbeck dies of heart disease in NewYork, New York, on December 20.

S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t sx i v

1972: President Richard Nixon resigns followingthe Watergate scandal.

1973: John Earth is awarded the National BookAward for his novel Chimera.

1975: Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital, falls tothe North Vietnamese army, bringing an end tothe Vietnam War.

1977: Vladimir Nabokov dies in Monteux, Switzer-land, on July 2.

1981: "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver is pub-lished in Atlantic Monthly.

1982: Gabriel Garcia Marquez wins the Nobel Prizefor Literature.

1984: John Edgar Wideman wins the PEN/Faulkneraward for fiction for Sent for You Yesterday.

1984: "Bloodchild" by Octavia Butler is publishedin Isaac Asimov 's Science Fiction Magazine.

L i t e r a r y C h r o n o l o g y

1985: Octavia Butler is awarded both the Hugoand Nebula Awards for best novellette for"Bloodchild."

1987: ' 'Swimming Lessons'' by Rohinton Mistry ispublished in his short story collection Tales fromFirozsha Baag.

1988: Raymond Carver dies of lung cancer in PortAngeles, Washington, on August 2.

1989: The Berlin Wall, a symbol of the 28 years ofdivision between East and West Germany, istorn down.

1989: "Fever" by John Edgar Wideman is pub-lished in his short story collection Fever.

1990: Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's policy ofglasnost results in the fracturing of the IronCurtain. By December the Soviet flag is loweredfrom the Kremlin.

V o l u m e 8 X V

AcknowledgmentsThe editors wish to thank the copyright holders

of the excerpted criticism included in this volumeand the permissions managers of many book andmagazine publishing companies for assisting us insecuring reproduction rights. We are also grateful tothe staffs of the Detroit Public Library, the Libraryof Congress, the University of Detroit Mercy Li-brary, Wayne State University Purdy/Kresge Li-brary Complex, and the University of MichiganLibraries for making their resources available to us.Following is a list of the copyright holders who havegranted us permission to reproduce material in thisvolume of SSFS. Every effort has been made totrace copyright, but if omissions have been made,please let us know.

COPYRIGHTED EXCERPTS IN SSFS, VOL-UME 8, WERE REPRODUCED FROM THEFOLLOWING PERIODICALS:

Ball State University Forum, v. XXIII, Winter,1982. © 1982 Ball State University. Reproduced bypermission.—English Language Notes, v. 20, May-June, 1983. © copyrighted 1983, Regents of theUniversity of Colorado. Reproduced by permis-sion.—Essays in Literature, v. XV, Fall, 1988.Copyright 1988 by Western Illinois University.Reproduced by permission.—The George Euot Fel-lowship Review, 1991. Reproduced by permission.—George Eliot • George Henry Lewes Studies, v. 18-19, September, 1991; v. 24-25, 1993. Both repro-duced by permission.—Journal of the Southwest,

v. 30, Autumn, 1988. Copyright © 1988 by theArizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved.Reproduced by permission.—Linguistics in Litera-ture, v. 2, 1977. Reproduced by permission.—MELUS: Society for the Study of the Multi-EthnicLiterature of the United States, v. 5, Winter, 1978.Copyright, MELUS, The Society for the Study ofMulti-Ethnic Literature of the United States, 1978.Reproduced by permission.—Modern Fiction Stud-ies, v. 22, Summer, 1976. Copyright © 1976 byPurdue Research Foundation, West Lafayette, IN47907. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permis-sion of The Johns Hopkins University.—The NewYork Times Book Review, March 1, 1959. Copy-right © 1959 by The New York Times Company.Reproduced by permission.—South Atlantic Bul-letin, v. 38, 1973. Copyright © 1973 by SouthAtlantic Modern Language Association. Reproducedby permission.—The Southern Literary Journal,v. XXI, Spring, 1989; v. XXII, Fall 1989. Copyright1989 by the Department of English, University ofNorth Carolina at Chapel Hill. Both reproduced bypermission.—Studies in American Fiction, v. 15,1987. Copyright © 1987 Northeastern University.Reproduced by permission.—Studies in Short Fic-tion, v. VI, Winter, 1969; v. VII, Spring, 1970; v.10, Winter, 1973; v. 18, Summer, 1981; v. 19,Winter, 1982; v. 20, SpringSummer, 1983; v. 20,Fall, 1983; v. 22, Summer, 1985; v. 25,1988; v. 29,Spring, 1992; v. 30, 1993. Copyright 1969, 1970,1973, 1981,1982,1983, 1985,1988,1992,1993 by

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Newberry College. All reproduced by permission.—Studies in the Humanities, v. 3, 1972. Reproducedby permission.—The University of Mississippi Stud-ies in English, v. 1, 1980. Copyright © 1980 TheUniversity of Mississippi. Reproduced by permission.

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Daly, Brenda O. From '"How Do We [Not] Be-come These People Who Victimize Us?': AnxiousAuthorship in the Early Fiction of Joyce CarolGates" in Anxious Power: Reading, Writing, andAmbivalence in Narrative by Women. Edited byCarol J. Singley and Susan Elizabeth Sweeney.State University of New York Press, 1993. Copy-right © 1993 by the State University of New York.All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission ofthe State University of New York Press.—George,Albert J. From Short Fiction in France 1800-1850.Syracuse University Press, 1964. Copyright © 1964by Syracuse University Press. All rights reserved.Reproduced by permission.—Gilbert, Elliot L. FromThe Good Kipling: Studies in the Short Story. OhioUniversity Press, 1970. Copyright © 1970 by ElliotL. Gilbert. Reproduced by permission of the Liter-ary Estate of Elliot L. Gilbert.—Hamblen, AbigailAnn. From The New England Art of Mary E.Wilkins Freeman. The Green Knight Press, 1966.© 1966. Reproduced by permission of the author.—Hanson, Clare, and Andrew Gurr. From KatherineMansfield. St. Martin's Press, 1981. Copyright ©Clare Hanson and Andrew Gurr 1981. All rightsreserved. Reproduced by permission of MacmillanPress Ltd. In North America with permission of St.Martin's Press, Incorporated.—Lodge, David. From'"Mrs. Bathurst': Indeterminacy in Motion" inKipling Considered. Edited by Phillip Mallett. Mac-millan Press, Ltd., 1989. © Phillip Mallett 1989. Allrights reserved. Reproduced by permission of Mac-millan Press Ltd.—Martin, Jay. From Harvests ofChange: American Literature 1865-1914. Pren-tice-Hall, 1967. Copyright © 1967 by Prentice-Hall, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduced by per-mission of the author.—Morris, Gregory L. From AWorld of Order and Light: The Fiction of JohnGardner. University of Georgia Press, 1984. Copy-right 1984 by University of Georgia Press, Athens.All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission.—Rait, A. W. From Prosper Merimee. Eyre &Spottiswoode, 1970. © 1970 A. W. Rait. Repro-duced by permission of the author.—Richman, Sid-ney. From Bernard Malamud and the Critics.Edited by Leslie A. Field and Joyce W. Field. New

York University Press, 1979. Copyright © 1979 byNew York University. Reproduced by permission.—Ryan, Maureen. From "Stopping Places: BobbieAnn Mason's Short Stories" in Women Writers ofthe Contemporary South. Edited by Peggy WhitmanPrenshaw. University Press of Mississippi, 1984.Copyright © 1984 by The Southern Quarterly.All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission.—Seyersted, Per. From Leslie Mormon Silko. BoiseState University, 1980. Copyright 1980 by the BoiseState University Western Writers Series. All rightsreserved. Reproduced by permission of the pub-lisher and the author.—Ward, Bruce K. FromDostoyevsky's Critique of the West: The Quest forthe Early Paradise. Wilfrid Laurier University Press,1986. Copyright © 1986 by Wilfrid Laurier Univer-sity Press. Reproduced by permission.—Winther,Per. From The Art of John Gardner: Introductionand Exploration. State University of New YorkPress, 1992. (c) 1992 State University of New York.All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission ofthe State University of New York Press.

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A farm plow, April 1981, photograph. CORBIS/Gunter Marx. Reproduced by permission. Aerialview of a forest in South Africa, photograph byMarco Polo. Phototake. Reproduced by permis-sion.—Aiken, Conrad, photograph. The Library ofCongress.—Alden, Priscilla, in the garden, sewing,illustration. Rare Books.—Blood transfusion, 1882,drawing by Dr. Roussel. The Library of Congress.—Blue spruce tree, covered with snow, photograph byJames Lee Sikkema. Reproduced by permission.—Bridges over water in Prague, Czech Republic,photograph by Ryan Wrocklage. Mira Bossowska.Reproduced by permissions.—Dostoevski, FyodorMikhailovich, photograph. The Library of Con-gress.—Eliot, George (veil on back of hair), draw-ing. The Library of Congress.—English ambulancedriver (standing next to truck), c. 1918, Italy,photograph. UPI/Corbis-Bettmann. Reproduced bypermission.—Engraving by Fritz Eichenberg. FromTales of Edgar Allan Poe, by Edgar Allan Poe.Random House, 1944. Copyright, 1944, by Ran-dom House, Inc. Reproduced by permission.—For-mal garden design, photograph by Frederik Lewis.Archive Photos, Inc. Reproduced by permission.—Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins, photograph. The Li-brary of Congress.—Freud, Sigmund (sitting, hold-

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ing cigar), photograph. The Library of Congress.—From a jacket of Hoboes: Wandering in Ameri-ca, 1870-1940, by Richard Wormser. Walker andCompany, 1994. Jacket photograph courtesy ofThe Library of Congress. Reproduced by permis-sion.—Gardner, John (smoking pipe), photographby Lutfi Ozkok. Reproduced by permission.—Hem-ingway, Ernest, photograph. Archive Photos, Inc.Reproduced by permission.—High rise buildingsdowntown (and water tower), Detroit, Michigan,photograph by Robert J. Huffman. Field Mark Pub-lications. Reproduced by permission.—Illustrationfrom The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. By Washing-ton Irving. Corbis-Bettmann. Reproduced by per-mission.—Irving, Washington (dark coat and tie,cleft chin), painting. The Library of Congress.—Malamud, Bernard, photograph. The Library ofCongress.—Man and woman of Laguna Pueblo,New Mexico, photograph by Ben Wittick. NationalArchives and Records Administration.—Mansfield,Katherine, photograph. Corbis-Bettmann. Repro-

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ContributorsANDREWS HENNINGFELD, Diane. Associate

professor of English at Adrian College in Michi-gan; has written extensively for a variety ofeducational and academic publishers. Entries:"Redemption" and "Residents and Transients."

HARDEN, Thomas E. Professor of American Stud-ies and Director of Graduate Studies at the Uni-versity of Toledo. Commissioned Essay for En-try: "Residents and Transients."

BERTONNEAU, Thomas. Has been a TemporaryAssistant Professor of English and the Humani-ties at Central Michigan University, and SeniorPolicy Analyst at the Mackinac Center for PublicPolicy. Entries: "Mateo Falcone" and "SilentSnow, Secret Snow."

BILY, Cynthia. Instructor of English at AdrianCollege in Michigan. Contributor to referencepublications including Feminist Writers, Gayand Lesbian Biography, and Chronology of Wom-en Worldwide. Entries: "The Grand Inquisitor"and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

BRENT, Liz. Ph.D. in American Culture, special-izing in cinema studies, from the University ofMichigan. Teacher of courses in American cine-ma, freelance writer and editor. Entries: "TheLifted Veil" and "The Masque of the RedDeath." Commissioned Essay for Entry: "Resi-dents and Transients."

GOLUBOFF, Benjamin. Has taught English atLake Forest College in Lake Forest, Illinois.Entry: "The Magic Barrel."

MADSEN HARDY, Sarah. Ph.D. in English lit-erature from the University of Michigan, freelancewriter, and editor. Entry: "Flowering Judas."

MERCY, Andrew. Has been a freelance writer anda doctoral candidate at the University of Califor-nia-Berkeley. Entry: "Mrs. Bathurst."

PAUL, Angelina. Doctoral candidate in Englishliterature at the University of Hyderabad and aFulbright Visiting Researcher in South Asia Re-gional Studies at the University of Pennsylvania;has published literary criticism in American Lit-erature Today and the Indian Journal of Ameri-can Studies. Entry: "The Man to Send RainClouds."

PIEDMONT-MARTON, Elisabeth. TeachesAmerican literature and directs the writing cen-ter at Southwestern University in Texas; writesfrequently about the modern short story. Entries:"Blackberry Winter" and "How I Contemplat-ed the World. ..."

RICH, Jennifer. Instructor of literature, composi-tion, and gender issues at Marymount ManhattanCollege. Entry: "The Garden Party."

WILLIAMS, Deborah M. Instructor in the Writ-ing Program at Rutgers University. Entry: "ANew England Nun."

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C o n t r i b u t o r s

ZAM, Michael. Associate professor at FordhamCollege and New York University, as well as awriter for the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Re-view and Details magazine. Entry: "In AnotherCountry."

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The novelette Blackberry Winter was originallypublished separately in 1946 and subsequently col-lected in Robert Penn Warren's first and only vol-ume of short stories, The Circus in the Attic, initiallypublished in 1947. Blackberry Winter is widelybelieved to be Penn's finest work of short fiction. Ithas been included in many anthologies and hasgarnered the interest of critics and readers. Since itsfirst publication, critics have noted Warren's deftevocation of the textures and rhythms of ruralTennessee and his ear for dialogue. One of thereasons for the story's popularity is the universalappeal of the narrator, whose boyhood innocenceis as convincing as his adult ambivalence andrestlessness.

Blackberry WinterRobert Penn Warren

1946

Author Biography

A Southerner by birth and by nature, Robert PennWarren was born in 1905 in Guthrie, Kentucky anddied of cancer at his Vermont vacation home inSeptember, 1989. His legacy includes major contri-butions to fiction, poetry, drama, and criticism. In atribute to Warren in the Kenyan Review, a journal hehelped establish, editor David Lynn commemorated"the end of a miraculous career of an Americanlaureate." Other than, perhaps, [Ralph Waldo] Em-erson," Lynn continues, "no other American hasever stood among the first rank in so many genres."

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Blackberry Winter

Not only did Warren write literature (he pub-lished nearly three dozen books), but he changed theway literature was taught and studied. His books(written with Cleanth Brooks), Understanding Po-etry and Understanding Fiction, "influenced, inLynn's words,' 'a generation (and more) of studentsand teachers," and his essays on other writers"remain models of level- headed judgment, insight,and passion, and are bedrock for other critics."

After completing his early education in Guth-rie, the young Warren was sent across the state lineto Clarksville High School in Tennessee. A tall red-headed boy with aspirations for a career as a mili-tary officer, he suffered an eye injury that forcedhim to resign his appointment to the United StatesNaval Academy after graduating from high schoolat sixteen. Instead, he entered Vanderbilt Universityin Nashville, Tennessee. At Vanderbilt he soon fellin with an extraordinarily bright and ambitiousgroup of students and faculty who cultivated histalent and honed his critical skills. Soon he wascommitted to a career in literary studies. He gradu-ated with highest honors from Vanderbilt and begangraduate study at the University of California atBerkeley. After receiving his master's degree hewas awarded a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship andstudied at Oxford University in England until eyetrouble brought him back to the States in 1929.

Newly married and armed with an advanceddegree from Oxford, Warren then embarked on theteaching career that would support and complementhis writing until his retirement in the mid-1970s.After holding posts at Vanderbilt, Louisiana StateUniversity and the University of Minnesota, in 1949Warren accepted a position at Yale University inNew Haven, Connecticut, and settled in a New YorkCity apartment. A year later he divorced his wifeand married fellow writer Eleanor Clark, who soongave birth to Warren's first child, Rosanna and threeyears later to a son, Gabriel. Fatherhood and mar-riage to Eleanor helped spark a creative rebirth forWarren as he entered into the second half of his lifeand career.

Despite all his travels, however, Warren neverlost touch with his Kentucky roots. He participatedin the literary and social movements known as theAgrarians and the Fugitives, who aimed to preserveand nurture the cultural heritage of the south, andwith Cleanth Books at Louisiana State Universityhe founded the distinguished literary journal, theSouthern Review. "Blackberry Winter," the finest

piece in the only collection of short fiction Warrenever published, was written in 1946 while Warrenwas living in the north. Its detailed and evocativerendering of a boy's life on a farm in the firstdecades of the century is testimony not only toWarren's skill as a writer, but also to his attachmentto the memories of summers on his grandfather'sfarm in the hills of southern Kentucky.

Plot Summary

This novelette is a recollection of one memorableday in the childhood of Seth, the narrator, then nineyears old. It is told as a first-person narrative, morethan thirty-five years later. The title refers to theweather phenomenon of a period of cool tempera-tures in June. The story takes place in middleTennessee.

On this unseasonably cold day Seth's motherforbids him to go outside barefoot, but he disobeysher, wanting to "rub [his] feet over the wet shiverygrass and make the perfect mark of [his] foot in thesmooth, creamy, red mud." But before he can getout the door, Seth notices something unusual: "Outof the window on the north side of the fireplace Icould see the man . . . still far off, come along by thepath of the woods." The boy watches the manfollow a path where the family's fence meet thewoods. From a distance he can tell that the man is astranger and that he is approaching the house. AfterSeth's mother calls off the dogs the man is nearenough for closer inspection, and the boy sees thathe is carrying a paper parcel in one hand and aswitch-blade knife in the other. According to thenarrator's assessment of the stranger, "Everythingwas wrong about what he wore." His worn khakipants and dark wool coat and hat, his tie stuffed in apocket and his city shoes mark him as both strangeand menacing. Despite premonitions of danger,however, the boy is fascinated and drawn to the manwho has come looking for a handout or work.

Seth watches the man work, disdainfully pick-ing up the dead chicks and pitching them into abasket, "with a nasty, snapping motion." Then theboy watches while the tramp washed his dirty butuncalloused hands before eating. Finally the manmakes the boy feel so uncomfortable that he leaves,suddenly remembering that' 'the creek was in flood

S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s2

B l a c k b e r r y W i n t e r

over the bridge, and that people were down therewatching it."

When he arrives at the bridge the first person hesees is his father, "sitting on his mare over the headsof the other men who were standing around admir-ing the flood." Seth's father scoops him "up to thepommel of his McClellan saddle" so he can seebetter. Seth and the men watch as the swollen creekcarries debris along its course, and they are fascinat-ed by the sight of a dead cow. Uncomprehending,Seth listens as the men discuss whose cow it likelywas and whether a man could get hungry enough toeat a drowned cow.

Although his father takes him to the gate oftheir farm, Seth does not go home immediately.Instead he decides to stop off at a sharecropperfamily's cabin, where his playmate Jebb lives withhis parents Dellie and Old Jebb. He expects to bewelcomed by the usual cheer at the cabin, butinstead encounters Dellie sick in bed and Old Jebbforecasting that the cold weather is a sign of the endof the world as we've known it, evidence that theearth is tired of ' 'sinful folks." The most disturbingincident in the cabin, however, is that Dellie sud-denly reaches out from her sick bed and slaps herson across the face. Although Seth tells Old Jebbabout the man at the house with a knife, the newsbarely penetrates the gloom of the cabin and thepreoccupation of the family.

The story reaches a climax when the strangercomes head to head with the father. Seth's fathertells the tramp that he won't be hiring him foranother day's work and pays him a half dollar for ahalf day's work (the going rate). Then the mancurses the farm, mocks Seth's father, and spits onthe ground just "six inches from the toe of [the]father's right boot." Seth's father stares the mandown and he retreats. Seth, however, still cannotresist the man's horrible appeal and follows him"the way a kid would, about seven or eight feetbehind." Seth asks where he came from and theman rebuffs him, but the young boy keeps follow-ing. Finally, the tramp threatens: "Stop followingme. You don't stop following me and I cut yorethroat, you little son-of-a-bitch."

The story ends with the older Seth explainingthat both his parents are now dead, Jebb is in thepenitentiary, Dellie's dead, but Old Jebb is still aliveand well over a hundred years of age. The narratoralso confesses that although the tramp had threat-

Robert Penn Warren

ened to kill him for following him, that he "didfollow him, all the years."

Characters

DellieDellie is the wife of the sharecropper Old Jebb

and mother of Seth's sometime playmate Jebb. Sheworks as a cook for Seth's family. They are anAfrican-American family who live in a cabin on thenarrator's family's farm. On the day the story takesplace, Dellie is sick in bed with an unspecified"female" illness. Young Seth is shocked by herravaged appearance and stunned when she lashesout and slaps her son so hard that he cries.

FatherThe father's first or last name never appears in

the story, but he plays a prominent role both in theevents of the day and in the elder Seth's recollec-tions. From the information provided, however, heseems to be a leader in the community, an affection-ate father, and a fearless protector of his family. Heembodies the virtues of his rural southern roots:chivalry, loyalty, resourcefulness, and restraint. Inthe boy's eyes, he is everything the tramp is not, and

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despite the boy's attraction to the malevolent stranger,it's clear that he loves and respects his father. Theelder narrator remembers that his father' 'was a tall,limber man and carried himself well. I was alwaysproud to see him sit a horse, he was so quiet andstraight, and when I stepped through the gap of thehedge that morning, the first thing that happenedwas, I remember, the warm feeling I always hadwhen I saw him up there on a horse, just sitting.'' Hedies just a few years after the events of the story.

JebbSometimes called Little Jebb, the son of Dellie

and Old Jebb, Jebb is about two years older thanSeth. He lives with his sharecropper parents in acabin provided by Seth's father. On the day thestory takes place, his mother viciously slaps him formaking too much noise playing with Seth. In theepilogue to the story Seth explains that Jebb ' 'grewup to be a mean and fiery Negro. [He] killed anotherNegro in a fight and got sent to the penitentiary."

MotherSeth's mother, whose name is Sallie, is tough

and brave. She is the one who puts limits on theyoung boy and tries to keep him from going outsidein the cold air barefoot. The older Seth remembershis mother for her other, non-maternal qualities.When his mother confronts the strange man with theknife in his pocket, the narrator acknowledges,many women would have been afraid, "But mymother wasn't afraid. She wasn't a big woman, butshe was clear and brisk about everything she did andlooked everybody and everything right in the eyefrom her own blue eyes in her tanned face." It islater revealed that she died within three years ofSeth's father's death, "right in the middle of life."

Old JebbOld Jebb is Jebb's father and the live-in partner

of Dellie. The narrator remembers that he was anold man, "up in his seventies," back then, "but hewas strong as a bull." Young Seth is drawn to himbecause he had ' 'the kindest and wisest face in theworld, the blunt, sad, wise face of an old animalpeering tolerantly out on the goings-on of the mere-ly human before him."

SethSeth is the narrator and the main character in

the actions of the story. The first and only time hisname is used in the story is when his father calls outto him from the crowd looking at the flooding creek.

The nine-year-old Seth is completely at home in hisworld and lives a child's innocent existence, freefrom the constraints of time and unthreatened bydeath and evil. As events unfold, however, heexperiences and witnesses events that begin to changethe way he sees himself and his world. The olderSeth understands much better what happens thatday, but the fact that he needs to go back and tell thestory indicates that he still has unresolved feelingsand unanswered questions. The biggest mysteryabout the Seth is what happens to him in the thirty-five years between the events and the telling ofthe story.

The TrampThe tramp—or simply, the man, or the man

with a knife—is the malevolent stranger with theinappropriate city clothes who walks up the pathfrom the woods to the back door of Seth's family'sfarmhouse. Seth notices at first glance that "Every-thing was wrong about what he wore," and hismenacing appearance proves to be an accuratepredictor of his behavior. First, he's a surly and poorworker. Next, he swears and spits at Seth's father,and finally he snarls at and threatens Seth himself.Nevertheless, his exotic and singular rebelliousnessis a powerful attraction for the young Seth, andapparently has remained so throughout his life,according to the narrator's cryptic comments in theepilogue.

Themes

Fathers and SonsThroughout his career, Warren was interested

in exploring and writing about the relationshipbetween fathers (and grandfathers) and sons, and inBlackberry Winter the theme takes center stage. Inan interview, Warren agrees with his critics who saythat the search for the father is a recurrent theme inhis work: "I've been told, and I think it's true, thatthe 'true' father and the 'false' father are in practi-cally every story I've written." Though Warrengoes on to say (rather disingenuously) that he has"no idea" what that means, but readers of Black-berry Winter can hardly fail to notice that the youngboy is drawn to two strong and contrasting figures inthe father and the tramp.

Surely the tramp embodies the opposite of hisfather: the tramp is cowardly, weak and squeamish,and perhaps worst of all, ungentlemanly. His choice

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of the switchblade as a weapon demonstrates hisuntrustworthiness and cowardice, but the blade it-self naturally appeals to the boy. When the tramp isrepulsed by the dead chicks, the boy "who did notmind hog-killing or frog-gigging," suddenly seesthem anew and feels "hollow in the stomach." Butit's the tramp's swearing and spitting at the boy'sfather that makes him at once repulsive and irresist-ible. The boy follows him because he's the only onehe's ever seen who has not deferred to his father,and because like all boys he will eventually have todo the same in order to become a man, and he wantsto know how.

Seth's father, on the other hand, is a model ofstrength, affection, and manly southern virtues. Atthe creek his father displays both civic leadershipamong the other men and paternal affection bylifting his son up to his horse and placing a hand onhis thigh to steady him. When the father finallyencounters the tramp on his property, he knowsexactly what to do and exercises restraint when theman accosts him. Nevertheless, the portrayal of thefather is undercut somewhat by the older Seth'sepilogue when the narrator reveals that the tramp isthe man whose image walked before him "allthese years."

InnocenceWarren's depiction of the farm in Blackberry

Winter is most likely drawn from his own boyhoodexperiences on his grandfather's farm in Cerulean,Kentucky. In the narrator's memory, it is a place ofunspoiled innocence—until that cold day in Junewhen the stranger walked up to the house from thepath by the woods.

Seth's boyhood world on the morning of thatday is June is a kind of garden of Eden, a ' 'firstparadise,'' in the language of critic Winston Weath-ers. The narrator describes how the boy's under-standing of time differs from the adult view: "...and when you are nine years old, what you remem-ber seems forever; for you remember everythingand everything is important and stands big and fulland fills up Time and is so solid that you can walkaround and around it like a tree and look at it."

Of course, innocence is a state of being onlyunderstood from the perspective of its opposite—experience. In Judeo-Christian terms, the oppositeof innocence is sin, and the consequences of the fallinclude being expelled from the garden of Eden.The older narrator of Blackberry Winter is recallingthe day when his paradise was lost, when death (the

Topics forFurther

StudyWhat were the lives of tobacco farmers like earlyin the century? What is likely to happen tothe families whose crops are washed away inthe flood?

There are many interpretations of what the narra-tor means when he says he did follow the tramp"all the years." What do you think he means?Write a brief narrative describing what happensto Seth during those thirty-five years.

The story provides no motivation for the tramp'sbehavior. What do you think he wants when hewalks up to the farmhouse? Does Seth's moth-er's fearlessness make him change his plans?

The whole town seems to be represented at thebridge over the flooding creek. Describe thesocial and economic structure of the area whereSeth's family lives.

baby chicks, the dead cow in the creek), the destruc-tive force of nature (the flood), and evil (the snarl-ing, malevolent tramp) entered his world and changedhim forever. In the words of critic Charles Bohner,"In the span of a single morning, the child hasexperienced his own blackberry winter. He has beenthrust suddenly and violently from the warmth ofhis childish innocence to the chill knowledge of the'jags and injustices' of an adult world."

Style

NarrationThe story is told by a first-person narrator who

is recalling events that happened to him sometime inthe past. Not until the epilogue does he reveal thatthirty-five years separate the events of that June dayfrom the narration. This distance sets up a contrastbetween the nine-year-old Seth's point of view andthe forty-four-year-old narrator's. This structure notonly invites comparison between the boy's percep-

V o l u m e 8 5


tion of events and the man's, it also asks readers toconsider how the mechanism of memory works. Inother words, is it the events of that June day that areimportant, or the recollection of those events overthe intervening time period?

Because the adult narrator is capable of under-standing and interpreting the events of the day betterthan the child is, the narrative structure of the storyanticipates an explanation. Readers expect that bythe end, the elder Seth will provide the missingpieces and a narrative overlay to connect the frag-ments and explain the significance of the events ofthe day. Warren never gives his narrator a chance tooffer a full resolution, however. Though it is clearthroughout the narrator's story that he understandsevents much better now than he did then, he stillcannot account for the bigger mysteries. ' 'The manis looking backward on the boy he once was,"Bohner explains, "recalling objectively his child-hood bewilderment. The events of the day hadpuzzled the child, but the man, remembering theexperience, is not puzzled. Rather he now sees theexperience as a paradigm of a problem he hascarried into adulthood. He has come to terms withthe problem—it is one mark of his maturity—but itis a problem that is never finally resolved."

SettingThe southern rural setting of Blackberry Winter

is significant in several ways. Warren consideredhimself a Southerner and a southern writer his entirecareer, despite the years he spent living in Minneso-ta, New York, and abroad. He, like FlanneryO'Connor wrote years later, believed that the southwould produce a richer literature because the expe-rience of the Civil War and its repercussions meantthat the region had "already had its fall," hadalready acquired a deeper and more tragic vision ofthe human condition. For Warren the rural life inKentucky and Tennessee (where the story is set)conjures images of an agrarian way life in thesouth that he believed was being threatened by theintrusion of homogenous northern industrialism(see below).

On a more personal level, though, the farm inBlackberry Winter evokes his grandfather's place inCerlulean, Kentucky, where Warren spent summersas a boy. Living in Minneapolis in 1946, wheresnow in May was not uncommon, Warren wasapparently nostalgic for the warmer spring of hisyouth and found himself with a string of memoriesthat became the story that many consider his bestpiece of short fiction.

Historical Context

The New CriticismWarren's legacy to literary studies goes far

beyond the novels, stories, poems and plays hecreated. He was one of the founders of a school ofcriticism called the New Criticism, which dominat-ed the field of English studies for more than ageneration. He accomplished this through his roleas teacher to countless undergraduate and graduatestudents who would go on to be teachers andprofessors, through his influence as founder andeditor of two highly influential literary journals(Southern Review and Kenyan Review), and perhapsmost important, through the defining textbooks hewrote with fellow Louisiana State University pro-fessor and critic Cleanth Brooks.

The theory and methods of the New Criticismwill seem to today's students both obvious andoutdated. Simply put, they argued that poems (andother genres, but poems especially) could be readand interpreted on the merits of their own internaland formal qualities. The methods grew out of thepractices of a loose group of students and professors(called the Fugitives) at Vanderbilt University whomet regularly to talk about poetry and to read anddiscuss each other's work. Though one of the young-est members of the group when he first beganattending, Warren was quickly recognized as one ofits brightest lights, contributing as both a poet and asan adept reader of other members' work. The criti-cal methods that members of the group employed,careful word by word scrutiny of the text as separatefrom its author, became part of the classroom prac-tices of the professors and professors to be. WhenWarren took up a teaching post at Louisiana StateUniversity in 1934 he collaborated with his col-league Cleanth Brooks to write the textbook thatformalized these methods, Understanding Poetry,which was published in 1938 and still in use in somecollege classrooms forty years later.

Today, most critics find New Criticism limitedin its ability to account for the cultural context of awork of literature, and believe that its insistence ondiscounting the personal life of the author erasesimportant differences in gender, ethnicity, and otherfeatures of authorial identity. Nonetheless, many—if not most—professors and critics in literary stud-ies today were taught by professors who weretrained in these methods. Though the New Criticismis no longer an end in itself, its methods for close



Compare&

Contrast1940s: Workers during the Great Depression arefaced with unemployment rates as high as 25%and relief comes through socialistic governmentprograms. The United States also increases de-fense spending as the nation enters World War II.

1990s: Unemployment stands around 6%, butcorporate downsizing has many workers con-cerned about their future. The government mustreduce a multi-billion dollar deficit, yet the stockmarket continues its strong performance.

1940s: Blacks are excluded from the suburbanhousing boom of the era. The Federal HousingAuthority practices "redlining": on city maps itdraws red lines around predominantly black in-ner-city areas and refuses to insure loans forhouses in those areas. This practice contributesto the demise of the inner city.

1990s: Though many upper- and middle-classblacks live and work in the suburbs, poor blacksare often confined to substandard housing indecaying urban areas, or ghettos.

1940s: Race relations are tense as blacks growfrustrated with segregation and discrimination.In southern states, poll taxes and literacy tests areused to prevent blacks from voting. Tempersexplode during race riots in Detroit and Harlemin the summer of 1943.

1990s: Though civil rights legislation enactedduring the 1960s has improved the conditionsof minorities, particularly African Americans,the nation was polarized along racial lines inthe debates over the Rodney King and O. J.Simpson trials.

reading of a text are often the first step in anyteacher's or critic's approach to a work of literature.

The New South and the Old SouthThe cultural context of the literary circle at

Vanderbilt is important. Vanderbilt was at the timethe site of vigorous intellectual activity, and a greatdeal of the discussion, quite naturally, had to dowith the state of the American South. Members ofthe Fugitive group who met to discuss literature andculture were interested in preserving the culturaluniqueness of the southeast, but were also "intentof repudiating the magnolia-and-julip tradition ofsouthern letters," as Bohner puts it. The Fugitives'positions were complex and contradictory, but ingeneral, they were concerned that the northernindustrial culture would eclipse what was left of thesouthern way of life. In particular they "weredistressed by what they considered to be the resultsof a culture based on the machine: the acceleratingtempo of life, the chaotic individualism, the blatantmaterialism, the debasement of human effort andhuman dignity," as Bohner defines it. By 1930, four

of the regular attendees of Fugitive meetings, War-ren, John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and DonaldDavidson joined eight other southern writers topublish a collection of essays called /'// Takemy Stand.

Blackberry Winter first appeared in November of1946 at a time when Warren's novel All the King'sMen was on the New York Times best-seller list.Because of the success of the novel, Warren's agentwas able to get him an unusually large amount ofmoney for the publication of his novelette. WhenWarren collected his short fiction into the volumecalled The Circus in the Attic and Other Stories in1948, he received what was for him an exception-ally large advance against royalties.

Early reviews praised the title story and Black-berry Winter (the second story in the book), but thecritical consensus then and now is that the short

V o l u m e 8 7

Crit ical Overview


Two hoboes walking on railroad tracks,pictured on the cover of ' 'Hoboes:Wandering in America, 1870-1940,'' byRichard Wormser.

story is not Warren's finest genre. Within a year ofthe book's publication, Warren told a colleague, "Iknow that the collection is, at the best, uneven, but ifI was ever to publish them I reckoned I might as wellgo ahead and hope for the best." In his recentcritical biography of Warren, Joseph Blotner sumsup the reaction of critics: ' 'It was indeed uneven,achieving distinction only in the first two and thelast story. His range of characters and inventiveimagination would be praised along with the atmos-phere and continuity of the stories, but there wouldalso be numerous cavils and rather general agree-ment that in prose fiction he was a novelist ratherthan a short-story writer. It was to be his first andlast collection of stories."

Blackberry Winter, however, has been frequentlyanthologized and has received considerable criticalattention. Commentators in the first decades afterthe story's publication tended to focus on Warren'suse of poetic imagery and universal themes, usingcritical methods from the New Criticism that War-ren himself had helped to define. Writing in the NewYork Times Granville Hicks noted that Warren had' 'developed a colloquial style that is just about as

good as anything one can find in contemporaryliterature," and that he has "also acquired great-er and greater subtlety in his explorations ofpersonality."

Another reviewer in U. S. Quarterly Booklistpraises Warren's ability to capture ' 'the characteris-tic rhythms and homely idioms of Southern ruralspeech," as well as the stories' "strong sense of theuses and beauties of tangible things." A reviewer inTime, however, concluded that although "each sto-ry has a rural or small-town setting and is marked bya notebook quality of careful, detailed observation. . . there is not one story that rises from notebooklevel to finished fiction."

H. N. Smith, writing in The Saturday Review ofLiterature concludes that ' 'Despite the occasionaltriumphs of the earlier pieces, none of them is anentirely satisfactory thing-in-itself. They suggest, infact, that Mr. Warren is a novelist rather than ashort-story writer." As it turns out, recent criticalattention has focused less on Warren's novels andmore on the long narrative poems that occupied thelate phase of his career. Joseph Blotner's 1997critical biography of Warren devotes little space toWarren's short fiction, but does single out Black-berry Winter as the best and most enduring of thecollection.

Criticism

Elisabeth Piedmont-MartonElisabeth Piedmont-Marton teaches American

literature and directs the writing center at South-western University in Texas. She writes frequentlyabout the modem short story. In this essay shediscusses how the tramp's appearance rearrangesSeth's conception of himself and the protected worldhe lives in.

Critics of Warren's finest story, "Blackberry Win-ter," have focused on his presentation of universalthemes and his deft use of imagery and atmosphere.While it certainly is true that the story invokes age-old and timeless human narratives, like the expul-sion from the garden of Eden and the rebellionagainst the father, it can also be understood in itsown particular historical and cultural context. Be-cause the events that happen to young Seth that dayin June, and which continue to haunt him thirty-fiveyears later, is about how human beings create and


B / a c k b e r r y W i n t e r

WhatDo I Read

Next?All the King's Men (1946) is Warren's famousnovel about an ambitious political leader. It isfunny, exciting, and every bit as relevant topolitics today as it was the day it was published.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find," by FlanneryO'Connor is also a short story in which the

ordinary events in the life of a family are disrupt-ed by the arrival of a menacing stranger.

Ellen Foster(\989) is the coming-of-age story ofa young girl struggling to grow up amidst pover-ty and sorrow in rural North Carolina.

carve out identity from their surroundings, it seemsespecially important to attend to where these eventstranspire in time and space, to the here and now-ness of the story. "Blackberry Winter," for all itssymbolic resonance, is very much the story of athoughtful young (white) boy's experiences in andaround his parents' farm in middle Tennessee at thebeginning of the second decade of the twentiethcentury.

The first indication that this day will be signifi-cant, and possibly transformative, appears in thestory's opening paragraphs when the child assesseshow this moment seems unique, different from eachthat has come before. Seth's understanding of timeand the passing of the seasons is childlike: if it isJune, you can go barefoot. It never crosses his mind,he says,' 'that they would try to stop you from goingbarefoot in June, no matter if there had been a gully-washer and a cold spell." For Seth, time and natureare familiar and knowable things, not the troublingabstractions they become for adults. At that age,"you remember everything and everything is im-portant and stands big and full and fills up Time andis so solid that you can walk around and around itlike a tree and look at it." His connection to natureis similarly seamless: "When you are a boy andstand in the stillness of woods, which can be so stillthat your heart almost stops beating and makes youwant to stand there in the green twilight until youfeel your very breathing slow through its pores likethe leaves." Poets and theologians would defineSeth's state of mind at the beginning of the sto-ry as "innocence." He has no understanding ofhis self as separate or different from the world

around him. Psychologists would call Seth's identi-ty "undifferentiated."

During the course of the day, Seth begins thewrenching process of differentiation, of exploringthe boundaries where self ends and other begins, ofunderstanding that his particular reality cannot bemistaken for universal truth, and of recognizing thathe only knows who he is by defining others as ' 'nothim." What makes Warren's story so poignant andeffective is that Seth's self-knowledge comesincrementally and tangibly. The landscape which hetraverses is not some vague, mythical place, not arethe other characters he interacts with merely emptysymbols themselves. Instead, Seth's experiencesthat day have everything to do with rural Tennessee,with the south, with who his father is, with thearrestingly cool weather of blackberry winter. Thearrival of the stranger sets in motion a series ofevents that cause Seth to redefine himself and hisplace in the world, and, as he will come to under-stand more deeply in the thirty-five years before henarrates the story, he will lose forever the innocentcertainty of being perfectly at home in the world.

That morning, when Seth first sees the man outthe window, he is struck by the incongruity, thestrangeness, of the sight. In fact, the hallmark of theman is his strangeness: he does not know anythingabout dogs, his clothes are all wrong, and he carriesa mysterious package. To Seth, the man is more thanstrange, however, his entrance into the world defiesexplanation and challenges the laws of Seth's uni-verse. Even Seth's mother cannot account for hispresence. She says that she does not "recognizehim," and when Seth asks her where he could be

V o l u m e 8 9


for the first time that his

friend and his family are

black, that he his white, and

that in the time and place

where they live, that

signifies an unerasable and

fundamental difference."

coming from, all she can say is "I don't know."Shutting his eyes and hoping the figure of the manwill disappear, Seth thinks,' 'There was no place forhim to have come from, and there was no reason forhim to come where he was coming, toward thehouse." But he is there, and his presence does notjust challenge Seth's world view, it forever changesit. Now Seth must include new phenomena in hiscomprehension of what is possible, and further-more, he will no longer enjoy the feeling of certain-ty with which he began the day. Even thirty-fiveyears later, the narrator still cannot make sense ofthe encounter with the stranger. The man's voice, heremembers "seemed to have a wealth of meaning,but a meaning which I could not fathom." Inretrospect, he can still only hazard a guess that ' 'itprobably was not pure contempt."

The tramp's intrusion into Seth's world changeseverything. The strange man's emergence from thewoods, "like a man who has come a long way andhas a long way to go," is trespassing in severalsenses of the word. He is a trespasser in the legalsense in that he walks across the family's property(and surely the property of others as well) withoutpermission or regard for their rights. But trespassalso means to sin or transgress. The tramp's en-trance into Seth's world is literally a transgression, acrossing of boundaries (the fence), and figuratively(stepping over the line between the possible and theimpossible). His sin does not take the form of anyspecific act, however. Rather, he is sin embodiedand his very presence forces Seth to acknowledgethe existence of sin and evil in the world. Thatknowledge, in turn, alters the way he perceiveshimself and everything else in his now fallen world.

The familiar sights of his world suddenly lookstrange to Seth. When he arrives at the bridge, forexample, a ritual repeated every spring flood, thefaces of the men look "foreign" and "not friend-ly." When he comes up along side his father ' 'with-in touching distance of his heel," Seth is unable to"read" his father's "impassive" face. The specta-cle of the dead cow also takes on new dimensionsfor Seth, who understands for the first time that thecow is not just "dead as a chunk." It represents adevastating loss to Milt Alley and his ' 'pore whitetrash family." Seth's concern and empathy for Mr.Alley and his "thin-faced" children is genuine, butpart of his interest in their circumstances is triggeredby his dawning awareness that the brutal forces ofthe rural economy make the Alleys poor and hisfamily comfortable. He seems to recognize that hisrelative wealth depends on their poverty, that theidyllic comfort of his family's farm is built on thehard work of others. After Seth listens, only halfunderstanding, to the men and boys discuss whathunger will do to a man, he gets another glimpse oflife outside of the garden of innocence. And once hehas that knowledge in his possession, he cannotreturn to his former state of consciousness. Thisinability to return to innocence is symbolized bySeth's choice not to go home after his father dropshim off at the gate to the farmhouse.

Shivering, both from the cold and from uncer-tainty, Seth goes instead to Dellie and Jebb's cabinwhere he hopes to be able to play with Little Jebb,the boy close to his own age. Expecting warmth andreassurance in the family's humble cabin, Seth findsinstead disarray, sickness, and violence. The firstthing that Seth notices is "that the drainage waterhad washed a lot of trash and filth out from underDellie's house." Like the appearance of the trampcoming across the yard, and revelations of povertyat the bridge, the trash in Dellie's yard is jarringbecause it defies the laws of the universe as Seth hasunderstood them up to this point. Although thecabin looks ' 'just as bad as the yards of the othercabins." To Seth's eye's "it was worse... becauseit was a surprise." The interior of the cabin is no lessfamiliar. Dellie herself is sick, and looks so strangethat Seth' 'scarcely recognized'' her face. When shecalls Jebb over to her bedside and then slaps him sohard that he cries silently, the last of Seth's illusionsare shattered. He is forced to acknowledge thepsychological consequences of poverty and to ac-cept his role in the social and economic mechanismsthat keep Jebb and his family in a dirt-floored cabin.It is as if Seth realizes for the first time that his friend

i o S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s

It is an if seth realizes


and his family are black, that he his white, and thatin the time and place where they live, that signifiesan unerasable and fundamental difference.

Everything changes after the tramp arrives onSeth's family's property. He does not do anythingmenacing or sinful, or destroy or change anything,but when he walks in to Seth's garden from theoutside world, he represents the intrusion of theoutside world into the fading agrarian ideal of thesouth. He represents the city, industrialism, materi-alism and the ruthless cult of success. The stranger'spresence destroys their shared illusions about race,class and identity in the south. Now, Seth sees,black and white are not just unequals, they areadversaries. In short, the tramp represents every-thing that threatens the middle Tennessee rural wayof life and once Seth sees the world through thetramp's eyes, he is destined to follow him "all theyears" because he knows he cannot stay where he is.

Source: Elisabeth Piedmont-Marlon, for Short Stories forStudents, The Gale Group, 2000.

Bryan DietrichIn the following essay, Dietrich interprets

"Blackberry Winter" in terms of its religious con-text, casting the tramp as an antichrist who negatesChristian belief in the face of the disillusion-ment of life.

For four and half decades readers, professors, andcritics seem to have stumbled, at least the first timethrough, over the last line of Robert Penn Warren'sshort story, "Blackberry Winter." If we know thebasic story line, the adult narrator's final, backward-looking observation, "But I did follow him, all theyears," is plain enough on the surface. It simplyrefers to the tramp of the story and to an experiencethe narrator is remembering in the context of 35interim years. But as readers, we know there is adeeper level, and it is the deeper level that throws us.Seth, the narrator, has not literally spent the yearssince he was nine years old following that onetramp. But if we believe a metaphor is at work hereand that that metaphor succeeds, then we must beseeing evidence, clues, or keys to its interpretation,in the larger body of the story.

Floyd C. Watkins argues that such a key toadequate understanding of the last line (and ulti-mately, I suppose, the whole tale) is lacking. Watkinsacknowledges that the ' 'concluding sentence is asdramatic as the threat of the tramp," but alsosuggests,

Pied Piper legend into this

work, or see a Lucifer figure

in the person of the tramp;

but if we take the incidentals

of the story as symbolic and

religious references rather

than simple metaphors, the

tramp becomes an antichrist

figure."

the older narrator did not specify how he followedhim. There are many possibilities: following him intothe urban world; growing old; adopting a life ofrootlessness and violence; or simply growing up intoknowledge.

In other words, Watkins continues,

The tramp moves into the experiences of the world,but the story does not provide one glimpse of hisunderstanding or of the events of the narrator's laterlife. . . . the author lets the last sentence of the story,mysterious as it is, fall flat on its face into a puddleof meaning.

If we believe Watkins, then, Warren has neg-lected to provide a solid context in which to see theending, and it is only natural that the reader shouldtrip over the last line.

Most other critics, however, seem to disagree.Thomas W. Ford, in a charming essay that compares"Blackberry Winter" to Emily Dickinson's poem,"These are the days when Birds come back," sees

the recognition of hunger and starvation as a possiblehuman condition . . . the trash washed up by the floodthat spoiled Dellie's always clean yard; the awful anduncharacteristic slap administered by Dellie to hersmall son during the misery of her menopause; and,most important of all, the conversation with Old Jebb.. . [as] the metaphorical center of the story.

I think Ford would agree with Warren himself,who wrote of his story, and of the meaning of thelast line in particular,

the tramp had said to the boy: "You don't stopfollowing me and I cut yore throat, you little son-of-a-bitch."

V o l u m e I I8

One can easi ly read a


Had the boy then stopped or not? Yes, of course,literally, in the muddy lane. But at another level—no.In so far as later he had grown up, had really learnedsomething of the meaning of life, he had been boundto follow the tramp all his life, in the imaginativerecognition, with all the responsibility which such arecognition entails, of this lost, mean, defeated, cow-ardly, worthless, bitter being as somehow a man.(Warren, "Recollection")

And for Warren himself, then, the ending is oneof hope, an ending that indicates no matter what orhow much we realize about the inadequacies ofmen, no matter how awful those realizations may be(especially for a nine-year-old), we tend to find thatwe can overcome self-pity when we accept a kind ofbasic humanity in even the most inhumane of men.

If such a hopeful outlook is the interpretationwe are to arrive at, Ford's assertion of the centralmetaphor will do nicely. All the images of humanfrailty that he notes—images that illustrate thebasic, underlying contradictions of human nature—provide sufficient context with which to read thelast eight words as positive. Ford goes on to say,

So a nineteenth-century Amherst spinster in a poemabout a New England Indian summer and a twentieth-century southern agrarian in a short story about aTennessee blackberry winter stretch out long armsacross space and time, clasp hands, and becomemetaphorical twins in creative response to and recog-nition of the uncertainty of the human condition.

But the above interpretation is not the onlyinterpretation. Ford himself suggests that there is astrong "rite of passage" element at work in War-ren's story, and this particular rite can be seen in amore negative context, despite Warren's own asser-tion: ' 'no tramp ever leaned down at me and said forme to stop following him or he would cut my throat.But if one had, I hope that I might have been able tofollow him anyway, in the way the boy in the storydoes" (Warren, "Recollection" ).

Kenneth Tucker sees the underlying contextualmetaphor as related to the German legend of thePied Piper. Such a parallel is a fairly simple one tomake if we break the action of both the story and thelegend down into general terms:

In both stories appear the coming of a catastrophe, thehiring of a stranger to undo the harm, the employer'sreneging on the wage, the stranger's impulse to seekvengeance, and children or a child irresistibly follow-ing the departing stranger.

Tucker, however, takes the analogy even fur-ther, deftly describing the tramp's accouterments,not necessarily as "pied," but certainly as "mot-ley." He then elaborates, defining the Tramp/piper

character as a symbol of evil, specifically as "anembodiment of the Trickster archetype" and laterexplains, "The Trickster's basic significance re-sides in his delight in disorder."

Tucker argues that Seth understands the basic"evil" inherent in the tramp, but

like the Pied Piper, the tramp gains a victory over theemployer who has not paid the promised wage. As thePiper leads the children from the town, the tramp luresSeth psychologically from the orderly but restrictiveworld of his parents.

This particular interpretation makes fairly clearhow Tucker sees that "the provocative [last] linealso implies that in trailing after the tramp, Seth hasfollowed and faced villainy in himself."

In his essay, '"Blackberry Winter' and theUse of Archetypes," Winston Weathers anticipatesTucker's argument, but suggests an even moresinister view of the tramp. For Weathers, "War-ren's handling of the 'Mysterious Stranger' is tra-ditional" yet he believes Warren creates a"Mephistophelian form of the archetype." Weath-ers, continuing, writes, "Of the Mephistophelianpossibilities—the harlequinesque rogue or the blackpunchinello—Warren leans somewhat toward thelatter." In other words, for Weathers, the tramp ismore than a simple Trickster or Pied Piper wholeads Seth into (presumably) redeemable villainy;the tramp is cut from a decidedly darker pattern ofLuciferan cloth. Thus, Seth's admission to havingfollowed the tramp all his days becomes less anadmission of guilt, and more an admission ofdamnation.

Few if any of these interpretations take themiddle way into consideration. Yes, the metaphoriccontext is there; yes, the last line is justified by thatmetaphor; yes, the ending is hopeful; but yes, also,the tramp figure is a harbinger of "evil." Thesestatements are not mutually exclusive if the tramp isseen as a dual figure himself. We will return to thedual nature of the tramp later, but first we must lookat the metaphoric context: In what light should wesee the tramp? Much of that light, the light thatshines from behind the words of the text, can beviewed as religious, at least as pseudo-religious.

Prime examples of such a "religious" readingcan be found early in the story, in the awed descrip-tions of time and the woods that rattle throughSeth's head. There is little doubt that the depth ofcaring, the breathlessness, and the nod to universalsignificance that appear in these internal descrip-tions approach a kind of mystic revelation. These

S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s/ 2


are short textual examples, but both descriptionshold positions of prominence in the overall thrust ofthe story. These descriptions, in fact, set the tone forthe entire piece. Other scenes follow in the samereligious context, some specifically Christian, some,like the awed responses to nature, not. Moreover,the religion, the belief that these undertones alludeto, can also be seen as a fading belief.

The religious context, the atmosphere of faiththat is set up early in the story, is gradually under-mined. Belief becomes disillusionment. We see thisundermining in several places throughout "Black-berry Winter," most notably in Jebb's speeches, inSeth's brief historical summary at the end, and in ahandful of specific Christian (or New Testament)allusions. In both of Jebb's extended speeches, hisdisillusionment is clear. In the first, he describes theblackberry winter as a sign of the end. Here, by"end," he means the apocalypse in the Judeo-Christian tradition. If we are to take him literally, heand Seth and all the characters have been left behindby God, left to walk the Earth as it becomes a livinghell. Jebb, 35 years later, again echoes this kind ofdisillusionment when he says that God answered hisprayers, gave him strength, and left him. This strengthhas allowed him to live too long in a world that haslost its significance, in a world God himself hasforsaken.

Other images of fading belief, of the undermin-ing of faith, appear in the scenes outlined by Fordearlier, but what about Seth's adult description ofwhat has happened to his family? His father, a manwho believed in the way of farming, died on his ownblade. Seth's mother, a woman who believed inloving her husband, died of a broken heart. Thosevery beliefs, the faith in what they were that madethem what they were—farmer or mother, man of theland or wife—killed them.

The final images of disillusionment can befound in what appear to be direct allusions to theNew Testament. The time frame and setting of' 'Blackberry Winter'' are, after all, rooted in ' 'down-home" Christian tradition. If we are to see themetaphoric context of this story as a descent intodisillusionment, it only makes sense that the basicfaith of the given place and time, Christianity, isalso challenged, at least symbolically. When thecounty people come to see the results of the flood,the narrator informs us, ' 'Everybody always knewwhat it would be like when he got down to thebridge, but people always came. It was like churchor a funeral". Here we have people gathering in a

church-like atmosphere to witness something forreasons they do not really understand. We have aboy, small of stature, who comes to this ' 'religious''gathering and who sees his father mounted on ahorse. His father, seeing Seth on the ground, com-mands him up onto the horse where the boy cansee better.

We see a similar set of events and actions in theGospel of Luke, 19:1-6, when Jesus enters Jericho.The people have gathered to see Jesus, to witnessthe coming of something they do not fully under-stand. Zacchaeus, a rich man, but a man small ofstature, climbs a sycamore tree to see better. Jesus,passing by, commands Zacchaeus to come down.Of course the parallels are not exact; Seth mountshis father's horse to see better, he does not climb atree. But all of the same elements are here, as well astantalizing similarities: Seth's smallness of stature,his climbing up to see better, the people gatheredand unsure about what they have gathered to wit-ness. Even more important, arguably, are the differ-ences. Seth's father commands him up onto thehorse. Jesus commands Zacchaeus to "come down."There is at one and the same time a kind of familiari-ty with the scene and a kind of reversal. After all,what the masses witness in "Blackberry Winter" isnot a coming (or even a second coming) of Christ;rather, they witness the coming of a cow. Thiscow—if we see it as a symbol, as reminiscent ofroughly parallel pagan symbols—is yet anotherindication that faith has fallen degenerate. Not onlyis it potentially pagan, and thus the antithesis toChrist, it is also quite dead. Another, possibly evenmore oblique, parallel to the New Testament is therelationship between Christ's parable of the vine-yard, in which a laborer contests unequal pay (Mat-thew 20:1-16) and the hostility that arises betweenSeth's father and the tramp over what the tramp seesas a "breach of contract."

What about the tramp himself? Seth mentions,when he first sees the vagabond on the road, ' 'No-body ever went back there except people whowanted to gig frogs in the swamp or to fish in theriver ..." This simple statement is far more intri-guing when we view it in light of what Christ says toSimon and Andrew by the Sea of Galilee in Mark1:17: "Come ye after me, and I will make you tobecome fishers of men." Is the tramp then, himself,a kind of ' 'fisher of men " ? He ' 'reels in " Seth quitehandily; in fact he does so by reversing what Christsays in Matthew 8: 22. While Christ asks his disci-ples to "Follow me," the tramp eventually says toSeth, "Stop following me," the exact opposite.

V o l u m e 8 1 3


One can easily read a Pied Piper legend into thiswork, or see a Lucifer figure in the person of thetramp; but if we take the incidentals of the story assymbolic and religious references rather than sim-ple metaphors, the tramp becomes an antichristfigure. The tone of near-cathedral-like reverencetoward time and nature early in the story; thechurch-like atmosphere of the gathering on the riverbank; the increasing tempo of disillusionment withany belief, but specifically with belief in Christianideas; the loose parallels to Christ and Christianmythos throughout; and, specifically, the commandof the tramp, a command that echoes an exactnegation of Christ's words—all these elements leadto the conclusion that the last eight words are anadmission that Seth did not (necessarily) follow thepath of hope, villainy, or damnation alone. Rather,he followed all the paths by following the path ofan antichrist.

This is not to say that Seth fell under the spell ofthat antichrist—merely that he followed in the foot-steps of disillusionment. Disillusionment holds withinit all paths, the temptation toward despair, for exam-ple (as Jebb would solidly testify). But it alsopresupposes the possibility of enlightenment, thepossibility of recognizing the face of the deceiverand changing course. And who better than a deceiv-er, an antichrist, to bring us the message of a dual- oreven multi-faced coin? To a society whose preemi-nent belief system is Judeo-Christian, whose systemis now faltering, an antichrist comes, and he flipsthat coin. He shakes things up, because if one doesnot question one's beliefs, one prays to a seden-tary God.

Whether the deceiver arrives in the form ofPied Piper, Lucifer, tramp, antichrist or Christ him-self, the revealed deception is always a seed of hope.And Seth, the narrator of "Blackberry Winter,"intimates the possibility of such hope by the veryknowledge that he did follow that deceiver, thattramp, all the years.

Source: Bryan Dietrich, "Christ or Antichrist: Understand-ing Eight Words in 'Blackberry Winter,"' in Studies in ShortFiction, Vol. 29, No. 2, Spring, 1992, pp. 215-20.

Floyd C. WatkinsIn the following essay, Watkins suggests that

the puzzling ending to "Blackberry Winter" (thatthe boy followed the tramp) is incomplete and lacksclues from the story necessary for an adequateunderstanding of how the boy did follow the tramp.

Robert Penn Warren wrote his short stories in thelate 1930s and the first half of the 1940s. He did notpublish any poems from his Selected Poems (1943)until Brother to Dragons (1953) and then the poemscollected into the Pulitzer Prize winning Promises(1957). Brevity and compactness (and perhaps theintensity of writing short fiction) interfered withWarren's composition of poetry. On the other hand,he has said that the emotional turbulence of the laststages of his marriage to Cinina Brescia also rancounter to the mood which produces poetry.

Preciseness of imagery, distinctness of charac-terization, and revelation of meaning give Warren's' 'Blackberry Winter'' many traits of his poems. Thestory begins with childhood in the country recalledby a forty-four-year-old man. The progression istoward increasing conflict on a day on the farm andan abrupt shift in time at the end of the story whenthe narrator takes a hard look at the meaning of hisfollowing a tramp after that day. An interpretationby Warren written twelve years after the story waspublished serves as the author's criticism of his ownstory. This afterword on "Blackberry Winter" in-creases the complexity and puzzlements, the varietyof possible meanings, and perhaps the questions.

The remembered day in Tennessee is cold anduncomfortable, and mother and son argue aboutwhether the boy may go outdoors barefooted. Put-ting on his shoes, he lifts his head and sees a man outthe window. "What was strange was that thereshould be a man there at all," but what is evenstranger is the kind of man he is — a completeforeigner to the farm. He prepares to defend himselfagainst the farm dogs with ' 'the kind of mean knifejust made for devilment and nothing else";' 'every-thing was wrong about what he wore"; when theboy's mother speaks to him, he "stopped and lookedher over" — suggesting hostility and perhaps evenan appraisal of her sexually. He wants work, but toldto bury some drowned young turkeys, he says,"What are them things — poults?" Working in aflower bed, he feels "a kind of impersonal anddistant marveling that he should be on the verge ofgrubbing in a flower bed." The series of imageswhich reveal how this tramp is from a differentworld end in a scene of conflict between the trampand the boy's father. Learning that the tramp has a' 'mean knife,'' the father fires him. In contempt, theman spits close to the father's foot, and the sonnotices the contrast between the father's "strongcowhide boots" and the tramp's "bright blob" ofspit and his "pointed-toe, broken, black shoes...."

Short Stories for Students14


The stranger brings to the farm the disorder of amechanized, violent, urban world. Disorder alsocomes from nature. It is blackberry winter, a day ofcold rain, storms, and floods. A dead cow floatsdown the flooding creek, and hunger in the lives ofthe poor is revealed. A big gangly boy asks, "Reckinanybody ever et drownt cow?'' The storm manglesthe flowers around Dellie's cabin, and trash washesfrom under the house of her and Jebb — admirableblacks who live on the farm.

These destructive forces enter the nine-year-old's stable world from a foreign culture and thestorms of nature. It is for him a time of definition.His childhood until that time had not been "amovement, a flowing, a wind," but a world inwhich living things and people stood ' 'solid in Timelike the tree that you can walk around." Before, thewind had not shaken the tree but only the leaves ' 'alittle . . . on the tree which is alive and solid."Decades later the boy remembered the stable envi-ronment: the strength of his mother, the courage ofhis father, and the suffering of poor countrymen likeMilt Alley, who silently watched the cow and thecrops being washed away.

The entire story is a description of this cold day,except for five final short paragraphs. They are toldwhen the boy is forty-four years old, thirty-fiveyears later. The ending summarizes a variety ofdisasters since that time: the natural, the accidental,and the violent and the evil. The father died oflockjaw after a cut; the mother, of a broken heart;Little Jebb grew up to be "mean and ficey" andkilled a man. But the most extraordinary futureawaited the boy. At the end of his long recollection,he comes back to the tramp and tells how hefollowed him as he left the farm. The man showedhis teeth and said: '"Stop following me. You don'tstop following me and I cut yore throat, you littleson-of-a-bitch.' That was what he said, for me not tofollow him. But I did follow him, all the years.'' Theconcluding sentence is as dramatic as the threat ofthe tramp, but the older narrator did not specify howhe followed him. There are many possibilities:following him into the urban world; growing old;adopting a life of rootlessness and violence; orsimply growing up into knowledge.

In the last five paragraphs the characters alsoseem to have followed the tramp — the good peoplelived on into a sadder world; they died of accidentand lockjaw, of grief, the Negroes Jebb and Dellielived on for many years; their son, Little Jebb, wentout into the violent world. All, then, apparently

Warren now believed

that if the narrator 'had

really learned something of

the meaning of life, he had

been bound to follow the tramp

all his life, in the

imaginative recognition . . .

of this lost, mean, defeated,

cowardly, worthless bitter

being as somehow a man.""

moved into a greater knowledge of complexitiesand depravities. The way the boy followed thetramp is not at all enacted in the story. Warrenindicates only that he lived at least forty-four years,arrived at some state of knowledge, and indulged ina long reverie about that ancient day. The manponders the meanings rather than the actions of thelater time. The story ends without the causes beingembodied in the world's body and the events of theboy's life. The actions and decisions of severalcharacters were not like those of the tramp. Thenarrator's life was like the tramp's, or perhaps not.Not everyone must follow the tramp into the samekind of knowledge.

Warren's "Recollection" of his writing thestory begins with the admission that the writing was"complicated" and that "I shall never know thetruth, even in the limited, provisional way theknowing of truth is possible in such matters." Inunfavorable terms he remembered the tramp whocame into the story and left it: "city bum turnedcountry tramp, suspicious, resentful, contemptuousof hick dumbness, bringing his own brand of vio-lence, . . . a creature altogether lost and pitiful, a dimimage of what, in one perspective, our humancondition is." In contrast, he remembers the "moth-er's self-sufficency," and there is never an indica-tion that she too followed a route like the tramp's.Warren remembered later that he "wanted the storyto give some notion that out of change and loss ahuman recognition may be redeemed, more pre-cious for being no longer innocent." At the ending,I believe, there is a decline from embodied incident

V o l u m e 8 1 5


to general statement. Either when Warren wrote theending of the story or when he wrote his interpreta-tion of it, he considered only one way of followingthe tramp. Warren now believed that if the narrator"had really learned something of the meaning oflife, he had been bound to follow the tramp all hislife, in the imaginative recognition . . . of this lost,mean, defeated, cowardly, worthless bitter being assomehow a man." The boy followed the tramp atleast in his meditations. If following is mere recog-nition, the last sentence is "an impersonal generali-zation about experience'' — as Warren calls it in hisown recollection. But that is not the best method ofenactment in fiction. That ending makes a heavydemand on a reader who is told of the murderous lifeof Little Jebb and of other terrible matters. In hisrecollection, Warren says that no tramp ever threat-ened him as the one in the story did the boy,' 'but ifone had, I hope that I might have been able to followhim anyway, in the way the boy in the story does"[italics mine].

But what way is that? The story has not speci-fied, and the recollection has given almost no addi-tional clue. The tramp moves into the experiences ofthe world, but the story does not provide one glimpseof his understanding or of the events of the narra-tor's later life. Certainly this ending has not ruinedone of Warren's best short stories and one of themost accomplished American short stories. Butneither has it entirely fulfilled the fiction. By switch-ing altogether to the narrator's meditation and bymaking a statement of a view of life, the author letsthe last sentence of the story, mysterious as it is, fallflat on its face into a puddle of meaning. At the endof Warren's explanation, one can only wonder if hehas left his interpretation incomplete, if the recol-lection is wrong, or if the story itself has a mislead-ing last sentence.

Source: Floyd C. Watkins, "Following the Tramp in War-ren's 'Blackberry Winter,"' in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol.22, No. 3, Summer, 1985, pp. 343.

James E. RocksIn the following essay, Rocks argues that the

tramp in ' 'Blackberry Winter'' represents the ideaof the original corruption of the will in Adam.

Robert Penn Warren wrote "Blackberry Winter"shortly after he completed All the King's Men and"A Poem of Pure Imagination: an Experiment inReading," the long essay on The Ancient Mariner,these three works, written during 1945 and 1946,are notable examples of their respective genres and

reveal Warren's varied literary talents. That "Black-berry Winter" was written soon after the novel andessay suggests that it might be read critically in thelight of the two earlier works. It is unlikely that theyinfluenced the short story in any definite way, butthe essay on Coleridge and All the King's Men doforeshadow some of the themes, symbols and tech-niques of the story and indicate that Warren wasthinking about similar problems as he wrote eachwork. All the King's Men and' 'Blackberry Winter''share the same mood of impending disorder andexpress a similar view of the idea of change, a majortheme in Warren's work.

In ' 'Writer at Work: How a Story was Born andHow, Bit by Bit, It Grew," Warren describes theorigin of "Blackberry Winter" in World War II,when he felt civilization might never again be thesame. A line in Melville's poem "The Conflict ofConvictions" carried for him the frightening re-minder that wars threaten to uncover the "slimedfoundations" of the world, an image that is reminis-cent in tone of the decay, corruption and death in thenovel and the story. His tale grew, he says, from theassociation of various experiences in his own lifeand was an attempt to treat the "adult's grimorientation" toward the fact of time and the fall ofman into moral awareness. As Warren writes, "Iwanted the story to give some notion that out ofchange and loss a human recognition may be re-deemed, more precious for being no longer inno-cent." This condition of growth into maturity, withits concomitant gains and losses, is shared by JackBurden in All the King's Men and Seth in "Black-berry Winter."

Warren's essay on "Blackberry Winter" givesus some clues in reading both the story and All theKing's Men, but it is like Poe's "The Philosophy ofComposition" or Allen Tate's "Narcissus as Nar-cissus' ' in that it leaves most of the important piecesof the puzzle for the reader to assemble. Warrenexpects the reader, like the writer in the act ofcomposing, to be a creative and discerning indi-vidual. The quest for knowledge that fictional char-acters undergo is interpreted by a sympathetic andimaginative reader, who must discover in the workthe symbols, myths and archetypes that the writerhas used to dramatize the universal human condi-tion. As a New Critic, Warren affirms the signifi-cance of a symbolic reading of literature and statesthat a ' 'poem is the light by which the reader mayview and review all the areas of experience withwhich he is acquainted." A story, like a poem, usessymbol and has rich texture. Warren stresses the

l 6 S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s


varied and suggestive meaning of any symbol,particularly one "rooted in our universal naturalexperience." The sun, moon, stars and wind that heidentifies in Coleridge are examples of such funda-mental symbols, which like the archetypes of re-birth and the journey in Coleridge are to be found inWarren's own work, including, of course, "Black-berry Winter" and All the King's Men.

Warren's discussion of Coleridge's sacramen-tal conception of the universe, violated by theMariner's crime against the sanctity of nature, isrelevant to a reading of "Blackberry Winter." Theshort story examines how the prideful individualcan isolate himself from what Warren calls thesense of the ' 'One Life'' in which a creation partici-pates. In "Blackberry Winter" the older Seth ar-rives at a similar knowledge as he looks back at hisday's journey: like the Mariner, he learns about thebeauty and terror of the universe and the naturalprocess of change that both renews and destroys.Seth, like all men, must reenact the fall of the firstfather, Adam, whose third son we are told in Gene-sis was named Seth. Although the story, in its seriesof episodes and recurring symbols, seems to empha-size decay and death (the "slimed foundations"), itasserts finally the triumph of human perception overthe natural forces that age and destroy. Seth, whosefall is fortunate, has moved, like Jack Burden andAnn Stanton in All the King's Men, "into historyand the awful responsibility of Time." The adultSeth, like Jack and Anne, has learned the meaningsof sin and guilt, isolation and community.

The tramp, or the Mysterious Stranger, repre-sents, as Warren finds them in Coleridge's poem,the ideas of sin and guilt and the isolation thatattends them. Warren maintains that Coleridge wasinterested in the mystery of original sin—not he-reditary sin, however, but sin that is original withthe sinner and is a manifestation of his own will. Inthe Mariner, Warren says, we witness the corruptionof the will, which is the beginning of the moralhistory of man. The Mariner's killing of the alba-tross reenacts the fall and is a condition of the willand results from no single human motive. Althougha comparison between the Mariner and Willie Starkcertainly cannot be carried too far, one may see inStark an example of the corruption of the will thatWarren finds in the Mariner. Like the Mariner,Willie makes his own convenience the measure ofan act and therefore isolates himself from the ' 'OneLife." One might argue, then, that Willie Stark andthe tramp in "Blackberry Winter" represent inWarren's fiction the corruption of the will and the

Man's knowledge makes

him aware that he is a fallen

creature, Warren is saying,

but that he has gained more

than he has lost. . . ."

isolation of sin he finds in Coleridge. Both men areagents in the narrators' initiations and can be viewedas primarily beneficial in their influence on them.Stark may be corrupt in the means of his politics buthe is often motivated by altruistic ends; goodness,as Jack Burden learns, can be accomplished by themorally bad agent. Like Stark, the tramp is also ahuman being, however sinful and violent he mayappear. In "Blackberry Winter," as Warren statesin "Writer at Work," Seth remembers "this lost,mean, defeated, cowardly, worthless, bitter being assomehow a man" who had come "out of thedarkening grown-up world of time." The AncientMariner, Willie Stark and the tramp are alike in thatthey serve to elicit the emotions of pity and terrorfrom the reader and suggest the knowledge that manmust apprehend if he is to avoid a similar fate. Eachof these men enters a ' 'darkening grown-up worldof time"; so, also, do their observers, the weddingguest, Jack Burden and Seth. An awareness of timeis a central concern of Warren's characters, and inhis story he depicts the truth that Jack Burden andSeth must suffer to learn; life is motion towardknowledge.

The title "Blackberry Winter" foreshadowsthe principal knowledge that Seth will gain: whatman thinks has been permanent and will alwaysremain permanent is subject to unexpected anddevastating change. As a boy Seth believes thatwhat he has done before will remain possible forev-er—that in June, for example, one need neverwear shoes:

.. . when you are nine years old, what you rememberseems forever; for you remember everything andeverything is important and stands big and full andfills up Time and is so solid that you can walk aroundand around it like a tree and look at it. You are awarethat time passes, that there is a movement in time, butthat is not what Time is. Time is not a movement, aflowing, a wind then, but is, rather, a kind of climate inwhich things are, and when a thing happens it begins

V o l u m e 8 1 7

Blackberry Winter

to live and keeps on living and stands solid in Timelike a tree that you can walk around. And if there is amovement, the movement is not Time itself, any morethan a breeze is climate, and all the breeze does is toshake a little the leaves on the tree which is alive andsolid. When you are nine, you know that there arethings that you don't know, but you know that whenyou know something you know it. You know how athing has been and you know that you can go bare-foot in June.

At the time the story opens, however, anunseasonable cold spell, blackberry winter, and agully washer have just interrupted the anticipatedplan of boyhood activity. From the beginning of thestory, we are aware that the apparent security of theboy's world will be upset by a series of episodesrevealing the mystery of change. The four scenes ofthe story—the first at his house, the second at thebridge, the third at the Negro cabin and the fourth athis house—are structured to suggest the idea ofcycle or return, a going forth and a coming back.This pattern, like the notion that the gain of knowl-edge is worth the loss of innocence, argues for aninterpretation of the story that stresses rebirth andrenewal—if not the regeneration of life, at least theenlightenment of the mind. In the epilogue thatconcludes the story, the older Seth looks back fromthe year 1945—when Warren felt that the "slimedfoundations" of the world might be exposed—andconsiders the profound ironies of change: that thefather who seemed invincible to him as a boy hasdied early, a victim of the machine, not of nature;and that the mother who seemed strong has died of abroken heart; and that Old Jebb, who most wantedthe release of death to end his fatigue and who hadprophesied the end of the world, lives on like anaging Samson. Most important of all, Seth realizesthe value of his memory, which has kept alive theimage of the tramp for thirty-five years.

This tramp and not the cold spell first disturbsthe harmony of Seth's world, his "One Life."Seeing the tramp emerge from the woods, he isstruck by ' 'the strangeness of the sight'' and he triesto "walk around" in his mind the idea of suchunpredictable behavior. The tramp is completelyout of place; his appearance and his manner suggestthe origin of the city, a complex world unknown tothe country boy. In the figure of the tramp Warrencreates the archetype of the outsider, a characterwho threatens the security of a closed world; avagabond or maverick, he is the type of the failureof the American dream of success. The tramp'snondescript eyes and "perfectly unmemorable face"are like a confusing mask to the boy, making him allthe more inquisitive of the reality underneath. The

boy's "steady and self-reliant" mother, in whom hecan feel confidence, offers the tramp the work ofburying the dead chicks and cleaning up the trash inthe flower beds. This description of the litteredsetting, suggesting the destruction and death of theanimate world, foreshadows the vivid descriptionsin succeeding scenes of the trash that runs in thecreek and of the trash under Dellie's cabin. The boybegins to see the capacity of nature to ravage what itcreates (chickens) and what man creates (flowerbeds). Seth will grow to realize that man does notcontrol his environment and that he cannot becertain either of his expectations or of the satisfac-tion of his desires.

Seth does not perceive the full devastation ofnature until he arrives at the strange sight of thebridge over the swollen creek, which is described as"boiling," "frothing," "hissing," "steaming" and' 'tumbling''—words that suggest natural cataclysmand foreshadow the Biblical tone of Old Jebb's laterdescription of the next great and annihilating flood.On the bank the boy's tall, proud father sits on hishorse, above the heads of the other men, who aremostly poor white tenant farmers and in Seth's mindof a lower social class. In this episode Seth begins tolearn about poverty, a condition largely unknown tohim. The dead cow that floats past reminds theonlookers of their probable hunger in the future.The cow, which suggests the idea of maternity,foreshadows Dellie's condition of menopause, OldJebb's remark that mother earth might stop produc-ing and his own mother's death some years later.Each of these images gives unity to the story andaffirms the idea of death to man and nature, a deathout of which there will seem to be no renewal.

When the young spectator at the bridge askswhether anyone has ever eaten a drowned cow, theresponse is stunned silence; but the question be-comes ironic in the light of Old Jebb's statementlater that if the earth stops producing man will eat upeverything. Jebb's wisdom is anticipated in an oldCivil War veteran's response to the boy: "you livelong enough and you'll find a man will eat anythingwhen the time comes.'' This man speaks, it might besaid, rather like a character out of Southwesternhumor; his words demonstrate knowledge of thecomic and the tragic. He is, like Old Jebb, the sageand seer, to whom time and experience havebrought wisdom.

The third episode of the story, at the Negrocabin, falls into two parts—in the first, Seth talkswith the family cook Dellie and, in the second, with

1 8 S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s


her common-law husband Old Jebb. Both of themhave always been proud of their clean, orderlyhouse and yard; but, much to Seth's surprise, theyard has also become littered by the storm. Contraryto what he had come to expect, the yard is full of thetrash and filth that had always remained hiddenunder the house. Seth learns that appearances ororder, cleanliness and health can be deceptive, thatdirt, ugliness and decay lie beneath the surface ofthings. This new awareness is reaffirmed when hesees Dellie, normally healthy and active, lying sickunder her quilt, which, like the house hiding thelitter, covers the reality of the decay underneath.Dellie is suffering menopause, what Old Jebb latercalls "the change of life and Time." This changesignals the end of her ability to reproduce and thusthe approach of a kind of death. When Seth says heis sorry to hear that she is ill, he realizes that theword is an empty one. Language fails to express theemotions of loss or sorrow, and, like the menwatching the creek, Seth stands a mute and power-less witness to this example of natural change andhuman suffering.

The culmination of the boy's journey is reachedin his dialogue with Jebb, who unlike the tramp hasa wise, sad, kind face and represents the security oflove and fatherly wisdom. A prophet figure, Jebbspeaks like Noah, who foretells a flood but who hasnot heard God's word of a possible salvation forman; he is also like the preacher of Ecclesiastes, buthis message is that the sun will never rise again, thatthe earth will not abide forever. Old Jebb will nottell Seth why Dellie is ill, and his response, "Timecome and you find out everything," reveals theNegro's understanding that all things change andthat time is needed for man to be aware of the natureof change and of his part in it. Time, Jebb knows, ismaturity.

Seth argues with Jebb that because it is June thecold spell will pass. Jebb contradicts the boy'sbelief that what has been will always be when hesays that the cold may have come to stay:

Cause this-here old yearth is tahrd. Hit is tahrd andain't gonna perduce. Lawd let hit come rain one timeforty days and forty nights, 'cause he was tahrd ofsinful folks. Maybe this-here old yearth say to theLawd, Lawd, 1 done plum tahrd, Lawd, lemme rest.

Like Dellie, mother earth will lose her fecundi-ty and man will be faced with extinction. The ironyof Old Jebb's speech is that man feels no awe for theearth's seemingly infinite bounty or no concern topreserve it; the Lord rested on the seventh day andso does man, but the earth can never rest. As Seth

leaves, the cold penetrating his spirit as well as hisbare feet, Jebb tells him to hurry home before "youketch yore death." Young Seth will also have toendure the process of change and decay; like allmen, he has caught his death. Back at his home, inthe concluding episode that brings the action fullcircle, Seth follows the tramp up the drive towardthe pike and into the memory of the future.

In the epilogue, the adult Seth provides a per-spective on his youthful experiences and revealsthat he is not unlike the Ancient Mariner in his needto articulate the meaning of what happened to himon that day. The story provides for him and for thereader an epiphany that gains value in the narrator'sdual vantage point of youth, which feels, and age,which interprets. The fullest insight belongs to thereader, however, for it is he who perceives the entiresignificance of Seth's experience. The epiphany weparticipate in is a discovery of the self in relation toone's environment and to other individuals, notunlike Robinson Crusoe's discovery of the foot-print, a mark that signalled a change in his life. (Seththinks early in the story about this moment of self-awareness in Defoe's work.) The image of a foot-print is particularly meaningful in the light of itsimportance as a symbol of man's relation to nature,which is both his sustainer and his destroyer. Seth'sbare feet grip the earth but they are unprotectedfrom the cold and dirt; they let him know nature asshe is. As the foot is an important symbol in thestory, so is the hand, which can grasp hold of reality.Each of the adult characters has strong hands, whichpresumably can control and shape destiny—or atleast that seems so to young Seth. But the painfultruth is that these people cannot alter their lives, thatthey will become victims of their mortality. Theircondition is almost like that of the character in AllThe King's Men who has what Jack Burden calls theGreat Twitch, which determines that man is a victimof uncontrollable forces. The characters in ' 'Black-berry Winter" have the freedom to choose and toact but no certainty that their choices and acts won'tbe overwhelmed by nature.

"Blackberry Winter," like The Ancient Mari-ner and All the King's Men, creates in literary form,as Warren writes in "Knowledge and the Image ofMan," "a vision of experience .. . fulfilled andredeemed in knowledge, the ugly with the beautiful,the slayer with the slain, what was known as shapenow known as time, what was known in time nowknown as shape, a new knowledge." This definitionof the ordering of experience into a literary imagecomments on the theme of his own fiction, particu-

V o l u m e 8 I 9


larly "Blackberry Winter." Man has a right, statesWarren, to define himself and to achieve his ownidentity, or an image of himself. He says that thisnotion of personality is part of the heritage ofChristianity, in which every soul is valuable to Godand in which the story of every soul is the story of itschoice of salvation or damnation. In the quest forknowledge, Warren declares, man discovers hisseparateness and the pain of self-criticism and ofisolation; but he also learns that his condition isshared by all men alike:

In the pain of isolation he may achieve the courageand clarity of mind to envisage the tragic pathos oflife, and once he realizes that the tragic experience isuniversal and a corollary of man's place in nature, hemay return to a communion with man and nature.

Man's knowledge makes him aware that he is afallen creature, Warren is saying, but that he hasgained more than he has lost:

Man can return to his lost unity, and if that return isfitful and precarious, if the foliage and flower of theinnocent garden are now somewhat browned by a lateseason, all is the more precious for the fact, for what isnow achieved has been achieved by a growth ofmoral awareness.

These two passages provide a perfect gloss ofWarren's story and novel written a decade earlier.

The essay on The Ancient Mariner and All theKing's Men share with "Blackberry Winter" simi-lar themes of sin, isolation, change and growth,similar characters who lose their innocence becauseof others who embody evil and guilt or because offorces over which they have no apparent control andsimilar techniques of rich texture, narrative point-of-view and the treatment of time. Reading "APoem of Pure Imagination,'' All the King's Men and"Blackberry Winter" together enhances the read-er's appreciation of each of the works.

Source: James E. Rocks, "Warren's 'Blackberry Winter': AReading," in The University of Mississippi Studies in Eng-lish, Vol. 1,1980, pp. 97-105.

Robert Penn WarrenIn the following essay, Warren informs the

reader that he wanted the story to tell about theeffect of time in bringing harsh change and loss tohuman relationships but also to show that one canstill recognize human qualities in the struggle.

I once wrote a story called ' 'Blackberry Winter." Ithas the form of a recollection, many years after the

events narrated, by a fictional first person. On a Junemorning, a young boy on a farm in Tennessee isbeing prevented by his mother from going barefootbecause a gullywasher the night before makes themorning unseasonably cold. As they argue, they seea tramp, a citified tramp, coming up the lane, andwonder how he ever got back there in the riverwoods. The mother gives the tramp some work. Theboy goes off to explore the damage and excitementof the storm, and then to play with the son of Dellie,the cook, who is sick in one of the tenant cabins. In amoment of annoyance Dellie, ordinarily a lovingmother, savagely cuffs her son. The boy, disturbed,goes to hunt Old Jebb (Dellie's common-law hus-band) who says this isn't merely blackberry win-ter—that the earth maybe is tired the way Dellie is,and won't produce any more. The boy goes back tothe house and sees his father firing the tramp. Thetramp is about to resent the firing, but the fatheroverawes him, and the tramp goes off, the boyfollowing until the tramp turns and snarls at him.Then there is a little summary of what had happenedto the boy's family and Dellie's family in lateryears. Then:

That is what has happened since the morning when thetramp leaned his face down at me and showed histeeth and said: "Stop following me. You don't stopfollowing me and I cut yore throat, you little son-of-a-bitch." That was what he said, for me not to followhim. But I did follow him, all the years.

I remember with peculiar distinctness the writ-ing of the story, especially the tension between asense of being trapped in a compulsive process, andthe flashes of self-consciousness and self-criticism.I suppose that most attempts at writing have somesuch tension, but here the distinction between thetwo poles of the process was peculiarly marked,between the ease and the difficulty, the elation and, Iam tempted to say, the pain.

The vividness with which I remember this maycome from the time and situation in which the storywas written. It was the winter of 1945^46, just afterthe war, and even if one had had no hand in theblood-letting, there was the sense that one's person-al world would never be the same. I was thenreading Melville's poetry, and remember beingprofoundly impressed by "The Conflict of Convic-tions," a poem about the American Civil War.Whatever the rights and wrongs, the war, Melvillesaid, would show the "slimed foundations" of theworld. There was the sense in 1945 that we had seenthe slimed foundations, and now as I write this, theimage that comes to mind is the homely one from



my story—the trash washed out from under Dellie' scabin to foul her pridefully clean yard. So Melville,it seems, belongs in the package.

For less remote background, I had just finishedtwo long pieces of work, a novel called All theKing's Men and a study of Coleridge's The AncientMariner. Both of these things were impersonal, thatis, about as impersonal as the work of a man's handmay be. At the same time I was living in a crampedapartment over a garage in a big, modern, blizzardbitNorthern city. So the circumstances of my life andthe work that had held me for so long were far fromthe rural world of my childhood. As for my state ofmind, I suppose I was living in some anxiety aboutmy forthcoming pieces of work, and in the unspo-ken, even denied conviction that, with my fortiethbirthday lately passed, I was approaching somewatershed of experience.

Out of this situation the story began, but by akind of accident. Some years earlier I had written astory about a Tennessee sharecropper, a bad storythat had never been published; now I thought I saw away to improve it. So with that story I began to turnmy feelings back into an earlier time. I can't saywhether I began writing "Blackberry Winter" be-fore I rewrote the other story. It doesn't reallymatter much. What mattered was that I was goingback. I was fleeing, if you wish. Hunting old bear-ings and bench-marks, if you wish. Trying to make afresh start, if you wish. Whatever people do in theirdoubleness of living in a present and a past.

I recollect the particular thread that led me backinto the past: the feeling you have when, aftervacation begins, you are allowed to go barefoot. Notthat I ever particularly liked to go barefoot. But theprivilege was important, an escape from the tyrannyof winter, school, and, even, family. It was like whatthe anthropologists call rite of passage. But it hadanother significance; it carried you over into adream of nature, the woods, not the house, was nowyour natural habitat, the stream not the street. Look-ing out into the snow-banked alley of that ironlatitude, I had a vague nostalgic feeling and won-dered if spring would ever come. It finally came—and then on May 5 there was again snow, and theheavy-headed blooms of lilac were beautiful withtheir hoods of snow and beards of ice.

With the recollection of going barefoot cameanother, which had been recurrent over the years:the childhood feeling of betrayal when early sum-

I should give a false

impression if I imply that

this story is

autobiographical. It is not."

mer gets turned upside down and all its promises arerevoked by the cold spell, the gully-washer. So byputting those two recollections together, I got thestory started. I had no idea where it was going, ifanywhere. Sitting at the typewriter was merely away of indulging nostalgia. But something has tohappen in a story, if there is to be more than a drearylyric poem posing as a story to promote the cause ofuniversal boredom and deliquescent prose. Some-thing had to happen, and the simplest thing ever tohave happen is to say: "Enter, mysterious strang-er." And so he did.

The tramp who thus walked into the story to cutshort the argument between mother and son hadbeen waiting a long time in the wings of myimagination—an image based, no doubt, on a dozenunremembered episodes from childhood, the citybum turned country tramp, suspicious, resentful,contemptuous of hick dumbness, bringing his ownbrand of violence into a world where he half-expected to find another kind, enough unlike hisown to make him look over his shoulder down theempty lane as dusk came on, a creature altogetherlost and pitiful, a dim image of what, in one perspec-tive, our human condition is. But then, at thatmoment, I was thinking merely of the impingementof his loose-footedness and lostness on a stable andlove-defined world of childhood.

Before the tramp actually appeared, however, Ihad known he was coming, and without planning Ibegan to write the fourth paragraph of the story,about the difference between what time is when wegrow up and what it was when we stood on what, inmy fancy phrase in the story, I called the glisteningauroral beach of the world—a phrase which belong-ed to a boy who had never seen a beach but whosedreams were of the sea. Now the tramp came up, notmerely out of the woods, but out of the darkeninggrown-up world of time.

The boy, seeing the tramp, tries to think of himcoming up through the woods. He sees the image of

V o l u m e 8 2 1

Blackberry Winter

the tramp blundering along, not like a boy whomight stand in absolute quiet, almost taking root andgrowing moss on himself, trying to feel himself intothat deep vegetative life. This passage, too, waswritten on impulse, but as soon as it began I knew itsimport; I was following my nose, trusting, for betteror worse, my powers of association in relation to anemerging pattern of contrasts. It was natural, there-fore, after a little about the tramp's out-of-water-ness, to set over against him the brisk self-sufficien-cy of the mother at the time of the incident, and thenover against that portrait a thought of the time laterwhen she would be dead and only a memory—though back then in the changeless world of child-hood, as the narrator says, it had never crossed theboy's mind that "she would ever be dead."

In the instant I wrote that clause I knew, nothow the story would end, for I was still writing byguess and by God, but on what perspective offeeling it would end. I knew that it would end with akind of detached summary of the work of time,some hint of the adult's grim orientation toward thatfact. From now on, the items that came on thenatural wash of recollection came not only withtheir, to me, nostalgic quality, but also with thefreighting of the grimmer possibilities of change—the flood, which to the boy is only an excitingspectacle but which will mean hunger to some, theboy's unconscious contempt for poor white trashlike Milt Alley (the squatter who lived up the hill),the recollection of hunger by the old man who hadridden with Nathan Bedford Forrest, Dellie suffer-ing her "woman mizry." But before I had got toDellie, I already had Old Jebb firmly in mind withsome faint sense of the irony of having his nameremind one—or at least, me—of the dashing Con-federate cavalryman killed at Yellow Tavern.

Perhaps what I did with Dellie had, in fact,stemmed from the name I gave Old Jebb. Even if theboy would see no irony in that echo of J. E. B.Stuart's fame, he would get a shock when Dellieslapped her beloved son, and would sense that thatblow was, in some deep way, a blow at him. I knewthis, for I knew the inside of that prideful cabin, andthe shock of early realization that beneath mutualkindliness and regard a dark, tragic, unresolvedthing lurked. And with that scene with Dellie I felt Iwas forecasting the role of the tramp in the story.The story, to put it another way, was now shiftingemphasis from the lyricism of nostalgia to a concernwith the jags and injustices of human relation-ships. What had earlier come in unconsciously,

reportorially, in regard to Milt Alley, now got aconscious formulation.

I have said the end was by now envisaged as akind of summary of the work of time on the humanrelationships. But it could not be a mere summary: Iwanted some feeling for the boy's family and Jebb'sfamily to shine through the flat surface. Now itstruck me that I might build the summary with Jebbas a kind of pilot for the feeling I wanted to get; thatis, by accepting, in implication at least something ofJebb's feeling about his own life, we might becomeaware of our human communion. I wanted the storyto give some notion that out of change and loss ahuman recognition may be redeemed, more pre-cious for being no longer innocent. So I wrote thesummary.

When I had finished the next to the last para-graph I still did not know what to do with my tramp.He had already snarled at the boy, and gone, but Isensed in the pattern of things that his meaningwould have to coalesce now with the meaning Ihoped to convey in the summary about the charac-ters. Then, for better or worse, there it was. In hislast anger and frustration, the tramp had said to theboy: "You don't stop following me, and I cut yorethroat, you little son-of-a-bitch."

Had the boy stopped or not? Yes, of course,literally, in the muddy lane. But at another level—no. In so far as later he had grown up, had reallylearned something of the meaning of life, he hadfollowed the tramp all his years, in the imaginativerecognition, with all the responsibility which such arecognition entails, of this lost, mean, defeated,cowardly, worthless, bitter being as somehow a man.

So what had started out as an escape into thesimplicities of childhood from the complications ofthe present, had turned, as it always must if weaccept the logic of our lives, into an attempt, howev-er bumbling, to bring something meaningfully outof that simple past into the complication of thepresent. And now, much later, I see that this story,and the novel then lately finished, and my reading ofColeridge's poem all bore on the same end.

I should give a false impression if I imply thatthis story is autobiographical. It is not. I never knewthese particular people. And no tramp ever leaneddown at me and said for me to stop following him orhe would cut my throat. But if one had, I hope that Iwould have been able to follow him anyway, in theway the boy in the story does.


Blackberry Winter

Source: Robert Penn Warren,' 'Writer at Work: How a StoryWas Born, and How, Bit by Bit, It Grew," in New York TimesBook Review, Vol. CVIII, No. 36,926, March 1, 1959,pp. 4-5, 36.

Weathers, Winston. "Blackberry Winter and the Use of itsArchetypes," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 1, pp. 45-51.

Sources

Blotner, Joseph. Robert Penn Warren: A Biography, NewYork: Random House, 1997.

Bohner, Charles. Robert Penn Warren, Twayne United StatesAuthor Series, Boston: G. K. Hall, 1981.

Hicks, Granville. Review of Circus in the Attic, in the NewYork Times, January 25, 1948, p.5.

Lynn, David H. [In Memoriam], in Kenyan Review, N.s.,Vol. 11, No. 4, Fall, 1989.

Review of Circus in the Attic, in Time, January 26, 1948.

Review of Circus in the Attic, in U.S. Quarterly Booklist,June, 1948.

Smith, H. N. Review, in Saturday Review of Literature,January 1, 1948.

Watkins, Floyd C. and John T. Heirs, eds. Robert PennWarren Talking: Interviews 1950-1978, New York: RandomHouse, 1980.

Further Reading

Conkin, Paul. The Southern Agrarians, Knoxville: Universi-ty of Tennessee Press, 1988.

With the benefit of historical perspective and newercritical methods, Conkin offers a fresh perspective onthe literary and scholarly contributions of the group ofwriters who called themselves The Agrarians. Con-tains a careful explanation of Warren's sometimesstrained relationship with the group.

Runyon, Paul Randolph. The Taciturn Text: The Fiction ofRobert Penn Warren, Columbus: Ohio State UniversityPress, 1990.

In this comprehensive study of Warren's fiction,Runyon organizes his analysis historically. ChapterFour is a careful reading of the volume of stories ofwhich "Blackberry Winter" is a part, and containsuseful discussion of common themes and stylisticfeatures.

V o l u m e 8 2 3

Flowering JudasKatherine Anne Porter

1930

Katherine Anne Porter allegedly wrote "FloweringJudas" in a single evening in December of 1929.After writing the story, she then rushed out aftermidnight that same night to mail it to the literarymagazine Hound and Horn. Regardless of thisanecdote's accuracy, it is indisputable that "Flow-ering Judas" represented an artistic breakthroughfor Porter. The next year—1930—she named herdebut collection of short stories after this richlysymbolic tale of an alienated young American womanset in Mexico City just after the Mexican Revolu-tion. Flowering Judas and Other Stories garneredenthusiastic critical praise. Reviewers were consis-tently impressed with Porter's original narrativestyle, her complex and tightly controlled symbol-ism, and her beautifully intricate language. ' 'Flow-ering Judas" remains a staple of anthologies and isconsidered one of the best works of a master of theshort story form. Its complex symbolism has in-trigued several generations of readers and scholars.

The character of Laura, the story's protagonist,is set against that of Braggioni, a corrupt revolution-ary leader who is courting her. The story takes placeduring an evening they spend together, as Braggioni'ssinging and conversation mirrors Laura's growingdisenchantment with the revolutionary ideal thatbrought her to Mexico. Laura, a former Catholic,rejects the hypocrisy of the socialist revolutionarieswho have come to power and she rejects the advanc-es of Braggioni and several other ardent suitors,which leads to a crisis of faith and a sense of acute

2 4

F l o w e r i n g J u d a s

isolation. The theme of lost faith is amplified throughthe story's Christian imagery, central to which is thecomplex figure of the flowering Judas, named forChrist's betrayer.

Author Biography

Porter was born Gallic Russell Porter on May 15,1890, in a two-room log cabin in the Texas frontiercommunity of Indian Creek. Porter's mother diedwhen she was two and her father brought his fivechildren to live with his mother, Catherine Anne.Later, Porter took her grandmother's name. Whenthe grandmother died in 1901 the family sufferedfrom emotional and financial instability. Porter andher sister helped support the family by giving sing-ing and acting lessons, and she aspired to be anactress.

After the family resettled in San Antonio, Por-ter attended a private Methodist school for twoyears, which comprised her only formal education.The Porters were Methodists, though Porter laterclaimed that she had been raised Catholic. Sheconverted to Catholicism upon her marriage, at agesixteen, to a Catholic man.

Porter was a free spirit who defied convention.At age 25 she left her husband and set out to pursuean acting career. She worked at a movie studio inChicago and as a traveling singer-dancer in Louisi-ana. Her life's course took an important turn in 1918when she became seriously ill with influenza andnearly died. She reevaluated her goals and emergedwith a new aspiration to be a writer. She found workas a reporter in Denver and then moved to NewYork City where she met a group of young Mexicanartists and revolutionaries. In 1920 she went toMexico City to witness the aftermath of the Mexi-can Revolution and to gather material for her fic-tion. The first short story she published in 1922,"Maria Conception," was set in Mexico and in-spired by events she observed during this visit.

In 1930 Porter published Flowering Judas andOther Stories, the work that established her criti-cal reputation. The following year she won aGuggenheim Fellowship, which allowed her to re-turn to Mexico and then to travel extensively inEurope. She continued to write, working on shortstories, a biography, and a novel, but published onlysporadically, often distracted by love affairs, poli-tics, and illness. She returned to the United States

and continued to live a nomadic life, traveling fromone teaching position to another. Her next severalbooks of short stories, Pale Horse, Pale Rider andThe Leaning Tower solidified her reputation as amasterful stylist. With her 1962 novel, Ship ofFools, she became a best-selling author. In 1966 shereceived a Pulitzer Prize and a National BookAward for her Collected Stories.

Porter was a beautiful, charismatic woman witha tendency toward self- dramatization. Though shelived an exceptionally independent life for a womanof her generation, she was at times paralyzed by achaotic personal life. She had numerous lovers andmarried four times, twice to men far younger thanshe. Despite her success as a writer, she remainedinsecure about her lack of education and poor Texasupbringing. Some facts of her biography remainuncertain because Porter was evasive about manyaspects of her life and misleading about others. Shedied in 1980 at age ninety.

Plot Summary

A young American woman, Laura has come toMexico City in the aftermath of the Mexican Revo-lution in order to work for the revolutionary cause,in support of a socialist regime. She is a school-teacher and also acts as a go-between for the localrevolutionary leader, Braggioni, and his adherents.Braggioni has a personal interest in the lovely butcold young woman and he pays her nightly visits,hoping to seduce her. As the story opens, Braggioniis in Laura's room, singing to her. It is the end of theday and Laura is tired, but she receives Braggioni'sattention politely, not wishing to offend the pow-erful man.

There is little action in the story. The events aremostly internal, as Braggioni's terrible singing andbantering conversation triggers Laura's thoughtsand emotions. Laura knows that Braggioni wouldlike to seduce her and that she "must resist tena-ciously without appearing to resist." She finds himgrossly sensual and corrupt, but Braggioni is a localhero, embodying all of the hypocrisy that threatensthe ideals of the socialist revolution. Laura longs toflee from him and from the disillusioning cynicismof the revolutionaries, but she sees no other optionthan to continue her commitment.

As they sit together, Braggioni flaunts his ele-gant clothing, telling Laura that she is more like him

V o l u m e 8 2 5


Katherine Anne Porter

than she realizes and warning her that she will be asdisappointed in life as he is. Laura wonders abouther devotion to the cause, thinking about her dutiesteaching English to Indian children, attending unionmeetings, and delivering messages and suppliesto political prisoners. Despite her disgust withBraggioni's blatant hypocrisy, Laura has her ownlapses as good socialist. The revolutionaries arepolitically opposed to the Catholic Church, butLaura sometimes goes to church and prays, thoughshe is no longer faithful. She also has a secret love ofluxury, favoring handmade lace, which also runscounter to socialist ideology.

Braggioni continues to sing to Laura and flirtwith her. Laura has had several suitors in Mexico inaddition to Braggioni. She has skillfully rebuffedthe pass of a former soldier in the army of anotherrevolutionary faction. She draws a parallel betweenthis "rude folk-hero" and the children she teaches,who express a surprising and unrequited affec-tion for her.

The other suitor is a young union activist whoserenades her according to the Mexican tradition.Laura's maid advised her to toss him a flower fromthe Judas tree outside her window in order to stophis singing. She does this, not realizing that this isactually a signal of encouragement. The young man

continues to follow and watch her. She ignores him,but does not regret her mistake. She maintains anattitude of stoicism and negativity in all of herinteractions.

Braggioni goes on to tell her about the confron-tation planned for the next day in the nearby town ofMorelia, where a Catholic festival for the BlessedVirgin will coincide with a celebration of laboractivism by the Socialists. He predicts violence andasks her to clean and oil his weapons, which shedoes obediently. She returns his guns to him and,with uncharacteristic boldness, tells him to ' 'go killsomeone in Morelia, and you will be happier." Shethen reveals that a prisoner, one of Braggioni'sadherents, whom she had visited earlier that night,had committed suicide by taking sleeping pills shehad brought to him the day before. Braggioni pre-tends indifference, but he leaves abruptly and rec-onciles with his wife.

After Braggioni leaves, Laura undresses andgoes to bed, plagued by oppressive feelings of guiltand alienation. When she finally falls asleep she hasa disturbing dream. The prisoner who committedsuicide is beckoning her from the house. She saysshe will follow him only if she can hold his hand,but when he refuses her, calling her a murderer, shefollows him anyway. He offers her flowers from theJudas tree to eat, and when she consumes themgreedily he again calls her a murderer and cannibal.She awakens to the sound of her own voice crying"No!" and is afraid to fall asleep again.

Characters

BraggioniBraggioni is the most powerful revolutionary

leader in town, as well as Laura's suitor. She alsoworks for him carrying messages to members of themovement who are in prison or in hiding. He comesto her house every night to sit and talk with her andto sing songs he has composed as part of a campaignto seduce her. Braggioni is vain and self-obsessed;Laura is repulsed by him, but she accepts his atten-tion because his is a powerful man. Fat and disgust-ing, he represents the corruption and cynicism of therevolutionary movement. Some critics note that heembodies all of the Seven Deadly Sins. He personi-fies the hypocrisy of the movement—he is a ' 'goodrevolutionist" because "he has the malice, thecleverness, the wickedness, the sharpness of wit, the



hardness of heart, stipulated for loving the worldprofitably."

Mrs. BraggioniBraggioni's wife is, in her husband's view, an

"instinctively virtuous woman." She remains faithfulto him and to his cause while he indulges hisappetites and philandering impulses. During themonth preceding the evening when the story takesplace, Braggioni has been living separately from hiswife and courting Laura. His wife has spent much ofthis time weeping. After he visits Laura, Braggionireturns home to his wife who greets him by weepingand begging his forgiveness. She washes his feet inan act of obeisance that echoes Mary's washing ofJesus's feet, in an ironic reflection of Braggioni'srole as savior of his people. In contrast to Laura,Braggioni's wife has completely given herself overto love and martyrs herself before the powerful man.

EugeniaEugenic is one of Braggioni's followers, an

activist in the revolution who has been imprisonedfor political reasons. On the night that the storytakes place Laura has just returned from visitinghim in prison, where she finds him near death froman overdose of sleeping pills. When Laura tellsBraggioni about the suicide Braggioni calls him afool, but his mood changes and he leaves her. Thatnight, Eugenio comes to Laura in a symbolic dreamthat serves as the ambiguous resolution of the plot.Eugenio beckons her toward death and offers herflowers from the Judas tree to eat, saying, "This ismy body and my blood," a reference to the Eucha-rist, thus identifying him as a Christ figure. He thencalls her a murderer and a cannibal, to which Lauraresponds, "No!"

LauraLaura is the protagonist of the story. She is a

young American woman living in Mexico and work-ing for the socialist revolution. She is a schoolteach-er and also performs tasks, such as running mes-sages, for Braggioni as part of her revolutionarycommitment. She is very idealistic but yet cold; thusshe is disgusted by Braggioni's sensuality and cor-ruption. "She cannot help feeling that she has beenbetrayed irreparably by the disunion between herway of living and her feeling of what life shouldbe." However, she continues to be loyal to therevolution despite her misgivings. She is a lapsedCatholic but she occasionally enters a church andsays a Hail Mary, even though this is against the

MediaAdaptations

' 'Flowering Judas'' is included on an audiotaperead by Sioban McKenna, The Collected Storiesof Katherine Anne Porter, recorded in 1990 byPublishing Group West.

beliefs of the revolutionary movement. She feelsboth betrayed by and guilty of betraying her Mexi-can comrades.

Laura is graceful, womanly, and virginal. Sheconducts herself with reserve and dresses in nun-like clothes. When she finds herself the unwillingrecipient of the romantic interest of several youngrevolutionaries she rebuffs them, while she skillful-ly keeps Braggioni at arm's length while appearingto indulge him. Braggioni comments that he doesnot understand her commitment to the revolutionaryideal since she does not love a man who is involved.Laura is an isolated and sexually repressed figure,refusing to admit to a need for love. However, thefigure of Eugenio—who is both ominous and seduc-tive—suggests that she longs for merging and com-munion even as she denies it.

LupeLupe is Laura's maid. She advises Laura to

throw her suitor a flower from the Judas tree outsideher window so that he will stop serenading her andtells her not to trust him or any man. But she doesnot tell her that the flower is encouragement for himto return night after night. Lupe's familiarity withthe culture and its social conventions underscoreLaura's alienation.

The Serenading YouthA young man who is an organizer of the

Typographer's Union. He courts Laura by singingserenades outside of her window, following theelaborate romantic rituals of his culture. She unin-tentionally encourages him by tossing him a flow-er, so he pursues her further. She is ' 'pleasantly dis-

V o l u m e 8 2 7


turbed" when she notices him watching her, a phrasesignaling her sexual repression and ambivalence.

The Young CaptainA young captain—a hero of the Mexican Revo-

lution—makes a pass at Laura, attempting to em-brace her as she dismounts her horse at the end of aride. She avoids his embrace by covertly spurringher horse. Described as "gentle" and a "rude folkhero," he represents a model of the kind of manthrough whom she might express her love of revolu-tion sensually. Instead, she rejects him.

Themes

Faith and BetrayalIn "Flowering Judas" there is no faith that is

not betrayed. The story is structured through a seriesof contrasts and parallels between religious faith,faith in revolutionary ideals, and romantic-sexualfidelity, all of which are misguided or transgressed.For example, Laura is a Roman Catholic and hasbeen raised in the Catholic tradition. Yet the revolu-tion rejects religion, in particular the Catholic Church.Unable to divorce herself from either her religiousbeliefs or her political ideals, she ends up feeling asif she has violated both.

Braggioni is a hero who fought for theredistribution of wealth to the masses, only toindulge his every whim for luxury and power whenhe became part of the new ruling elite. He further-more expresses his supposed love of humanitythrough womanizing, betraying his wife's fanaticaldevotion. Even Eugenio, a martyr of the revolutionwhom Laura betrays by enabling his suicide, killshimself out of boredom rather than for any principle.

Ideals and RealityThe contrast between ideals and reality is close-

ly tied to the contrast of faith and betrayal in"Flowering Judas." Laura has high ideals, but thereality of her situation is very disappointing to her.Her loss of faith is presented as an inevitable part oflife. Extremely disillusioned, she feels she has noother choice than to continue with her mission.

The reprehensible Braggioni becomes for Lau-ra ' 'a symbol of her many disillusions.'' Despite hiscorruption, he is a successful leader, representingthe pragmatism and self-interest that permeate thepolitical system. Though Laura is herself no longer

idealistic about the cause she works for, neither canshe adopt the blithe attitude of her cohorts thatcorruption and betrayal are merely part of reality.Instead, Laura continues her denial, refusing toregret her choices but also declining to truly partici-pate in life. She can no longer say yes to her ideals,but she continues to say no to reality, leaving herradically alienated from those around her.

AlienationLaura is a young American woman living in a

foreign country and participating in a political strug-gle that has nothing to do with her own interests orhistory. The revolutionary ideal that she works for isinvested in the unity and cultural pride of Mexicanworkers and peasants, a population with whom shehas little in common. She confronts belief systemsand behaviors that are objectionable to her and hardfor her to understand. She speaks the languagepoorly and misreads cultural cues, as when shethrows the flower to her suitor. These factors, inaddition to her own philosophical crisis in faith,characterize Laura as an alienated individual. Shedoes not belong anywhere or believe in anything.Her condition is more extreme than mere loneliness.Everyone appears as a stranger to her and she is' 'not at home in the world,'' so she has little chanceof overcoming her acute isolation.

LoveOne way of understanding Laura's alienation is

to attribute it to her inability to love. She is disci-plined in her commitment to the cause but she lacksthe love for the Mexican people that underlies therevolutionary ideals she professes. She is cold inresponse to the peasant children's affection and toher various suitors' fervent advances. Related tothis shortcoming are Laura's sexual repression andher loss of faith in Catholicism.

She lacks the capacity not only for socialistlove of humanity, but divine Christian love anderotic love as well. Braggioni doubts her commit-ment to the revolution given that she does not loveany man who is a fighter in it, which he sees as theonly way a woman can participate in revolution.Braggioni, in contrast, is a ' 'professional lover ofhumanity." He 'loves' the Mexican people, es-pecially women, indiscriminately and selfishly.Braggioni is cruel, but not cold in the sense thatLaura is. He abuses the faith of his followers and ofhis wife, but sees their faith in him as good in itself.In this way, he encourages participation in what hesees as the reality of love and its inevitable counter-

S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s2 8


Topics forFurther

StudyAt one point in the story Braggioni tells Laura,"We are more alike than you realize in somethings." Are these two contrasting characters atall alike? Find some descriptions of Braggioniand Laura from the text to support your ideasabout the characters.

Porter concludes "Flowering Judas" with astrange and complicated dream. How does thedream connect to themes, images, and issuesraised earlier in the story? To what extent does itoffer a resolution?

Research the role that Judas Iscariot plays in theNew Testament. How does his background and

relationship to Jesus reflect on the themes offaith and betrayal in the story?

Research the role of Catholicism in Mexicanculture and the role of the Catholic Church in theMexican Revolution. How does this historicalcontext enrich your reading of the story?

Braggioni finds Laura's political commitmentconfusing in light of the fact that she is notattached to any man in the revolution. Researchthe role of women in the Mexican Revolution.How is Laura typical or exceptional in her politi-cal activities?

part, betrayal, while Laura ignores her appetites andsuffers from the despair of self-denial, isolation,and faithlessness.

Style

SymbolismSymbolism is the most important stylistic fea-

ture of "Flowering Judas." The most importantthing to understand about Porter's use of symbolismis that it is multi-faceted and ambiguous. Indeed,symbols that Porter employs often refer to one ideaand also its opposite. The story's central symbol, theflower from the Judas tree, is a example. The flowerfirst appears when Laura tosses it out the window,which misleads her suitor. She uses the flower, anencouraging sign, in order to say "No" to hersuitor—the "holy talismanic word" from whichLaura draws her strength. The exotic flower is asensuous image, and the fact that she uses it to rejectthe man suggests Laura's sexual ambivalence andrepression. When the flower appears later in Lau-ra's nightmare it is again a sensual image—she eatsit greedily—but this time it doubles as a symbol of

the Eucharist, wherein the body and blood sheconsumes belong not to Christ but to Eugenic. Theflower is thus simultaneously a sign of purificationand corruption.

The flower's name refers to Judas Iscariot,Christ's betrayer. The tree is named for Judas be-cause, according to mythology, it is the tree fromwhich he hanged himself out of repentance for hisdeed. The flower is a symbol of the betrayal ofChrist, reflecting Laura's alienation from the Ca-tholicism of her girlhood and also from the revolu-tionary cause. She is, in this way, like Judas.

Yet she also sees those around her—mostexaggeratedly, Braggioni—as betrayers and hypo-crites themselves, which is one source of her loss offaith. Braggioni and Eugenic represent contrastingChrist figures, with Braggioni serving as a gro-tesque perversion of Christ's self-sacrifice and "loveof humanity" while Eugenic represents Christ'smartyrdom. Braggioni's self-aggrandizement andEugenie's self-negation are connected throughthis figure.

The central matrix of Christian symbolism isonly one example of how Porter's use of symbolismgives the story meaning. On a simpler level, Braggi-

V o l u m e S 2 9


oni's opulent, garish clothes represent his hypocrisyand sensuality. They serve as a contrast to Laura'ssevere high-necked dress, but the hand-made lacecollar that is her secret luxury suggests an underly-ing similarity to Braggioni's self-indulgence. Thus,again, things that seem like opposites are revealedas similar. The "monstrous" confusion betweenopposites that Laura refers to as she drifts off intoher nightmare characterizes Porter's use of symbol-ism throughout. Laura longs for clear distinctionsand purity, but the very language which Porter usesto tell her story reveals this as impossible.

SettingPorter sets "Flowering Judas" in Mexico City

in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution. Thedramatic foreign setting and the loaded historicalmoment are evoked in an oblique way, describedonly in relation to the ideas and feelings they triggerin Laura as she sits in the upper room of her houselistening to Braggioni's singing and conversation.Eudora Welly's description of Porter's style sug-gests that one may understand ' 'Flowering Judas''as actually being set inside of Laura's distressedmind. ' 'Most good stories are about the interior ofour lives, but Katherine Anne Porter's take placethere," Welty writes in The Eye of the Story. "Theyshow surface only at her choosing. Her use of thephysical world is enough to meet her needs andno more."

For example, Porter offers exquisitely detailedphysical descriptions of the exterior world only asthey reflect Laura's inner conflicts, such as the"battered doll-shape of some male saint whosewhite, lace-trimmed drawers hang around his an-kles below the dignity of his velvet robe" that sheobserves as she furtively visits a Mexican church.But the larger social and physical environs are, forthe most part, characterized in abstract or subjectiveterms. For example, Porter's description of Laura'sduty as a messenger for Braggioni highlights Lau-ra's state of isolation: "She knocks at unfamiliardoors not knowing whether a friend or a strangershall answer, and even if a known face emergesfrom the sour gloom of that unknown interior, still itis the face of a stranger."

Point of View"Flowering Judas" is narrated in the third

person by an omniscient narrator. That is, the narra-tor is not an actor in the story, but has access to the

thoughts, motivations, and feelings of characters.While a third-person narrator's omniscience signi-fies a position of knowledge, often making this astraightforward mode of storytelling, the fact thatthe narrator in "Flowering Judas" is so tied toLaura's conflicted perspective makes the narrationobscure and disorienting. Indeed, as Welty sug-gests, the narration is so tied to Laura's innerexperiences that the story creates the effect of takingplace within her consciousness. And the fact thatshe feels so alienated from what is going on aroundher creates a further barrier between Laura's thoughtsand the reality of the outside world.

Historical Context

The Mexican RevolutionPorter based the story on events she experi-

enced and observed in Mexico during 1920 and1921, in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution.In 1910 the revolution started as a struggle againstpolitical and economic repression; in Mexico at thattime, a dictator controlled the government under aone-party system and an elite class of landownerscontrolled the country's resources. After the dicta-tor was overthrown, a series of factions formed andstruggled for power over the next decade. A social-ist agenda of land reform (the redistribution of landto the common people), workers' rights, and theseparation of the educational system from the con-trol of the Catholic Church were among the mainobjectives of the revolutionary position as laid outin the Constitution of 1917.

However, the revolutionaries who assumed po-litical power failed to live up to these ideals. Therewas an ongoing struggle for leadership betweenagrarian revolutionaries who strongly supported theinterests of the workers, led by Pancho Villa andEmiliano Zapata, and bourgeois revolutionaries whosubordinated these interests to those of developing acapitalist economy. The latter faction eventuallyprevailed. It included Alvaro Obregon, a formergeneral in the Mexican Revolution who becamepresident in 1920 and served until 1924. The Obregonpresidency was marked by compromise and hasbeen referred to as "the rule of the millionairesocialists." Though he gave lip service to socialistideals in order to appeal to the radicalized popula-tion of Mexican peasants, Obregon's accomplish-



Compare&

Contrast1920s: In 1920 Mexico's Partido NacionalRevolucionario (PNR), the National Revolution-ary Party, is founded out of a coalition of mili-tary, labor, and peasant leaders. The party takes aconservative approach to the reforms demandedby socialist revolutionaries, seeking economicand political stability above social justice. Ac-cording to the government that is established, thepresident of Mexico can only serve one term butchooses his successor, creating a one-partydemocracy.

1990s: The PNR, renamed PRI (PartidoRevolucionario Institutional, the RevolutionaryInstitutional Party) has ruled Mexico for seventyyears, holding the presidency and both legisla-tive houses. In 1997 the PRI lost the lowerlegislative house for the first time in what hasbeen called the "freest election in Mexican his-tory." The PRI still holds the upper house andthe presidency.

1920s: The capitalist PNR slowly and ineffec-tively implements the socialist policy of landreform—the redistribution of land from largeprivate estates to the peasant farmers. Between1920 and 1930 over four thousand villages re-ceive more than eight million hectares of land,but less than a quarter of that is arable, andpeasants are not given the supplies, machinery,and credit necessary for success. Grain produc-tion falls precipitously and land reform is deemed afailure.

1990s: The economy of Mexico is dominatedincreasingly by the private sector. There are

fewer than 200 state-owned enterprises. Incomedistribution is unequal, with 20% of the popula-tion owning 55% of the wealth.

1920s: Mexico remains an overwhelminglyCatholic country, but the institution of the CatholicChurch, which had been closely affiliated withthe former dictatorship, wanes in power. Conser-vative Catholic clerics organize service strikes,boycotts, and guerrilla attacks in protest of thePNR's secular cultural policies.

1990s: 97% of Mexicans are Catholic. The insti-tution of the Catholic Church remains politicallyconservative, but, since the Second Vatican Coun-cil in 1962, a branch of Catholicism inspired by aschool of thought called Liberation Theologyhas become associated with grassroots activismand social change.

1920s: The federal government seizes control ofMexico's schools from the Catholic Church. Thenew secular schools have a mission to educateMexico's native Indian peoples, whose assimila-tion is considered important for the creation of astable capitalist Mexico. A well-funded programto bring literacy to remote pueblos and to distrib-ute free copies of cheaply-printed literary clas-sics is launched.

1990s: Mexico has a literacy rate of 87%. Theschool system is public, funded by the federalgovernment. Fifteen percent of school-age child-ren don't attend school. In rural areas educationis particularly poor, with secondary schools vir-tually nonexistent.

ments were centrist, pragmatic, and, in the eyes ofmany, marred by corruption.

The story takes place in the early days of theObregon presidency when the revolution was overbut Mexico was still undergoing a complex politicaland cultural upheaval. The country was devastatedand divided from the years of war. The human costs

of the revolution were enormous. War casualtieswere so great that the Mexican population haddeclined by a million people since 1910. The revo-lution had also shaken Mexico's rigid class systemto its base. In the aftermath of the war, manygenerals of peasant origins who had gained statusduring the revolution vied for positions in a govern-

V o l u m e 8 3 1


mental structure that maintained many features ofthe earlier dictatorship. Thus the heroes of thesocialist revolution assumed roles of the powerelite. In the words of Benjamin Keen and MarkWasserman's A History of Latin America," Obregonsummed up the problem when he said that the daysof revolutionary banditry had ended because he hadbrought all the bandits with him to the capital tokeep them out of trouble." The ethos of Mexicanleaders, who were worn down from years of war andpolitical instability, became marked by a certainamount of irony or cynicism about the revolutionarycause. The character of Braggioni is a hyperbolicrepresentation of this attitude.

Porter spent much time in Mexico during herlife. Her first visit to Mexico was in 1920. At first,she went to Mexico for education and adventure andwas drawn into revolutionary circles by her artisticfriends. By her second visit in 1922 she was com-pletely disillusioned by the country and its govern-ment. Porter claimed that the story was inspired byan acquaintance of hers, a young American Catholicwoman named Mary Doherty who was a zealoussupporter of the revolution, but scholars have shownthat some of the events portrayed are also inspiredby her own experiences.

Modernism' 'Flowering Judas'' reflects not only the politi-

cal context of 1920 Mexico, but also the aestheticand cultural ethos among Porter's artistic peers—most notably, the literary movement of modernism.Modernist writers focused on the aesthetic qualitiesof language and pushed images to their limits, oftenresulting in an inconclusive meaning. This stylereflected—and often mourned—a loss of faith inthose sources of meaning that had organized art andcivilization previously, including belief systemssuch as religion and scientific rationality. Modernistexperiments with plot and imagery also reflectedthe confusing and disorienting aspects of modernlife, in which traditional communities and ways oflife were uprooted. Porter's statement that Laura"is not at home in the world" reflects this modern-ist sentiment.

The flower from the Judas tree that Laurathrows to her suitor and recurs in her dream ofEugenic provides the story with its title and ties it toPorter's aesthetic influences. The Judas tree is namedfor Judas Iscariot, Christ's betrayer in the NewTestament. According to myth, Judas hung himself

from this tree in repentance for his betrayal ofChrist. Many scholars have pointed out that thefigure of the flowering Judas is an allusion to apoem by T. S. Eliot, one of the great masters ofmodernism. In his poem "Gerontion" the follow-ing lines appear. ' 'In the juvenescence of the year /Came Christ the tiger // In depraved May, dogwoodand chestnut, flowering judas, / To be eaten, to bedivided, to be drunk / Among hispers." Eliot'spoem relates to the story's themes of betrayal andloss of faith. Its images of eating and drinking alsocorrespond to the dream at the end of "FloweringJudas".

Critical Overview

When Porter hurried out after midnight to mail thejust-finished manuscript of "Flowering Judas" tothe editors of the magazine Hound and Horn in1929, Porter was an obscure writer, hoping that shewas on the verge of a breakthrough. Because shehad not yet established her reputation when HarcourtBrace accepted a collection including "Flower-ing Judas" and five other stories for publicationthe following year, they agreed to print the bookonly as a limited edition. Flowering Judas andOther Stories did not sell widely for this reason,but the collection received uniformly favorablereviews and, on its strength, Porter was awarded aGuggenheim Fellowship in 1931.

Reviewers gave elaborate praise to Porter'sstories, in particular her controlled and original useof language. In Bookmark, E. R. Richardson main-tained of the stories:' 'All are exquisitely done, withfeeling for dramatic values, with clarity, with deli-cate delineation of characters, and in language tran-scendently beautiful." Allen Tate of the Nationcommented that' 'her style is beyond doubt the mosteconomical and at the same time the richest inAmerican fiction," and that "every sentence, whetherof description, narrative, or dialogue, create[s] notonly an inevitable and beautiful local effect, butcontributefs] directly to the final tone and climax ofthe story."

Louise Bogan, writing for the New Republic,,singled out the title story of the collection for praise."The firm and delicate writing in Miss Porter's"Flowering Judas," a story startling in its com-



Francisco ' 'Pancho'' Villa, wearing military uniform and seated in gilded chair nextto Emiliano Zapata.

plexity, were it not based on recognizable fact,would be to no purpose. As it is, its excellence risesdirectly from the probity of the conception. It is asimpossible to question the characters . . . as it is tofind a flaw or lapse in the style that runs clear andsubtle, from the story's casual beginning to thespecter of life and death at the end."

The New York Times Book Review also com-ments on the "scrupulous distinction of phrase" inthe story, though it finds its dream conclusionconfused. When an enlarged edition, with two addi-tional stories, appeared four years later, Porter hadarrived on the literary scene. She was at the heightof her powers and had come to be widely consideredone of the finest short story stylists of her time.

The startling complexity of "Flowering Ju-das" attracted much critical commentary. Much ofthe early scholarship unraveled the meanings of thestory's symbolism. The figure of the floweringJudas was resonant with modernist themes of al-ienation and lost faith and thus appealed to moderncritics. Furthermore, Porter's dense prose lent itselfwell to New Criticism, the dominant school ofliterary scholarship in the mid-twentieth century.New Criticism is a language-based approach to

literary criticism, where symbols are decoded throughclose reading. Ray B. West, in a chapter of his 1949The Art of Modern Fiction, offered an extensiveNew Critical explication of the symbolism in ' 'Flow-ering Judas,'' that served as a point of departure formany later critics. West focused on religious sym-bolism, arguing that Braggioni is capable of re-demption, while Laura, who is unable to love, is not.

In the 1960s the first book-length critical stud-ies of Porter appeared, notably those by Ray B.West, Brother William Nance, and George Hendrick.Though this kind of academic study signaled Por-ter's status as a historically significant literary fig-ure, Porter objected to the interpretations offered byall three scholars. Scholarship focused on autobio-graphical elements of her work—which Porter par-ticularly resented—and her use of symbolism. Laterscholars reevaluated Porter's fiction according tomore accurate biographical information as it be-came available and, in keeping with the academictrends, with more attention to her feminism, herpolitics, and the historical context of her work. Sheremains of interest to scholars of modernism and ofSouthern regional writing and is considered one ofthe finest American short story writers of the twenti-eth century.

V o l u m e 8 3 3


Criticism

Sarah Madsen HardyMadsen Hardy has a doctorate in English lit-

erature and is a freelance writer and editor. In thefollowing essay, she discusses Laura's alienationthrough an exploration of the concepts of home and'homelessness' in ' 'Flowering Judas.''

Laura, the troubled young protagonist of "Flower-ing Judas," is disillusioned with Mexican politics,but her unhappiness goes much further than this.She walks through life feeling anxious and de-tached, always afraid, though she knows not ofwhat. "She is not at home in the world," Porterwrites, summing up Laura's state of mind. Thisoverarching sense of 'homelessness' may be seen asthe crux of Laura's problem. Home refers to aphysical and geographical place and it also refers toa set of feelings—security, belonging, connectedness,even love. Laura has none of these. The entire storytakes place inside Laura's house—her nominal Mexi-can home—where Braggioni's overbearing pres-ence makes Laura feel pressured and ill at ease. It iseasy to see why she does not feel at home there. It isalso understandable why, as a foreigner, a gringita,Laura does not feel at home in Mexico, and why, asa supporter of socialist revolution, she does not feelat home in her native capitalist America. However,not only does Laura not feel at home in any particu-lar place, but she also does not feel at home "in theworld" at large. Such alienation—that is, suchseparation and disharmony between the self and theoutside world—is a feeling that many writers ofPorter's generation sought to express in their fiction.

Laura is 22 years old when the story takesplace, sometime during Alvaro Obregon's 1920-24term as president of Mexico. Born approximately atthe turn of the century, Laura may therefore be seenas a representative of what is known as the "lostgeneration." The "lost generation" refers broadlyto Americans who were born around 1900. Notunlike' 'generation X," the' 'lost generation" found itdifficult to put faith in the ideals and beliefs that hadgiven meaning and structure to the lives of theirparents. They rejected given values, but remained"lost" because they did not find new ones toreplace the old. More narrowly, the "lost genera-tion" refers to a circle of writers who defined thespirit of the age in their fiction, many of whomchose to express their alienation from their nativeculture by living abroad in self-imposed exile. InExile's Return, his canonical portrait of ' 'lost gen-

eration" writers, essayist Malcolm Cowley describesthe process that defined the generation as primarilygeographical. He writes that the generation was lost"first of all, because it was uprooted, schooledaway and almost wrenched away from its attach-ment to any region or tradition." According toCowley, the ' 'lost generation'' saw themselves as"homeless citizens of the world." Indeed, beinglost suggests being out of place, not belonginganywhere or with anyone.

Central to Laura's feeling of homelessness isher status as an expatriate. Laura has given upresidence in and allegiance to her American home-land. She has renounced the Catholic faith of herchildhood and is uprooted from her past. Porterwrites, "Uninvited she has promised herself to thisplace; she can no longer imagine herself living inanother country, and there is no pleasure in remem-bering her life before she came here." Laura seemsto fit Cowley's description of a "homeless citizenof the world'' perfectly, but in other ways she is anatypical figure of the "lost generation." First of all,all of the writers whom Cowley discusses are men,as are the main figures of alienation they create.Secondly, World War I and its aftermath are consid-ered formative for the generation, with an essential-ly male experience of war figuring prominently as asource of alienation. In "Flowering Judas" Porteroffers a different vision of modernist alienation bysetting her story in Mexico and by making herprotagonist female. Laura lacks a sense of belong-ing in the country of Mexico and in the revolution-ary belief system, both of which seem compromisedto her. Her alienation in each realm relates to herstatus as a woman. While Laura's feeling of being' 'not at home in the world'' transcends any specificplace, her discomfort in the Mexico setting—and,particularly, in the house where she lives—reflectsthe gender-specific nature of her alienation.

It is significant that the action of the storyunfolds within Laura's home, rather than in any ofthe public places mentioned in the story—the school,the prison, or the May Day confrontation. Laura'ssense of being entrapped in her own house withBraggioni's coercive presence permeates the story.For Laura, home is a site of struggle and anxietyrather than security. She works all day, teachingchildren whose love she does not understand anddelivering messages to people she perceives asstrangers, all out of commitment to a politicalstruggle in which she no longer believes. At the endof the day she avoids coming home because sheknows that Braggioni will be waiting for her and



WhatDo I Read

Next?Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1939) is a set of threeshort novels based on Porter's autobiographicalprotagonist Miranda. The acclaimed title story isset in Denver in the midst of an influenza epi-demic near the end of World War I, taking upthemes of illness, war, and death.

When the Air Is Clearer (1958), a novel byMexican writer Carlos Fuentes, depicts the cyni-cism of post-revolution Mexico and explores thebetrayal of revolutionary ideals by former revo-lutionary fighters.

Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), byWilla Gather, an author Porter greatly admired,tells the story of the confrontation between faithsand cultures set at a mission in the southwestterritories of the United States.

A Farewell to Arms (1929), by Ernest Heming-way, takes up themes of romance, idealism, anddisillusionment in a love story between an Ameri-can soldier and an English nurse set on the Italianfront during World War I.

The Waste Land (1922), a famous poem by T. S.Eliot, in many ways defined the ethos of themodernist movement. Eliot shares with Porter aninterest in elaborate imagery and themes of spiri-tual desolation and the alienated individual.

A Curtain of Green and Other Stories (1941), byEudora Welty, offers animated portraits of char-acters in the modern South in a series of ac-claimed short stories.

that her duty as a devotee to the revolution willcontinue in its most onerous form.' 'Laura wishes tolie down, she is tired of her hairpins and the feelingof her long tight sleeves, but she says to him, 'Haveyou a new song for me this evening?''' The malerevolutionaries in the story act out their commit-ment through public acts of violence and martyr-dom, while their private conduct reveals them ashypocrites. Laura understands that, as a woman, herrole in the revolution lies largely within the privaterealm. She must flatter the powerful man withoutencouraging his improper advances. Though shesees this role as equally ignoble as the masculineforms of heroism in which she has lost faith, shecomplies, ' 'like a good child who understands therules of behavior." She is not at ease in this role but,because she sees no alternative, she conforms to itpassively. "Sometimes she wishes to run away, butshe stays.'' Her external actions are at odds with herinner feelings, leaving her perpetually at odds withthe world through which she moves.

Braggioni draws parallels between his revolu-tionary love of mankind and his voracious sexuallove for women. In his view, a woman's role in the

struggle is as a lover of its male participants. Hiswife is an almost comically extreme figure of revo-lutionary/sexual devotion, begging Braggioni's for-giveness and washing his feet when he finallyreturns home to her. When Porter writes that Mrs.Braggioni's "sense of reality is beyond criticism,"it is a way of saying that, despite her misery, she isnot alienated, not detached from her place in herworld. She is, in this sense, the perfect counterpartto Braggioni—the self-effacing mirror image of hisself-love and the passive feminine version of hisanti-heroism. Braggioni cannot understand why Lau-ra ' 'works so hard for the revolutionary idea unlessshe loves some man who is in it'' because he seeswomen as incapable of revolutionary action or theabstract idealism from which it derives. But Laurawishes to adhere to ideals rather than to a man. Themen around her are part of the flawed reality sherejects, even as she rejects the parts of herself thatare drawn to them.

Like Braggioni, the serenading youth comes toLaura's home uninvited and sings to her. He is morebenign than Braggioni, but the youth also encroacheson Laura's privacy and contributes to her feeling of

V o l u m e 8 3 5

Flowering Judas

adhere to ideals rather than

to a man. The men around her

are part of the flawed reality

she rejects, even as she

rejects the parts of herself

that are drawn to them."

uneasiness in her home. While Braggioni's advanc-es are untoward, she interprets the youth's actionsas the observation of a convention "with all pro-priety, as though it were founded on law of nature,which in the end it might well prove to be." Thissignifies that Laura's discomfort with his serenadegoes beyond her ignorance of Mexican courtingrituals and even her ambivalent sexuality. He re-minds her of her disconnection from what she seesas the "laws of nature" governing love and ro-mance between men and women. She knows thatshe does not fulfill the role of a proper revolutionarywoman but she is, in fact, still deeply attached to theidea of propriety. However, she simply cannotbelieve in his ritualized courtship any more than shecan believe in Braggioni's leadership. She feels noconnection to him because his feelings are ex-pressed through conventions that seem empty toher. Again, she can envision no alternative kind ofconnection, so she resorts to rejection and sufferscontinued isolation. Just as she cannot imagineexperiencing security or belonging in the compro-mised revolutionary movement, she cannot imagineexperiencing security or belonging within the com-promised conventions of romantic love.

The last man to come to Laura's house is theghostly figure of Eugenic, who visits her in anightmare. In life, Eugenic symbolizes Laura'sfailure in the feminine role of comforter of revolu-tionaries—her soothing sleeping pills enable him tocommit suicide. In her nightmare, he is an ambiva-lent figure, both seductive and accusatory, whopushes her beyond proper, passive actions. He rep-resents a fluidity of roles, pitying her as a ' 'poorprisoner" and offering her flowers to eat, thencalling her a murderer and cannibal a moment later.Though he himself was a political prisoner, he

recognizes her as imprisoned in her house and in thereality from which he, as a suicide, has fled. He isthe first man in the story to invite her out of thehouse, which he acknowledges as "strange." "Whatare you doing in this house?" he asks, and promisesto show her a "new country." Because Eugenio isdead, he is not of this world, not part of the world inwhich Laura cannot feel at home. He suggests thepossibility of escape from the walls of her home andfrom the compromised forms of connection associ-ated with its worldly reality, even though the escapeis still a lonely one—for he refuses to take her hand.But the hand she seeks and the flower she eats arethe only examples in the story of Laura's desire forthe comfort and sustenance associated with home.Laura is not so lost in her dreamlike vision of deathas she is in the world to which she again awakens.

Source: Sarah Madsen Hardy, "This Strange House: Homeand Alienation in 'Flowering Judas,'" for Short Stories forStudents, The Gale Group, 2000.

David MaddenIn the following essay, Madden studies Porter's

use of "charged images" and their thematic con-tent to portray the state of mind of the heroine ofthe story.

In Writers at Work, Second Series, The interviewerasked Katherine Anne Porter whether "FloweringJudas'' began as a visual impression that grew into anarrative. "All my senses were very keen," MissPorter replied. "Things came to me through myeyes, through all my pores. Everything hit me atonce ..." Without words or images, her storiesbegan to form. Then she starts thinking "directly inwords. Abstractly. Then the words transform them-selves into images." On several occasions MissPorter has testified to the potency of the real-lifeimage that generated "Flowering Judas."

She chose this story for inclusion in an antholo-gy called This Is My Best (1942). Commenting onthe story at that time, she said: ' 'All the charactersand episodes are based on real persons and events,but naturally, as my memory worked upon them andtime passed, all assumed different shapes and col-ors, formed gradually around a central idea, that ofself-delusion...." In the Paris Review interviewsome twenty years later, she elaborated:

That story had been on my mind for years, growingout of this one little thing that happened in Mexi-co Something I saw as I passed a window oneevening. A girl I knew had asked me to come and sit


But Laura wishes to


with her, because a man was coming to see her, andshe was a little afraid of him. And as I went throughthe courtyard, past the flowering Judas tree, I glancedin the window and there she was sitting with an openbook on her lap, and there was this great big fat mansitting beside her. Now Mary and I were friends, bothAmerican girls living in this revolutionary situation.She was teaching at an Indian school, and I wasteaching dancing at a girls' technical school in Mexi-co City. And we were having a very strange time of it(1965) 1 had a brief glimpse of her sitting with anopen book in her lap, but not reading, with a fixed lookof pained melancholy and confusion in her face. Thefat man I call Braggioni was playing the guitar andsinging to her [1942]. . . . And when I looked throughthat window that evening, I saw something in Mary'sface, something in her pose, something in the wholesituation, that set up a commotion in my mind[1965].... In that glimpse, no more than a flash, Ithought I understood, or perceived, for the first time,the desperate complications of her mind and feelings,and I knew a story; perhaps not her true story, not eventhe real story of the whole situation, but all the same astory that seemed symbolic truth to me. If I had notseen her face at that very moment, I should never havewritten just this story because I should not haveknown it to write [1942] Because until that mo-ment I hadn't really understood that she was not ableto take care of herself, because she was not able toface her own nature and was afraid of everything. Idon't know why I saw it. I don't believe in intuition.When you get sudden flashes of perception, it is justthe brain working faster than usual. But you've beengetting ready to know it for a long time, and when itcomes, you feel you've known it always [1965].

As raw material for literature, this real-lifeimage was already, implicitly, dynamically chargedwith feeling and meaning. The author's physicaldistance from her friend that evening was an analogto the objectivity that was necessary when shetransformed the real-life image into the fictive im-age. And out of this actual image was to grow alsothe structural, stylistic, and technical conceptions of"Flowering Judas," a created, transcendent imagewith an organic life of its own. This story is one ofthe most lucid exemplifications I know of whatCroce calls "the aesthetic image," compounded of"a tissue of images," and of what I call the chargedimage. Ezra Pound's definition of great literature as"language charged with meaning to the utmostpossible degree" (to "meaning" I would add theword "feeling") suggests the source of power in"Flowering Judas." Before I feel out the anatomyof this charged image, I want to quote Miss Por-ter again.

Soon after Flowering Judas, her first book ofstories, was published in 1930, Miss Porter wrote toa friend:

In preparation for the

public violence that is

imminent, Laura, who so

intensely fears violence to

herself, oils and loads

Braggioni's pistols; no more

grotesque half-parody of

Freudian symbolism can be

imagined."

I can't tell you what gives true intensity, but I know itwhen I find it, even in my own work.... It is not amatter of how you feel at any one moment, certainlynot at the moment of writing. A calculated coldness isthe best mood for that most often. Feeling is more thana mood; it is a whole way of being; it is the natureyou're born with, you cannot invent it. The question ishow to convey a sense of whatever is there, as feeling,within you, to the reader; and that is a problem oftechnical expertness.

Mr. Hagopian's response to Miss Porter'sstatement reflects my own conviction: "Thus, fromthe beginning, Miss Porter knew what she wasdoing—embodying the true intensity of experienceinto literary form with technical expertness." MarkSchorer, writing about technique in general, de-scribes what Miss Porter does most brilliantly in"Flowering Judas": "When we speak of tech-nique, then, we speak of nearly everything. Fortechnique is the means by which the writer's experi-ence, which is his subject matter, compels him toattend to it; technique is the only means he has ofdiscovering, exploring, developing his subject, ofconveying its meaning, and, finally, of evaluatingit." Technique "objectifies the materials of art."The forms of the finest works of fiction, Schorerargues, are "exactly equivalent with their sub-jects," and "the evaluation of their subjects existsin their styles." He cites Miss Porter's work asexemplary. "The cultivated sensuosity" of MissPorter's style has not only "charm in itself but' 'esthetic value . . . its values lie in the subtle meansby which sensuous details become symbols, and inthe way the symbols provide a network which is thestory, and which at the same time provides thewriter and us with a refined moral insight by means

V o l u m e 8 3 7


of which to test it. Some readers may cite MissPorter's phrase "a calculated coldness" to explainthe coldness her technique and her sensibility instillin some of her stories. But that phrase and hercomments in Writers at Work suggest her attitudeabout technique as a means of discovery; althoughshe testifies that she knew the ending of ' 'FloweringJudas" before she began to write (as she usuallyknows the ending before she begins to write astory), the powerful final stroke came unconscious-ly (but was made possible, most probably, by herhabitual consciousness of technique). "I knew thatthe vengeful spirit was going to come in a dream totow her away into death, but I didn't know until I'dwritten it that she was going to wake up saying,'No!' and be afraid to sleep again." Although, asfriends and critics have observed, one must regardMiss Porter's comments on her own work withalmost the same caution with which one regardsFaulkner's self-scrutiny, it is no contradiction of ourimage of Miss Porter as a conscious craftsman thatshe claims to write her stories in single spurts ofenergy. "I always write a story in one sitting. Istarted 'Flowering Judas' at seven p.m. and at one-thirty I was standing on a snowy windy cornerputting it in the mailbox" (Writers at Work). MissPorter glimpsed a girl and a man through a windowin Mexico City and two years later, in a few hours inBrooklyn, recaptured and transformed that imageinto a work of art.

In her introduction to The Selected Short Sto-ries ofEudora Welty (1954), Miss Porter describesthe kind of story she prefers: one in which ' 'externalact and the internal voiceless life of the humanimagination almost meet and mingle on the mysteri-ous threshold between dream and waking, one reali-ty refusing to admit or confirm the other, yet bothconspiring toward the same end." Magalaner andVolpe declare that "Flowering Judas" is "from thefirst word of the title to the last word of the text'' amodel of that kind of story. They go on to say that it"is a sensitive and discerning philosophical state-ment of human relationships, made universal by themythic elements which intrude as early as the hint inthe title." But more than that, it is a remarkableaesthetic achievement to which we may return againand again, just as we return to Keats's "Ode on aGrecian Urn"; for long after we have absorbed itsuniversal philosophical and psychological truths,"Flowering Judas" remains a "thing of beauty," a"joy forever," embodying Keats's declaration that"Beauty is truth, truth beauty."

In some ways "Flowering Judas" resemblesliterary form less than it resembles dance, mother ofall the arts, especially of poetry and of the mostcontemporary of the arts—cinema (I use these analo-gies simply for their suggestiveness). The dynamicimagery of dance, the compression and the expres-sive juxtapositions of poetry, and the montage ef-fects of Eisenstein's cinema are transmuted by MissPorter, unconsciously, I imagine, into fictive tech-niques that produce what interests and moves memost in this story—the charged image. The omnis-cient author's psychological analysis of and philo-sophical reflections about Laura's predicament andthe self-delusory processes that follow from herpredicament are everywhere in the story, suffusingthe very style that creates the tissue of images. Butoverwhelming her own overt interpretations whenthey threaten to intimidate the life of the story, theimages embody Miss Porter's meaning with expres-sive vitality; ultimately, of course, this vitality can-not be separated from the vitality of Miss Porter'smeditations about Laura. The story exfoliates froma tight intermingling of showing and telling. Andthat story, were it not for the author's technique ofdramatically juxtaposing tableaux, is so rich andmulti-faceted as to require the scope of a novel.

As the elements of Laura's exterior and interiorworlds intermingle, they cohere in a developingpattern of images which expands from the chargedimage that inspired Miss Porter in life and that shesets forth in the beginning of her fiction:

Braggioni sits heaped upon the edge of a straight-backed chair much too small for him, and sings toLaura in a furry, mournful voice. Laura has begun tofind reasons for avoiding her own house until thelatest possible moment, for Braggioni is there almostevery night. No matter how late she is, he will besitting there with a surly, waiting expression, pullingat his kinky yellow hair, thumbing the strings of hisguitar, snarling a tune under his breath. Lupe theIndian maid meets Laura at the door, and says with afl icker of a glance towards the upper room, " He waits."

This central, most potent image is the hub, andall other images spoke out from it, and the author'smeditating voice is the rim, and (to complete themetaphor) the reader's active participation is theenergy that makes the wheel turn. Paralyzed, Laurais locked into this image, as though in a small boxstage set, and we see her at a distance, as thoughthrough the original real-life window. With eachimage that Miss Porter shows us, we feel that Laurais withdrawing more and more deeply into herself,that her will is becoming more and more paralyzed.



The controlling image (Laura and Braggioni sittingopposite each other by the table) is a simplifiedvisual and thematic expression of the entire story;this image recurs at strategic points in the pattern,creating that sense of simultaneity that makes awork of art cohere and seem inevitable. Laura'sposture varies only slightly; and though Braggioniis singing and playing his guitar, the tableau virtual-ly does not move—it vibrates from within, sendingits electrical charge in a radial fashion out into theother images connected to it.

In 1961 at Centre College in Kentucky, I dis-cussed "Flowering Judas" with my two classes offreshman students. Mystification over my chargedimage concept only compounded their boredomwith the story itself. To enable them to see MissPorter's story, and my point, more clearly, I ar-ranged a demonstration with the Drama Depart-ment. Using multi-level space staging and lightingas a means of isolating one acting area, one scene,from another, we mounted a series of tableaux inpantomime, while a young woman read the storyover a public address system. The images enactedwere these (following the sequence in the story):

Laura and Braggioni sit opposite each other by thetable. In the first image that is juxtaposed, montage-fashion, to this hub image, we see Laura sitting inchurch. Cut to Braggioni at the table in Laura's houseagain, singing, playing the guitar. Fade to Laura in theclassroom with Indian children. Fade to a compositeimage: Laura at a union meeting; Laura visitingprisoners in cells; Laura meeting men in dark door-ways with messages; Laura meeting with Polish andRoumanian agitators in cafes. Fade to another com-posite image: Laura riding horseback with the Cap-tain; Laura and the Captain at a table in a restaurant;Laura in the classroom responding to a floral designand message of affection to her drawn on the black-board; Laura at her window responding to the youthwho serenades her. Fade to another composite: Lauraand the children again; Laura at the doors of fugitivesagain. Cut to Laura and Braggioni at the table again;he talks of love; her response is negative. Superim-posed image of Braggioni in the streets. Fade to acomposite: Braggioni's wife weeping on the floor inher room; Eugenio's body lying on the floor of hiscell. Cut to Laura with Braggioni again; she cleans hispistols; Braggioni puts his gun belt on. Fade to Laurain the street on errands again, meeting strange faces.Fade to a composite: Braggioni and his wife; shewashes his feet; they eat; they lie in bed together. Cutto composite image: Laura in white in bed; Laura atdark doors; Laura with children in classroom; Laurawith prisoners. Fade to Laura with Eugenio in anightmare, as he leads her away, offering her theblossoms of the Judas tree to eat. Cut to Laura awake,crying No! She is afraid to sleep again.

To this day, students tell me that this dramaticenactment of the story's charged image structurewas one of the most electrifying theatrical experi-ences they have ever had. Re-reading the storyitself, they were able to come closer to the kind ofexperiences the story offers readers who are moreaesthetically responsive.

Miss Porter's technique of creating a dynamicinterplay among images that are strategically spacedin an unfolding pattern is appropriate for the render-ing of Laura's state of mind—self-delusion produc-ing paralysis of will. Not only does she move verylittle in the recurrent scene set in the present, but herrecent, habitual past life as well is presented interms of static images. The reader feels the tensionbetween these static images and Laura's impulsewithin the images to flee. From a positive stand-point, the static quality of the pictures is expressiveof Laura's desire for stasis. The energy of the storyis transmitted in the kinetic juxtaposition of onecharged image to another. A few similes may makemy simple point even clearer: reading the story islike watching a single photograph, simple in outlinebut rich in detail, yield more and more auxiliaryimages each time it is redeveloped and enlarged (Iam thinking of the experience the photographer hasin the movie Blow-Up); or the images are superim-posed, causing a cumulative density of texture; orreading the story is like watching a cubist paintingbeing painted, from the first stroke, the title, to thelast word, No.

The contrast between the static quality of theimages and the immediacy of the historical presenttense generates a tension that enhances the effect ofMiss Porter's basic image technique. She declaresthat not until someone asked her why she used it didshe realize she had employed the historical presenttense. In any case, it is clear that the present tensekeeps the images themselves alive while they por-tend the incipient moribundity of Laura, the charac-ter who is at the center of each (even when, in thescene in Braggioni's hotel room, she isn't physical-ly present). Miss Porter's technique resembles theearly montage techniques of the European moviesof the late Twenties and anticipates cinematic meth-ods used by Resnais in Hiroshima, Man Amour andLast Year at Marienbad. She shows us one scene,stops the camera, goes on to another scene, goesback to an earlier scene, holds, then goes furtherback to an even earlier scene, then leaps far ahead.But the image technique is also similar to one usedlong before the birth of the cinema—Spenser'stableau juxtapositions in The Faerie Queen.

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Laura has just come from the prison and ' 'iswaiting for tomorrow with a bitter anxiety.... buttime may be caught immovably in this hour, withherself transfixed, Braggioni singing on forever,and Eugenie's body not yet discovered by theguard." The result of Miss Porter's charged imagetechnique is that the reader is left with this timelessimage of Laura sitting opposite Braggioni at thetable, transfixed in fear and accidie, all the otherimages clustered around her like spokes in a hub.Laura's one act in the present tense of the storycomes toward the end: ' 'The presence of death inthe room makes her bold," so she "holds up the[gun] belt to him: 'Put that on, and go kill somebodyin Morelia, and you will be happier!'" This is afutile gesture. In numerous little ways, Laura her-self, we have seen, has already killed various kindsof generous human impulses toward love, includingBraggioni's. So at this point, the recurrent staticpicture at the hub of all the other images moves, butto no purpose: Braggioni leaves, Laura goes to sleep.

Along with her use of present tense, MissPorter's frequent use of questions—"Where couldshe go?"—is another technique for enlivening herovert thematicizing and the progression of staticimages. And the routineness of Laura's life is anoth-er element that makes Miss Porter's technique ofrepeating the same images in a pattern effective.

Laura has dehumanized herself by encasingherself "in a set of principles derived from earlytraining, leaving no detail of gesture or of personaltaste untouched." Miss Porter's attitude towardpeople like Laura is suggested in her comment on acertain kind of writer: "By accepting any systemand shaping his mind and work to that mold, theartist dehumanizes himself, unfits himself for thepractice of any art" (quoted in Magalaner). Braggionitells Laura that they are more alike than she realizes;she sees the possibility of her being as ' 'corrupt, inanother way, as Braggioni... as callous, as incom-plete," but rather than do something about thesefaults, she prefers "any kind of death." Figurative-ly, Laura and Braggioni reveal two perspectives ona single person; each exhibits aspects of the other.They also contrast with each other. But finally,Laura's personality embodies many aspects ofBraggioni's, carrying them to a negative extreme. Itis appropriate, then, that Miss Porter employs amodified omniscient point of view, favoring Laura,but shifting, strategically, to Braggioni near the end.

Braggioni, "a professional lover of humani-ty," who began as a "hungry world-savior," but

who will never die of this love (one of manysuggestions that he is a false Christ), tells Laura histrue feelings about the common men who followhim: any of them might easily turn Judas (as, inspirit, Laura already has). In many instances, Laurais a Magdalene to one man, a false Magdalene or aJudas to others. Loyalty to one group necessitatesLaura's betrayal of trust in other groups; thus "sheborrows money from the Roumanian agitator togive to his bitter enemy the Polish agitator"; throughher, Braggioni uses these people.

' 'Flowering Judas'' delineates a maze of ambi-guity of roles, beginning with Laura and Braggioni,going on down to the minor characters. Everyoneseems to be both a savior and a Judas to everyoneelse. Braggioni is both a false and, in a purelyhuman way of course, a real Christ to variouspeople; but he is also a Judas. So is Laura bothsecular savior and betrayer of the same people. Theauthor conceives of these complex savior-Judasrelationships paradoxically and ironically and en-hances them with a controlled atmosphere of ambi-guity; this nexus of savior-Jesus analogies extendsfrom the inner psychological realm of Laura andBraggioni out into the public realm and up to asymbolic level. Many kinds of service and betrayalare depicted and implied in the story; but Laura, bydenying sex, love, meaningful purpose, and action,inclines too far toward betrayal, as the climacticnightmare scene stresses.

Miss Porter shifts scene and point of viewdeliberately for a dramatic contrast to Laura. Re-turning to his wife, who is still weeping, Braggioniis glad to be back in a familiar place where thesmells are good and his wife does not reproach him,but offers to wash his feet (she is a genuine Magdaleneto his Christ-role). We see that Braggioni is in manyways a more creative person than Laura. Out ofremorse, he weeps, saying, "Ah, yes, I am hungry, Iam tired, let us eat something together." His supperwith his wife contrasts with Laura's devouring ofthe Judas flowers. His wife asks his forgiveness forfailing to be sufficient to all his needs, and her tearsrefresh him—she weeps for him as well as becauseof him. At least with one other person, Braggioniexperiences a rich sexual and affectionate relation-ship. He is lonely, soft, guilt-ridden, we see now,though we've sensed this all along; but because ofhis external public role and because of her rigiddemeanor, Braggioni and Laura were unable tomeet. Rilke says that "Love consists in this, thattwo solitudes protect, and touch and greet each



other." If nothing more, Braggioni and his wifeexperience this touching of solitudes.

Now Miss Porter shifts point of view back toLaura as she ' 'takes off her serge dress and puts on awhite linen nightgown and goes to bed." Her vir-ginal uniform of white mocks her sterility. Shethinks of her children as prisoners who bring theirjailor flowers. Numbers tick in her brain, turning hermind into a clock, a machine. Within her ownsolitude of mind and flesh, Laura cries out inanguish that' 'it is monstrous to confuse love withrevolution, night with day, life with death," andinvokes Eugenie's spirit "—ah, Eugenio!"

The midnight bell seems to be a signal she can'tunderstand. Miss Porter handles the interminglingof interior and exterior worlds so adroitly that thedream passage comes with a controlled abruptness,and the change in tone does not jar, but seemsinevitable. Without warning the reader, Miss Porterhas Eugenio speak to Laura—without quotationmarks, for his voice is pure expression, like anobject. Echoing Christ's command to his followers,he tells Laura to get up and follow him. He asks herwhy she is in this strange house (in Mexico, in theworld, in her own mind; one thinks of Lucifer's' "The mind is its own place, and in itself/Can make aHeav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n."). Here MissPorter, though she is describing a dream that ishappening now, shifts into the past tense to enhanceour feeling that Laura's life, insofar as its capacityfor responding to possibilities, is over, whetherliterally she dies soon after the story ends or not.

Eugenio calls Laura a murderer (she is hisJudas, but the charge covers all her crimes of thebody, the mind, and the spirit, for they affect otherbodies, minds, and spirits, including his own.) Buteven to his offer to take her to a new country, death,Laura says, "No," fearing anything more than thefear to which she has grown accustomed and fromwhich she is unable to imagine a separate identityfor herself.

Miss Porter gives the reader a sense of the fluid,surrealistic changes of the nightmare landscape asLaura clings to the "stair rail, and then to thetopmost branch of the Judas tree that bent downslowly and set her upon the earth, and then to therocky ledge of a cliff, and then to the jagged wave ofa sea that was not water but a desert of crumblingstone." All this suggests again Eliot's mental-physi-cal Waste Land, and ' 'The Love Song of J. AlfredPrufrock," and, as one critic has pointed out,"Gerontion," as well.

The ambiguous title of the story interprets all itsimages. The Judas tree gets its name from the beliefthat from such a tree Judas hanged himself. Abun-dant purple flowers appear in the spring before theleaves. A certain elder is called a Judas tree becauseit bears "Jew's ear," an edible, cup-shaped flower,resembling an ear, which is cherished as a medicine.So the tree itself and Miss Porter's title ultimatelyhave both positive and negative connotations, andthe story depicts in its charged images the gesturesof both betrayers and betrayed; the reader feels hisway through an ambiguity that deliberately makes itdifficult to distinguish with any final clarity onefrom the other. Thus, Eugenio, who has qualities ofChrist, as one betrayed offers Judas flowers toLaura, the betrayer; and thus, in eating of the bodyof Christ cannibalistically she is also eating of thebody of Judas, for Eugenio, too, is a kind of Judas,betraying Laura. But the "flowering Judas" is Laura.

Eugenio offers her the flowers of the Judas tree,and as she devours them, he calls her "Murderer!"and "Cannibal!" "This is my body and my blood.Laura cried No! and at the sound of her own voice,she awoke trembling, and was afraid to sleep again."She wakes, but not to enlightenment (although onemay argue that it is perhaps enlightenment thatmakes her afraid to sleep again), for the dominatingidea in her life, as in the nightmare, is denial, andwith this No, Miss Porter appropriately ends thestory. By now the No (in contrast to the Yes withwhich Molly Bloom ends Ulysses) is both a strongauditory image and an object. Just as Eugenie'seyes, unlike Christ's, do not bring light, the dreamdoes not result in self-revelation for Laura, and herself-delusion persists at the end, along with theparalysis of her will (reminiscent of Gabriel Conroy'spredicament at the end of "The Dead," a story thatconcludes with a similar elegiac vision). When wediscover Laura sitting at the table in the initial,persistent charged image, she has already lost in herconflict between ideal aspiration and actuality. Whatself-knowledge she has she fails to employ in an actof self-discovery.

While "Flowering Judas" is not concernedwith religion in itself, suggestive religious termsand motifs recur throughout the story. The imagesare almost like black parodies of religious icons orsuch tapestries as the Bayeux, or scenes in churchpanel paintings, frescoes, and mosaics (scenes ofworship, charity, love, and betrayal). Miss Porter'sfrequent use of paradox in style and characterizationsuggests her purpose in employing religious mo-

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tifs—as analogies to patterns of human behaviorand relationships on secular levels.

While politics is closer than religion to MissPorter's concern with her characters as people aliveor dying in the secular world, politics, too, functionsalmost expressionistically. Braggioni tells Lauraabout the May-day disturbances soon to occur. Onthe same day on which Catholics hold a festival inhonor of the Virgin (a parallel to Laura, whosevirginity is neither spiritual nor quite natural), theSocialists will celebrate their martyrs, and the twoprocessions, coming from opposite ends of town,will clash. Thus, rather neatly, Miss Porter summa-rizes in a composite dialogue image the two con-flicting public contexts (religious and political) ofLaura's private despair. There is almost no sustain-ed dialogue in the story until this scene; the frag-ments of dialogue are verbal parallels to the series ofcharged visual images. On Laura, Braggioni's voicehas the same hypnotic effect it has on crowds; and ashe expresses his vision of a world completely de-stroyed so that a better world of ' 'benevolent anar-chy' ' can be built upon the ruins, Laura feels he hasforgotten her as a person. He will create a physicalWaste Land (an objective correlative to the spiritualWaste Land of which Laura is a major exemplifica-tion). All separate identity will vanish, and "no oneshall be alive except the elect spirits destined toprocreate a new world" (that excludes Laura).

Institutionalized religion and political ideals,perverted in revolution, are escapes from ordinarylove. Laura refuses not only Braggioni but theCaptain and the youth as lovers; more crucial to hergeneral dilemma is her failure even in non-sexualways, for she cannot even love the children sheteaches, nor Eugenic, the man to whom she offersrelease from the world in which she herself mustcontinue to suffer. Failure to distinguish illusionfrom reality in the conflict between ideal aspirationand brutal actuality produces Laura's self-delusionand the "No" with which she arms herself againstthe world. Thus, she waits in fear; a sense ofoverwhelming futility paralyzes her.

In preparation for the public violence that isimminent, Laura, who so intensely fears violence toherself, oils and loads Braggioni's pistols; no moregrotesque half-parody of Freudian symbolism canbe imagined. Laura peers down Braggioni's "pistolbarrel and says nothing." The barrel's sexual con-notation is reinforced by the literal lethalness of itspurpose. Corresponding with this double-barreledsignificance Laura feels "a long, slow faintness"

rising and subsiding in her, while Braggioni "curveshis swollen fingers around the throat of the guitarand softly smothers the music out of it." Thisjuxtaposition is the most powerful of several inwhich Miss Porter makes the guitar an analogy toLaura's body.

A psychological examination of Laura willreveal the organic unity of the story more closely.One may look at Laura in light of six forces that,simultaneously, dominate her life: 1) Laura's pre-dominant state of mind is denial: No. Her generalnegativity as she waits in fear is the frame foreverything else we discover about her. 2) rejectssex; she evades love; she substitutes a grim charity;she radiates a deadly innocence. 3) She gives every-thing (though it is not enough) to revolutionarypolitics, while refusing social fellowship and relig-ious transcendence. 4) She fails to distinguish be-tween illusion and reality. 5) Denying everything,overwhelmed by a sense of futility, she waits in fearof violent death. 6) These dominant elements in thestory suggest a missing element: self-realization.But the reader sees what Laura fails to see. If oneexamine the story from beginning to end keeping inmind the pattern of images delineated earlier, onemay see how each of these aspects of Laura'spsychological and physical predicament is embod-ied in charged images that recur and cluster. I havesuggested the thematic content that Miss Porter'simages embody. In his introduction to The Nigger ofthe Narcissus, Joseph Conrad said: "A work thataspires, however humbly, to the condition of artshould carry its justification in every line." "Flow-ering Judas" realizes that aspiration to an uncom-mon degree.

Source: David Madden, "The Charged Image in KatherineAnne Porter's 'Flowering Judas,'" in Studies in Short Fic-tion, Vol. VII, No. 2, Spring, 1970, pp. 277-89.

Dorothy S. ReddenIn the following essay, Redden argues that

Porter does not present a unitary view of lifethrough her character but a view of life in ten-sion between the way one lives life and the waylife should be.

Katherine Anne Porter's "Flowering Judas," anunusually cryptic, complex, and challenging story,has been variously interpreted. Of the two best-known and most complete readings, that of WilliamL. Nance maintains that Miss Porter follows "theprinciple of rejection," while Ray B. West, Jr.,



argues that she ' 'embodied an attitude that demon-strated the necessity for the application of the an-cient verities of faith and love as a fructifyingelement in any human existence." Though contra-dictory, both conclusions are right; each underesti-mates the presence of the other—an equally forcibleopposite "principle," or opposite "attitude"—inthe story. The paradoxes of Miss Porter's fiction, itseems to me, are insufficiently illuminated by tacitreliance on the assumption that this author holds astrictly unitary view of life. If, however, one ex-plores the hypothesis that Miss Porter's outlook isessentially and irrevocably dual, many things fallinto place, including the basic role of tension inher work.

"Flowering Judas" is perhaps her most re-markable story of tension sustained, threatened, andreestablished. Its protagonist is enduring an innerwar between two contradictory attitudes, neither ofwhich she can wholly accept or reject. Although"the desperate complications of her mind and feel-ings" must have a long history, or she would not beas troubled as she is, the story gives very little of thisbackground, and remarks of Laura's past only that itwas one of "many disillusions" and unspecified"afflictions" which she prefers to forget. To herpresent situation, on the other hand, Miss Porterdevotes all but the final paragraph of the story in aprobing analysis of the statement that Laura ' 'can-not help feeling that she has been betrayed irrepara-bly by the disunion between her way of living andher feeling of what life should be."

I should like to examine these two poles sepa-rately, starting with Laura's strange and painful"way of living," itself a clash of the opposingforces, seen in terms of fear. For Laura is ' 'afraid ofeverything." That she fears death, even that shefinds it evil, may be considered unexceptionable, atleast in our civilization. An important part of her,however, feels the same way about life, and espe-cially about its vital component of human relation-ships. To this part of Laura, life is not only a stiflingemotional tyranny of love and sex, but a kind ofdeath, equally vicious and sinister, equally terrifying.

Although she goes on living, she fears and hateslife. At the same time, although she is driftingtoward it, she fears and hates death. Obviously,these two attitudes create an insoluble dilemma.Because Laura's warring forces are evenly matched,their unresolving antagonism generates an almostoverpowering tension. She feels herself mired in a

The whole affective

power of this story results

from its balance, as well as

its quality, of feeling—from

the high pitch of equally

disposed forces."

perpetual waking nigthmare, and for twelve pagesof exposition the reader is held, with her, violentlyimmobilized, suspended in a wild, frozen trance.

She is, in fact, barely alive. Life is motion; likewheels, human beings remain erect so long as theymove ahead. They are (in our culture) propelledfrom behind by a fear of death, and drawn forwardby a desire for life. The negative and positive forceswork together to keep the organism upright andmoving. Laura, however, is almost static. She isheld erect not by her barely discernible motion, butby the pressures of two contradictory forces. Thenegative fear of death propels her from behind, it istrue; but there is almost no positive force workingwith it to draw her forward. On the contrary, she isblocked by another negative, the fear of life.

The result is a horrible transfixion in which shefeels that she must, at all costs, avoid losing herbalance. As long as the two forces exert more or lessequal pressure, she remains upright between them,safe. This, of course, is another delusion, for safety,if there is such a thing, lies in movement, in living,and not in a rigid stasis, which is dangerously closeto extinction. But, allowed her premises, Laura isright. She cannot give up her defenses because toher they are justified; she believes that she knowsthe "truth" about life, what "reality" really is. Ifshe were to relinquish her fear of life, she wouldhave no love or hope or faith to put in its place.There would be only a vacuum, and she would topple.

Therefore, she feels that she can do nothing buttry to keep the opposing pressures equal. And thereis no way to do this except by complete negation. Ifshe repudiates in one direction, she must repudiatein the other; she must deny "everything." No is the"one holy talismanic word which does not sufferher to be led into evil."

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Laura's stance, then, is one of an almost un-bearable equilibrium maintained by total denial. Allof her strength is harnessed to preserving that uncer-tain balance, with its demand for unremitting vigi-lance. Fortunately, she has astonishing self-control,at least temporarily equal to the strains put upon it; itis no less impressive for being negative, and sheneeds every jot of it. It is her only defense against"that disaster she fears, though she cannot name it."

In a general sense the revolutionist leaderBraggioni is the symbol of all that Laura hates andfears, the "reality" that seems to dominate herexistence. Specifically, his characteristics are thosethat she finds typically human (which is to sayanimal), and as such they amply justify her rejectionof human relationships.

These traits, overwhelmingly repellent and men-acing, center around Braggioni's vastly bloated ego.Chief among them is his sensuality, for bursting outof his binding orchid-colored clothes he resemblesnothing so much as a huge tumescent phallus, theopposite of everything romantic, sentimental, and"harmless." His handling of his guitar suggestswhat he has in mind for Laura: he scratches itfamiliarly, curves his swollen fingers around itsthroat, rips a thumbnail across its nervous strings.Sex Laura will resist to the end; her knees clingtogether under her heavy "nun-like" attire. ButBraggioni can wait; she will drop into his lap finally"like an overripe pear."

Why does Laura not flee while she can? Al-though she knows what is in store, "violence,mutilation, a shocking death," she stands immotile,waiting. There is no place for her to go; sinceBraggioni comprises all of "reality," there is noth-ing to escape to. She is an alien not only in thiscountry, but in this world. And although her fear ofdeath is intense, it is offset by her fear of life; in herinability to choose between them, the tension isnearly insupportable. So far as Braggioni will put anend to this terrible indecision, he is, as he insists, her"friend." If only she can do nothing long enough,the choice will be taken out of her hands.

To avoid blurring the essential issues involved,I have temporarily isolated the fears on whichLaura's "way of living" is based. Actually, herattitude toward life is ambivalent, and contains animportant, albeit shackled, counterforce, as the factthat she stubbornly retains a "feeling" of "whatlife should be'' implies. This element, although in asense allied with her fear of death, is not itselfgrounded in terror.

On the contrary, something in Laura yearns foran entirely different kind of life, a positive existenceincluding faith in God and confidence in humanbeings both in the aggregate and individually—inshort, a life rich in love, the opposite of the smother-ing "reality" to which one side of her make-up iscommitted. This other part of her instinctively needsand longs for human contact; Laura's "feeling" isthe involuntary cry of her half-drowned self.

But the idea of a love which is not oppressiveand threatening is too alluring, with its suggestionsof impossible joy and order and freedom. Since allof what Laura considers real is ugly and frighteningto her, this element which does not fit into herscheme of things must be, by definition, illusive.She has had too many disappointments to dare tohope; she cannot really believe in her own insistenturge toward life. Neither can she put it aside.

In a general sense the jailed revolutionaryEugenio is the symbol of all that Laura vaguelyhopes for in spite of herself. (It is not surprising thatin her dream he takes on the attributes of a Christ-figure, associated with man as well as with God,with love and with life.) Specifically, Eugenio isone human being Laura might have—but hasnot—loved.

It is significant that Miss Porter does not men-tion him until late in the story, and then only briefly,to establish the fact that he is already dead. He hasbeen much on Laura's mind, however. While solid,paunchy, callous, greasy, corrupt "reality" flour-ishes in her life, the pale insubstantial "ideal"seems hardly to exist there—but its tenacity will bedemonstrated, for she senses that Eugenio stands forsomething which can bring her relief, and shewill dream that.

If Braggioni and Eugenio are antithetical sym-bols personifying the tension between Laura's fearof and desire for life, the third and most importantsymbol in the story, the blossoming redbud tree,whose name expresses its divided nature, combinesboth of these attitudes in one emblem. It also shiftsthe emphasis to love (and sexuality, although this issternly repressed). Flowering is a lovely word, andflowers are indeed associated with love in Laura'smind. But these are not just any flowers—they areJudas flowers; treachery is all that she can expectfrom love as her fears define it. Once again, Laura issimultaneously attracted and repelled.

The Judas tree (which, like all of the symbols inthis story, is multiple and complex) has another



function, for it embraces a further aspect of Laura'sconflicting attitudes—her self-image. Laura's feel-ings about herself are directly related to her feelingsabout other people, and consist, like them, of twoincompatible elements. On the one hand she re-spects and defends her self; on the other she under-values and prosecutes it. In her own eyes sheresembles the Judas tree—delicate, beautiful, per-fidious. She feels not only that she has made agrotesque blunder in allowing her fears to drive herto negation, but that she is to blame for doing so. Inother words, Laura has somehow learned to experi-ence her private "revolution" against life and loveas worse than simply mistaken—she sees it asmorally reprehensible, a betrayal of herself as wellas of others. Her sense of error is intensified by asense of guilt, and she finds herself "wrong" inboth of the meanings which our language gives tothat word. ("It may be true I am as corrupt, inanother way, as Braggioni." she thinks, "as cal-lous, as incomplete.") As she drifts off to sleep, thisrepressed feeling of culpability, reinforced by herChristian training, begins to emerge from the un-conscious, and she accuses herself harshly with "itis monstrous to confuse love with revolution, nightwith day, life with death—ah, Eugenio!"

With this, the long, taut prelude of the storyends. Although nothing important has happened,Laura's state of paralysis and her feelings about ithave been exposed with surgical precision. Now, inthe final paragraph, where the entire action of thestory begins, rises to its climax, and subsides, some-thing is happening at last, if only in a dream.

It has to happen in a dream. Only in a dream canEugenio appear as a savior, can Laura even momen-tarily believe in and reach out toward "life as itshould be," an alternative to her deathlike "way ofliving."

With the tolling of the midnight bell, the signalfor the dead to arise, the wraith of Eugenio appears.Come, he beckons, leave this ' 'strange house'' youhave built for yourself; I will guide you to death—not to physical death (that belongs to Braggioni),but to the death which is rebirth.

Laura is irresistibly drawn after him, althoughthe goal is distant and the way tortuous. Eugenio canno longer give her physical support, and anyway,there are some things one must do for oneself. Thereis no time to hang back, yet she cannot brave thejourney alone; perhaps the vacuum caused by theremoval of her defenses will not be filled, and shewill lose her precarious balance fatally in the waste-

land that stretches ahead. She is still the prisoner ofher wretched fears.

As if he understood this, Eugenio responds withpity. Poor creature, he seems to say, this will giveyou the strength you need; and he strips the pulsingflowers from the Judas tree and holds them to herlips. In promising this new life which is also thedeath of the old life, Eugenio seems forgiving,compassionate, Christ-like. He offers the life-bring-ing nourishment with Christ's words; and the flow-ers themselves, like the bread and wine whichsatisfy spiritual hunger and thirst, are warm andbleeding, suggesting Christ's corporeal being. Lau-ra accepts them, crushes them eagerly into hermouth, for she is starving for love in all of its forms.

But these are still Judas flowers: not even in adream can Laura wholly overcome her profounddistrust. The act of acceptance makes her vulnerableto her pervasive sense of guilt, her feeling that she isunworthy of love and forgiveness. She feels respon-sible for Eugenie's death not because she broughthim drugs, but because she has closed off in herselfthe springs of compassion. Laura has been taught tobelieve that self-betrayal is also a betrayal of others,and thus of Christ. It is a mortal sin. Eugenio turnsfrom a figure of mercy to one of vengeful justice,the personification of her own relentless conscience.

' 'Murderer!'' he calls her, and ' 'Cannibal! Thisis my body and my blood." The ritualistic wordstouch a buried nerve in Laura, for they evoke thewhole of her religious upbringing. It is true that shehas intellectually repudiated her childhood faith,but that does not mean that it does not still haveimmense power over her; the "set of principlesderived from her early training," in which she hasrigidly "encased herself," is an iron load of moralaccountability.

In this context, Laura feels that she is subvert-ing the sacrament which is a remembrance of and aparticipation in Christ's atoning death and resurrec-tion, the visible sign of an invisible grace. When onehas committed a mortal sin, one must cleanse one'ssoul in repentance and confession before receivingthe Host. Laura has not been able to do so, and shefeels that she is committing another and greater sinin taking communion unworthily. This is an act ofmurder and cannibalism; like Judas, she has be-trayed Christ to his death and yet feasts on hissymbolic flesh and blood. It is to her a false com-munion, a desecration of the Host. Eugenio, shedreams, is pointing out to her the visible sign of her

V o l u m e 8 4 5


invisible damnation; she is on the brink of horrify-ing self-knowledge.

But Laura cannot consciously confront her mis-takes, ensnarled as they are with a guilt-laden con-cept of "her own nature"; to do so would under-mine her resistance to death and collapse thepersonality she is holding together by sheer will.She must negate everything. Recoiling in frightfrom the threat of disintegration, she reacts with afinal "No!" and the shattering revelation goesunderground again.

With this her balance is restored—but it isagain a balance of tension, rather than of resolution.On one side, the secret burden of self-accusation,with its moral overtones, is heavier, for Laura standsin her own court doubly condemned—guilty first oftransgression, now of refusing to confess. On theother side, the instinct of self-preservation stilloperates; she is "determined not to surrender herwill to such expedient logic." And there is some-thing strong and admirable about Laura's fierceresistance to annihilation. She does not go to pieces.She is not insane. She holds on.

Her future is not spelled out. So far as this storyshows, Laura will remain in her private limboindefinitely, afraid to live or to die. (As Braggionisays of the coming May-day disturbances, "Therewill be two independent processions, starting fromeither end of town, and they will march until theymeet, and the rest depends....") The rest depends.Possibly her two embattled forces will graduallycrush her between them, but more likely Laura willsurvive her civil war; one feels somehow that shewill never die of it, however joyless her days.

The significance of her moving and terrifyingexperience is, I take it, that it is impossible to breakthe deadlock between inner needs and inculcatedprecepts—at least when those precepts are foundedon conventional Western ideas of moral responsi-bility. Miss Porter records the conflict—not dispas-sionately—but with her passions tightly in rein andequitably divided.

One voice in her concurs in Laura's self-con-demnation, on the familiar grounds that good andevil (however hard to identify) exist, that the indi-vidual possesses—or should possess—the means(however rudimentary) to discriminate between them,and that his decisions (however well-intentioned)are subject to inexorable review. Laura has beentrained in this school; she knows—or ought toknow—right from wrong; she has somehow chosen

the latter; and to her, the infallible sign of her guilt isher ineradicable feeling of guilt. At the same time,another voice in Miss Porter, while not directlycontesting these assumptions, concurs in Laura'sself-acquittal, as it were. The author clearly under-stands and respects her heroine's torment, and si-lently cries "Bravo!" to her spirited refusal toyield. Whether one chooses to consider Miss Porterhalf-persuaded or half-skeptical of both verdicts,"Flowering Judas" is, in my opinion, "the testimo-ny of a mental attitude", and that attitude is dual.

The contention that Miss Porter, like her pro-tagonist, takes a double view in this story may notbe subject to any concrete ' 'proof." It is impracticalto adduce here the evidence of her other work,which (again in my opinion) reflects a similarduality. Still, the reader may speculate about theeffect on ' 'Flowering Judas'' if Miss Porter werepresumed to take a single view of its dominantcharacter and her dilemma. (It is a tribute to theauthenticity of Laura that she elicits and supportssuch speculation.)

But which view? It would be naive to labelMiss Porter either simple moralist or simple indi-vidualist; she is too perceptive and experienced tobe either, and hardly simple in any case. The onlyviable possibility is that she is fully aware, as Laurais not, of the nature of an estrangement such as thischaracter feels: its origins, its symptoms, its remedy.

Suppose for a moment that Miss Porter meantto show that her protagonist is the victim of feelingsshe can neither understand nor control, much lesstrace to their source. Yet from her present situationone unmistakably infers a certain kind of past. Thedetails cannot be guessed, but ' 'the desperate com-plications of her mind and feelings'' clearly indicatethat Laura is following a typical neurotic patternforced on her by early emotional deprivation, whichshe experienced as a betrayal of love. In such cases,the unloved child usually assumes that it is primafacie unlovable, somehow a "bad" rather than a"good child who understands the rules of behav-ior." Out of the resultant feelings of guilt and fearsuch a child develops a defensive personality markedby negation of the moralistic relationships that arethe source of its disappointment and pain, and, byextension, of all human relationships. This move-ment, of course, involves a misapprehension, not ofthe nature of the child's experience, which it readsaccurately, but of the nature of life outside of itsexperience—of, for example, the unconditional quali-ty of love.



Laura has obviously constructed a large part ofher existence around some such misapprehension.Irony piles upon irony. Her "reality" is not real; her' 'truth'' is not true. There are times when people aresavage, when sex does destroy, when ' 'love'' doessuffocate. But she has mistaken these qualified factsfor the whole fact; human relationships are not bydefinition hostile to her individuality, and one can-not dismiss them without incurring the ache of loss,as she has learned.

Suppose further that Miss Porter were alsoshowing that mistakes are not "sins," that evil, asSocrates put it long ago, is simply error. From thisstandpoint, Laura's mistakes were inevitable, heronly protection when she was too young to questionthe price of survival. She could not have done otherthan she did. Her most self-destructive error was theassumption of guilt in the first place, but this toowas a mistake she could not help making. As for herdream, Laura's refusal to confess is not at all an actof moral cowardice, but evidence that a vital spiritof independence still persists in her, still fightstenaciously for its life. She is no more treacherousthan the flowering Judas tree, a pretty bush towhich, because of its name, she has attached someunfortunate connotations. Her feeling that she isself-betrayed might better be replaced with self-forgiveness—or rather (for it is gratuitous to forgiveoneself for trying to survive), with self-acceptance.

If this were Miss Porter's unitary view, it wouldcap the story with a final ironic twist—that far frombeing either guilty or not guilty, Laura need not beon trial at all. "Flowering Judas" would be adifferent—not a better—story, and its gist that hu-man beings are seldom given enough light to see by.

But this is not the story Miss Porter wrote, and Iam not misguidedly trying to improve on it; it is asuperb achievement just as it stands: a study inirreconcilables, a portrait of stress. As such, itcannot easily be the product of a single undividedviewpoint. If Miss Porter did not stand in the samerelation to both of her heroine's attitudes, one or theother would exert less force, and a disequilibriumbetween them would make itself felt. The wholeaffective power of this story results from its bal-ance, as well as its quality, of feeling—from thehigh pitch of equally disposed forces. The doubleoutlook, moreover, is integral to the success of thestory, for it increases the tension which is also itssubject. This reinforcement of theme extends toeven the smallest details, and creates an almost

electric intensity, an emotional impact of impres-sive voltage.

Another telling indication of the dual point ofview of the story is that one cannot imagine MissPorter relaxing her allegiance either to the felt rightsof the instinctual identity or to the fundamentalmoral strictures of our culture. Concerning indi-viduality, she is as passionate as Hawthorne (andshows much the same cast of mind) in resenting anyintrusion upon the inviolable soul. As for morality,her very language, which is scrupulously exactprotests a loyal adherence to what she has elsewherecalled ' 'some very old fashioned noble'' values. Forexample in saying, as she has, that this story coa-lesced around a central idea of ' 'self delusion,'' sheselects a term which, like betrayed and Judas, bowsunder a weight of implicit moral judgment.

This does not mean that Miss Porter accepts herheritage without qualification, however. She is alsoin continual, if incomplete, revolt against it.' 'Flow-ering Judas" is (to borrow her description of anoth-er first-rate story of her own) "a story of the mostpainful moral and emotional confusions." The ex-tent to which Laura reflects a widespread state ofmind cannot be investigated here, but her tanglingof the moral and the emotional is deeply relevant toat least some of the more painful confusions ofmodern man in the detritus of his civilization. WhileMiss Porter is not inclined to parry the thrust of theentire Judeo-Christian tradition, she effectively ques-tions one basic aspect of it in this story, and pro-vokes conjecture about the nature and validity of thesense of guilt, as well as of guiltiness itself.

Source: Dorothy S. Redden, '"Flowering Judas': TwoVoices," in Studies in Short Fiction. Vol. VI, No. 2, Winter,1969, pp. 194-204.

Sources

Bogan, Louise. In The New Republic, Vol. 64, No. 829,October 22, 1930, pp. 277-78.

Cowley, Malcolm. Exile's Return: A Literary Odyssey of the1920s, New York: The Viking Press, 1934.

Review of "Flowering Judas," in New York Times BookReview, September 28, 1930, p. 6.

Richardson, E. R. In Bookmark, Vol. 72, October, 1960, p. 172.

Tate, Alan. In Nation, Vol. 131, October 1, 1930, p. 352.

Welty, Eudora. The Eye of the Story, New York: RandomHouse, 1978.

V o l u m e 8 4 7


West, Ray B. The Art of Modern Fiction, New York:Rinehart, 1949.

Further Reading

Bloom, Harold, ed. Katherine Anne Porter, New York:Chelsea House, 1986.

A collection of critical essays on Porter's fiction.

Givner, Joan. Katherine Anne Porter: A Life, New York:Simon & Schuster, 1982.

This definitive biography of Porter sets the recordstraight on the flamboyant and enigmatic author's lifeand paints a detailed portrait of her times.

Hendrick, Willene, and George Hendrick. Katherine AnnePorter, Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988.

A concise critical introduction to Porter's fictiongroups her stories according to theme, setting, andcharacter, and offers a brief, lucid interpretation of each.

Lopez, Enrique Hank. Conversations with Katherine AnnePorter: Refugee from Indian Creek, Boston: Little, Brownand Company, 1981.

A biographical study based on a series of tapedconversations with Porter during the last years of herlife offers a glimpse into Porter's fascinating person-ality, though the facts are subject to her fancifulfictionalization.

Walsh, Thomas F. Katherine Anne Porter and Mexico: TheIllusion of Eden, Houston: University of Texas Press, 1992.

A detailed scholarly study of Mexico's influence onPorter's art includes useful analysis of the politicaland historical background to Porter's stories as well asliterary interpretations based on a psycho-biographi-cal approach.

West, Ray B. The Art of Modern Fiction, New York:Rinehart, 1949.

West focuses on religious symbolism, arguing thatBraggioni is capable of redemption, while Laura, whois unable to love, is not.


Widely anthologized, "The Garden Party" is con-sidered Katherine Mansfield's finest piece of shortfiction. Such modernist authors as Virginia Woolfwere profoundly influenced by Mansfield's stream-of-consciousness and symbolic narrative style. ' "TheGarden Party" is a remarkably rich and innovativework that incorporates Mansfield's defining themes:New Zealand, childhood, adulthood, social class,class conflict, innocence, and experience.

Structured around an early afternoon gardenparty in New Zealand, "The Garden Party" hasclear connections to Mansfield's own childhoodand adolescence in New Zealand. The main charac-ter of the story, Laura, is an idealistic young girlwho wishes to cancel the planned afternoon gather-ing when she learns of the death of a working-classlaborer who lives down the hill from her parents'home. The story concerns Laura's alternating mo-ments of resistance and conformity to her mother'sidea of class relations. Like Laura, Mansfield wasthe daughter of a well-to-do businessman—HaroldBeauchamp—and his wife, Annie Burnell DyerBeauchamp. Like the Sheridans in "The GardenParty," the Beauchamps lived luxuriously, in grandhouses in and around Wellington, New Zealand.

"The Garden Party" was first published in1922 in a collection entitled The Garden Party andOther Stories and immediately became a classicexample of the short story form. In an essay pub-lished in 1957, Warren S. Walker wrote, "The most

The Garden PartyKatherine Mansfield

1922

4 9

The G a r d e n P a r t y

frequently anthologized of Katherine Mansfield'sworks, "The Garden Party" has long enjoyed areputation for near-perfection in the art of the shortstory." In her time, Mansfield was seen as one ofthe prime innovators of the short story form. AfterMansfield's death in 1923, Virginia Woolf wouldremark in her diary,' 'I was jealous of her writing—the only writing I have ever been jealous of." Eventhough it has enjoyed a fine reputation, critics andreaders alike have puzzled over what they see as anunsatisfactory ending—an ending that, as WarrenWalker remarks, "leaves readers with a feeling ofdissatisfaction, a vague sense that the story some-how does not realize its potential."

Author Biography

Katherine Mansfield was born Kathleen MansfieldBeauchamp to a wealthy family in Wellington, NewZealand, on October 14, 1888. She was educated inLondon, deciding early on that she wanted to be awriter. She studied music, wrote for the schoolnewspaper, and read the works of Oscar Wilde andother English writers of the early twentieth century.After three years in London she returned to NewZealand, where her parents expected her to find asuitable husband and lead the life of a well-bredwoman. However, Mansfield was rebellious, ad-venturous, and more enamored of the artistic com-munity than of polite society.

Mansfield began publishing stories in Austra-lian magazines in 1907, and shortly thereafter re-turned to London. A brief affair left her pregnantand she consented to marry a man, George Bowden,whom she had known a mere three weeks and whowas not the father of her child. She dressed in blackfor the wedding and left him before the night wasover. Upon receiving word of the scandal andspurred on by rumors that her daughter had alsobeen involved with several women, Mansfield'smother immediately sailed to London and placedher daughter in a spa in Germany, far away from theBohemian artists' community of London. Duringher time in Germany, Mansfield suffered a miscar-riage and was disinherited. After returning to Lon-don, Mansfield continued to write and conductvarious love affairs.

In 1911, Mansfield published her first volumeof stories, In a German Pension, most of which hadbeen written during her stay at the German spa. Thatsame year she met John Middleton Murry, the editor

of a literary magazine. Although they lived togetheron and off for many years, her other affairs contin-ued. Together Mansfield and Murry published asmall journal, the Blue Review, which folded afteronly three issues. However, the experience led tofriendships with members of the literary communityof the day, including D. H. Lawrence and Friedavon Richthofen Weekly. In 1918, Mansfield wasgranted a divorce from Bowden, and she and Murrymarried.

Stricken with tuberculosis in 1917, Mansfieldbecame very ill. She continued to write, publishingher collections Bliss and Other Stories and TheGarden Party and Other Stories in 1920 and 1922respectively. The latter collection includes both"The Garden Party" and "Miss Brill." The collec-tions received favorable critical attention, and shecontinued to write even after her health forced her tomove to Fontainebleau in France. Though she wasseparated from Murry for long periods towards theend of her life, it was he who saw that her literaryreputation was established by publishing her laststories and her collections of letters after she died ofa massive pulmonary hemorrhage in January, 1923,at the age of thirty-four.

Plot Summary

Katherine Mansfield's short story "The GardenParty" opens with frantic preparations being madefor an afternoon garden party. The main character,Laura, is an idealistic and sensitive young girl. Sheis surrounded by her more conventional family: hersister, Jose, who, as the narrator tells us, "lovedgiving orders to servants"; her mother, Mrs. Sheri-dan, a shallow old woman whose world consists ofhaving enough canna lilies; her father, a business-man; and her brother, Laurie, to whom she feelsmost similar in feeling and ideals. As many criticshave remarked, Mansfield's prose depicts an almostdreamlike world.

This atmosphere is compromised for Laurawhen she hears of the death of one of the laborerswho lives in the cottages down the hill from herhouse. Struck by the inappropriateness of throwinga garden party when a neighbor has been killed,Laura immediately suggests that they cancel theparty. The rest of the story is structured aroundLaura's reconciliation of her concern for the deadlaborer and her family's reactions to his demise.Laura attempts to convince Jose of the necessity of



canceling the party. Jose's response is indicative ofthe family's overall view of the impoverished labor-ers. She chastises Laura for her desire to cancel theparty, saying, "You won't bring a drunken work-man back to life by being sentimental." The narra-tor's later description of the cottages reveals thefamily's general hostility toward their neighbors.

After Jose's rebuff, Laura attempts to convinceher mother of the need to cancel the garden party.Laura's relationship with her mother is a significantaspect of "The Garden Party." Earlier, in greetingthe workmen who were to put up the marquee,Laura had tried to mimic her mother in order toprevent the workmen from perceiving her as a child:'"Good morning,' she said, copying her mother'svoice." In the next moment of her conversationwith the handymen, however, Laura attempts todistinguish herself from her mother's perception ofthe working class.

At first, Laura is aghast at her mother's reactionto the news of the dead laborer. Mrs. Sheridanworries only that the death occurred in the garden:'"Mother, a man's been killed' . . . 'Not in thegarden?' interrupted her mother." Mrs. Sheridanreacts to Laura's suggestion like Jose does—shebecomes annoyed and thinks that the idea of cancel-ing the party is absurd. Giving her a black hat towear for the garden party, Mrs. Sheridan hopes itwill change her mind. At first Laura resists thisappeal to her vanity, but once she's left her mother'sroom, she sees herself in a mirror and is soonoverwhelmed by her own "charm." Caught up inher mother's comfortable vision of garden partiesand black hats, Laura now perceives the laborer as adistant object of curiosity—like a picture in thenewspaper—and no longer a reason to cancel alovely afternoon garden party.

The party itself is not fully described inMansfield's story; the only impressions of it aregiven through snatches of conversation. From thesemoments it is apparent that the party has transpiredas expected, with much made of Laura and her blackhat: "Darling Laura, how well you look!" "Whatabecoming hat, child!" and so on. Soon afterwards,however, the dead laborer once again disturbs Lau-ra's complacency. Mr. Sheridan brings up the "beast-ly accident." Mrs. Sheridan suggests that Lauradeliver some leftover food to the laborer's widow.At first Laura doubts the appropriateness of such anaction, but she is soon convinced by her mother.

(Catherine Mansfield

Almost perversely, Mrs. Sheridan insists that Laurago down to the cottages in her party garb.

Laura's journey to the cottages is described as ajourney into an anti-world. Rather than the fresh,airy, and ethereal Sheridan atmosphere, SaundersLane is characterized by darkness, shadows, half-dressed children, and a sense of oppression. "Darkknots of people" are seen to stand outside thewidow's cottage. Laura soon feels the inappropri-ateness of her dress. She plans to quickly drop offthe basket and rush from the disturbing scene.

Unfortunately for Laura, the widow's sisterwill not allow her to escape so quickly. Laura meetsthe sorrow-ravaged widow—"her face, puffed up,red, with swollen eyes and swollen lips." Althoughher mother has asked her not to look at the deadbody, Laura allows the sister to take her to thecorpse. Contrary to her expectations, she is struckby the peacefulness and beauty of the young manand by how inconsequential garden parties and lacefrocks are to one who is caught up in a different andincomparable dream. Overwhelmed by the dispari-ty between her world and this picture of peacefuldeath, Laura exclaims in a sob, "forgive my hat."

Laura runs out and encounters her brother,Laurie. Sensing that Laura might be disturbed by

V o l u m e 8 5 1


her visit, he asks, "Was it all right?" Laura tries toexplain her impressions to Laurie but realizes thatthis momentary sight of the transcendent is unex-plainable. Laurie, however, understands what Laurahas seen and in response to Laura's unfinishedexclamation "Isn't life—" answers, "Isn't it dar-ling?" The story ends with the two sharing thisimpression of a world beyond parties.

Characters

CookThe Sheridan's cook is a nurturing figure, al-

lowing Laura and one of her sisters to indulge ineating rich cream-puffs that have been delivered forthe garden party just after they finish breakfast.

Laurie SheridanLaurie is Laura's older brother and closest

family member. After viewing the body of thelaborer who died before the garden party, Laura iscomforted by Laurie. The conclusion is ambigu-ous—it is not clear if either Laurie or Laura trulyunderstand their own feelings at that moment.

Meg SheridanMeg Sheridan, another one of Laura's sisters,

possesses a manner and attitude similar to that ofJose and Mrs. Sheridan. The reader first encountersMeg as she comes down to breakfast with herfreshly washed hair wrapped up in a green turbanand a "dark wet curl stamped on each cheek." Sherefuses to go and supervise the workmen assem-bling the party tent because her hair is wet, so thatresponsibility falls to Laura.

MotherSee Mrs. Sheridan

Jose SheridanJose is Laura's class-conscious older sister. She

takes a dim view of Laura's wish to cancel thegarden party when she tells Laura that she "won'tbring a drunken workman back to life by beingsentimental."

Laura SheridanLaura Sheridan is an idealistic and impression-

able young person who struggles with her own andher family's perceptions of class difference. Learn-ing that a working-class neighbor was accidentallykilled, Laura wants to cancel the garden partyplanned for that afternoon. The narrative centers onLaura's vacillation between feelings of empathy forthe dead laborer and her vanity and class elitism.She unsuccessfully tries to convince her mother tocancel the party. However, her mother distracts herwith the gift of a new hat, and when Laura seesherself in the hat, she no longer presses for cancella-tion of the party. By the end of the story, however,Laura has made an attempt to relate to the lives ofthe family's working-class neighbors, although theconclusion to the story is ambiguous. It is not clearwhat, if anything, she has learned or if the experi-ence has changed her.

Mrs. SheridanMrs. Sheridan is Laura's mother. Like Jose,

Laura's older sister, Mrs. Sheridan will not considercanceling the garden party because of the death of alaborer living nearby. In an attempt to appeaseLaura, however, she does suggest that Laura takethe party leftovers to the widow of the dead man.She declares early in the story that she intends toleave the party preparations entirely up to her daugh-ters, but it becomes clear that she is closely monitor-ing—and managing—every step.

Themes

Innocence and Experience"The Garden Party" traces the psychological

and moral growth of Laura Sheridan. The storypresents her adolescent confusion regarding thesocial values of her family and her awakening to amore mature perception of reality after her exposureto poverty and death at the carter's cottage.

Laura's self-consciousness regarding her ownyouth and inexperience is evident whenever sheencounters members of the working class. Whensent to supervise the workers who have come to setup the marquee, she regards them as "impressive"



because they carry their tools and work in shirtsleeves. In her initial dealings with them, she at-tempts to play the role of her mother—the adult—but soon loses her composure: ' 'Laura wished nowthat she had not got her bread and butter, but therewas no place to put it and she couldn't throw itaway. She blushed and tried to look severe and evena little shortsighted as she came up to [the work-ers]." Copying her mother's voice, Laura saysgreets the workmen but soon feels that she sounds"affected" and is ashamed.

This lack of assurance affects her at variousmoments in the narrative, particularly when she iscalled upon to make adult responses to events whichare outside her childhood environment and experi-ence. Her initial idealization of the workmen'snatural camaraderie changes to feelings of uneaseand discomfort when she sees the real conditions ofthe working-class community—their poverty andtheir claustrophobic, dark kitchens. When she learnsof the death of the carter and wants to cancel theparty as an appropriate gesture, she is seduced bythe hat her mother gives her and the privilegedworld the hat symbolizes. The sophistication of hermore assured sisters and mother, who have noproblem justifying the convenient pleasures of theirlifestyle, contrasts sharply with Laura's awkwardattempts to do the right thing by canceling thegarden party.

Although Laura's responses are frequently child-ish, there are significant moments of growth in hercharacter. She is always conscious, for example, ofthe limitations inherent in her class-conscious worldand is open to alternate experiences even when shecannot always respond maturely to them. For exam-ple, she is genuinely concerned for the carter'swidow. Her desire to cancel the garden party inorder to spare the widow the sounds of revelry at hersad time is a sign of maturity in its consideration andempathy.

JourneyThe theme of journey is used in this story to

illustrate Laura's rite of passage from childishnessto maturity. As the story progresses, Laura movesfrom the interiors of the Sheridan home, with itsabundance of domestic detail, to the sunlit gardenand, later, to a region beyond this enclosed andprotective space of primary identity. This journeystarts in gathering darkness as Laura crosses the

MediaAdaptations

"The Garden Party" was adapted as a film in1974. It is now available on video through AIMSMultimedia.

road to where the lane becomes ' 'smoky and dark."She enters the cottage, travels down a "narrow,dark passage" to the claustrophobic kitchen, pastthe grief-stricken widow with "swollen eyes andswollen lips," to look upon the calm beauty of theface of the dead carter at the culmination of thejourney. At the end of the passage, Laura gains aninsightful vision of life and death.

Dream and RealityIllusion and reality are central themes in "The

Garden Party." The world of the Sheridans isconsistently characterized as part of a dream thatsuppresses and excludes the working-class world.The sorrows of the real world are present here onlyin the pretty song that Jose sings before the gar-den party.

Laura buys into these upper-class pretensions.When she endorses the rituals of the garden party,for example, the reality outside of the party seems tobe an illusion to her: "She had a glimpse of thatpoor woman and those little children, and the bodybeing carried into the house. But it all seemedblurred, unreal, like a picture in the newspaper."Even when Laura travels beyond the confines of theSheridan garden, the dream continues as she carriesthe sensations of the party with her—"It seemed toher that kisses, voices, tinkling spoons, laughter, thesmell of crushed grass were somehow inside her."

Style

StyleKatherine Mansfield's short story "The Gar-

den Party'' employs a style that is distinctly modern

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Topics forFurther

StudyInvestigate the literary movement of Modernismin the 1920s. You may want to consult sourcessuch as A Homemade World: The AmericanModernist Writers, by Hugh Kenner (Johns Hop-kins University Press, 1989), and The FirstModems: Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth-Century Thought, by William R. Everdell (Uni-versity of Chicago Press, 1997). What contribu-tions did Katherine Mansfield make to the thenliterary avant-garde? What were some of othermodernist innovations in poetry, in art andin music?

Research one of the major historical topics of the1920s and before: World War I, the rise offascism, the spread of Marxism, British imperi-alism, the European and American stock mar-kets, unionism, feminism, gay life. How didthese events affect the rich? In what ways didthey affect the poor differently?

Investigate Katherine Mansfield's correspond-ence and journals. Consider the connections be-tween their subjects of concern and the concernsof her fiction, especially "The Garden Party."

in its use of impressionistic detail and stream-of-consciousness narrative method. These stylistic fea-tures also characterize the works of Virginia Woolf,Dorothy Richardson, and other innovative writersof the 1920s and 1930s.

The narrative begins in ' 'the middle of things''—in media res. The narrative voice describes thescene in a casual and immediate manner which atonce establishes an intimacy with the reader—"And after all the weather was ideal. They couldnot have had a more perfect day for the garden partyif they had ordered it." The almost confidentialpresentation of such objective facts establishes thenarrative voice as the central consciousness of thestory—one that perceives and interprets experienceand that also, for most of the story, melds with thecharacter of Laura. As the reader is made privy to

authorial confidences and interpretation, an appealis made to identify with Laura's and the narrator'spoint of view. The reader is drawn into this "cen-tral" consciousness gradually, gaining access toLaura's sensibility through constant access to herperception and emotional responses. Most often, thealternation between a third-person narrative voiceand Laura's own perception is demonstrated insingle sentences, the transition occurring withoutnarrative markers. A prime example of this happensbefore Laura meets the workmen who are to put upthe marquee: "Away Laura flew, still holding herpiece of bread and butter. It's so delicious to have anexcuse for eating out of doors, and besides she lovedhaving to arrange things," or "His smile was soeasy, so friendly, that Laura recovered. What niceeyes he had, small, but such a dark blue!"

This technique of focusing on the thoughts of acentral consciousness is referred to by literary crit-ics as stream of consciousness. Using this method toachieve a more truthful presentation of reality,Mansfield, like other modernists, saw it not assomething independent of one's perceptions butrather as constituted by each individual's particularperceptions. In the "The Garden Party," for exam-ple, Laura's perceptions are immediately made avail-able, frequently overwhelming what few realitiesreach the reader through a different source than themain character. At the start of her journey down toSaunders Lane, for example, her thoughts are filledwith ' 'the kisses, voices, tinkling spoons, laughters,and the smell of crushed grass"—memories of theparty which at first obscure the actual journey downto the carter's cottage.

Appropriately, the linear narrative of the eventssurrounding the Sheridan garden party leads up tothe climactic conflict of Laura's consciousness.Again, her perceptions at this climactic moment arearticulated by the narrative voice, which almostspeaks for her, moving from a third- to a first-personpoint of view. "There lay a young man fast asleep—sleeping so soundly, so deeply, that he was far faraway from them both. Oh so remote, so peace-f u l . . . . What did garden parties and baskets andlace frocks matter to him? He was far from all ofthose things. He was wonderful, beautiful. Whilethey were laughing and while the band was playing,this marvel had come to the lane."

Symbolism and ImageryMansfield's descriptive language in this story

presents a richly textured, suggestive world. Colors,shapes, and textures become a medium through



which the scenes of the story acquire significance.The story begins with an impressionistic presenta-tion of the interiors and gardens of the Sheridanhome. The garden itself is presented as a spaceglowing with color and filled with the warmth of theroses, yellow karake fruits, and lilies. These fruitsand flowers symbolize the mood of ethereal beautythat characterizes the Sheridan home. This sense ofluminous calm is suggested perhaps most clearlyby the following image: "And the perfect after-noon, slowly ripened, slowly faded, slowly itspetals closed."

This scene of light and air visibly darkens asLaura leaves the brilliant garden to walk down thehill to the worker's cottages. The somber mood andlack of hope for the villagers is illustrated by theshade as Laura nears Saunders Lane. Similarly, thesoft rustling breezes of the garden and the comfort-able domestic chatter of the Sheridan house arereplaced by silence and the ominous hum that Laurahears as she approaches the worker's neighbor-hood—"How quiet it seemed after the afternoon....A low hum came from the mean little cottages. Insome of them there was a flicker of light, and ashadow, crablike, moved across the window."

The shadows intensify as Laura approaches thecarter's cottage and is led through a "gloomypassage" by a "woman in black." Within theobscured interior of the cottage, Laura is exposed todeath in the form of the young laborer, and theepiphany that she experiences as she looks upon thecalm beauty of the dead face suggests a radiantrevelation in this final setting.

Historical Context

Katherine Mansfield's "The Garden Party" waswritten in 1922, during the period between the twoworld wars. In many ways it reflects the context ofits creation. The 1920s saw enormous political andsocial disturbance throughout Europe. In the newSoviet Union, for example, the Marxist revolutionwas nearing completion. The Soviet Union's pow-erful leader, V. I. Lenin, had succeeded in wrestingcontrol from the Russian aristocracy and was estab-lishing a system of agricultural collectivization inthe rural parts of the Soviet Union. In parts ofEurope, political groups were beginning to promotefascism—a philosophy that supports a governmentof unlimited power, often ruled by a dictator. Thesechanges alarmed many and prompted people every-

where to discuss issues related to the class systemsthat existed during the period.

World War I and the political and social up-heavals of the mid-war years had tangible effects onthe arts and literature. Katherine Mansfield, likemany others in England and elsewhere, felt theimpact of the war, as her beloved brother was killed.Other writers and artists were similarly affected bythe psychological and cultural fallout of the war. Inhis 1922 poem The Waste Land, for example, T. S.Eliot characterizes his sense of individual alienationand cultural uncertainty, having the poetic "I" ofthis poem remark, "These fragments I have shoredagainst my ruins." The fragments to which Eliotalludes are those bits of Western culture and thehumanist tradition that may be used as shieldsagainst the new cultural disruption and uncertainty.In nonfiction, Oswald Spengler, a German histori-an, predicted the end of the hegemony of Westernhumanist values and culture in his now-classicwork, The Decline of the West. Rather than a declineof the West, "The Garden Party" may be under-stood to depict the end of caste-ridden "gardenparty" civilization—the carefree gentility of pre-World War I Europe—in its representation of LauraSheridan's struggle between the worlds of her par-ents and her working-class neighbors.

Critical Overview

Critical attempts to interpret the story's conclusionhave led to many analyses of its overall structure. Inhis article "Crashing the Garden Party, I: A Dream—A Wakening,'' Donald S. Taylor perceives the storyas a narrative of Laura Sheridan's awakening fromthe comfortable but shallow existence that she hasbeen living. Taylor thus views the lyrics of Jose'ssong as a foreshadowing of Laura's eventual awak-ening. Taylor attributes much of the responsibilityfor this dream-world to Mrs. Sheridan, who, hewrites,' 'keeps the daughters in the dream by givingher daughters the illusion of maturity" in planningthe garden party.

In the critical analyses that examine the storystructurally—as a representation and negotiation oftwo worlds—Laura Sheridan is given much of theresponsibility for her own growth or her own awak-ening. In this sense, "The Garden Party" is muchlike a bildungsroman—a story of individual growthand maturity. In his article "Crashing the GardenParty: The Garden Party of Proserpina," Daniel A.

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Compare&

Contrast1920s: With the advent of the modernist move-ment, writers, artists, and musicians struggled toexpress the alienation they felt toward Westernculture.

1990s: Cultural commentators are still drawinginspiration from the disconnection they perceivewith their values and popular culture. A term' 'Generation X'' has been coined to describe awhole generation of people that is thought to feelalienated from the rest of society.

1920s: Stalin establishes himself as dictator ofthe Soviet Union and proceeds to purge hispeople of dissent.

1990s: The Soviet Union has deteriorated into adebt-ridden Russian Republic. Democratic insti-tutions are weak but existent.

1920s: Harold Ware demonstrates mechanizedfarming to the Soviets. He also takes volunteersand $150,000 of equipment and seed to a 15,000acre demonstration farm near Moscow.

1990s: America helps Russia avert a food short-age by loaning it money to buy American grain.The grain, which would otherwise have beendumped, is being bought at a price higher than itscurrent market value.

Weiss likens Laura's journey of self-awakening toProserpina's journey to the underworld. In his read-ing, Saunders Lane is the underworld of death thatLaura must journey to and return from as part of herinitiation into life's ultimate mystery—death—andaway from the dream world of her family.

In mapping out the mythic and autobiographi-cal aspects of "The Garden Party," Anders Iversencompares Mansfield's story to a story written byDanish author I. P. Jacobsen. He sees the similari-ties between the two stories as structural; both dealwith the contrasting worlds of rich and poor. Thesetwo worlds, Iversen argues, not only signify wealthand poverty but also life and death. While inJacobsen's story there is no mediation between thetwo worlds,' "The Garden Party'' allows what Iversencalls a "moment of contact" between the world oflife—the Sheridans—and the world of death—Saunders Lane. This moment of contact is made byLaura Sheridan, who alone ventures forth fromwhat Iversen has characterized as her personal "gar-den of Eden" to what is beyond the garden—theworld of the Scotts. Iversen understands this jour-ney as a "rite of passage," one of the fundamentalingredients of the bildungsroman.

Rather than analyzing "The Garden Party"through the lens of mythic archetype, feminist crit-

ics such as Kate Fulbrook take a more psychologicaland political view of the story and of the character ofLaura Sheridan in particular. In her essay Fulbrookpresents Laura's struggle with the class values ofher parents as a struggle with her own identity. Sheviews Laura as caught between a sense of herself asan outsider within her own family and her vanity—particularly after she has seen herself in her blackhat, when she thinks it impossible to cancel thegarden party. Interestingly, Fulbrook interpretsMansfield's representation of Laura's moral confu-sion as an indictment of "the inadequacy of educa-tion of 'the daughters of educated men'"—an in-dictment, which, as Fulbrook notes, is ' 'deepenedby the story's account of the suffering taking placebelow the Sheridan's privileged hill."

Criticism

Jennifer RichRich is an instructor of literature, composition,

and gender issues at Marymount Manhattan Col-



Formal garden design with rectangualr middle with small shrub borders and grass inthe center.

lege. In the following essay, she examines ways inwhich ' 'The Garden Party'' uses contrasts betweensocial classes to illustrate how the classes defineeach other.

Most criticism of Katherine Mansfield's short story"The Garden Party" concentrates on the story as atruncated bildungsroman—a story of the growthand maturity of a young idealistic character. Criticssuch as Daniel S. Taylor in "Crashing the GardenParty: A Dream, A Wakening," for example, seeLaura's initiation as a passage from the "dream

world of her parents and social class to the realworld of the Sheridan's neighboring working-class."As Taylor notes, describing the symbolic signifi-cance of the garden party, "The garden party epito-mizes the dream world of the Sheridan women, aworld whose underlying principle is the editing andrearranging of reality for the comfort and pleasureof its inhabitants. Its war is with the real world,whose central and final truth is death." Similarly,Clare Hansen and Andrew Gurr, in "The Stories:Sierre and Paris," discuss Laura's evolution intoadulthood as taking place in the context of a gulf

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WhatDo I Read

Next?Bliss and Other Stories (1920), The GardenParty and Other Stories(\922), The Doves Nestand Other Stories (1923), Something Childishand Other Stories (1924) were all written byKatherine Mansfield. The collections of storieslisted above are crucial to examine for KatherineMansfield's narrative innovations and for thediverse number of subjects and characters thather stories concern. These are also prime exam-ples of literary modernism in the 1920s.

The Tunnel, a collection of twenty-four vignettesby Dorothy Richardson, was written in 1919.Dorothy Richardson was a great influence onKatherine Mansfield, especially in regards toMansfield's stylistic innovations. While differ-ent in content and subject-matter, these piecesare interesting to read as examples of earlytwentieth-century female modernism.

To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf's most fa-mous novel, was published in 1928. VirginiaWoolf and Katherine Mansfield were friends andwere great influences on one another. AfterMansfield died, Woolf noted that she was theonly writer of whom she was jealous. To theLighthouse is a masterpiece of stream-of-con-sciousness narrative, and, as such, it shares simi-larities to Katherine Mansfield's "The GardenParty".

Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf, was pub-

lished in 1922. Similar to "The Garden Party,"Mrs. Dalloway is structured around an eveningcocktail party. It pairs Mrs. Dalloway, an upper-middle-class wife of a government official, withSeptimus Smith, a mentally-ill veteran. The nar-ratives of the two intertwine throughout andserve to comment upon the other. As such, it is astriking indictment of complacence and snobbery.

The Letters of Katherine Mansfield, by Kathe-rine Mansfield, was published in 1928. Kathe-rine Mansfield was a prolific correspondent andmany of her letters include commentary on herown fiction as well as other writers of her time.

The Journals of Katherine Mansfield, by Kathe-rine Mansfield, was published in 1927. Thesejournals are an invaluable source for understand-ing Mansfield's political and social beliefs andthe aesthetic and non-aesthetic influences uponher writing.

Women in Love, by D. H. Lawrence, was pub-lished in 1920. One of the main protagonistsof this novel, Gudrun, is based on KatherineMansfield. The novel is structured around thefriendships and marriages of two couples—assuch it is loosely based on Mansfield's and JohnMiddleton Murry's friendship with Lawrenceand his wife, Frieda.

between rich and poor—a gulf that is indicated bythe Mansfield's oppositional descriptions of theworld of the Sheridans and the world of their lessfortunate neighbors:

Words such as "perfect," "delicious," "beautiful,""splendor," "radiant," "exquisite," "brilliant," "rap-turous," "charming," "delightful," "stunning," con-vey the outward beauty of the Sheridan's life . . . Instriking contrast are words describing the workingpeople and Saunders lane: "haggard," "mean," "pov-erty-stricken," "revolting," "disgusting," "sordid,""crablike," "wretched."

Given that "The Garden Party" was written in1922 at the height of Marxist movements acrossEurope and Russia—which, among other things,attempted to understand class structure and identi-ty—it is necessary to explore the way in which"The Garden Party" presents a picture of classinterdependence. Specifically, "The Garden Par-ty" is interesting to investigate for the way itportrays families like the Sheridans as being de-pendent for their class—identity on their alwaysnearby working—class neighbors. Thus, rather than



conceptualizing the worlds of the Sheridans and theworlds of the Scotts as diametric opposites whosepaths seldom cross, this essay will explore the wayin which "The Garden Party" presents the twoworlds as always meeting and clashing—defin-ing one and the other through their continualjuxtaposition.

"The Garden Party" is structured around thepreparations for an early afternoon garden party.The sense of the Sheridans as inhabiting a dream-like world is set out in the very first lines when thenarrator comments on the ideal weather conditionsfor the garden party. ' 'And after all the weather wasideal. They could not have had a more perfect day ifthey had ordered it. Windless, warm, the sky with-out a cloud." The family, and particularly its femalemembers, seem to derive their life-force from thecarefree atmosphere in which they live. In thestory's first scene, Meg, one of Laura's sisters, isseen sipping coffee, hair washed, wrapped in agreen turban. Jose, another sister, is simply de-scribed as a butterfly who always ' 'came down in asilk petticoat and a kimono jacket."

Mansfield, however, does not allow this senseof early morning luxuriance to go uninterrupted.Immediately, those upon whom the Sheridan sis-ters' luxury depends burst in upon this scene of lazybreakfast-taking. Their entrance is signaled by abreak in the narrator's description of the garden andweather: "Breakfast was not yet over before themen came to put up the marquee." The now down-to-earth tone of this sentence connotes linguisticallya clash between the lives of the Sheridan sisters andthe men who must come at dawn to put up themarquee for the party. This interruption is furthersignaled when Laura, the main character whothroughout the story attempts to bridge personallythese two ever-present worlds, runs out to meet theworkmen with breakfast—the signifier of her "Sheri-dan" life—in hand. Significantly, Laura feels em-barrassed still holding the bread and butter when shecomes to meet the workmen: "Laura wished nowthat she had not got the bread-and-butter, but therewas nowhere to put it and she couldn't possiblythrow it away."

The reason for this awkwardness is preciselythat the bread and butter, the piece of Sheridan lifewhich she has taken with her, defines her to theworkmen as not one of them but as opposite fromthem, and upper class. Laura attempts to mediatethat duality by playing both roles—taking a bigworkman-like bite from her slice of refined Sheri-

after the garden party—is a

catalyst for a moment of

understanding/connection

between Laura's world and the

world of the Scotts."

dan life while thinking of the "absurdity of classdistinctions."

While Laura is exulting in her camaraderie withthe workmen, one of them catches her attention. Heseems somewhat apart from his compatriot—hedoes not share the general frivolity, and functions toonce again remind Laura of their difference. Dis-cussing the placement of the marquee, Laura re-marks that there will be a band playing at the party.To this the workman replies,' 'H'm, going to have aband, are you?" After this remark, Laura noticesthat this workman "was pale," and with a "hag-gard look as his dark eyes scanned the tenniscourt." At this very moment, however, of a sense ofmutual alienation, the workman picks and smells asprig of lavender from the garden. Witnessing this,Laura feels their differences evaporate and "won-der(s) at him for caring for things like that—caringfor the smell of lavender." Once again, then, amoment of antimony, of unmediated difference of"two worlds," is mediated by an action, this timeon the part of one of the workmen rather than Laura.

This sense of similar class identities is short-lived, however, as the narrative continues with thecontinued clashing and jarring of the two worlds. Infact, during the rest of the story there is never amoment where Saunders Lane is forgotten. Even atthe dreamiest point in the Sheridan world, SaundersLane is suggested in some way or another. Forexample, after Laura has met the workmen, shesettles down for a moment and listens to the soundof the house. As she listens she finds that the houseis an airy delight,' 'every door seemed open. . . Andthe house was alive with soft, quick steps andrunning voices." Even this momentary enjoymentof the house's heavenly comfort is interrupted bySaunders Lane. The interruption comes in the formof "a long chuckling absurd sound. It was the heavy

V o l u m e 8 5 9

I ronical ly, the hat--


piano being moved on its stiff castors." Althoughwe are told that Meg and Jose are involved inmoving the piano, it is the servant Hans's physicallabor that Laura undoubtedly overhears.

A more humorous (if not satirical) moment ofpotential mediation between the two worlds of thestory is Jose's absurd song with which she tests hervoice. Jose has been earlier described as a "butter-fly"—a girl of cream-puffs and linen dresses, andof course garden parties. Yet, the song that she singsis decidedly not of this type: "This life is Wee-ary,/A Tear—A SighVA Love that Chan- ges/This life isWee-ary." Rather than the expected moment ofunity between the Sheridan house and SaundersLane, the absurd pairing of an emotionally cal-loused character like Jose with a song of sorrow anddesperation serves instead to remind the reader thatit is precisely the weariness of others that makespossible Jose's butterfly-like existence. This an-tithesis of expression and experience is punctuatedby Jose's actions at the close of the song,

But at the word "goodbye", and although the pianosounded more desperate than ever, her face broke intoa brilliant, dreadfully unsympathetic smile, 'Aren't Iin good voice, Mummy?'

This mismatch of expression and character isunderscored by the fact that this song is preceded byJose giving orders to the servant, Hans, to rearrangethe tables and to sweep the rug.

The garden party is itself not fully described inthe story. We are only privy to certain snatches ofconversation—and these tell us that it has been asuccess, with Laura the center of much attentionbecause of her black hat. Before the garden party,Laura's mother, Mrs. Sheridan, had distracted Lau-ra from thinking about the dead laborer and her wishto cancel the garden party by enticing her with ablack hat. Laura had at first resisted this appeal toher vanity, but once she leaves her mother's bed-room, she catches a glimpse of herself in the hat inher bedroom mirror. What she sees startles her, andserves to obliterate the image of the dead laborer.

There, quite by chance, the first thing she saw was thischarming girl in the mirror, in her black hat trimmedwith gold daisies, and a long velvet black ribbon.Never had she imaged she could look like that.. . .Just for a moment she had another glimpse of thatpoor woman and those little children, and the bodybeing carried into the house. But it all seemed soblurred, unreal, like a picture in the newspaper.

The hat thus functions at this moment to rein-force more than ever the division between the worldof the Sheridans and the world of the Scotts. Suf-

fused with vanity as a result of the hat's charm,Laura forgets the tragedy down the hill, and morethan ever desires to continue with the garden party.Even when confronted with her brother, Laurie—the family member with whom she is most emotion-ally intimate—Laura decides not to tell him of Scottonce he has complemented her on her hat.

Ironically, the hat—after the garden party—is acatalyst for a moment of understanding/connectionbetween Laura's world and the world of the Scotts.After the party, Laura's mother suggests that Lauratake a basket of party scraps down to Scott's widow.At first, Laura questions the appropriateness of thisgesture, but is soon convinced. Mrs. Sheridan alsoinsists that Laura "run down just as [she is]"-inparty dress and hat. Arriving at Saunders Lane,Laura soon feels awkward because of the way inwhich she is dressed. This awkwardness, I wouldargue, signals a moment of insight for Laura into thelives of the workers who live on this lane. She isdisturbed because of the brightness of her frock andthe extravagance of the famous hat:' 'how her frockshone! And the big hat with the velvet streamer—ifonly it was another hat!" Noting the differencebetween her dress and that of the laborers—tweedcapped men and shawled women—Laura realizesthe life absent of carefree happiness that the inhabi-tants of Saunders Lane must endure. A bright frockand an extravagant hat have no home here. Like thebread and butter episode, this piece of Sheridan lifereveals to her the almost unsurmountable disjunc-ture between her life and the lives of these workers.

The hat also functions to create another mo-ment of insight for Laura when she is alone with thebody of the laborer. When Laura enters the Scotthome, she is immediately confronted with the sor-row-ravaged face of the laborer's widow. AlthoughLaura tries to escape as soon as it is possible, thewidow's sister insists that she view the now-peace-ful body of Mr. Scott. Laura is soon overwhelmedby the peacefulness of the expression on the labor-er's face; particularly she is overcome by the re-moteness of his appearance. "He was given up tohis dream. What did garden-parties and baskets andlace frocks matter to him? He was far from all thosethings. He was wonderful, beautiful. While theywere laughing and while the band was playing, thismarvel had come to the lane." Laura feels that shecan not leave Scott without saying something thatwould indicate the affect that he has had on her—"She gave out a loud, childish sob . . . 'Forgive myhat,' she said."

6 o S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s


Although her plea is undoubtedly comical andabsurd, it also carries within it a significant momentof understanding. As we have seen, the hat hasheretofore functioned as a prime signifier of thedivision between the two worlds—earlier, the hathad caused Laura to forget the tragedy just down thehill. By apologizing for her hat, Laura is alsoapologizing for what it represents—class snobbery,selfishness, and the almost unsurmountable psycho-logical and social division between the world of thelaborers and the world of the Sheridans. The hat,then, here facilitates a moment of connection—ofclass similarity—through its very significance as asymbol of division and antimony. The story con-cludes with Laura meeting her brother, Laurie, inSaunders Lane. Her demeanor with him indicatesthat she has been touched by the universality ofdeath and life—both know neither class borders norgarden parties.

Source: Jennifer Rich, "Overview of 'The Garden Party,"'in Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2000.

Ben SatterfieldIn the following essay, Satterfield discusses the

importance of irony in ' 'The Garden Party.''

All of the writing on Katherine Mansfield's mostanthologized story recognizes or implies that' 'TheGarden Party" is a fable of initiation. The generalinterpretation argues that Laura goes from her Edenicworld to one in which death exists, and thatarchetypically she loses her innocence, thereby ac-quiring knowledge and reaching a point of initia-tion. Laura has a great discovery, true; but becauseof her inability to make any kind of statement aboutit that would serve to clarify its meaning, criticsdisagree on whether she will go on to learn moreabout life and death or whether she will retreat intothe sanctuary of the garden world. Much of thedisagreement can be resolved, I believe, by a closeexamination of the irony—which has been largelyignored—and the function and effect of that ironyupon the events of the story. Also, ' 'The GardenParty" contains two types of initiation, a fact mostlyoverlooked, and the initiations are not compatible,as the details of the story make evident.

Irony is the keynote. The central character of"The Garden Party," Laura Sheridan, is protectedfrom the exigencies of life and is unable to viewreality (even death) except through the rose-tintedglasses provided by a delicate and insulated exist-ence. Laura's world is a world of parties and flow-ers, a pristine world of radiant, bright canna lilies

That Katherine

Mansfield could present two

types of initiation, one

profound and the other

shallow, is a tribute to her

consummate skill: the fact

that the protagonist opts for

the shallow in no way

detracts from her art but

serves to increase the

poignancy of her tale and to

mark its realism."

and roses, a precious and exclusive world. Laura'ssister, Jose, is early described as a butterfly—andwhat creature is more delicate than a butterfly? ThatJose chooses to sing a song about a weary life,obviously something she is unacquainted with, hasto be ironic: in the Sheridan family, weariness andsorrow are merely lyrics to be mocked.

Mansfield's exquisite use of imagery is astelling as her irony. For example, the flower image-ry throughout the story serves to keep the readerreminded of the delicacy of Laura's world. Theflowers are splendid, beautiful, and—what is notstated—short-lived. Laura, too, is beautiful, radiant,flower-like. But even the afternoon is likened to aflower: ' 'And the perfect afternoon slowly ripened,slowly faded, slowly its petals closed." Laura, hervision attuned to the superficial, can see only thebeauty and not the dying of the flower, and shecannot see that, in many ways, she is very much likea flower herself.

The symbolism of Laura's hat as well as hername (from laurel, the victory crown) is apparent.Marvin Magalaner adroitly sums up the signifi-cance of both: "When the mother thus presents herdaughter with her own party hat in typical corona-tion fashion, she is symbolically transferring toLaura the Sheridan heritage of snobbery, restrictedsocial views, narrowness of vision—the gardenparty syndrome." Surely this is the case, although

V o l u m e 8 6 1


Laura may not be aware of it. Hence here is aninitiation that is true and subtle.

But the strong irony of this story results fromthe contrast between the way Laura sees herself andthe way the reader is led to see her. Laura has verylittle—if any—insight, a fact made manifest through-out "The Garden Party." Her dealings with theworkmen illustrate her lack of awareness: she seesthem as "extraordinarily nice," apparently not real-izing that their "niceness" is more than likely dueto their roles as subordinates, mere hirelings. Lauradoes not even seem to realize that what to her is adelightful party is simply toil to the workmen. Self-absorbed and narcissistic, she takes the superficialat face value because both she and her perceptionslack depth. "She felt just like a work-girl" isstingingly ironic because the reader knows thatLaura has absolutely no concept of the life of awork-girl, just as she has no idea of what lies behindthe friendly veneer of the workmen. For her toimagine that she would "get on much better withmen like these" rather than the "silly boys" whocome to her parties is an indication of how littlegeneral comprehension and self-understanding shepossesses.

The other obvious contrast in the story is be-tween the gaiety on the top of the hill and the sorrowbelow. The death of a man intrudes upon Laura'saffected sensibilities and she discusses the possibili-ty of canceling the party, but, as we suspected, herconscience is easily assuaged (and by the symbolichat, a distraction that serves to fix Laura permanent-ly in her world). Nothing, positively nothing, ispermitted to spoil the party; even the weather isdescribed as "ideal"—a "perfect day for a gar-den-party."

In the Sheridan world, suffering and miserycannot take precedence over well-ordered but mun-dane social functions, and will not be allowed tointerfere. Consequently, Laura, with uncommonself-centeredness, blots out the death of a commonman until a more convenient time:' Til remember itagain after the party's over, she decided." But eventhen, for her to realize that she is actually going tothe house of the dead man is difficult because' 'kisses, voices, tinkling spoons, laughter, the smellof crushed grass were somehow inside her. She hadno room for anything else." Unmistakably she hasroom for little else than parties, and the closer shecomes to the house of the dead man the more sherealizes her mistake, for here is a reality she does notwant to face: it is so much easier to commiserate

from the top of the hill—and then to go on withone's fun. When she actually views the dead man,she can see him only as she sees death, as somethingremote, far, far away. (In addition, she has no moreunderstanding of why she is there than does the deadman's wife.) Death is so removed from Laura'sinsular life that it is unreal; it cannot really beexperienced, much less coped with, so she sees it asshe sees everything else, as something marvelousand beautiful. Just as Laura is unable to pierce thefacade of the workmen, she is equally unable to seebeyond the face of death, the stark reality of whichis transformed into dream, and she sees the deadman as sleeping, happy, content.

Any initiation into the mystery of life and deathis incomplete, whereas the installation of Laura intothe Sheridan tradition is certain. That KatherineMansfield could present two types of initiation, oneprofound and the other shallow, is a tribute to herconsummate skill: the fact that the protagonist optsfor the shallow in no way detracts from her art butserves to increase the poignancy of her tale and tomark its realism.

Laura is not without sensitivity, but her sensi-tivity is subordinated to the comforts and trappingsof the Sheridan way of life. She is young andinexperienced, and she has been shielded from theharsher aspects of existence. Even after facing thereality of death, however, she is unable to view itrealistically and transforms it into a dream, intosomething wonderful and happy, something thatwill fit into the tableau of her resplendent world.The ironic tone has been too clearly established forthe reader to take Laura's encounter as profoundlyaffecting. In this regard, "The Garden Party" as-serts itself as not just another story of the loss ofinnocence, but an alteration of a mythic pattern.

The intimations of mortality are only vaguelyperceived, and the story closes on a final note ofirony: Laura apparently thinks that she has discov-ered something new about life, not an awesometruth, but something deep and ineffable, somethingshe attempts to explain to her brother, but cannot.Unlike the emperor Augustus, who would some-times say to his Senate,' 'Words fail me, my Lords;nothing I can utter could possibly indicate the depthof my feelings," Laura seems more confused thanmoved, and her inability to articulate her feelings toher brother is a result of her failure to understand,her inability to grasp the full significance of whatshe has witnessed. "No matter. He quite under-stood." That is, he understood as much as Laura.



They both will in all likelihood remain in the refugeof their bright house on the hill and continue givingexpensive, gay parties and toying with the surfaceof things until the petals of their own lives are closed.

Source: Ben Satterfield, "Irony in 'The Garden Party,"' inBall State University Forum, Vol. XXIII, No. 1, Winter,1982, pp. 68-70.

Clare Hanson and Andrew Gun-in the following excerpt, Hanson and Gurr

explore issues of class conflict in "The Gar-den Party.''

Into her narrative, Katherine Mansfield weaves aseries of contrasts and parallels which unobtrusive-ly carry forward her theme at the same time as theyunify the different elements of the story. "TheGarden Party" is a great story and a complex onebecause in i t . . . we are presented simultaneouslywith several distinct yet interlocking levels of mean-ing. There is the social meaning provided by thereal-life framework; the emotional and psychologi-cal overtones of the events in which Laura plays acentral part; and the broader, philosophical signifi-cance of the total experience Katherine Mansfieldlays before us.

The fact that the rich can avoid (or attempt toavoid) the unpleasant realities of human existence,even summon up beauty and elegance at will, isconveyed in the very first paragraph of the story.This opening paragraph is redolent of the fullnessand richness of life, indeed of birth, since the rosebushes are bowed down as if "visited by archan-gels" in the night. At the same time, there is anunreal, artificial quality to this beauty which thepersonification of the roses underlines. And so thescene is set for the contrast which is integral to thepatterning of the narrative: the contrast between theessentially artificial, almost unreal world of theSheridans and the quite different but real world ofthe Scotts. While the Sheridans' money brings themlife in its fullness, the Scotts' lack of money conferson them only hardship and death.

The world of the Scotts dominates the ending ofthe story, the world of the Sheridans the first part.Rich and poor alike have their social rituals, and theritual being celebrated by the Sheridans is thegarden party, which at once allows them to displaytheir wealth and fulfill the obligations of hospitality.Convention governs the attitudes, the behaviour andeven the voices of the Sheridan women. Laura'sconscious attempt to copy her mother's voice, fol-

.Emphasising the gulf

between the rich and the poor

is the descriptive language of

the story."

lowed by her realisation that she sounds "so fearful-ly affected," indicates the artificiality of the Sheri-dan manner of talking. Laura, who despises "stupidconventions,'' cannot act a role; but her mother andsisters do. Jose, for example, delights in the artifi-cial. She loves ' 'giving orders to the servants'' andmaking them feel that "they were taking part insome drama." Emotion is something she simulatesbut does not feel. Practising her song, "This Life isWee-ary, I Hope comes to Die," Jose sings of atragic feeling only to break into a "brilliant, dread-fully unsympathetic smile." Behaviour is learned,not something spontaneous, in this sheltered worldof wealth; and the Sheridan reaction to events takingplace outside the family circle is dictated by what isexpected. Thus Laura's instinctive feeling that thegarden party should be cancelled because a death isbeing mourned nearby is rejected by her mother andsister in virtually identical words. Jose tells Laura,' 'nobody expects us to," and this is echoed by MrsSheridan: "People like that don't expect sacrificesfrom us."

It is principally through Laura's perceptionsthat we glimpse the quite different world of theworkmen. The distinguishing characteristic of theseordinary people is their naturalness and spontaneity.Whereas feelings are assumed, disguised, or re-strained by the Sheridan women, they are expressedfreely by the working class. Instinctively, Laura isattracted to the warmth and friendliness of theworking men who come to erect the marquee; andthe sensitivity shown by the man who smells a sprigof lavender makes her compare these men and theboys of her own social class. ' 'How many men thatshe knew would have done such a thing," shethinks. "Why couldn't she have workmen for friendsrather than the silly boys she danced with and whocame to Sunday night supper?'' Laura is searchingfor an identity of her own when she inwardly voicesher dislike of the "absurd class distinctions" and' 'stupid conventions'' which pervade the Sheridanworld and prevent her from having friendships with

V o l u m e 8 6 3


such men. She tries to legitimise her attraction to theworkmen by pretending to be "just like a work-girl.' ' But the class barriers cannot be broken down,and it is with her brother, Laurie, that she shares herown warmth. "Suddenly she couldn't stop herself.She ran at Laurie and gave him a small, quicksqueeze." Responding in a "warm, boyish voice,"Laurie echoes the warm voices of the workmen.

Tension in the story is generated by the under-lying conflict between Laura, who cannot fullyaccept the artificial Sheridan conventions, and hermother. Because she is close to the natural world,the girl empathises with the feelings of the workingpeople who are themselves part of that world. WithLaurie, Laura had explored the forbidden territorywhere "washerwomen lived in the lane... . It wasdisgusting and sordid.... But still one must goeverywhere; one must see everything." If Laura issomething of a rebel, out of tune with her motherand sisters because she needs to include knowledgeof the real, outside world in her perception of life,she is also set apart because she is "the artisticone." So long as her imagination functions usefullyin the context of the Sheridan life-style, all is well.But when she imaginatively experiences the horrorof the working man's death and, forgetting thedistinctions between the different social worlds,wants to stop the garden party, she is condemned as"extravagant."

Laura's inner division is central to the workingout of "The Garden Party" On the one hand hernaturalness draws her to find out about life as it islived outside the confines of the Sheridan house-hold; on the other her artistic temperament causesher not only to respond to beauty but to cast over it aspecial imaginative colouring. The world of illusionis as precious to her, although for different reasons,as it is to her mother and sisters. It seems to be Laurawho feels that roses "understood that [they] are theonly flowers that impress people at garden-par-ties," who registers the noise of the piano beingmoved as a "long, chuckling, absurd sound," whoimagines that "little faint winds were playing chase"and that "two tiny spots of sun . . . [were] playingtoo." Knowingly, Mrs Sheridan appeals to theimaginative side of her daughter's personality whenshe cleverly distracts the girl by placing her own haton her head. ' 'I have never seen you look such apicture,'' she says admiringly. As Laura gazes at herown beauty in the mirror and decides to forget thedeath until after the party, the attractions of illusiontriumph over the demands of reality. And for theduration of the party, illusion holds sway.

But the magical perfection of the garden party,indeed the whole story, is enclosed within a philo-sophic framework which reminds us that everythinghas its opposite. There is a hint of birth in theopening paragraph; in the final section death assertsits presence. In contrast to the frivolous party givenby the Sheridans, the gathering at the Scotts' is forthe funeral rite of death. Instead of the artificialdrama enjoyed by Jose, a real-life drama must beendured in Saunders Lane. And, while sadness anddeeply-felt emotion are kept at bay by the Sheridanwomen, the dead man's wife mourns, her face' 'puffed up, red, with swollen eyes and swollen lips."

Emphasising the gulf between the rich and thepoor is the descriptive language of the story. Wordssuch as "perfect," "delicious," "beautiful,""splendour," "radiant," "exquisite," "brilliant,""rapturous," "charming," "delightful," "stun-ning," convey the outward beauty of the Sheridans'life—and its artificiality. In striking contrast arewords describing the working people and SaundersLane: "haggard," "mean," "poverty-stricken,""revolting," "disgusting," "sordid," "crablike,""wretched." In the domain of the Sheridans, muta-bility can be warded off so long as the outwardlybeautiful appearance of things is preserved. Thisunattainable ideal of permanence, or stasis, issymbolised by the word "picture." In their orderedperfection, the garden, the roses and the canna liliesresemble pictures. When Mrs Sheridan places herhat on Laura's head and says, "I have never seenyou look such a picture,'' she is in effect framing theyoung girl's beauty, giving it the semblance ofpermanence. There is a different kind of picturewhich Laura briefly visualises: that of the poorwoman in the lane and her dead husband. ' 'But itall seemed blurred, unreal, like a picture in thenewspaper."

Laura is the central character in ' 'The GardenParty" from whose point of view the story isessentially told; and it is she who bridges thecontrasting worlds of the Sheridans and the Scotts.Her personal dilemma is that she must reconcile asympathetic understanding of the poor, and an aware-ness of reality, with an imaginative attachment tothe almost unreal, magical beauty which sweetensthe lives of the rich. Her ordeal comes at the end ofthe story when she must physically cross the bounda-ries between her house and Saunders Lane, and indoing so face up to that other, "blurred, unreal"picture. When she enters the cottage of the deadman, the story comes full circle. Just as she had donepreviously, the girl empathises emotionally with the



working people and echoes their grief with a sob.Earlier in the day, her emotional identification withthe workmen had been deflected towards her broth-er: again, it is Laurie who ' 'put his arm round hershoulder. "Don't cry", he said in his warm, lovingvoice." Laurie, whose warmth links him with theworkmen, helps his sister emotionally to transcendthe barriers between the classes. The unchanginglove of brother and sister, moreover, makes bear-able the cruelty of life, the heartlessness of humanbeings, the "Love that Changes" of Jose's song,and the knowledge of mutability''; of the inevitableending of a "perfect afternoon," and the end-ing of life.

But the crucial philosophical problem in ' 'TheGarden Party," the problem that Laura shares withall sensitive human beings, is how to encounterugliness and death yet retain a personal vision ofbeauty and hope. In this closing scene, KatherineMansfield contrives an answer. She brings togetherthe contrasting pictures of beauty and ugliness in apicture whose beauty appears truly permanent, "amarvel." The sister-in-law of the dead man tellsLaura that '"e looks a picture"; and Laura, theartistic one, agrees that he is indeed "wonderful,beautiful." Imaginatively, she is able to forget thesuffering inflicted by his death and think only that,"while they were laughing and while the band wasplaying, this marvel had come to the lane. "In herwriting, Katherine Mansfield, too, has come fullcircle. Nothing, in her youthful stories, tempered ayoung girl's initiation into the harshness of adultlife. At the ending of "The Garden Party" sheallows Laura to retain her illusions. If we are leftwith the uneasy feeling that she has let her characteroff too lightly, we nevertheless accept the emotionalTightness of the ending. For there is a sense in whichKatherine Mansfield has granted us, too, a reprieve;has assuaged both our guilt about social inequalitiesand our haunting anxiety about death.

Source: Clare Hanson and Andrew Gurr, "The Stories 1921-22: Sierre and Paris," in Katherine Mansfield, St. Martin'sPress, 1981, pp. 95-139.

Warren S. WalkerIn the following essay, Walker examines the

characterization and the conflict between charac-ters in ' 'The Garden Party'' and concludes that thestory's conclusion is vague and uncertain.

The most frequently anthologized of KatherineMansfield's works, "The Garden Party" has longenjoyed a reputation for near-perfection in the art of

the short story. Its characters are deftly drawn withquick Chekhovian strokes; its action moves along ata vigorous pace; its central situation, richly tex-tured, suggests both antecedence and aftermath;its dialogue, especially the internal debate, ispsychologically apt and convincing. And yet, for allits undeniable strength and beauty, "The GardenParty,'' often leaves readers with a feeling of dissat-isfaction, a vague sense that the story somehowdoes not realize its potential. The difficulty, I think,is a structural one: the conflict has a dual nature,only part of which is resolved effectively.

"The Garden Party" is a story concerning themost common form of character development, if notthe easiest to portray: the process of growing up.Viewing the changing reaction of the protagonist toan incident that threatens to upset an upper classsocial occasion, one is aware that throughout thewhole story there is a groping toward maturity, andthat at the end Laura is indeed more mature than sheis at the opening. The incident is the accidentaldeath of a relatively unknown man, but for Laura itbrings the first real consciousness of the phenome-non of death. Shocked at first, she comes eventuallyto see life and death in a new perspective in whichdeath is not as unlovely as she had imagined. Oneaspect of the conflict, then, and seemingly the moreimportant one, is the struggle between fear of andacceptance of death. That death is different fromwhat she had anticipated, that it is beautiful in onerespect is the new awareness, and this, climaxing astory about a young person, can be considered amaturing experience.

But there is another aspect of the conflict thatimmediately engages the attention of the reader, onewhich is less fundamental but surely not unimpor-tant: the clash of basic social attitudes representedby Laura and by her mother. This adds a dimensionof irony to the story, for on the surface Lauraattempts to ape her mother socially by taking chargeof the arrangements for the party; she even affectsthe mannerisms of Mrs. Sheridan, "copying hermother's voice" when she first addresses the work-men and trying ' 'to look severe and even a bit short-sighted" as she comes up to them. Beneath suchtrivia, however, there is a profound difference. Thesensitivity of Laura for the suffering of others is setover against the callousness of Mrs. Sheridan, andthe two attitudes struggle for dominance in thechild's mind. What she strongly feels to be right ispronounced wrong by the person she imitates, andLaura wavers and is understandably perplexed. Open

V o l u m e S 6 5

The Garden Party

Here at the climax of

the story, then, a decisive

stage has been reached in the

respective struggles between

two sets of opposing forces: 1)

youthful fear of death vs.

some kind of acceptance of

death, and 2) Laura's social

attitude vs. her mother's."

hostility between the two forces breaks out over thepropriety or impropriety of going ahead with plansfor the party after it is learned that a near neighborhas been killed. Laura insists that the noisy affair—a band has been employed for the event—must becancelled. The mother, at first amused ("She re-fused to take Laura seriously"), finally loses allpatience with her daughter. Mrs. Sheridan impliesthat Laura is being immature and calls her "child"in the argument that ensues. Here, then, is anothercriterion for maturity, one in the realm of humanrather than cosmic considerations.

Whether it is maturity that is involved or some-thing else, the reader, from the opening paragraphs,identifies himself with Laura, is sympathetic towardher point of view, and is himself antagonized by thevalues of Mrs. Sheridan. This is true even before theaccidental death of Scott, a carter, brings the issue toa crisis. When, for example, Laura realizes thatlaborers are really fine people after all and remarks,in the internal dialogue, on their ' 'friendliness'' andon the "stupid conventions" that have kept herfrom seeing this before, the reader is less amused atthe ingenuousness of her observations than annoyedat the parents responsible for a social orientationthat would make necessary such an elementarydiscovery. It is even more true when mother anddaughter argue, and the reader's passive agree-ment with Laura's humane stand turns into empath-ic support. Mrs. Sheridan is hopelessly alienatedfrom the reader, and everything she says makesher appear worse. In an attempt to soften theincontrovertible fact that one of the indigent cottagersis dead, she remarks, with heartless logic, "'I can't

understand how they keep alive in those poky littleholes.'" In refutation of Laura's statement that theparty should be postponed out of deference to thebereaved survivors, she says, '"People like thatdon't expect sacrifices from us.'" It is with nosurprise that we learn that the Sheridan childrenhave been brought up to scorn the cottages of thelaborers:

They were the greatest possible eyesores, and theyhad no right to be in that neighborhood at all. Theywere little mean dwellings painted a chocolate brown.In the garden patches there was nothing but cab-bage stalks, sick hens, and tomato cans. The verysmoke coming out of their chimneys was poverty-stricken. Little rags and shreds of smoke, so unlikethe great silvery plumes that uncurled from theSheridans' chimneys.

The Sheridans, who see this rural slum adjacentto their estate as "disgusting and sordid," apparent-ly never make any effort to alleviate the condition ofthe wretches living there, or even to extend moralsupport to them. Laura, on the other hand, overcom-ing the snobbery of her upbringing, is acutely con-cerned about their feelings.

A resolution of this second aspect of the con-flict seems to be suggested obliquely by the usemade of hats—hats in general, and one hat inparticular. Hats are used functionally in the plot andacquire symbolic value within the framework of thestory as they come to represent the whole socialmilieu of the Sheridan class with its leisure, itsconspicuous consumption, and its caste distinc-tions. In an opening scene, "Father and Lauriestood brushing their hats ready to go to the office."Immediately after this mention of male headwear,Mrs. Sheridan tells Laura to ask Kitty Maitland,with whom Laura is talking on the telephone, to besure '' 'to wear to the party that sweet hat she had onlast Sunday.'" When Laura is badly upset by thedeath of the carter, Mrs. Sheridan diverts her atten-tion from the tragedy by giving her a bright jewelfrom her glittering social world, a "black hat trimmedwith gold daisies and a long black velvet ribbon."Laura is thus enticed, for the time being, from herbetter feelings. One last spark of humane concernflares up that afternoon when Laura encounters herbrother Laurie, home from work now. PerhapsLaurie, who of all the family is the only one whoeven begins to understand Laura, will agree with heron the undesirability of going on with the party. Inher confused state she relies on Laurie to providean ethical touchstone for testing the validity ofher opinion.



She wanted to tell him. If Laurie agreed with theothers, then it was bound to be all right. And shefollowed him into the hall.

"Laurie!"

"Hallo!" He was half-way upstairs, but when heturned round and saw Laura, he suddenly puffed outhis cheeks and goggled his eyes at her. "My word,Laura! You look stunning," said Laurie. "What anabsolutely topping hat!"

Laura said faintly "Is it?" and smiled up at Laurie,and didn't tell him after all.

Her last resistance overcome now, the spell ofsociety is upon her, and Laura does not escape itsinfluence throughout the ritual of the party.

She is the official hostess, according to plan,thus assuming the position the mother would ordi-narily have held, welcoming guests, helping themsolicitously to refreshments, and receiving theircompliments—for her hat. Finally, the party overand the guests departed, the Sheridans sit down torest, and Mr. Sheridan contributes to the conversa-tion what he mistakenly thinks will be news to thefamily: the information about the carter's death. Hiswife, secretly exasperated at the necessity for re-newing a debate she had thought won, rallies with"one of her brilliant ideas." Still completely un-moved by the plight of the widow and her fivechildren, Mrs. Sheridan realizes that now Laura willhave to be placated on the issue, and so she suggeststhat they gather up a basketful of the left-overs fromthe party and send them to the grieving family,much as one might pick out scraps for a pet sow thathad hurt its foot. Laura, quite appropriately, isappalled to think that this is the best they can do forpeople in trouble, but she goes along with hermother's suggestion, the only concession she hasbeen able to gain. She starts for the cottage of thedeceased with the basket, and only when it is toolate to turn back realizes how inappropriate is herhat, which by now has become an emblem of themother and her hard-shelled world. "If only it wasanother hat!" she admonishes herself. Then coniesthe incident in the Scott cottage, during which Laurasees something quite peaceful and serene in death.But, significantly, the only thing she says to thedead man is "'Forgive my hat.'" She has not, itseems, succumbed permanently to the enchantmentof her mother's world after all.

Here at the climax of the story, then, a decisivestage has been reached in the respective strugglesbetween two sets of opposing forces: 1) youthfulfear of death vs. some kind of acceptance of death,and 2) Laura's social attitude vs. her mother's.

There is no doubt about the resolution of thefirst issue:

There lay a young man fast asleep.... He was givenup to his dream. What did garden-parties and basketsand lace frocks matter to him? He was far from allthose things. He was wonderful, beautiful. . .. All iswell, said that sleeping face.

About the second part of the conflict, however;there is considerable doubt, for the problem issuddenly dropped, and no further reference is madeto it. Does Laura now switch to her mother's view ofthe matter, and does she now feel that her previousconcern about the cotter's family was as unwarrant-ed as the fear of death that accompanied it? Or hasher plea "Forgive my hat" indicated her irrevoca-ble commitment to a position opposed to that ofMrs. Sheridan? If so, will she not now have toreorient her feelings toward her family? We neverfind out, for no hint of an answer to this dilemma isto be found in the conclusion.

To make matters still more vague at the end, incomes Laurie, who she thinks will understand her.He had failed to sense her difficulty before theparty, however, when she had depended on him todo so, for he too had made the social genuflection tothe sanctity of the hat. Now Laura hopes that he willgrasp intuitively the feelings she is unable to articu-late. But does he? The scene at the cottage was"wonderful, beautiful.... this marvel" to her, butLaurie seems to think that it must have been other-wise. '"Was it awful?'" he asks. And then a mo-ment later when she says,' "Isn't l i fe . . ." ' (myste-rious, or surprising, or something else), he answers,'"Isn't it, darling?'" Does he really understandwhat she is talking about? One wonders. One won-ders whether he even understands the significanceof the death to her; one is morally certain that henever suspects the inner turmoil she has undergonein defending to herself, as well as to the family, herbenevolent sensibility.

Source: Warren S. Walker, "The Unresolved Conflict in'The Garden Party,'" in Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. Ill,No. 4, Winter, 1957, pp. 354-58.

Sources

Fulbrook, Kate. "Late Fiction," in Catherine Mansfield,Harvester Press, 1986, pp. 86-128.

Hanson, Clare, and Andrew Gurr. "The Stories 1921-22:Sierre and Paris," in their Katherine Mansfield, New York:St. Martin's Press, 1981, pp. 95-139.

V o l u m e 8 6 7


Iverson, Anders. "A Reading of Katherine Mansfield's 'TheGarden Party,'" in Orbis Litterarum, Vol. 23,1968, pp. 5-34.

Taylor, Donald S.' 'Crashing the Garden Party, I: A Dream—AWakening," in Modem Fiction Studies, Vol. IV, No. 4,Winter, 1958-59, pp. 361-62.

Walker, Warren S. "The Unresolved Conflict in the 'TheGarden Party,'" in Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. Ill, No. 4,Winter, 1957-58, pp. 354-58.

Weiss, Daniel A. "Crashing the Garden Party, II: TheGarden Party of Proserpina," in Modern Fiction Studies,Vol. IV, No. 4, Winter, 1958-59, pp. 363-64.

Further Reading

Fulbrook, Kate. "Late Fiction," in Katherine Mansfield,Harvester Press, 1986, pp. 86-128.

In this feminist critique, Fulbrook argues that Mansfieldsatirizes female ignorance in "The Garden Party,"

and that she attacks the "inadequacy of education"that fosters such calloused social perceptions.

Iverson, Anders. "A Reading of Katherine Mansfield's 'TheGarden Party,'" in Orbis Utterarum, Vol. 23, 1968, pp. 5-34.

Iversen looks at the symbolic and mythological struc-ture of "The Garden Party." He examines the way inwhich the story can be read as an allegory.

Taylor, Donald S.' 'Crashing the Garden Party, I: A Dream—AWakening," in Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. IV, No. 4,Winter, 1958-59, pp. 361-62.

Taylor views "The Garden Party" as a story of LauraSheridan's awakening from the false dream-like worldof her family and their garden parties to the world oflabor, sorrow and death.

Weiss, Daniel A. "Crashing the Garden Party, II: TheGarden Party of Proserpina," in Modem Fiction Studies,Vol. IV, No. 4, Winter, 1958-59, pp. 363-64.

Weiss likens Laura's experience to archetypal mythsabout initiation and awakening. He particularly com-pares Laura's journey to the cottager's houses toProserpina's journey out of Pluto's underworld.


The Grand Inquisitor"The Grand Inquisitor" was originally publishedas the fifth chapter of the fifth book of Dostoevsky 'snovel The Brothers Karamazov, his last and perhapshis greatest work. Dostoevsky died just monthsafter the novel was published, and he did not live tosee the peculiar situation of his novel's most famouschapter being excerpted as a short story—some-thing he did not intend. A further peculiarity arisesfrom the fact that the story is not excerpted the sameway every time, so that whole paragraphs of thenovel may be included or excluded from the shortstory, according to each editor's sense of how bestto make the part seem like a whole.

The legend of the Grand Inquisitor is a storywithin a story. Jesus returns to Earth during theSpanish Inquisition and is arrested. The GrandInquisitor visits him in his cell to tell him that he isno longer needed on Earth. The Church, which isnow allied with the Devil, is better able than Jesus togive people what they need. The story has oftenbeen considered a statement of Dostoevsky's owndoubts, which he wrestled with throughout his life.

Throughout the novel the themes of the legendare repeated and echoed by other characters and inother situations. Ivan explains some of what is tocome before he tells the story, and he and Alyoshadiscuss the story when he is finished telling it. In theexcerpted form, it is more difficult for readers todetermine who is speaking, whose story it is, andhow it is to be taken.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

1880

6 9

The G r a n d I n q u i s i t o r

Author Biography

Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, the capi-tal of Russia, on October 20, 1821. The son of aRussian family of moderate privilege and wealth, hewas highly educated and raised in the RussianOrthodox religion. His father was a doctor and amember of the aristocracy, and his mother's familybelonged to the merchant class. They had a house intown and a country estate with more than onehundred servants. Dostoevsky wrote in Russian,which has a different alphabet than English. Hence,his name may be spelled in English as Dostoevsky,Dostoevski, Dostoyevsky, among others, due toinconsistent transliteration and translation. His worksalso appear in English translation with slightlyvarying titles. As a child, Dostoevsky was an avidreader who hoped to become a professional writerone day. His first novel, Poor Folk (1846), was wellreceived by the critics. It tells a story about pov-erty and compassion through a series of letters,which makes it an example of an epistolary novel. Hissecond novel, The Double, concerns the mental break-down of a poor clerk. Although this novel receivedalmost unanimously bad reviews, Dostoevsky hadestablished a modest reputation in Russia's literaryworld and easily found publishers for his work. Atthe same time, he began to show symptoms ofepilepsy and developed a gambling habit that plaguedhim for the rest of his life. Dostoevsky belonged to aliterary group that secretly met to read and discusssocial and political issues of certain writings thatwere forbidden by Russia's tsarist regime. In 1849Dostoevsky and others were arrested. He spent fouryears at hard labor in a Siberian prison camp underterrible conditions. The next twenty years wereturbulent ones, but he wrote some of his greatestworks during this period, including the novels Crimeand Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868), and ThePossessed (1872). Dostoevsky achieved some rec-ognition in Russia for his talent, but he was forced toleave. He wandered around Europe for five years toescape his debts. Many of his works from thisperiod explore ideas about religion, faith, and sin,which increasingly concerned him as he aged. In thelast two years of his life he wrote The BrothersKaramazov (1879-80), from which "The GrandInquisitor" is taken. Dostoevsky died of a lunghemorrhage on January 28, 1881. Over the next tenyears, his reputation dwindled, but he eventuallybecame famous at home and abroad. Throughoutthe Western world he is considered one of Russia's

greatest writers and renowned for his psychologicaland philosophical insights.

Plot Summary

"The Grand Inquisitor" begins with a set of open-ing quotation marks. An unidentified speaker says,"Fifteen centuries have passed since He promisedto come in His glory, fifteen centuries since Hisprophet wrote, 'Behold, I come quickly.'" Theuppercase "H" in the word "He" is used conven-tionally to indicate that "He" is the Christian God;in this case it is Jesus Christ, as is made clear later inthe sentence when the speaker refers to the "Son"and the "Father." The story, then, takes placefifteen centuries after Jesus walked on Earth. In theintervening time, according to the speaker, therewas a period of great faith and miracles, and then aperiod in which people began to doubt the miraclesand doubt their faith.

Some time in the sixteenth century, in Seville,Spain, Jesus returns to Earth. He arrives during theSpanish Inquisition, a time from 1478 until 1834when, under the orders of the Roman CatholicSpanish monarchs, Jews and Muslims who hadforcibly been converted to Christianity were ques-tioned and, in many cases, sentenced to death forinsincerity. The day before Jesus's appearance, al-most one hundred had been rounded up, and "in thesplendid auto-da-fe the wicked heretics were burnt."Autos-da-fe (literally, "acts of the faith") werecarried out by the non-religious authorities of Spainafter a religious authority had pronounced a sen-tence. In this case, the victims had been sentencedby "the cardinal, the Grand Inquisitor," and killed"in the presence of the king, the court, the knights,the cardinals, the most charming ladies of the court,and the whole population of Seville."

When Jesus appears, he is recognized immedi-ately by the people, although he makes no demon-stration other than ' 'a gentle smile of infinite com-passion." He passes through the crowd blessing andhealing people, and raises a child from the dead.When the Grand Inquisitor sees how the people loveand follow him, he has Jesus arrested and led away.The crowd makes no protest, but' 'bows down to theearth, like one man, before the old inquisitor."Jesus is thrown into a dark prison. That night, theGrand Inquisitor comes to ask him why he has come


The Grand Inquisitor

back, announcing that he will have Jesus burned atthe stake "as the worst of heretics."

Up to this point in the story, the speaker has notbeen identified. Suddenly the narrative is interrupt-ed. '"I don't quite understand, Ivan. What does itmean?' Alyosha, who had been listening in silence,said with a smile." Ivan and Alyosha are notintroduced; readers of the novel would alreadyknow who they are, but readers of the short story arenever told. Ivan, apparently the speaker, explainsthat it is irrelevant whether it is actually Jesus or not.What concerns him is the cardinal's speech, and hisinsistence that Jesus has no right to ' 'add to what hasbeen said of old'' with any new works or words.Ivan's point is that the Roman Catholic Church hasits power consolidated as things are. With the Popein place as Jesus's representative on Earth, Jesushimself is irrelevant.

Nearly all the rest of the story is a long mono-logue by the Grand Inquisitor, while Jesus makes noreply. He explains that the Pope and the Churchhave assumed responsibility for the freedom of thepeople; the people believe they are free, but they areactually slaves to the Church. This is to the people'sbenefit, because they could never be happy if theytruly had free will. Jesus should have known this.He should have learned it when he was temptedby Satan.

The Gospels of Luke and Matthew tell the storyof Jesus's temptation in the desert. As he wanderedin the wilderness, Satan tempted Jesus to turn stonesinto bread, to perform a miracle to prove his divini-ty, and to look to earthly authority. Jesus refusedeach request. Referring to this incident, the GrandInquisitor argues that in the temptation the entirenature and history of mankind was foretold. Jesus'smistake was in choosing badly. Satan urged Jesus touse his power to turn stones into bread to feed hispeople. Jesus made the famous reply, "Man doesnot live by bread alone." He chose to turn people'sattention to God instead of to material things, toheavenly bread instead of to earthly bread. TheGrand Inquisitor says that this was a mistake, be-cause hungry people have no free will. The Churchhas been able to control people by feeding them. IfJesus had worked this great miracle, the people'sfaith would not have wavered.

The Church offers people security and mystery,which is what all people crave. Most people are tooweak to find salvation through faith alone, so theyhave turned away from Jesus and given their loyaltyto the Church. The Church, in alliance with the

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

devil, has power and strength so long as it can keepthe people in slavery. Jesus's coming again threat-ens to interrupt their power-building, and so Jesusmust be burned at the stake. Actually, says theGrand Inquisitor, their way makes more peoplehappy, since only the strong could be saved Je-sus's way.

When the cardinal stops speaking, he waits forJesus to reply, eager to answer Jesus's angry objec-tions. Jesus says nothing, but approaches him andsoftly kisses him on the lips. The Grand Inquisitorshudders, then opens the cell door and says, "Go,and come no more . . . come not at all, never,never!" He leads Jesus out into the alley, and Jesuswalks away.

Characters

AlyoshaAlyosha listens to Ivan reciting the legend of

the Grand Inquisitor, and twice interrupts the narra-tive to ask questions. He speaks only eight sentenc-es in the story—all questions—but gives Ivan andDostoevsky opportunities to explain and interpretfor the reader.

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The Grand I n q u i s i t o r

MediaAdaptations

' 'The Grand Inquisitor'' has not been recordedas a separate story. However, the entire novelfrom which it is taken, The Brothers Karamazovhas been recorded as read by Walter Co veil. Thenovel on tape runs 42 hours, and can be pur-chased from Books on Tape, Inc.

The CardinalSee The Grand Inquisitor

some versions of the short story, Ivan introduces hislegend at some length, and comments on it afterward.

JesusJesus does not speak at all throughout the story.

He appears on Earth for reasons that are neverexplained. He moves through an adoring crowd,raises a dead child, and then is arrested by the GrandInquisitor. He sits silently through the Grand In-quisitor's long speech, making eye contact andlistening intently but not replying. When the speechis over, Jesus goes to his accuser and kisses him onthe lips. The Grand Inquisitor opens the cell doorand lets him out. Jesus goes away.

The Old ManSee The Grand Inquisitor

The PrisonerSee Jesus

The Grand InquisitorThe Grand Inquisitor, a ninety-year-old cardi-

nal of the Roman Catholic Church during the six-teenth-century Spanish Inquisition in Seville, Spain,speaks most of the lines in the story. He is amongthe crowd of people to whom Jesus appears, and hesees Jesus raise a child from the dead. But the GrandInquisitor's own influence is so great that when hemakes his presence known to the crowd, they bowbefore him rather than to Jesus. The Inquisitor hasJesus arrested, and comes to visit him in his cell,where he delivers the long monologue of condem-nation that makes up most of the story. His speech isdense, with long complex sentences and ideas, andhe uses language that is formal and old-fashioned.When he finishes his diatribe, and receives only akiss from Jesus in return, he is flustered. He doesnothing in reply except release his prisoner.

IvanIvan is the supposed author of the legend of the

Grand Inquisitor, a story in poem form that he isreciting to Alyosha. When Alyosha occasionallybreaks into the narration to ask questions, Ivan givesvague answers. He tells his brother that the meaningof the Grand Inquisitor's words is less importantthan the fact of them, and invites Alyosha to inter-pret them any way he can. He does comment that"the most fundamental feature of Roman Catholi-cism" is its static quality, its refusal to adapt andgrow. In the novel The Brothers Karamazov and in

Themes

God and ReligionThe fundamental tension in "The Grand In-

quisitor" is between God, in the form of Jesus, andreligion, in the form of the Roman Catholic Church.According to the Grand Inquisitor, the two cannotcoexist in the modern world; one must give waybecause they require different things from theirfollowers. Jesus refused to make things easy for hisfollowers. He could have given them bread whenthey were hungry in the desert and satisfied in onegesture their need for material comfort and theirneed to see miracles. But he refused, demandinginstead that his followers believe on the strength oftheir faith alone, without any proof. God will notforce people to believe in him, or to follow him.Each person must be free to choose her own path.This road to salvation, says the Grand Inquisitor, isappropriate only for the very strong. Ordinary peo-ple are too weak to find this satisfying, as heexplains: "Thou didst promise them the bread ofHeaven, b u t . . . can it compare with earthly bread inthe eyes of the weak, ever-sinful and ignoble raceof men?"

People seek "to worship what is establishedbeyond dispute, so that all men would agree at onceto worship it." This is the reason for religious wars:people demand that everyone believe as they do,and "for the sake of common worship they've slain



each other with the sword." In placing the freedomto choose above all else, God has permitted thismisery. And yet, "man is tormented by no greateranxiety than to find someone quickly to whom hecan hand over the gift of freedom." In short, saysthe Inquisitor, God does not understand the truenature of human beings.

To fill that need, the Church has stepped in. TheChurch offers the mystery and the community thatpeople need, and so it has joined forces with thedevil to deceive people and take away their free-dom. The Grand Inquisitor knows that he is inleague with Satan, and he accepts the damnationthat will be his in the end, because he is makingpeople happy—something Jesus refused to do. TheInquisitor once followed Jesus, but "I awakenedand would not serve madness."

Critics have debated about Jesus's silence inthe face of these accusations, and wondered wheth-er the Grand Inquisitor speaks for Ivan, and whetherIvan speaks for Dostoevsky. Does Jesus stand silentbecause he has no answer, or because he is God andneed not answer? Is the kiss he gives to the cardinala kiss of loving forgiveness, or one of thanks?Dostoevsky was an adherent of the Russian Ortho-dox faith, and believed that the Russian OrthodoxChurch allowed people to come closer to Godbecause it does not have a Pope whose powers arehanded down. Ivan tells Alyosha that it does notmatter whether the man in the cell was really Jesusor not; what matters is that the cardinal thinks he isand that the cardinal says what he says. In otherwords, Jesus's response is not really the issue. Whatis important is what the Inquisitor's words revealabout the position of the Roman Catholic Church.

Within the novel as a whole, the theme of Godand religion is addressed in different ways by differ-ent characters, and Ivan's position as a doubter isclear. As a short story, "The Grand Inquisitor"presents only one character, the cardinal, who be-lieves that God and the Roman Catholic Church areat odds, and that people can follow only one of them.

Free WillThroughout his life Dostoevsky used his writ-

ing to explore the issue of free will. He believed thathuman beings are given free will, and that they mustconstantly choose between good and evil. It is notan easy choice, and God and the devil battle eachother for the possession of every soul. Dostoevskywas conscious of this struggle all his life. He wished

Topics forFurther

StudyLook at the story of Jesus's temptation in thewilderness in either the Gospel of Luke (Luke4:1-13) or the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 4:1 -11). Do you think the Grand Inquisitor is right inthe way he interprets the significance of thetemptations?

Find out what you can about the Roman CatholicChurch and the Russian Orthodox Church, espe-cially their beliefs about earthly authority. Ex-plain why Dostoevsky, an ardent Russian Ortho-dox follower, might think that the Roman CatholicChurch had joined forces with the devil.

Investigate socialism, especially as it was under-stood in Europe in the late nineteenth century.Find out what kinds of specific programs andpolicies socialists worked for. Do you agree thatsocialism is concerned only with the people'smaterial needs?

Read about the Spanish Inquisition. Why mightDostoevsky have chosen to set his confrontationbetween Jesus and a Church official in this timeand place?

to believe, yet his intellect kept raising doubts. Forhim, the question of free will was central to hisunderstanding of humans and society.

As the Grand Inquisitor states it, Jesus wastempted to offer his followers aids to faith, andJesus chose instead to insist on free will. Had hefollowed the devil's suggestions and given thepeople food, or miracles, or an earthly structuresuch as an organized religion, the people would notbe choosing freely. The Inquisitor claims that peo-ple are too weak to make a free choice. As EdwardWasiolek in Dostoevsky: The Major Fiction states,for the Inquisitor "it is not a question of what manwould like to be but what he is and can be. He argueslogically about the human condition as he sees it, ashistory has proven it, and he can see no place forfree will if people are to be happy."

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The Grand Inquisitor takes the position thatfaith and religion are intellectual issues, that thetruth can be reasoned with the brain. His strategy isto try to reason with God, to persuade him byrational argument. Jesus's response is to sit insilence, listening intently but not engaging in argu-ment. For Jesus, the issues are not intellectual orprovable, and happiness on earth is not the goal. AsWasiolek explains, "What he offers them is thesame as what he demands of them. He asks them torise above their natures, to make over their naturesin his image, and they can do that only as he haddone it: in loneliness, terror, and anxiety."

Free choice and free will are only free if thereare no conditions on them. To demand proof, ormiracles, or a secure structure—or even happi-ness—are to put conditions on the choice. Do notthink, says Jesus. Choose to believe. This freedomis what Jesus offered, and it is what the GrandInquisitor rejects.

Style

NarratorPerhaps the most important thing to keep in

mind when reading "The Grand Inquisitor" is thatthe long speech is spoken by a character in a novel.It should be obvious, but it is easy to forget, that thisis not an argumentative essay by Dostoevsky, inwhich the ideas expressed can be traced directlyback to the mind of the author. Rather, a fictionalcharacter named Ivan tells a story, and within thatstory another fictional character called the GrandInquisitor says what he thinks about God and man.The fact that there are multiple levels of narrationdoes not mean that the ideas expressed by the GrandInquisitor are not Dostoevsky's; it simply meansthat they need not be.

For the first several pages, the reader of theshort story does not know who is speaking. Thenarrator states that God has come to Earth to visit"holy men, martyrs and hermits," and quotes theRussian poet Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev (1803-1873) as an authority who will verify that God haswandered through Russia. The narrator himselfsteps forward to add his own weight to the claim:"And that veritably was so, I assure you." Still, thereader does not know who is speaking, or why apoet and an unnamed speaker should be accepted asauthorities on the conduct of God.

A few times in the opening pages the narratorsteps forward to address his audience and reveal hisrole as storyteller. "My story is laid in Spain," hesays as he begins the action. Several lines later heagain refers to his own discourse. "Everyonerecognised him. That might be one of the bestpassages in the poem. I mean, why they recognisedhim." As it becomes increasingly clear, the speakeris not actually telling a story, but talking about astory that he has created, moving the narrator stillanother step further away from the reader andfrom Dostoevsky.

When Alyosha interrupts for the first time ("Idon't understand, Ivan. What does it mean?"), heclouds the issue of narration further. Who is quotingAlyosha's questions and Ivan's answers? There isanother level of narration between Dostoevsky andIvan, a narrator telling the story of Ivan telling thestory of the Grand Inquisitor.

Ivan makes it clear that certain plot elements ofhis story are still negotiable. He does not care, forexample whether Alyosha believes that the man inthe cell is really Jesus. He says,' 'If you like it to be acase of mistaken identity, let it be so. . . . Does itmatter to us, after all, whether it was a mistake ofidentity or a wild fantasy?'' For Ivan, the plot is justa structure, a reason for the Inquisitor to make hislong speech: ' 'All that matters is that the old manshould speak out, should speak openly of what hehas thought in silence for ninety years."

Through the device of multiple levels of narra-tion, Dostoevsky accomplishes two things: he putsextra emphasis on the Grand Inquisitor's speech bydemonstrating that the plot surrounding it is rela-tively unimportant, and he makes it clear that thespeech is a piece of fiction created by a character.The reader's charge, then, is not only to evaluate thewisdom of foolishness of the Inquisitor's speechand Jesus's response, but also to examine the mindof Ivan, who created them.

DidacticismConnected with the issue of narration in ' 'The

Grand Inquisitor'' is the issue of didacticism. Apiece of writing is said to be didactic when itsprimary purpose is to instruct, especially aboutreligious, moral, or ethical matters. Although writ-ing that is openly instructional has always been ableto find readers, modern critics have tended to lookdown upon this kind of writing when they havefound that the message or lesson being delivered isstronger than the artistic quality of the work.



The long speech delivered by the Grand In-quisitor is openly and solidly didactic. To put itanother way, when the Inquisitor gives Jesus thecatalog of his complaints, he is concerned with whathe is saying, not with how he is saying it. He speaksformally, and eloquently, as is appropriate to hisstation as a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church,but his concern is with message, not with form. Hisspeech is not intended to raise questions, but to cutthem off, and give answers.

As creator of the Inquisitor's speech, Ivan issomewhat didactic, but he is also concerned withform. He has created the story to help himself thinkthrough the issues of God and religion and free will,and although his character the Inquisitor speaksdidactically, the fact of Jesus's silent response rais-es the question: Is the Grand Inquisitor right? Thestory is able to raise the question only because Ivanhas worked hard on form; although the story is afantasy, he has created believable characters. TheGrand Inquisitor's focus is on his message, whileIvan's focus is on his character who is delivering amessage.

Dostoevsky is one step further back. His hope isthat the reader will look at Ivan and wonder, not ' 'Isthe Grand Inquisitor right?'' but ' 'What kind of aman would make up a story like this?'' ' 'The GrandInquisitor'' is a useful story for coming to under-stand didacticism, because it presents shades ordegrees of it. The Grand Inquisitor representsdidacticism in the purest form, the form that criticshave rejected most strenuously. Dostoevsky repre-sents an ideal writer who writes artistic fiction thatraises open-ended questions about important issues.Ivan represents the writer in the middle, who isperhaps so concerned with his message that itthreatens to overpower his artistry.

Historical Context

The Russian EmpireRussia in the 1860s and 1870s was in a great

upheaval. Its ruler, Tsar Alexander II, had negotiat-ed the end of the Crimean War in 1856, ending fouryears of conflict between Russia and an alliancecomprising England, France, Sardinia and Turkey.Russia, at the time one of the greatest powers inEurope, had wanted to seize control of the Balkansand other territory that had been controlled by

Turkey, but had been stopped temporarily by Tur-key and her allies. Although the war was over, the"Eastern Question" still loomed over the region,and Russia still wanted to acquire access to theMediterranean Sea, and to expand the influence ofthe Russian Orthodox Church. As part of the settle-ment that ended the Crimean War, Turkey agreed toenhanced tolerance for Christians within its borders.

In 1861, Alexander began a series of dramaticsocial reforms. Until that year, about one third of thepopulation of Russia were serfs, or indentured ser-vants who worked for a landowner. They were notslaves, but not entirely free either. Dostoevsky'sfather had almost one hundred serfs attached to hiscountry estate; they received accommodations and ashare of the land's yield in exchange for manuallabor. Alexander issued the Emancipation Edict of1861, abolishing the system of serfdom, freeing allthe serfs, and requiring landowners to make landavailable for the serfs to purchase. Alexander alsoweakened his own power, introducing zemstvo, amodest form of self-government similar to a localassembly. The zemstvo organized and controlledlocal institutions including health care and educa-tion, and elected representatives to a regional body.

These reforms led to chaos and confusion, aswell as to real improvements in the lives of manypeople. As the former serfs struggled to succeedin the new political and economic climate, thewealthy and the educated minority protested thedestabilization and the erosion of their own influ-ence. Fearful of losing his own power, Alexander IIgrew more conservative, causing further confusion.

Dostoevsky and others believed that autocraticrule, or government by one tsar (also spelled czar),was necessary and right. They called for a return tothe old system of an established peasant class, asingle authority, and a central role for the OrthodoxChurch. By the end of the 1870s, repression hadgrown and had been countered with the formation ofterrorist groups whose goal was the assassination ofAlexander. In 1880, dynamite was exploded in theWinter Palace where Alexander was expected to be.Alexander was not harmed, but dozens of otherswere hurt, and ten guards were killed. Other at-tempts followed.

It was in this climate that The BrothersKaramazov was written and published. In The Rus-sian Dagger: Cold War in the Days of the Czars,Virginia Cowles quotes Dostoevsky telling the edi-

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Compare

Contrast1870s: Dostoevsky is part of a political move-ment in Russia calling for the establishment of agreat Greek Orthodox Empire with Russia as itsleader and Constantinople as its capital. Non-Orthodox Christians, particularly Roman Catho-lics, were considered heretics.

1990s: After a serious decline during the middleof the twentieth century, the Russian Ortho-dox Church has regained its position as themost important of the Eastern Orthodox Church-es. Since 1962, the Eastern Orthodox and Ro-man Catholic Churches have had free dialogueas equals.

1870s: Socialism in Europe and in Russia callsfor the collective or government ownership andmanagement of the means of production anddistribution of goods. Dostoevsky believes thatsocialism is concerned with bread rather thanwith God.

1990s: Socialist parties are still influential in

Western Europe, and still relatively unimportantin capitalist countries like the United States. In1999, one member of the United States House ofRepresentatives, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, is aSocialist.

1880: The Friends of Russian Literature is divid-ed between those who praise the poet Pushkin asa great Russian and European, and those whobelieve being Russian and being European aremutually exclusive. Dostoevsky gives a greatspeech declaring that Pushkin's genius was inbeing able to use the best of other nations, andreunites Russia's literary community.

1990s: Debates about the meaning of nationalliterature and ethnic literature continue. In theUnited States, some writers identify themselvesas Anglo-American writers or African Americanor Native American, while others wonder wheth-er the term' 'American literature'' has any usefulmeaning.

tor of the Russian Times ' 'that tragedy was in theair. 'You said that there had been some clairvoyancein my Brothers Karamazov . .. Wait till you havethe sequel... I shall make my pure Aliosha join theterrorists and kill the Czar.'" Two months laterAlexander was assassinated in another explosion atthe Palace. Two more repressive tsars followedbefore the Russian Revolution overthrew tsaristgovernment in 1917.

Critical Overview

When The Brothers Karamazov was serialized inthe Russian Herald in 1879 and 1880, it won highpraise, and finally earned Dostoevsky enough topay off his debts for the first time. He considered thenovel his greatest work, and critics have generally

echoed this sentiment over the past century andmore. Although Dostoevsky died just a few monthsafter the completion of the novel, at the height of hisacclaim, his reputation in Russia declined in thegeneration after his death, and his internationalreputation had to wait decades to become estab-lished. The Brothers Karamazov was first translatedinto English by Constance Garnett in 1912; othertranslations have since been published. The firstEnglish publication of ' 'The Grand Inquisitor'' as aseparate short story did not appear until the 1930s.

The story has tended to divide critics sharply.The first important English-language piece of criti-cism of "The Grand Inquisitor" was by the Britishwriter D. H. Lawrence, who had read the noveltwice previously. His "Preface to Dostoevsky'sThe Grand Inquisitor" (1930) in Dostoevsky: ACollection of Critical Essays, finds in the story a"final and unanswerable criticism of Christ." Theantithesis is the view expressed by Jacques Catteau


&


Inquisition headquarters and the church of Santa Maria Minerva.

in Dostoevsky: New Perspectives. Catteau claimsthat "Dostoevsky's indictment of his Grand In-quisitor would indeed seem grave and withoutappeal."

Lawrence argues that in the confrontation be-tween Jesus and the Inquisitor, the Inquisitor is wiseand intelligent. At the end of the story, Lawrencesays, ' 'Jesus kisses the Inquisitor: Thank you, youare right, wise old man!'' Robert Belknap disagreesin Modern Critical Views: Fyodor Dostoevsky, call-ing the kiss "obviously a blessing; it burns in theInquisitor's heart as holy things do in this novel... .Here, in a single kiss, the most absolute and mostappealing part of the Grand Inquisitor's exploitbecomes an empty, unnecessary gesture." WilliamLeatherbarrow describes the kiss in Fedor Dostoevskyas a "kiss of forgiveness."

Lawrence's view that Dostoevsky uses the sto-ry to explain Jesus's failings is widely echoed byRussian critics, including Leo Shestov and V.Rozanov. Edward Wasiolek asserts that "we knowthat Lawrence's interpretation is not what Dostoevskyintended," but he finds some delight in the fact that' 'the revolt of so many distinguished readers againstDostoevsky's conscious intention is, whatever else,a testimony to the force and persuasiveness withwhich Dostoevsky was able to state the other case."

An interesting third possibility is offered byRobert Lord in Dostoevsky: Essays and Perspec-tive. He writes that' 'Dostoevsky never intended thereader to select one or the other alternative," andcontinues, "Dostoevsky is continually hinting thatsolutions are to be resisted at all costs. There aremere temptations; like Christ's temptations in thewilderness, so aptly described by Ivan Karamazov'sGrand Inquisitor."

In addition to highlighting the central criticalquestion of the story, Lawrence's preface also intro-duces the central difficulty with criticism of theshort story. Even critics who attempt to discuss onlythe legend of the Grand Inquisitor tend to do so inthe context of the novel as a whole, or to bring inmaterial from Dostoevsky's other works. Lawrence,for example, answers the question "Who is thegrand Inquisitor?" with "it is Ivan himself." Hecontinues, "Ivan is the greatest of the three broth-ers, pivotal. The passionate Dmitri and the inspiredAlyosha are, at last, only offsets to Ivan." Com-ments like these are meaningless to readers whoencounter' 'The Grand Inquisitor'' as a separate story.

Ralph Matlaw, in an introduction in Notes fromUnderground and The Grand Inquisitor, an editionof the extracted story, saw his own project as insome ways doomed. ' 'To lift it from its context is to

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distort its meaning, for it too is a highly revealingconfession by a character and is elsewhere in thenovel balanced by other confessions, statements,attitudes and actions.... 'The Grand Inquisitor' is amuch richer and fuller episode when read in thenovel than it can be here." But whether or not theybelieve the story can be removed from the novelsuccessfully, critics have agreed that, as BruceWard stated in Dostoevsky's Critique of the West(1986), the legend ' 'can be regarded as the culmina-tion . . . of his religious and political thought—his'final statement' concerning the question of humanorder." Perhaps the sign of Dostoevsky's genius isthat there is still room for intelligent readers todisagree about the meaning of that' 'final statement.''

Criticism

Cynthia BilyBily teaches English at Adrian College In Adri-

an, Michigan. In this essay, she discusses the mean-ings of speech and silence in ' 'The Grand Inquisitor.''

The central conflict in "The Grand Inquisitor" isbetween the Inquisitor himself and his prisoner,Jesus. On the surface, it is a one-sided battle. TheInquisitor does literally all the talking, makingaccusation after accusation while Jesus refuses todefend himself. Perhaps "refuses" is the wrongword, for it implies a level of engagement that doesnot seem to be there. Jesus does not refuse to speakin his own defense; he simply does not do so. He sitsin silence, he listens intently; no one says the GrandInquisitor refuses to be silent. The two "speak"different languages, one of talk and one of action,one of thinking and one of knowing.

As Jesus walks on earth he encounters manywho speak the Inquisitor's language, but he will notspeak it. The contrast from the moment he appearsis sharp. Jesus comes softly: "He moves silently intheir midst with a gentle smile of infinite compas-sion. The sun of love burns in his heart, light andpower shine from his eyes, and their radiance, shedon the people, stirs their hearts with responsive love.He holds out His hands to them, blesses them, and ahealing virtue comes from contact with him, evenwith His garments." The people around him do notmove softly, but remarkably loudly. They "sing andcry hosannah," "the crowd shouts," "the mother

of the dead child throws herself at His feet with awail" before she "cries" out. Jesus responds byuttering the only words he speaks in the entire story:' 'He looks with compassion, and His lips once moresoftly pronounce, 'Maiden, arise!'"

How seemingly alike and yet how differentwhen the Grand Inquisitor arrives on the scene. Hetoo is silent, and he too gets a strong reaction fromthe crowd. He merely ' 'holds out his finger and bidsthe guard take him. And such is his power, socompletely are the people cowed into submissionand trembling obedience to him, that . . . in themidst of deathlike silence they lay hands on Himand lead Him away. The crowd instantly bowsdown to the earth . . . before the old inquisitor. Heblesses the people in silence and passes on." BothJesus and the Inquisitor move among the people andbless them in silence. But only Jesus's presence"stirs their hearts with responsive love"; only hisblessing yields "a healing virtue."

Of course, there is no great insight in conclud-ing that Jesus is divine and the Inquisitor is not. Thetension that I find interesting is in the uses bothmake of silence and speech. Jesus is a man of action.He does not ask the people for anything, he does nottell them anything, he simply walks among themsmiling and touching. Is this all he has come for?Yes. He has come to demonstrate Christianity as arobust, active faith, not as an issue for logicaldebate. His only words, "Maiden, arise," are thewords that are the action, that work the miracle.

Although like the crowd he cannot help talkingto Jesus himself, the Inquisitor at first welcomesJesus's silence: "Don't answer, be silent. Whatcanst Thou say, indeed? I know too well what Thouwouldst say. And Thou has no right to add anythingto what Thou hast said of old." The Inquisitorcomes back to this point again, insisting that Jesushas no right to speak. It is an odd thing to insist, asIvan points out, especially since Jesus shows nosign of wishing to say anything. It is the techniqueof a debater, and perhaps one who is not sure heis right.

After a while, Jesus begins to make the Inquisi-tor nervous. He interrupts his long monologue threetimes to draw attention to Jesus's silence. "Werewe right teaching them this? Speak!" But Jesusdoes not reply. "And why dost Thou look silentlyand searchingly at me with Thy mild eyes? Beangry." Again, no response. "Who is most to



WhatDo I Read

Next?Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (1879-80) is the novel from which ' 'The Grand Inquisi-tor" is taken. A man is murdered, probably byone of his four sons. As the crime is solved, thenovel explores the political and intellectual ideasbeing debated in nineteenth-century Russia. Sev-eral fine English translations are available.

The Double (1846) is a short fantasy novel byDostoevsky. When a poor civil servant is unableto win the hand of his employer's daughter, hisdouble mysteriously appears and succeeds wherehe has failed.

Dostoevsky, His Life and Work (1967) is a trans-lation by Michael Minihan of KonstantinMochulsky's critical biography. A solid and

insightful critical biography, especially valuablefor its coverage of the end of Dostoevsky's life.

"Ward No. 6" (1892) is a short story by AntonChekhov, perhaps the finest Russian short-storywriter. A doctor who operates a mental hospitalhimself slips into alcoholism and mental illness.He holds long philosophical discussions withone of the patients, before his condition erodes tothe point where the doctor becomes one of theinmates in his own hospital.

Flannery O'Connor is an American fiction writerwhose work often deals with the struggle to findGod. Her collection Everything That Rises MustConverge (1965) contains some of her finestshort stories.

blame for their not knowing [the value of completesubmission]? Speak!" Nothing. Within his speechthe Inquisitor has already anticipated Jesus' s replywhich is no reply. He reminded Jesus that he did not' 'come down from the Cross when they shouted toThee, mocking and reviling thee." As the Inquisitorknows, Jesus does not respond to verbal bullying.The Inquisitor also knows that he is not persuadinghis audience, he knows he is only trying to convincehimself, but he cannot stop talking. With the crowd,with his inferiors, he can use silence as a tool ofpower, but with Jesus he is as weak and babbling asthose he despises. There is no sense throughout themonologue that Jesus is cowering. Clearly his si-lence is a sign of power.

The word ' 'babbling'' is appropriate here, be-cause it echoes a favorite image of the Inquisitor's:the tower of Babel. The Old Testament book ofGenesis tells the story of Noah's descendants, whowandered until they came to Babylonia. Skilled atbrickwork, they set to building a great tower, thehighest structure ever made. God saw this structureas a sign of arrogance, and to punish the people hecreated the different languages so that the peoplecould no longer speak to each other, thus preventing

the completion of the tower. The Grand Inquisitorstates that men need structures, and that they cannothelp but create chaos and confusion. He does notunderstand why Jesus did not step in when he might' 'have prevented that new tower and have cut shortthe sufferings of men for a thousand years."

"By their fruits ye shall know them," saysJesus in the Gospel of Matthew, and the fruit of theGrand Inquisitor is speech. Even the name by whichhe is known, "Inquisitor," means one who in-quires, one who asks questions and gets answersand hopes to find the truth in the words. Dostoevskychose the Spanish Inquisition for his setting becausethe Inquisition demonstrates most clearly how lan-guage and speech can be used wrongly to serve theFaith. It is not simply that the Grand Inquisitor issaying the wrong things; the fact that he relies onargument at all in the presence of his Lord is a signthat he does not understand what faith is.

This is what Ivan means when he says that itdoes not matter whether the Inquisitor was trulyspeaking to Jesus or not. The Inquisitor revealshimself by the fact of speaking, of thinking thatrationality and argumentative speech are the ways

V o l u m e 8 7 9


Jesus asks his people to

give up speech and logic

because they do not need it,

because he wants them to have

real faith, not because they

should not dare to speak."

to reach God. Ivan says, "All that matters is that theold man should speak out, should speak openly ofwhat he has thought in silence for ninety years."The content of his speech is not important.' 'All thatmatters is that the old man should speak out."

Nicholas Berdyaev, who claims that Dostoevsky"has played a decisive part" in his spiritual life,points to the importance of Jesus's silence in his1957 book : "Christ is a shadowy figure who saysnothing all the time; efficacious religion does notexplain itself, the principles of freedom cannot beexpressed in words; but the principle of compulsionputs its case very freely indeed. In the end, truthsprings from the contradictions in the ideas of theGrand Inquisitor, it stands out clearly among all theconsiderations that he marshals against it. He arguesand persuades; he is a master of logic and he issingle-mindedly set on the carrying-out of a definiteplan; but our Lord's silence is stronger and moreconvincing."

The Grand Inquisitor demands silence from hissubjects, and they comply. But God does not wanthis people to be ' 'cowed into submission and trem-bling obedience." Jesus asks his people to give upspeech and logic because they do not need it,because he wants them to have real faith, notbecause they should not dare to speak. Jesus is silentbefore the Grand Inquisitor, but it is not a silenceborn of fear like the crowd's silence, and the In-quisitor knows it. The message of Jesus is beyondand above language: believe. Don't talk about it,don't reason it out logically. Words can fail you;they can deceive you. Have faith.

When the Grand Inquisitor runs out of words,he is desperate for Jesus to reply, but "his silenceweighed down upon him. He saw that the Prisonerhad listened intently all the time, looking gently inhis face, evidently not wishing to reply. The old man

longed for Him to say something, however bitterand terrible." He still wants Jesus to argue, to beangry. It is the only language he knows. But Jesusstays silent, the man of action not of speech. Hestands and delivers that soft kiss, and earns anemotional, human response from the Inquisitor: theold man shudders. His long monologue has notaffected Jesus at all, but he has been touched by thesimple gesture.

The Grand Inquisitor condemns Jesus becausehe has not provided ' 'miracle, mystery and authori-ty,' ' the three things people need in order to believe.But in fact Jesus has shown all three to the Inquisitorhimself: miracle in raising the child from the dead,mystery in his silence which the Inquisitor cannotunderstand, and authority in kissing his accuser andwalking away. By his speech and his inability tocontrol it, the Inquisitor demonstrates that he is lessthan God, and that he does not have faith in God. Byhis control of speech, by his using it only to save thegirl and not to condescend to argue with the Inquisi-tor, Jesus demonstrates his divine power andauthority.

Source: Cynthia Bily, for Short Stories for Students, TheGale Group, 2000.

Bruce K. WardIn the following excerpt, Ward discusses "The

Grand Inquisitor" as Dostoevsky's exposition ofthe his final Western formula—"The Pope—theleader of communism"—through the three tempta-tions of Jesus in the Wilderness.

Dostoyevsky presents his definitive elucidation ofthe final Western social formula in "The GrandInquisitor." This short writing, considered by himto be the "culminating point" of The BrothersKaramazov, can be regarded as the culmination alsoof his religious and political thought—his ' 'finalstatement" concerning the question of human or-der. The importance which he attached to his cri-tique of the West is perhaps most conclusivelyestablished by the fact that his final statement abouthuman order is also his final statement about theWest. The thought about human order contained in"The Grand Inquisitor" is of universal import. Butclearly, for Dostoyevsky, this thought is at leastinitially inseparable from the consideration of themeaning of Western civilization. It can hardly be anaccident that the universal themes of this writ-ing, which represent the distillation of years ofDostoyevsky's thought about the "mystery of man,"are expressed by a Western character. The Grand



Inquisitor is, with minor exceptions, the only at-tempt at a portrayal of a non-Russian figure inDostoyevsky's art. Dostoyevsky's willingness thusto risk the aesthetic effect of his "final statement"bears eloquent testimony to the significance whichthe question of the West held for him. Our concernwith finding in "The Grand Inquisitor" an elucida-tion of the social formula—"The Pope—leader ofcommunism"—will bring us inevitably into thepresence of Dostoyevsky's timeless thought. Thesame concern, however, will determine the limits ofour consideration of this thought, for this chapterdoes not pretend to plumb all the "fathomlessdepth" of' 'The Grand Inquisitor'' which, as NicholasBerdyaev maintains, has "never yet been properlyexplored."

The exposition of the final Western social for-mula is the primary concern of the Grand Inquisi-tor's monologue. Apart from this monologue, theonly constituents of the writing itself are IvanKaramazov's brief "literary introduction," and thesilent figure of Christ. Ivan's authorship of "TheGrand Inquisitor," and the presence within it ofChrist, both serve to integrate it within The BrothersKaramazov as a whole. Yet although it thus points,on the one hand, to Ivan's "rebellion" against Godand, on the other, to the Christian teachings ofFather Zosima, "The Grand Inquisitor" can beapproached, at least initially, as an independentwriting. Ivan himself maintains that, with regard tothe Inquisitor's monologue, "the only thing thatmatters is that the old man should speak out, that atlast he does speak out and says aloud what he hasbeen thinking in silence for ninety years." Thisassertion is made in response to Alyosha's questionconcerning the meaning of that silent presence towhich the "old man" addresses himself, and itcould serve equally as a response to the question ofIvan's own relation to ' "The Grand Inquisitor." It ismy intention to heed Ivan's assertion by examiningthe Inquisitor's monologue first in isolation fromthe thought either of Ivan or of Father Zosima.

Before consideration of what is said in themonologue, note should be made of who, precisely,is speaking. The Grand Inquisitor, as Ivan points outin his "literary introduction," is a cardinal of theRoman Catholic Church in sixteenth-century Spain' 'during the most terrible time of the Inquisition,when fires were lighted every day throughout theland to the glory of God...." He therefore embod-ies Roman Catholicism, not at the time of its apogeein the twelfth century, but at the time of its desper-ately militant attempt during the Counter-Reforma-

moreover, in consciously

founding itself solely on

reason, is bound up with a

science which holds out

possibilities for the control

of human and non-human

nature beyond anything

dreamt of in the past. For

these reasons, the modern

Western state must be

regarded as the most effective

instrument of social order

that the world has yet seen."

tion to preserve itself by means of the Spanishsword. The Inquisitor, close to death at ninety yearsof age, stands near the end of Roman Catholiccivilization in the West, and at the beginning of themodern quest for a new order. Though rooted in aparticular time and place, the old man's visionextends in both directions to encompass the entirehistory of Western civilization, from the ancientRoman Empire to the new Rome which he antici-pates after the fall of modern liberalism and social-ism. "The Grand Inquisitor" is meant to be ateaching about Western civilization as a whole. Andbeyond this, it is meant to be a teaching abouthumanity as a whole, for the Inquisitor's fundamen-tal concern is to articulate the social order whichmost closely corresponds to human nature. In thisendeavour he looks to the history of the West forevidence of the truth of his teaching, and for ananswer to the question of its realizability.

The Inquisitor sets his account of the best socialorder within the framework provided by the biblicalaccount of Christ's temptation in the wilderness(Matthew 4:1-10). He claims that the "prodigiousmiracle" of the story of the three temptations lies inthe fact that the questions posed in them should haveappeared among men at all, particularly at such anearly date in human history, for the posing of these

V o l u m e S S 1

The modern state,


questions evinces an insight into everything whichis most fundamentally at issue in the problem ofhuman order, an insight arrived at prior to thecenturies of historical experience which have sinceborne it out:

If it were possible to imagine, for the sake of argu-ment, that those three questions of the terrible spirithad been lost without leaving a trace in the books andthat we had to rediscover, restore, and invent themafresh and that to do so we had to gather together allthe wise men of the earth—rulers, high priests, schol-ars, philosophers, poets—and set them the task ofdevising and inventing three questions which wouldnot only correspond to the magnitude of the occasion,but, in addition, express in three words, in three shorthuman sentences, the whole future history of theworld and of mankind, do you think that the entirewisdom of the earth, gathered together, could haveinvented anything equal in depth and force to the threequestions which were actually put to you at the timeby the wise and mighty spirit in the wilderness? Fromthese questions alone, from the miracle of their ap-pearance, one can see that what one is dealing withhere is not the human, transient mind, but an absoluteand everlasting one. For in those three questions thewhole future history of mankind is, as it were, antici-pated and combined in one whole and three imagesare presented in which all the insoluble historical. ..contradictions of human nature all over the worldwill meet.

The Inquisitor's social formula is founded onhis own interpretation of, and response to, the three"everlasting" questions posed to Christ in thewilderness. To him, each question reveals a funda-mental truth about human nature—or, more precise-ly—a fundamental human need which is actuallypresent in people and verifiable in their historicalexperience. The only order which can be consideredfinal is that order which satisfies the three basichuman needs articulated in the temptations.

The Inquisitor's elaboration of his social for-mula proceeds in terms of the three human needsrevealed in the temptations. This elaboration, how-ever, assumes his recognition of one primal humanneed, which determines his interpretation of theothers. Note must be taken of this chief need, or"torment," of humanity which constitutes the uni-fying theme of the Inquisitor's discourse. This need,of ' 'every man individually and of mankind as awhole from the beginning of time," is the need fororder itself. We have seen that in Dostoyevsky'sthought the need for order is tantamount to the needfor a religion, in the broadest and yet most literalmeaning of a "binding together." This teaching isreflected in the Inquisitor's assertion that "man'suniversal and everlasting craving . . . can be summed

up in the words 'whom shall I worship?"' The needfor religion inevitably becomes, according to theInquisitor, the yearning for a common religion, forthe existence of differing reverences casts doubtupon all of them:

It is this need for universal worship that is the chieftorment of every man individually and of mankind asa whole from the beginning of time. For the sake ofthat universal worship they have put each other to thesword. They have set up gods and called upon eachother, 'Give up your gods and come and worship ours,or else death to you and to your gods!' And so it willbe to the end of the world, even when the gods havevanished from the earth: they will prostrate them-selves before idols just the same.

According to the Inquisitor, the primal humanyearning for order has never enjoyed complete andpermanent satisfaction because the great movers ofhumankind have not been unanimous in according itthe recognition it deserves. Throughout history theCaesars have been opposed by the Christs, whohave placed freedom higher than the need for order.In their sanctioning of the free individual in separa-tion from the mass, the preachers of freedom (en-compassed symbolically for the Inquisitor in thefigure of Christ) have repeatedly encouraged disor-der. The Inquisitor accuses these preachers of be-having as though they hated human beings andwished to mock them, or, at best, as though theywere blithely indifferent to the most elementaryfacts of human life. Surely those who truly lovehuman beings would recognize and make provisionfor the fact that they suffer from disorder as from adisease—a disease which they are too weak toendure for the sake of freedom.

The Inquisitor interprets the entire history ofthe West in terms of the struggle between theadvocates of order and the advocates of freedom,between those who take human beings as theyactually are and those who estimate them too high-ly. According to his interpretation, the ancient worldwas just within sight of success in its Herculeanattempt at a permanent solution to the problem oforder when it was undermined by Christ's affirma-tion of personal freedom. It had been the enormousaccomplishment of Roman Catholicism to salvagewhat remained of the ancient order, and on this basisto re-integrate the isolated individual within a "Chris-tian civilization":

"Was it not you who said so often in those days, 'Ishall make you free?' But now you have seen those'free' men," the old man adds suddenly with apensive smile. "Yes, this business has cost us a greatdeal," he goes on, looking sternly at him, "but we'vecompleted it at last in your name. For fifteen centuries



we've been troubled by this freedom, but now it'sover and done with for good."

For fifteen centuries the West had been infragments, but it had finally become whole againthanks to the Roman Catholic reconciliation ofRome with Christ. This wholeness, however, was tobe of short duration. Turning towards the future, theInquisitor anticipates with foreboding the dissolu-tion of Roman Catholic order in the series of eventsbeing initiated in his own time by the ' 'dreadful newheresy" which had arisen in the "north of Germa-ny." He does envisage, beyond this period of chaos,a renewed attempt at order; but he prophesies thatthis attempt will be futile unless and until thevariants of liberal-socialist thought which will in-form it give way before his social formula. Al-though he considers his formula to be the best for allhuman beings at all times, he clearly thinks that itsactualization is most likely in the modern West, inthe aftermath of the internecine struggle betweenbourgeois liberalism and political socialism. Ad-dressing in the figure of Christ all the teachers offreedom, he nevertheless proposes his formula par-ticularly in opposition to the Christ who is the' 'great idealist'' of Geneva thought.

It is evident that the Inquisitor's social formulais founded, not only on the conviction of the prima-cy of the human need for order, but also on theconviction that the satisfaction of this need is in-compatible with the affirmation of freedom. Thedissonance of freedom and order is sounded through-out his discourse. However, it is important to recog-nize (as Alyosha does) that the Inquisitor's opposi-tion of freedom to order stems from a particularunderstanding of freedom. For the Inquisitor, as forGeneva thought, the affirmation of freedom is syn-onymous with the affirmation of the individual as aseparate "conscious will," as an isolated beingendowed with reason and will. Yet the Inquisitordoes not share the Geneva hope that the separateindividual can be re-integrated within the socialunion through the mediatory power of love. Be-cause freedom and social cohesion are ultimatelyantithetical, freedom is an intolerable burden forhumanity: "nothing has ever been more unendur-able to man and to human society than freedom!...I tell you man has no more agonizing anxiety than tofind someone to whom he can hand over with allspeed the gift of freedom with which the unhappycreature is born." The Inquisitor maintains thatfreedom, though intolerable, is a fact of life whichcannot simply be abolished. It can, however, betransferred into the hands of a few rulers who will

exact from the majority of humanity absolute obedi-ence in all things large and small, thereby grantingthem the order for which they yearn. A final solu-tion to the problem of order is possible for theInquisitor only on the basis of the positing of aradical inequality among human beings. Dostoyevskyhas him state this inequality most explicitly in therough notes for the novel: "But the strengths ofmankind are various. There are the strong and thereare the weak."

The Inquisitor's attribution to human beings ofa fundamental need for order is therefore subject toa decisive qualification: there are those, inevitably aminority, who are strong enough to renounce thesatisfaction of this need. The existence of two sortsof human beings can militate against order when thestrong demand comparable strength from the weak,as did the "great idealist," Jesus. But when thestrong are also compassionate, then the most com-plete order becomes possible. The "millions andscores of thousands of millions" of the weak,anxious to surrender the conscious will which alien-ates them from the spontaneous life of completesocial integration, will be able to place their free-dom in the hands of the "great and strong" whoconsent to "endure freedom and rule over them...."The appeal to an evident inequality along humanbeings by way of justifying the absolute rule of aminority of free individuals over the mass of hu-manity, who are equal only in their slavery and freeonly because they gratefully accept the assurance oftheir rulers that they are free, recalls Shigalyov'sscientific reinterpretation of the Geneva idea. Un-like the taciturn Russian, however, the Spanishcardinal is more than willing to elaborate his formu-la for the only earthly paradise possible for hu-man beings.

The First TemptationThe first temptation to which Christ was sub-

jected is interpreted by the Inquisitor as follows:

And do you see the stones in this parched and barrendesert? Turn them into loaves, and mankind will runafter you like a flock of sheep, grateful and obedient,though forever trembling with fear that you mightwithdraw your hand and they would no longer haveyour loaves. But you did not want to deprive man offreedom and rejected to offer, for, you thought, whatsort of freedom is it if obedience is bought with loavesof bread?

The rejection of the loaves constitutes a rejec-tion of the first, and most self-evident, of the threeprincipal means whereby individuals can be re-

V o l u m e S 8 3


lieved of their burdensome freedom—for in thisfirst temptation is revealed the truth that the weakwill give up the prerogative of individual freedom tothose who assure them that this prerogative ismerely a chimera, that the real concern of humanlife is the multiplication and satisfaction of naturalneeds. According to the Inquisitor, "heavenlybread"—synonymous with such notions as the rightto "freedom," or "moral responsibility," or the"spiritual dimension" of human life—cannot com-pare in the eyes of the weak with "earthly bread."This preference has its source in the fundamentalneed of human beings for at least the minimumsatisfaction of their natural inclinations, for theminimum protection from hunger, cold, and thenumbing hopelessness of material poverty. Despitethe obviousness of this need, its strength has repeat-edly been underestimated by the preachers of heav-enly bread. Yet can the offer of heavenly bread haveany impact upon people who are subject to thetyranny of unsatisfied natural desires? This is thequestion posed in the first temptation.

Those strong enough for the most inflexibledisciplining of their inclinations by the consciouswill may perhaps be able to contemplate virtuewhile suffering the pangs of hunger; but there stillremain the weak, "numerous as the sand of thesea," who cannot ignore their pain. According tothe Inquisitor, it is terribly unjust to add to thesuffering of the majority of humanity the additionalburden of moral guilt because of their preference forearthly bread. The "great idealists" are all tooquick to condemn precisely where they should showcompassion. Those who love human beings with agenuine love will not condemn them for a yearningtoo strong to struggle against, but will attempt toalleviate their suffering by satisfying this yearning.The Inquisitor thus stands with those who declare:' 'Feed them first and then demand virtue of them!''The meaning of this declaration is elaborated byDostoyevsky himself in a letter in which he dis-cusses explicitly the first temptation:

Rather than go to the ruined poor, who from hungerand oppression look more like beasts than like men,rather than go and start preaching to the hungryabstention from sins, humility, sexual chastity, wouldn'tit be better to feed them first? . . . give them food tosave them; give them a social structure so that theyalways have bread and order—and then speak to themof sin—Command then that henceforth the earthshould bring forth without toil, instruct people in suchscience or instruct them in such an order, that theirlives should henceforth be provided for. Is it possiblenot to believe that the greatest vices and misfortunes

of man have resulted from hunger, cold, poverty, andthe impossible struggle for existence?

Those self-styled teachers of humanity whohave evinced an apparent indifference to the enor-mous suffering which material poverty has inflictedand continues to inflict upon the vast majority oftheir fellow beings are accused by the Inquisitor ofexhibiting a dire lack of commonsense, or worse, areprehensible severity.

Although the first temptation discloses a truthwhich is "absolute and everlasting," it anticipatesalso the "future history of mankind," for the issuewhich it raises was to be especially predominant in acertain epoch of history. The Inquisitor, present atthe barely discernible incipience of this epoch,foresees the full course of its development:

You replied that man does not live by bread alone, butdo you know that for the sake of that earthly bread thespirit of the earth will rise up against you and will joinbattle with you and conquer you, and all will followhim, crying 'Who is like this beast? He have given usfire from heaven!' Do you know that ages will passand mankind will proclaim in its wisdom and sciencethat there is no crime and, therefore, no sin, but thatthere are only hungry people. 'Feed them first andthen demand virtue of them!'—that is what they willinscribe on their banner which they will raise againstyou and which will destroy your temple.

The historical epoch anticipated here is that ofthe modern West. The allusion to Prometheus (whomMarx regarded as "the foremost saint and martyr inthe philosophical calendar") indicates perfectly theInquisitor's understanding of the spirit of Westernmodernity as a rebellion against the insubstantial,otherworldly notion of heavenly bread on behalf ofthe tangible, earthly need of those who suffer hereand now. The traditional Christianity which theInquisitor himself represents must face the conse-quences of its failure to accord sufficient recogni-tion to actual human suffering: "we shall again bepersecuted and tortured... ."After tearing downthe Roman Catholic "temple," the modern rebelswill embark upon the construction of an alternativeorder: ' 'A new building will rise where your tem-ple stood, the dreadful Tower of Babel will riseup again...."

The builders of the new Tower of Babel arenot named, but in the letter previously quotedDostoyevsky specifies the historical movement al-luded to by the Inquisitor:

Here is the first idea which was posed by the evil spiritto Christ. Contemporary socialism in Europe . . . sets



Christ aside and is first of all concerned with bread. Itappeals to science and maintains that the cause of allhuman misfortune is poverty, the struggle for exist-ence and an oppressive environment.

Socialism is thus specified as the most effectivehistorical embodiment of the Promethean attempt toalleviate the suffering of the "millions, numerousas the sand of the sea" who hunger for the earthlybread which has been denied them. According toDostoyevsky, the compassion of socialism for hu-man suffering is combined with an understanding ofsuffering as ultimately material in origin, as theconsequence of "poverty, the struggle for existenceand an oppressive environment." Despite the ap-parent nobility of its intentions, then, socialisminevitably develops into a form of political material-ism. The modern Western rebellion against RomanCatholic order in the name of earthly sufferingculminates in the materialism of communism and itsrival, bourgeois liberalism. The Inquisitor thus an-ticipates, not only the destruction of Roman Catho-lic order, but also the overcoming of the Genevaidea by the appeal to earthly bread.

The ultimate insufficiency of any order whichfails to protect the mass of humanity from "hunger,cold, poverty, and the impossible struggle for exist-ence' ' is painfully demonstrated for the Inquisitor inthe imminent breakdown of Roman Catholic civili-zation. The future practical success of modern po-litical materialism will constitute an indisputablelesson concerning the crucial place which materialneed occupies in human existence. The final tri-umph of socialism over its liberal rival will indicatethat it has learned this lesson more thoroughly andhas demonstrated a superior capacity for distribut-ing bread equitably and efficiently. Nevertheless, inthe face of the lesson concerning humanity's needfor earthly bread, the Inquisitor reaffirms the prima-cy of the need for order and, evaluating socialism interms of this need, he finds it deficient. He certainlydoes not deny that materialism is capable of func-tioning as a religion; indeed, he acknowledges thatearthly bread may well be the most incontestableobject of worship which can be offered to humanity.What could be more evident to the perception, andthe inclination, of the masses than natural satisfac-tions? The meaning of earthly bread is obvious, andit enjoins no troublesome chastisement of naturalinclination for the sake of some obscure "spiritualdestiny." Rather than setting the conscious willagainst natural impulses, the religion of earthlybread encourages human beings to exercise the willonly insofar as it serves these impulses. The conse-

quent atrophying of the conscious will can onlyfacilitate the overcoming of isolation and the indi-vidual's re-integration within the social unit.

Yet despite his acknowledgment of the primalappeal of earthly bread, the Inquisitor judges it toconstitute an inferior idea of life, ultimately incapa-ble of satisfying the human need for order. Thefutility of the modern attempt to found a new orderon the universal satisfaction of material needs willfinally become inescapably clear: ' 'No science willgive them bread so long as they remain free. . . .They will, at last, realize themselves that therecannot be enough freedom and bread for everybody,for they will never, never be able to let everyonehave his fair share." Those who would give hu-manity "fire from heaven" will be compelled torecognize that the universal and fair distribution ofbread will never be realized in a society which hasnot completely overcome individual freedom. Forinevitably there will be those who, unwilling toattune their desires to the collective, will demandmore than their "fair share" of life's goods. Whatcould induce these more strongly desiring individu-als to "make a sacrifice" for the whole? Theinadequacy of political materialism is manifest forthe Inquisitor in its inability to furnish a conclusiveanswer to this question. The socialist argument thatcompetitive individualism is itself a product of thesocio-economic environment is ultimately no morethan wishful thinking. For the available evidenceconcerning the "always vicious and always ignoblerace of man'' does not encourage hope for a flower-ing of human goodness within a more ' 'rational''environment.

The inability of socialism to secure the compli-ance of every conscious will in the social unionnecessarily implies the failure, not only to distributebread effectively among human beings, but also togive them the order which they desire above all. TheInquisitor thus adds a significant qualification to hisinitial declaration that human obedience can bebought with bread. In summoning up the spectre ofthe rebellious individual against the new Tower ofBabel, he asserts that any renunciation of individualfreedom called forth by the need for material satis-faction can only be temporary. To assume that thealienated individual will be reconciled to the collec-tive through a certain transformation of externalmaterial structures is to fail to penetrate to the rootsof humanity's attachment to the conscious will. Thebuilders of the modern Tower of Babel do not graspthe significance of human freedom, and will thusnever be able to possess it. They will break their

V o l u m e 8 8 5


hearts "for a thousand years" with their tower,without being able to complete it.

For the Inquisitor, the truth of modern politicalmaterialism lies in its profound appreciation of theneed for earthly bread. Its fatal error lies in itsdisregard of the continuing need for heavenly bread.Communism is correct in inscribing on its banner—' 'Feed them first and then demand virtue of them!"—but its tendency to concentrate on the first part ofthis slogan to the exclusion of the second betrays anincomplete understanding of human nature. Thus,while castigating the "great idealists" for theirfailure to heed the teaching about human orderexpressed in the first temptation, the Inquisitornevertheless acknowledges the ultimate validity oftheir refusal to uphold earthly bread as humanity'shighest end:

With the bread you were given an incontestablebanner: give him bread and man will worship you, forthere is nothing more incontestable than bread; but ifat the same time someone besides yourself shouldgain possession of his conscience—oh, then he willeven throw away your bread and follow him who hasensnared his conscience. You were right about that.For the mystery of human life is not only in living, butin knowing why one lives. Without a clear idea ofwhat to live for man will not consent to live and willrather destroy himself than remain on the earth, thoughhe were surrounded by loaves of bread.

Earthly bread is necessary, but it is not suffi-cient, for the final solution to the problem of order.Human beings can be finally relieved of the burdenof their freedom only if the distributors of the loavessatisfy another human need—the need for a ' 'moralenticement." This need and the means by which itcan be met are explicated in the course of theInquisitor's interpretation of the second temptation.

The Second Temptation"Man is born a rebel." According to the In-

quisitor, the primary source of this "rebellious-ness" is the insistence of human beings on regard-ing themselves as something more than the productof nature. The striving to transcend the limitationsof natural necessity expresses itself particularly inthe tendency to measure human existence against anultimate good. In spinning its fine web of necessityaround human beings, socialism forgets their insis-tent need to know that what is necessary can also becalled "good." And if they cannot affirm the good-ness of the order which provides them with bread,then they will finally reject this order and its bread,whatever the consequences for their natural wants.Against the modern Tower of Babel, then, the

Inquisitor asserts the human propensity for makingmoral distinctions. Whether or not human beingsare in truth entirely a product of chance and necessi-ty, they are in fact beings who insist on perceivingthemselves as something more. This tendency seemsso deeply rooted as to be impervious to any amountof re-education according to the laws of "utility"and ' 'necessity.'' Insofar as people tend, not only tomake moral distinctions, but to insist on makingthese distinctions for themselves, their propensityfor moral judgment is intimately associated with theassertion of the individual conscious will. The "con-scious will" can thus be more precisely designatedthe ' 'conscience.'' For the Inquisitor the personalconscience is the mainspring of human freedom.Those who understand human freedom as directedprimarily towards natural, rather than moral, endswill never be able to possess it.

According to the Inquisitor, the personal con-science has been no less important than the desirefor earthly bread in inspiring that rebelliousnesswhich has undermined human order throughouthistory. The nearly complete order of antiquity wasdoomed when the individual began to reject the' 'strict ancient law'' in order to ' 'decide for himselfwith a free heart what is good and what is evil" (amovement associated above all with the names ofSocrates and Jesus). The ensuing moral chaos hadbeen alleviated by Roman Catholicism's massiveeffort to establish a solid morality which definedgood and evil clearly for all. But the Inquisitorperceives, in the "dreadful new heresy" of Lutherappearing in his own time, a renewed assertion ofthe personal conscience which can only issue inanother epoch of moral chaos. He knows that thepersonal conscience will resist the threat of fire withwhich the Roman Catholic order vainly defendsitself, and he knows that it will finally resist also theoffer of earthly bread with which the builders of themodern Tower of Babel will attempt to tame it.These builders ignore at their peril the depth of thehuman attachment to the conscience. Like the yearn-ing for material goods, this attachment is an ' 'eter-nal problem" which centuries of historical experi-ence have made impossible to ignore, at least forthose who are genuinely and intelligently concernedwith human happiness.

This "eternal problem" does admit of a solu-tion, according to the Inquisitor. Despite his appre-ciation of the obduracy of the personal conscience,he insists still on the primacy of the human desirefor order. His conviction that human beings ulti-mately wish to be induced to give up their freedom



remains unshaken. For him, the proper estimation ofthe personal conscience is merely the prerequisitefor capturing it: "whoever knows this mystery ofmankind's existence knows how to go about subdu-ing him, and who can, subdues him." The "mys-tery" of the conscience is that "there is nothingmore alluring to man than . . . freedom of con-science"; at the same time, "there is nothing moretormenting, either." In this paradox resides thepossibility of relieving human beings of their freedom.

According to the Inquisitor, human beings strivefor an ultimate good only in order finally to attain toa condition of happy repose. When the longed-fortranquillity eludes them and the moral quest be-comes a perpetual striving, then the personal con-science becomes a torment—particularly for the"thousands of millions" of the weak who lack thespiritual capacity to sustain the arduous struggle forfinal peace of mind. If there is indeed an ultimateend to the moral quest, surely knowledge of it willbe vouchsafed only to the few thousand of thestrong, who are more like gods than human beings.For the weak, the freedom of conscience which theyfind so alluring issues only in "unrest, confusion,and unhappiness...." To the Inquisitor this isdemonstrable from the historical experience of theWest just as surely as is the tenacity with whichhumanity upholds the prerogative of the personalconscience. Gazing into a distant future in which theProtestant conscience has been translated throughGeneva thought into the right of each individual todecide independently "with a free heart" what isgood, the Inquisitor predicts that the mass of hu-manity will come to rue the day that simple acquies-cence in the given morality of the Roman Catholicorder was rejected:

They will pay dearly for it. They will tear down thetemples and drench the earth with blood. But they willrealize at last, the foolish children, that although theyare rebels, they are impotent rebels who are unable tokeep up with their rebellion. Dissolving into foolishtears, they will admit at last that he who created themrebels must undoubtedly have meant to laugh at them.

The Inquisitor does not claim that individualswill cease to be moral beings, for the need to makemoral judgments is too deeply rooted. He thinks,however, that in the aftermath of the trials in storefor them, human beings could be persuaded torelinquish the right to make such judgments forthemselves, "with a free heart." Yet the sacrifice ofpersonal conscience, which the modern individualwill be only too willing to make, will be merelytemporary unless it is accepted by those with theknowledge to hold it "captive for ever."

According to the Inquisitor, this knowledge isdisclosed in the second temptation. The temptation,properly interpreted, not only reveals that humanbeings will surrender their freedom only to thosewho can fully appease their conscience, but revealsalso the most effective means of appeasement:

There are three forces, the only three forces that areable to conquer and hold captive for ever the con-science of those weak rebels for their own happi-ness—these forces are: miracle, mystery, and authori-ty. You rejected all three and yourself set the examplefor doing so. When the wise and terrible spirit set youon a pinnacle of the temple and said to you:' If thou bethe son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, Heshall give his angels charge concerning thee: and intheir hands they shall bear thee up.. ..'

The "rebels" have to be taught that the ques-tion of good is a "mystery" which must be believedrather than known, that it is not the "free verdict oftheir hearts nor love that matters, but the mysterywhich they must obey blindly, even against theirconscience." Remembering the "horrors of slaveryand confusion" to which a "free mind" broughtthem, they will gratefully accept the assurance thatthe ultimate good is inaccessible to human knowl-edge. The "authority" of those who preach the"mystery" will be confirmed, above all, by "mira-cles," or the appearance of miracles, for whenfreedom of conscience becomes too agonizing "whatman seeks is not so much God as miracles." Humanbeings are ultimately unable to carry on without amiracle, so much so that even in the modern agewhich has banished miracles they will find newmiracles for themselves and will worship the pseu-do-miracles of the modern "witch-doctor."

The Inquisitor maintains that in Western histo-ry the preaching of ' 'miracle, mystery, and authori-ty" has come within the special province of theRoman Catholic Church. And he foresees no seri-ous rival arising to contend with the traditionalsupremacy of Roman Catholicism in this matter. Itwould thus appear that when modern people beginto yearn for "miracle, mystery, and authority,"they will have no choice but to return to thatmorality which they have spurned with such cava-lier disregard for their own happiness. The RomanCatholic Church may again be compelled to hideitself in the catacombs; but the Inquisitor thinks itpossible that the day will come when it will besought out in its hiding place and asked to renew itspossession of the human conscience. This time willcome when humanity's striving after knowledge ofgood and evil becomes completely transformed into

V o l u m e 8 8 7

T h e G r a n d I n q u i s i t o r

the directionless striving after knowledge for itsown sake which is characteristic of modern science:

Freedom, a free mind and science will lead them intosuch a jungle and bring them face to face with suchmarvels and insoluble mysteries that some of them,the recalcitrant and the fierce, will destroy them-selves, others, recalcitrant but weak, will destroy oneanother, and the rest, weak and unhappy, will comecrawling to our feet and cry aloud: 'Yes, you wereright, you alone possessed his mystery, and we comeback to you—save us from ourselves!'

The Inquisitor's social formula is based on hisinterpretation of the first two temptations. It cantherefore now be stated in the following way: thosewho would rule over humanity for its happinessmust be both distributors of' 'loaves'' and preachersof "miracle, mystery, and authority." Properlyinterpreted, and regarded in the light of historicalexperience, the first two temptations reveal thatpeople will ultimately consent only to an orderwhich provides them with both earthly and heaven-ly bread. Only to rulers who simultaneously satisfytheir physical and moral appetites will people relin-quish forever their freedom for the sake of thatsocial re-integration which is their most fundamen-tal desire. Because it is based on two "eternal" or"everlasting" truths about human nature, the In-quisitor's social formula applies to human beingseverywhere and always.

The very timelessness of the Inquisitor's for-mula, however, must inevitably render it more orless "abstract," despite his citing of concrete his-torical evidence for its validity. Yet "abstractness"implies a certain dissociation of theory and practicewhich the Inquisitor, of all people, must not admit.For he is concerned with the actual happiness ofhuman beings, a concern which leads him to refuseto ask too much of them and to found his socialformula on human beings as they actually are ratherthan as they ought to be. The Inquisitor cannotremain content with a teaching which is the best intheory, though it may never be realized in practice.For him, this would be equivalent to siding with the"great idealists," who do not love humanity suffi-ciently. His entire enterprise requires that his socialformula be realizable. The confident assurance withwhich he does anticipate the realization of hisformula has its source in his interpretation of thethird temptation.

The Third TemptationThe third and last' 'torment'' of humanity is the

need for ' 'universal unity,'' for the union of all in a"common, harmonious, and incontestable ant-

hill. ..." The Inquisitor avers that the human yearn-ing for order will not be satisfied by the idea alone ofan ultimate good, even when this idea is provided inconjunction with earthly bread, for human beingsneed also to give a practical living expression to theobject of their belief, and they need to do so in unitywith others. The unity sought is ultimately univer-sal, for the co-existence of differing ideas of lifetends to undermine the certainty of those who liveby them. For the Inquisitor the human need for auniversal order is not to be satisfied by the appeal(which Christianity, for instance, has made) to auniversality which is "spiritual" in nature. Theuniversality for which humanity has always yearnedis a visible universality; therefore, in the Inquisi-tor's thinking, "universal" is synonymous with"world-wide" (or "ecumenic," as first defined bythe Roman historian, Polybius). According to theInquisitor, then, human beings require an actualworld-wide social order corresponding to the "mira-cle, mystery, and authority'' which they obey—anorder, moreover, which grants them at least theminimal satisfaction of their material wants. This isto say that human beings will ultimately settle fornothing less than the realization, not merely in adream but in actuality, of the Inquisitor's socialformula.

The Inquisitor interprets the offer of the ' 'king-doms of the world" in the third temptation as theoffer of the most powerful instrument for satisfyingthe human need for universal unity—the universalstate. The universal state is the prime vehicle for theactualization of the social order ruled by keepers ofhumanity's conscience who are also distributors ofits bread. History for the Inquisitor is importantchiefly as the realm of the appearance and progres-sive development of this vehicle. (Indeed, his ec-static certainty concerning the future realization ofhis final solution to the problem of order makes hisview of history reminiscent of that modern Western"philosophy of history" developed from Vicoto Marx.)

According to the Inquisitor, the dawn of historycoincides with the first tentative efforts towards theconstruction of a universal order. The persistencewith which human beings have moved towards theuniversal state, even in its most rudimentary form,reflects at least a half-conscious awareness of itsimportance for their happiness:

Mankind as a whole has always striven to organizeitself into a world state. There have been many greatnations with great histories, but the more highlydeveloped they were, the more unhappy they were, for



they were more acutely conscious of the need for theworld-wide union of men. The great conquerors, theTimurs and Genghis Khans, swept like a whirl-windover the earth, striving to conquer the world, but,though unconsciously, they expressed the same greatneed of mankind for a universal and world-wide union.

The work of the Timurs and the Genghis Khansis a striking manifestation of the human impulsetowards the universal state; but, in them, this im-pulse remained merely unconscious, and hence failedto bear fruit. The conscious aspiration towards theconstruction of the universal state first appeared inthe ecumenic empires of Persia, Macedon, andRome. The Inquisitor focuses upon the last as theculmination of ancient humanity's striving for uni-versal unity.

Humanity had possessed, in the Roman Em-pire, a splendid and apparently "eternal" instru-ment for its happiness. Yet just when it seemed thatthe human struggle towards order had achievedfinal success, Rome was undermined by the rebel-lion of the personal conscience, which found itsmost effective vehicle in Christianity. Despite itsaura of finality, the Roman state had failed tounderstand properly the moral dimension of humanlife. This failure condemned humanity to a thousandyears of the disease of disorder. The external politi-cal and legal structures of Rome proved extraordi-narily durable, however, even after the life had goneout of them; the "sword of Caesar" remained athand for the use of new architects of world-wideorder. In its attempt to have Christianity serve orderrather than disorder, the Western church did notspurn this sword, and the accommodation which itreached with the remnants of the Roman state gavebirth to that Roman Catholic order which was todefine Western civilization for centuries. Althoughit evinced a more profound appreciation of the needfor heavenly bread, Roman Catholic order was alsoto be finally undermined by the assertiveness of thepersonal conscience, and also by the attempt toalleviate the sufferings of material deprivation. Butin its rejection of Roman Catholic civilization, themodern West has not repudiated the "sword ofCaesar"; indeed, it apotheosizes the state—stillfundamentally the universal state of Rome—andopposes it to any other instrument of human order.Because of its wholehearted adoption of the state,the modern West tends to overcome the divergenceof loyalties once rendered inevitable by the uneasycompromise achieved in the Middle Ages betweenthe Roman church and the Roman state. The mod-ern state, moreover, in consciously founding itselfsolely on reason, is bound up with a science which

holds out possibilities for the control of human andnon-human nature beyond anything dreamt of in thepast. For these reasons, the modern Western statemust be regarded as the most effective instrument ofsocial order that the world has yet seen. The "swordof Caesar'' could prove, in its modern embodiment,to be more powerful than it ever was in ancientRome or in medieval Europe. But who will wieldthis formidable instrument?

As we have already noted, the Inquisitor pre-dicts that it is socialism which will finally inheritCaesar's sword. We have also noted, however, hisexpectation that the triumph of socialism will beshort-lived unless it can offer humanity somethingmore than earthly bread. Among the socialists therewill be those sufficiently "scientific" to realize thatthe full compliance of the individual in the socialistorder will require a ' 'moral enticement." In order topreserve itself, socialism will at last be compelled toseek out preachers of "miracle, mystery, and au-thority." The Inquisitor thus foresees that the so-cialist state, following those driven to despair by the"jungle" into which freedom of conscience has ledthem, will turn to the Roman Catholic Church as themost practised adept in the realm of "miracle,mystery, and authority." This time, however, thealliance between church and state will be morecomplete than the compromise of the past allowed.The two will enter into the indivisible union ex-pressed in the formula—"The Pope—leader ofcommunism"—which is the outward historical ex-pression of the Inquisitor's social theory. Whensocialism surrenders its highly organized system forthe satisfaction of material needs into the hands ofRoman Catholicism, then the keepers of humanity'sconscience will also be the distributors of its bread.The problem of social order will be at last solved inactuality. Human beings will finally come intopossession of that yearned-for earthly paradise whichhas always eluded them:

And then we shall finish building their tower . . . andwe alone shall feed them in your name .. .the flockwill be gathered together again and will submit oncemore, and this time it will be for good. Then we shallgive them quiet, humble happiness, the happiness ofweak creatures, such as they were created... .Theywill grow timid and begin looking up to us and cling tous in fear as chicks to the hen. They will marvel at usand be terrified of us and be proud that we are somighty and so wise as to be able to tame such aturbulent flock of thousands of millions. They will behelpless and in constant fear of our wrath, their mindswill grow timid, their eyes will always be sheddingtears like women and children, but at the slightest signfrom us they will be just as ready to pass to mirth and

V o l u m e 8 8 9


laughter, to bright-eyed gladness and happy childishsong.. .. And they will have no secrets from us. ...The most tormenting secrets of their conscience—everything, everything they will bring to us, and weshall give them our decision for it all . . . . And theywill all be happy, all the millions of creatures, exceptthe hundred thousand who rule over them....

Source: Bruce K. Ward, "The Final Western Social Formu-la," in Dostoyevsky's Critique of the West: The Quest for theEarthly Paradise, Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1986,pp. 101-134.

Temira PachmussIn the following essay, Pachmuss discusses

Dostoevsky's concept of the dual heavenly andearthly nature of humankind as it is reflected in theGrand Inquisitor's three reproaches against Christ.

In Seeking To Reveal the tragedy of man as a dualbeing, Dostoevsky portrays the abnormal states ofthe psyche, all phenomena of which he considersmanifestations of higher metaphysical realities. Andan understanding of Dostoevsky's metaphysics ofevil is necessary for one to discern the primaltragedy, which comes to the fore in his more matureworks, particularly The Brothers Karamazov, whereevil is expressed both in metaphysical and psycho-logical terms. "The Legend of the Grand Inquisi-tor," an expression of Ivan Karamazov's rebel-lion against God, stands in close connection withDostoevsky's earlier writings, for it discloses moreof the concept of duality which underlies the workspreviously examined. It reflects Dostoevsky's life-long study of man as a "mixture of the heavenlyand the earthly," the problem which tormentedhis mind even when he was at the Military En-gineers' Academy.

After the portrayal of man with inherent ego-centricity, vanity, and other facets of his creaturelybeing, Dostoevsky arranges a trial, as it were, atwhich the Grand Inquisitor points out to Christ thatGod created man as the least perfect of all creatures.He burdened man with an animal being and socondemned him to continual suffering. The GrandInquisitor appears as the defense counsel for man,the victim of God, Who has endowed him with adual nature which man is too weak to bear withdignity. He elaborates his defense by showing thatin most cases man either becomes a prey to hiscreaturely being or revolts against God. In neither ofthese instances does man strive for spiritual andmoral perfection as should a creature made in the

divine image. In the name of mankind, the GrandInquisitor brings against Christ three charges. Firstof all, he states, man has earthly needs and a naturalimpulse to satisfy them. Man's freedom of spirit andthe exercise of his will are impeded by these naturalneeds. How is it possible, the Grand Inquisitor asks,to reproach man with his efforts to maintain naturalexistence, an existence which requires, first andforemost, that his hunger be allayed? He rebukesChrist that He did not take from men the worry overtheir daily bread. As freedom of spirit can scarcelybe reconciled with the natural needs of humanbeings, they abandon this freedom and say, "Makeus your slaves, but feed us." The Grand Inquisitorsays to Christ,' 'They themselves will understand atlast that freedom and bread, enough for all, areinconceivable together, for never, never will they beable to share among themselves." There are but fewpeople who have enough strength to neglect theiranimal being for the sake of living for the spirit."And, if for the sake of the bread of Heaven,thousands will follow Thee, what is to become ofthe millions and tens of thousands of millions ofcreatures who have not the strength to forgo theearthly bread for the sake of the heavenly?" theGrand Inquisitor proceeds. He believes that, hadChrist freed men from the anxiety associated withtheir earthly needs, He would have lifted the burdenof suffering which arises from the duality of humannature. Their question as to whom they shouldworship would then have been answered. Man,relieved of this anxiety, would no longer doubt hisCreator, for "man seeks to worship what is estab-lished beyond any dispute."

Man as a spiritual being, the Grand Inquisitorcontinues, needs worship as an expression of beliefin immortality; but even if he succeeds in worship-ping something "established beyond any dispute,"he cannot be happy so long as he is devoid of thefeeling of unity with humanity. This feeling ofisolation deprives him of contentment with life."The craving for community of worship is the chiefmisery of every man individually and of all humani-ty from the beginning of time," the Grand Inquisi-tor insists. Man's worry about his natural existence,however, forces him to struggle against his fellowmen. Man is turned against man because they standin a relationship similar to that of one animal towardanother, each trying to seize the other's food. Theanimal is not disturbed by the question of whether ornot this lies in the nature of universal laws, but mansuffers under the law of the jungle, for it conflictswith his conscience. Had Christ freed men from the



worry about their daily bread, He would also havefreed them from this primitive state, and conse-quently from a stricken conscience: "And behold,instead of providing a firm foundation for settingthe conscience of man at rest forever, Thou didstchoose all that is exceptional, vague and enigmatic;Thou didst choose what was utterly beyond thestrength of man, acting as if Thou didst not love himat all." The Grand Inquisitor considers that Christdemanded too much of man, and that His love forhumanity was too uncompromising; it was directedtoward man as he should be, and not as he is.

The second reproach of the Grand Inquisitor isthat Christ withheld "miracle, mystery, and au-thority." Christ did not cast Himself down themountain, nor did He descend from the cross. Hesubmitted His body to the natural laws, for He didnot want "to enslave man by a miracle." Man,however, a rebel by nature, will try to conquer thesenatural laws and rise above them, and a significantpart of the tragedy of Dostoevsky's heroes lies inthis struggle, for such attempts lead only to inevita-ble failure and spiritual pain. Raskolnikov strove tobecome a superman, stronger than that nature whichcondemned him to cling to his ' 'flesh and lust.'' TheUnderground Man tried to run against' 'the wall ofthe laws of nature," although he knew full well theutter futility of his endeavor. Kirillov wanted, throughsuicide, to initiate the transformation of man intosuperman; and Ivan Karamazov, too, thought thathe could disregard the laws of nature. All theseattempts resulted only in suffering.

The Grand Inquisitor says to Christ, "Thoudidst hope that man, following Thee, could cling toGod and not ask for a miracle." Had Christ left thepossibility of a miracle—a gap in the wall of na-ture—men would have followed Him, for ' 'men areslaves, of course, though created rebels." Since thecausal laws of nature exclude the miracle, man'sfaith grows weaker. Raskolnikov, dissatisfied withthe social structure of the community—which is forhim the consequence of causal laws—rages againstGod's creation and feels himself justified in at-tempting to improve it. The Underground Man, too,driven to desperation, tries to smash' 'the wall of thelaws of nature." He cannot, in his state, be recon-ciled with God's creation or believe in Christ's lovefor man. Kirillov, who admired Christ's martyr-dom, does not recognize the causal laws as ordainedby God. He intends to free himself from subservi-ence to them, and thus to point the way for humanitythrough his suicide. In a determination to destroyGod, he aims at making the world happy.

destructive principle of the

dual force, which represents

one pole of duality— 'the

indispensable minus1—there

would be no phenomena on

earth. While ultimate harmony

would be attained, it would

mean simultaneously the end

of earthly life as man

knows it."

Dostoevsky considers the causal laws of natureto be an apparent antithesis to the spiritual aspect ofGod's creation. "The highest heavenly world,"as Father Zosima terms it, or "the higher noblespirituality," in Dostoevsky's words, is in uttercontradiction with the earthly laws to which allmen are subjected, irrespective of their denial ofGod's existence. Therefore, the Grand Inquisitortells Christ that while these causal laws prevail, aweak man believes his faith in God and his striv-ing to "the higher spiritual world" to be futile.The Grand Inquisitor's fears are justified in thecase of Raskolnikov, the Underground Man, andSmerdyakov, who are unable to accept the world—in which the scoundrel prospers and the righteousman perishes—as a creation of a kind and mercifulGod. From this viewpoint, the Grand Inquisitormaintains that a miracle or ' 'a gap in the wall of thelaws of nature" can give man a belief in God andimmortality, a belief which is essential for his peaceof mind. If Christ had left for man a belief in thepossibility of a miracle, he would have acquired hisfaith undisturbed by doubt, he would have attainedpeace and happiness. The immutability of the causallaws not only reduces him to "the last and the leastof creatures,'' but is also the reason that in the wholecreation of God ' 'the law of spiritual nature is ...violated." The Grand Inquisitor raises this violationas his second charge against Christ. Duality in thestructure of the world makes man a wretched slaveof the relentless laws of nature, a plaything in thehands of some all-powerful force. Out of compas-

V o l u m e 8 9 1

Without hte negative,


sion for man, the Grand Inquisitor censures Christfor His failure to abolish through a miracle thispainful duality.

As in the argument presented by Glaucon andAdeimantus in Plato's Republic, Dostoevsky's re-bellious characters such as Raskolnikov, the Under-ground Man, and even Ivan Karamazov, are readyto worship and believe in God if they can be sure ofa reward. The valet Smerdyakov is also prepared torevere God if he is to be rewarded for his faith. Hearrives at the conclusion that, since he cannot bid hisfaith to move a mountain, Heaven will not esteemhighly his religious feeling,' 'for since the mountainhad not moved at my word, they cannot think verymuch of my faith in Heaven, and there cannot be agreat reward awaiting me in the world to come. Sowhy should I let them flay me alive as well, and tono good purpose?"; For Smerdyakov, thus, there isno virtue without a reward. Even old Karamazov isaroused at such an interpretation of the Christianfaith. Raskolnikov has a similar view of Christiani-ty. He believes Sonya actually out of her mind toworship God without a reward. He witnesses theruin of her family and cannot understand that,regardless of this, she still entrusts herself to a GodWho can permit such an injustice as her terrible andshameful position in the community. Raskolnikovasks himself, when he thinks of Sonya, the tragedyof her future and that of her family, "What is shewaiting for? A miracle?'' He believes she enduresher hard life only in the expectation of a miracle, areward from God for her firm religious faith.

On the death of Father Zosima, his followersalso expect a miracle as recompense for his life ofpurity. When none takes place and his body beginsto decompose in accordance with the laws of nature,even Alyosha is shaken and, through his sorrow,driven almost to sin. The followers have alreadyforgotten Father Zosima's words on the pure act offaith: "Children, seek no miracles. Miracles willkill faith." The Underground Man, too, denouncesvirtue without reward, and the noble-minded IvanKaramazov's menial ego says to him, "Only thosewho have no conscience gain, for how can they betortured by conscience when they have none? Butdecent people who have conscience and honorsuffer for it.'' In despair, Ivan can only reply,' 'Howcould my soul beget such a creature as you?"whereupon the devil explains to him that this crea-ture is the author of "The Legend of the GrandInquisitor,'' and that the latter is the advocate for allsuch weaklings. The Grand Inquisitor is prepared togive man a longed-for miracle, since "man seeks

not so much God as the miraculous," whereasChrist, craving "faith given freely," refused "toenslave men by a miracle."

The pawnbroker in "The Gentle Maiden" de-sires his wife's love "given freely," not based oncompulsion. In this he resembles Christ in "TheLegend of the Grand Inquisitor." The pawnbro-ker's wife, however, is too weak to measure up tosuch demands; in order to gain her confidence andlove, her husband would have had to give her proofof his love for her, just as in "The Legend" Christwould have had to come down from the cross inorder to win the love and faith of man. When thepawnbroker realizes that he was wrong in his expec-tations, he also grasps his wife's weakness. He, too,had rated her too highly, whereas she was only ' 'aslave, even though rebellious by nature." Similarly,she revolted against her husband because he was acoward and a weakling. He should have shown herhis power, or bribed her with love and compassion.Virtue without a reward did not exist for her anymore than it existed for Golyadkin, Raskolnikov,and Ivan Karamazov.

The third reproach of the Grand Inquisitor isthat Christ rejected the sword of Caesar and be-queathed to man a freedom in his decisions andactions, a freedom which will lead him to ruin. TheGrand Inquisitor bitterly attacks Christ for His love,which has become a burden rather than a blessingfor humanity: He has given men freedom of con-science for which they are too weak. He thereforesays to Christ, "Hadst Thou accepted that lastcounsel of the mighty spirit, Thou wouldst haveaccomplished all that man seeks on earth, that is,Thou wouldst have given him someone to worship,someone to entrust his conscience to, and somemeans of unifying all into one unanimous andharmonious ant-heap."

The thought that man tries to shun all responsi-bility for the sins and actions which weigh heavilyon his conscience was expressed by Dostoevsky forthe first time in The Double. Golyadkin, when hecan no longer manage his double, is willing tosacrifice his personal freedom for peace of mind.When he fails to achieve power and authority overothers, he attempts to avoid self-reproaches bydisclaiming the responsibility for his actions: "Ilook upon you, my benefactor and superior, as afather, and entrust my fate to you, and I will not sayanything against your decisions; I put myself inyour hands, and retire from the affair." He seekssomeone to whom he can transfer the heavy burden



of his conscience. In his anguish, he visualizes somemagician who comes to him saying,' 'Give a fingerfrom your right hand, Golyadkin, and we shall call itquits; the other Golyadkin will no longer exist, andyou will be happy, only you will not have yourfinger." "Yes, I would sacrifice my finger,"Golyadkin admits, "I certainly would!"

Men long to obey the one who can shoulder thisencumbrance for them. "They will submit to usgladly and cheerfully," the Grand Inquisitor ob-serves, ' 'and they will be glad to believe our deci-sions, for it will save them from the great anxietyand terrible agony they endure at present in makinga free decision for themselves." He believes thatsince man is continually torn between his spiritualand creaturely being, a freedom to govern his owndecisions can only result in suffering. As man isweak and afraid of suffering, he will always seeksomeone whom he can make responsible for hisactions.

Man's fear of assuming responsibility for hisdeeds prompts the Grand Inquisitor to relieve manof his duality by denying him conscience, "thegreatest anxiety and terrible agony in making a freedecision for himself." Once man is unburdened ofthis "terrible gift that has brought him so muchsuffering," he will rejoice and be happy. Christ'sway of life has proven to be only for' 'the strong andelect," those who can cope with their freedom ofconscience. Troubled by the thought of the weakones, the Grand Inquisitor asks,' 'Are they to blamebecause they could not endure what the strong haveendured? . . . Canst Thou have come only to theelect and for the elect?" In their freedom of con-science, given to men by Christ, they are tormentedby their sins, and, like Golyadkin, they would like toappeal to "a benefactor and superior," as if to afather who would free them from conscience and,by so doing, allow them to sin again. ' 'Oh, we shalleven allow them to sin; they are weak and helpless,and they will love us like children because we allowthem to sin. We shall tell them that every sin will beexpiated, if it is done with our permission," theGrand Inquisitor promises Christ. If there is some-one to accept responsibility for man's sin, his con-science will no longer suffer. If laws allow man tosuccumb to sins, he must have no feeling of guilt.

The Grand Inquisitor warns Christ that thereare few elect people who can bear responsibilityalone. "And besides," he proceeds, "how many ofthose elect, those mighty ones who could havebecome elect, have grown weary waiting for Thee,

and have transferred and will transfer the power oftheir spirit and the ardor of their heart to the othercamp, and end by raising their free banner againstThee." Raskolnikov has the strength to shoulderthe responsibility for his murder and its conse-quences. However, even though filled with genuineChristian compassion and sympathy for the suffer-ing and oppressed, he directs his strength againstChrist for the sake of his "flesh and lust." Afurther revolt against Christ is Raskolnikov's wishto change Sonya's Christian state of mind—allenduring and sacrificial—into hatred toward hertormentors. The Grand Inquisitor refers to this atti-tude of Raskolnikov's in speaking of those whocould have become the elect, but turned their freebanner against Christ.

Svidrigaylov, Kirillov, Stavrogin, Versilov, andIvan Karamazov also could have become elect, butthey end in laying hands either on themselves or onothers, raising in this way their free banner againstChrist. With the exception of Kirillov, they are allslaves to the "coarse veil" of earth and the causallaws of nature against which they clamor so loudly.Even Kirillov, in the last minutes before suicide, istransformed from a man-god into a weakling throughhis subjection to the "earthly veil of matter."

In his logically developed argument the GrandInquisitor has, however, missed one important pos-sibility. He does not take into consideration the factthat these same mutineers, if given the opportunity,can find their way back to Christ. Raskolnikov, whois prepared to suffer in atonement for his crime,finally becomes enlightened and, having won thebattle against his base instincts, is now ready to raisethe banner for Christ. As will be shown later,Dostoevsky implies that such conflicts in the humanmind are necessary to determine the meaning ofearthly life. The conflict between Raskolnikov'sdenial and Sonya's acceptance of divine justice is ofthis nature. But the Grand Inquisitor, even thoughhe understands the purpose of these antitheses,refuses to accept them. This appears to be the reasonthat he can see only the dark side of the rebel'sactions: his mutiny against God and Christ.

From the Grand Inquisitor's three charges againstChrist, man's spiritual suffering is shown to have itsroots in his freedom of conscience, and the only wayof relieving man from the mental pain caused by hisduality is to deny him this freedom, the GrandInquisitor suggests, since freedom and happinessare for him incompatible. In freedom, man is a slave

V o l u m e 8 9 3


and a rebel at the same time; yet if he is deprived offreedom, he will remain only a slave, and the painarising from his duality will be eliminated. Had theGrand Inquisitor succeeded in freeing man from hisburden of conscience, he would have removed themain source of man's mental anguish and enabledthose "millions of men," who are his chief concern,to live a quiet and peaceful life, without suffering,without the pricks of conscience, and without astruggle for existence. This condition can be achievedonly by depriving man of his divine image and of hischance to live for the spirit.

"The roots of man's thoughts and feelings arenot here, but in other worlds," insists Father Zosima.In taking from man freedom of conscience, theGrand Inquisitor would have also lost for him aconnection with "other worlds." As Father Zosimamaintains, ' 'the spiritual world, the higher part ofman's being, would then be rejected altogether andbanished." This possibility does not perturb theGrand Inquisitor because he cannot believe in man'sdivine origin, as he does not believe in God. AlyoshaKaramazov recognizes this clearly when he repliesto Ivan, ' 'Your Inquisitor does not believe in God,that's his whole secret!" But even the Grand In-quisitor himself fears that an animal existence willnever suffice for man, since he admits. "The secretof man's being is not only to live, but to havesomething to live for. Without a steadfast faith inthe object of life, man would not consent to go onliving, but would rather destroy himself than remainon earth, though he had bread in abundance."

In order to satisfy man with an animal life, theGrand Inquisitor must delude him into a convictionof happiness. To achieve this, he intends to giveman a purpose in life by supporting his inherentbelief in immortality and God, and, with promisesof heavenly and eternal reward, so lead him to afalse sense of bliss. The exclusion of suffering,however, would mean the destruction of humanity,as Ivan himself explains to Alyosha: "One shouldaccept lying and deception and lead man conscious-ly to death and destruction; and yet one shoulddeceive them all the way so that they may not noticewhere they are being led, that the poor blind crea-tures may at least, on the way, think themselveshappy." Ivan himself, thus, admits that the happi-ness promised mankind by the Grand Inquisitor isonly a deception, and in so doing he, even ifinvoluntarily, sides with Christ. This is plain toAlyosha, who exclaims, "Your poem is to praiseJesus, not to blame Him!"

The Grand Inquisitor, in denying man a linkwith the spiritual world, is determined to destroyhuman spirit and thought. Deprived of his divineorigin, man will lose—in spite of the spuriousnotions of happiness provided by the Grand Inquisi-tor—the idea of God and personal immortality. Hewill view his life only as "a meaningless flash."There will be no further point to a life now devoid ofall meaning; therefore no satisfaction will be leftsave in self-destruction, as it was with Svidrigaylovand Stavrogin. Dostoevsky explains this conditionmore fully in The Diary of a Writer.

If man loses his belief in immortality, suicide be-comes an absolute and inevitable necessity.... Butthe idea of immortality, promising eternal life, bindsman closely to the earth. . . . Man's belief in a person-al immortality is the only thing which gives point andreason to his life on earth. Without this belief, hisbond with the earth loosens, becomes weak andunstable; the loss of life's higher meaning—even if itis felt only as a most subconscious form of depressionand ennui—leads him inevitably to suicide.

As Dostoevsky explicitly states, without a be-lief in personal immortality,

People will suddenly realize that there is no more lifefor them; that there is no freedom of spirit, no will, nopersonality; that someone has stolen everything fromthem; that the human way of life has vanished, to bereplaced by the bestial way of life, the way of cattle,with this difference, however, that the cattle do notknow that they are cattle, whereas men will discoverthat they have become cattle And then, perhaps,others will cry to God, "Thou art right, oh Lord! Manlives not by bread alone!"

The Grand Inquisitor, therefore, who contem-plates the elimination of what he believes to be theprinciple of evil in the structure of the world, admitsthat he sides with Satan. "Listen," he addressesChrist,' 'we are not with Thee, but with him—that isour secret!" His intention will lead man to absoluteevil: to death and destruction. The Grand Inquisitorrealizes this, but he believes that his substitution ofan acceptable myth for painful conscience will bejustified, for he will secure for man the happinessdenied him by his inability to accept the idearepresented by Christ.

Dostoevsky clearly distinguishes this evil fromthat manifested in Ivan's hallucination of the devil,who says, ' 'I am the 'X' in an equation with oneunknown." It appears from this formulation thatevil ending in suffering is an integral part of life justas the ' 'X'' is of such an equation. Suffering, forDostoevsky, is not only inherent in man, but itprovides the only spur toward a greater conscious-ness of reality, which in turn engenders the assertion



of man's personality. Complete harmony on earth,therefore, is excluded by the existence of suffering.The world, as it is, must have suffering, and manmust have his duality, and yet it is possible to strivefor harmony on earth.

A dual force, in Dostoevsky's view, is indis-pensable for the whole of earthly existence. Life onearth is an incessant striving and must be stimulatedby the operation of the two opposite forces of goodand evil, which manifest themselves also in man asa part of the universe. As Lebedev in The Idiotexplains to Evgeny Pavlovich, ' 'The laws of self-preservation and self-destruction are equally pow-erful in humanity. The devil will maintain his domi-nation over mankind for a period of time which isstill unknown to us." The hypothesis that theseimpulses of self-preservation and self-destructionare a part of the dual and fundamental law of theuniverse which divert man from his ' 'spiritual world''induces Lebedev to ascribe this law to the realm ofthe devil. But the impulse of self-preservation mustbe given its due, since it preserves earthly existence,even though it is one of destruction when consid-ered in relation to the "spiritual world."

According to Dostoevsky, since man's physicalnature hinders his independent thoughts and distortshis "spiritual world," there can be no paradise andno harmony so long as man must live under earthlyconditions. Kirillov expresses a similar viewpointin his conversation with Shatov: "There are sec-onds . . . when you suddenly feel the presence of theeternal harmony perfectly attained. It is somethingnot earthly—I do not mean in the sense that it isheavenly—but in that sense that man cannot endureit in his earthly aspect. He must be physicallychanged or die." This thought occurs again in thefollowing note: "We do not know which form it[eternal harmony] will take, or where it will takeplace, . . . in which center, whether in the finalcenter, that is, in the bosom of the universal synthe-sis—God.... It will be in general hardly possible tocall men human beings; therefore we have not evenan idea what kind of beings we shall be."

With the attainment of man's goal, Dostoevskyfurther claims, human existence will become static.Thus, it will no longer be necessary for man todevelop himself, or to await the coming of futuregenerations to attain his goal. The life hithertoknown to man will cease to be a life based onperpetual motion. In the same way, Ivan's devil,who represents the principle of evil in human na-ture, assures Ivan that he, the devil, "in a simple and

straightforward way demands [his] own annihila-tion," but is commanded to live further. "For therewould be nothing without me," he says, "if every-thing on earth were as it should be, then nothingwould happen. There would be no events withoutme, but there must be events." Without the nega-tive, destructive principle of the dual force, whichrepresents one pole of duality— "the indispensableminus''—there would be no phenomena on earth.While ultimate harmony would be attained, it wouldmean simultaneously the end of earthly life asman knows it.

The same result would be achieved if mancould solve the mystery of life and find an ultimateanswer to the eternal question "why?" so convinc-ingly presented by Lebyadkin. The devil, referringto this mystery of life, says to Ivan, ' 'I know, ofcourse, there is a secret in it, but for nothing in theworld will they tell me this secret; for then, perhaps,seeing the meaning of it, I might shout 'hosanna!';the indispensable minus would disappear at once,and good sense would reign supreme throughout theworld. That, of course, would mean the end ofeverything."

Thus, while the principle of evil which destroysthe "spiritual world" of man is indispensable forthe preservation of earthly existence, the completetransition to absolute evil, quite consciously aimedat by the Grand Inquisitor, would exclude the prin-ciple of good, resulting ultimately in death anddestruction. Even Ivan Karamazov himself is con-vinced that his devil— "the 'X' in an equation withone unknown''—is not the Satan mentioned by theGrand Inquisitor, but "only a devil." Similarly,Ivan questions Alyosha in one of the drafts, "Inwhat way is he Satan? He is a devil, simply a devil. Icannot visualize him as Satan." In a letter to N. A.Lyubimov, Dostoevsky reasserts his viewpoint bywriting, "Please forgive me my devil. He is only adevil . . . not Satan with his 'singed' wings." It isstrange that this important distinction escaped theattention of some scholars and critics. D. H. Law-rence, for example, in his article "Preface toDostoevsky's The Grand Inquisitor," states forth-rightly: "As always in Dostoevsky, the amazingperspicacity is mixed with ugly perversity. Nothingis pure. His wild love for Jesus is mixed withperverse and poisonous hate of Jesus: his moralhostility to the devil is mixed with secret worshipof the devil." It is evident that D. H. Lawrencehas overlooked the dichotomy so important forDostoevsky between Satan and the devil. As hasbeen shown, the Russian novelist equates the devil

V o l u m e 8 9 5


with "the 'X' in an equation with one unknown,"and with ' 'the indispensable minus'' in the structureof the world.

The principle of evil is a prerequisite of earthlyexistence, but Dostoevsky, through Father Zosima,states his view that only the "spiritual world," the"higher part of man's being" can be the goal ofhuman aspiration. The contradictions discussedabove, which are characteristic of Dostoevsky'sphilosophy and are reflected in his fiction, the writerreconciles very forcefully and lucidly.

Source: Temira Pachmuss, "The Metaphysics of Evil," inF. M. Dostoevsky: Dualism and Synthesis of the Human Soul,Southern Illinois University Press, 1963, pp. 97-111.

Sources

Belknap, Robert L.' 'The Rhetoric of an Ideological Novel,''in Literature and Society in Imperial Russia, 1800-1914,edited by William Mills Todd III. Reprinted in ModernCritical Views: Fyodor Dostoevsky, edited by Harold Bloom.New York: Chelsea House, 1989, pp. 136-37.

Berdyaev, Nicholas. Dostoevsky, translated by DonaldAttwater, Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1957, p. 189.

Catteau, Jacques.' 'The Paradox of the Legend of the GrandInquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov," translated byFrancoise Rosset, in Dostoevsky: New Perspectives, editedby Robert Louis Jackson, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984, p. 248.

Cowles, Virginia. The Russian Dagger: Cold War in theDays of the Czars, New York: Harper & Row, 1969, p. 140.

Lawrence, D. H. "Preface to Dostoevsky's The GrandInquisitor," in Dostoevsky: A Collection of Critical Essays,edited by Rene Wellek, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,1962, pp. 90,91,97.

Leatherbarrow, William J. FedorDostoevsky, Boston: Twayne,1981, p. 157.

Lord, Robert. Dostoevsky: Essays and Perspectives, Berke-ley: University of California Press, 1970, pp. 166-67.

Matlaw, Ralph E. Introduction to Notes from Undergroundand The Grand Inquisitor, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, NewYork:Dutton, 1960, p. xx.

Ward, Bruce K. Dostoevsky's Critique of the West: TheQuest for the Earthly Paradise, Waterloo, Ontario: WilfridLaurier Press, 1986, p. 101.

Wasiolek, Edward. Dostoevsky: The Major Fiction, Cam-bridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1964, p. 169.

Further Reading

FitzLyon, Kyril, and Tatiana Browning. Before the Revolu-tion: Russia and Its People under the Czar, Woodstock,N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1978.

Contains over three hundred black and white photo-graphs of cities and villages of Russia, taken be-tween 1894 and 1917. Many of the scenes photo-graphed would have been familiar to Dostoevsky,who died in 1881.

Frank, Joseph. Dostoevsky, Princeton: Princeton Universi-ty Press.

Four volumes of this masterful biography have beenpublished so far, covering Dostoevsky's life from1821 through 1871. Widely considered the best liter-ary biography available.

Jackson, Robert Louis, ed. Dostoevsky: New Perspectives,Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1984.

Contains fourteen relatively recent essays providingcritical analysis of Dostoevsky's most important works.Included are three essays on The Brothers Karamazovand one, by Jacques Catteau, that concludes that' 'TheGrand Inquisitor" is tragic but ultimately hopeful.

Kornblatt, Judith Deutsch, and Richard F. Gustafson, eds.Russian Religious Thought, Madison: University of Wiscon-sin Press, 1996.

Provides an analysis of the major ideas of Russianreligious philosophy, with their historical backgroundsand cultural contexts.

Peters, Edward. Inquisition, Berkeley: University of Califor-nia Press, 1989.

A scholarly but accessible attempt to correct generallyheld misconceptions about the Inquisition, written byan important historian.

Waldron, Peter. The End of Imperial Russia, 1855-1917,New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997.

A historical look at the economic and social conse-quences of tsarist Russia and the opposition to it, ofwhich Dostoevsky was a part.

Wellek, Rene, ed. Dostoevsky: A Collection of CriticalEssays, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962.

Contains eleven older critical essays about the majorworks, including D. H. Lawrence's famous Preface to"The Grand Inquisitor." Wellek's introduction trac-es the history of Dostoevsky criticism and influence.


How I Contemplated the Worldfrom the Detroit House of

Correction and Began My LifeOver Again

' 'How I Contemplated the World From the DetroitHouse of Correction and Began My Life OverAgain" was first published in magazine form in1969 and then collected in her 1970 volume of shortstories called The Wheel of Love. Its sarcastic ren-dering of upper-middle-class suburban life is notonly an accurate critique of that aspect of Americanlife, it is also a true rendering of the adolescentworld view that rings as true today as it did when thestory was written.

The story's experimental form seemed lifelessto some early critics, but has proven to have giventhe story literary staying power. The full title,' 'Notes for an Essay for an English Class at BaldwinCountry Day School; Poking Around in Debris;Disgust and Curiosity; A Revelation of the Meaningof Life; A Happy Ending . . . ," invites readers tocompare the prediction for a happy ending with thestory the narrator tells at the end. Given her gift forsarcasm, is she telling the truth when she claims to"love everything" once she's returned to the safe-ty, if sterile, of her parents' large suburban home? Inthe case of ' 'How I Contemplated,'' ambiguity andincompleteness in the narrative add to rather thandetract from the story's richness.

Author Biography

Joyce Carol Gates was born in Erie County inwestern New York in 1938. Her parents worked

Joyce Carol Gates

1969

9 7

How I C o n t e m p l a t e d t h e W o r l d

hard throughout the great depression to support herand her two younger siblings, her father at the tooland dye shop and her mother keeping house. Al-though her working class Catholic beginnings couldhardly predict the literary heights she would attainlater in life, she was always a serious and high-achieving child and made the most of the education-al opportunities that she was given.

Her early education was uneven at best. Afterattending a one-room schoolhouse, and junior high,in Lockport, New York, she finally found a schoolthat had what she needed when she began riding abus everyday to a high school outside of Buffalo.After graduation, she enrolled at Syracuse Universi-ty on a scholarship and began a lifelong engagementwith books and writing. By all measures she was anextraordinary student and graduated Phi Beta Kap-pa and first in the class of 1960. The next year sheentered the University of Wisconsin at Madison tobegin the graduate work to set her on the path tobecoming an academic. Within a year she had metand married fellow graduate student in English,Raymond Smith, to whom she is still married. Sheearned her M.A. in 1961 and moved to Beaumont,Texas where her new husband had gotten his firstfaculty appointment. She was enrolled in the Ph.D.program at Rice University when she had an experi-ence, the story goes, that changed the courseof her life.

While doing research in the Rice library, sheran across a copy of Best American Short Storiesand found one of her own stories mentioned in it. Atthat moment she decided to become a professionalwriter. Though she has held teaching positionsthroughout her career, Gates kept her pledge tomake writing her main focus. For the past thirty ormore years, she had been one of America's mostprolific and significant writers. Her output is stag-gering: from 1963 to 1998 she has published thirty-eight novels, twenty-four volumes of short stories,fourteen books of poetry, nine works of non-fiction,and twenty-one plays.

Gates lives in suburban New Jersey and is onthe faculty of Princeton University. Her husbandruns a small publishing house, Ontario ReviewPress, that the two of them founded years earlier.Many critics and interviewers have noted the differ-ences and similarities between her placid and stablelife and the world she creates in her fiction. On theone hand she has always been able to capture thedetails and nuances of the American suburban land-scape, and her academic satires are clearly the work

of a keen inside observer. On the other hand, herdepictions of violence and brutality lurking beneathsuburbia's placid surface have shocked and dis-turbed some readers. Gates addressed these objec-tions directly in an essay in the New York TimesBook Review by explaining that the question aboutwhy she would include such violence in her writing"is always ignorant." She goes on to explain that"Since it is commonly understood that seriouswriters, as opposed to entertainers or propagandists,take for their natural subject the complexity of theworld, its evils as well as its goods, it is always aninsulting question; and it is always sexist. Theserious writer, after all, bears witness."

Gates continues her amazing production, de-spite her claim to ' 'spend an inordinate time doingnothing," as she said to interviewer Robert Phillips.Her recent non-fiction book on the sport of boxing,first published in 1987 and then expanded in a newedition in 1994, has garnered a lot of attention andpraise. In August 1998 she published an autobio-graphical essay about her own visit to a New Jerseyhouse of corrections (as a guest on a tour), called' 'After Amnesia.''

Plot Summary

In a partial and disorganized set of notes for an essayfor her English class at a private school, a sixteen-year-old girl tells the story of a set of events that leadher to a house of correction and to an opportunity tocontemplate her life and begin over again. Thoughthe details are not presented in chronological order,the full story does emerge upon careful reading.

At fifteen years old, the narrator, the child ofwealthy parents in one of Detroit's most affluentsuburbs, escalates her habits of stealing and vandal-izing by shoplifting a pair of gloves from an "excel-lent' ' department store and gets caught. Her parentsreact by hushing everything up and smoothing itover, and she never gets whatever attention she wascraving. Her mother just wants to know why ' 'if shewanted gloves, why didn't you say so?". Thenarrator thinks, "I wanted to steal, but not to buy,"but she doesn't tell her mother. Consequently, hernext act of rebellion is even more drastic. She walksout of school and runs away to downtown Detroit,where she is so out of place that she doesn't even


How I Contemplated the World

know what a pawn shop is for. Alone, vulnerable,and still desperate for the affection her chilly par-ents deny her, she is easy prey for Clarita, a prosti-tute, and her pimp, Simon, a drug addict. After anunspecified period of prostitution and abuse, thenarrator is eventually picked up by the police andturned over to a juvenile facility. There she clingsstubbornly to her rebellious posture and refuses togive information that would allow her to be releasedto her parents. Acting tough, "she says to thematron / 'm not talking about anything, not becauseanyone warned her not to talk, but because she willnot talk." She tries to fit in with the other girls thereand seems to take some pride and pleasure inthinking she belonged. She is sadly mistaken, how-ever, as she discovers one night when two of thegirls corner her in the bathroom and beat her savage-ly, just because she is rich and white and privileged.After a stay in the hospital she returns to herBloomfield Hills "traditional-contemporary home"with her parents. By the time she composes thesenotes, she has returned to school at Baldwin Coun-try Day and is in the care of a psychiatrist. Sheseems to be working out her desire toward self-expression and her quest for identity through herwriting and her therapy rather than through desper-ate and self-destructive behaviors like the ones thatlanded her first in Simon's bed and then in the houseof corrections.

Joyce Carol Oates

DollyA "white girl of maybe fifteen," Dolly is one

of the two girls in the house of correction who beatthe narrator in the bathroom.

Characters

ClaritaA woman of indeterminate age (between twen-

ty and thirty-five), she is an addict and a prostitute.She has "an odor of tobacco about her," and has"unwashed skin, gritty toes, hair long and fallinginto strands, not recently washed." She has beenliving on the streets since she was about thir-teen years old.

Dr. CoronetIsabelle Coronet is the psychiatrist that the

narrator's parents send her to twice a week after herreturn from the house of corrections. The narratordescribes her as "queenly," but surprisingly "nor-mal for a woman with an I.Q. of 180 and manyadvanced degrees."

FatherThe narrator's father, whose name she does not

provide, is a successful physician, a member of allthe right clubs, a ' 'player of squash and golf." He isa prominent member of the community of Bloom-field Hills and is able to use his social connections tosmooth over his children's difficulties with theauthorities, but he seems to be unable to show themthe love and attention they need.

Mr. ForestThough "not handsome," Mr. Forest, the Eng-

lish teacher, is described by the narrator as ' 'sweetand rodentlike." It's for his English class at Bald-win Country Day School that these "notes for anessay" are being written.

Raymond ForrestRaymond Forrest is the owner of the ' 'excel-

lent" department store from which the narrator

V o l u m e 8 9 9


MediaAdaptations

"Where Are You Going, Where Have YouBeen,'' the companion story to ' 'How I Contem-plated," was adapted as a film, Smooth Talk,directed by Joyce Chopra and starring LauraDern, Treat Williams, and Mary Kay Place. Itwas originally produced in 1985 for the ' 'Ameri-can Playhouse Series" on the Public Broadcast-ing System and is available from Live HomeVideo and Vestron Video.

steals the gloves. After she returns home from thehospital and the house of correction, she reads thathis father has died of a heart attack and feels animpulse to send a sympathy note.

of her parents' wealth and privilege. She doesn'tprovide many details about her own physical ap-pearance, except that she wears her "hair loose andlong and straight in suburban teen-age style, 1968."

PrincessAs the narrator describes her, Princess is "a

Negro girl of eighteen." She is' 'shrewd and silent''and the narrator is fascinated by her. At first sheseems to take an interest in protecting the narrator,but later she is one of the two girls who cornerand beat her.

SimonSimon is the drug addict and pimp who seduces

and uses the narrator after Clarita brings her to him.He is "said to have come from a "home not muchdifferent'' from the narrator's, but he has descendedcompletely into the junkie's life of desperation andcrime. Despite how badly he treats her, she craveshis touch and affection. Even a year later, sheconfesses that she would go back to him. She alsobelieves that Simon is the one who saved her bytelling the authorities that she was a runaway.

MotherLike the father, the mother goes unnamed

throughout the story. Also like the narrator's father,the mother belongs to all the right clubs. She attendslectures and art openings and drives a "Lincoln,long and black'' like all the other wealthy matronson Sioux Drive. Physically, she is always stylishlyand perfectly dressed, and has "hair like blown-upgold and finer than gold, hair and fingers and bodyof inestimable grace."

NarratorOnly fifteen years old when she runs away and

ends up in the house of correction, the narrator, whonever gives her name, is sixteen when she tries todescribe her experiences in notes for an essay forher English class. She lives in her parents' large andcomfortable suburban home in the suburbs of De-troit, but her rebellious and self-destructive im-pulses lead her to shoplifting, prostitution, andultimately the house of correction. She is ambiva-lent about her affluent background and describesher parents and all of Bloomfield Hills with scathingsarcasm. Nevertheless, her experiences with Simonand the beating she suffers at the house of correctionsent her fleeing back to the protection and comfort

Themes

LoveLove is the engine that drives all of the girl's

behavior in "How I Contemplated." She may bemisguided, self-destructive, and immature, but thenarrator's actions all derive from her desire to beloved. Despite their generosity, the girl's parentsseem unable to give her the attention and unguardedaffection that she craves. She describes her motheras icy, distant, and artfully constructed and herfather as powerful, distracted, and unavailable. Aswe learn through several references in the story, thenarrator's older brother, away at college, engages inthe same desperate attention-getting behaviors.

In the narrator's eyes, the mother possesses another-wordly charm and poise that she feels she canneither live up to nor puncture. Her mother is "alady . . . self-conscious and unreal." She has "hairlike blown-up gold and finer than gold, hair andfingers and body of inestimable grace." She is,above all, too busy and too self-absorbed to payattention when her daughter is caught stealing fromthe "excellent" store. The mother's awkward andineffective way of showing affection for her daugh-ter is to buy her things in the hope that she will

i o o S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s


transform herself from an awkward, sullen teenagerto a polished artifact like herself. The narratorrecalls shopping with her mother, listening to herurging "why don't you want this, try this on, takethis with you to the fitting room, take this also,what's wrong with you, what can I do for you, whyare you so strange . . .?" The narrator wants to tellher mother that she "wanted to steal but not tobuy," but decides not to.

The narrator's father is described not so muchin terms of his appearance (like the mother is), butrather in terms of what he does; he is defined by hisactions. The narrator's father's reaction to problemsis to fix them. He handles his daughter's shopliftingepisode in the same clinical, pragmatic manner thathe uses to treat patients. He gets in touch with thestore owner and makes the problem go away. He iscompletely blind to the fact that his daughter'sbehavior is a cry for his attention, not his expertise.The narrator recalls poignantly that her father is outof town at a medical convention when she wasarrested in the department store. She also wonders,"where he was when Clarita put her hand on myarm, that wintry dark sulphurous day in Detroit." Itremains unclear at the conclusion of the story whetherher father will ever show her the love she wants, butat least he drives her home and holds her while shesobs in his arms.

The narrator's most desperate act in her searchfor love and affection is clearly her liaison withSimon and Clarita. Young and confused, the narra-tor seeks in Simon the physical affection that ismissing in the relationships with her reserved anddistant parents. What she finds instead is abusivesex and drugs and prostitution. On some level,however, Simon does fulfill some need for her.Asking herself a year later "Would I go back toSimon again? Would I lie down with him in all thatfilth and craziness?", she has to answer, "Over andover again." Ironically, Simon does make one genu-ine gesture of affection toward the narrator. Byturning her in to the authorities, as she suspects hehas, he helps her by doing the very thing that both ofher cold and overprotecti ve parents had failed to do.

Class and Race ConflictThe contrast between Sioux Drive and Detroit

on which the story depends points to a deep andtroubling divide between white suburbia and theminority-inhabited inner city. The circumstancesand inequities that created and sustain this division

Topics forFurther

StudyAlthough the narrator seems genuinely fright-ened by the beating she received and seemshappy to be home, do you think she is sorry forher other offenses? Has she taken responsibilityfor her stealing and vandalism? What do youpredict for the remainder of her teenage years?

What do you think is attractive about Simon?Why does she say she would go back to him"over and over again."?

What did the city of Detroit look like in 1968?Write a description of the scene the narratorwould have encountered when she got off the bus?

Could this story be written today? How would itbe different? Is this story of teenage rebellionand isolation universal, or is it a story of the 1960s?

form the backdrop of the story (see below). Thenarrator's beliefs and behaviors also express herawareness of and ambivalence toward the racial andsocial conflict that simmers just beneath the surface.

The narrator's disdain for the affluent and pro-tected world she and her parents live in is obvious inher scathing and sarcastic descriptions of life onSioux Drive. She lists the number of rooms andarchitectural features of the houses in her neighbor-hood, on streets patrolled by "a private police force. . . in unmarked cars." On a Saturday night, thewatch out for "residents who are streaming in andout of houses, going to and from parties, a thousandparties." Life on Sioux drive is so self-contained, soinsular, she writes, that "when spring comes, itswinds blow nothing to Sioux Drive, no odors ofhollyhocks or forsythia, nothing Sioux Drive doesn'talready possess." Like many teenagers, the narratorrebels against the lifestyle and values of her parents.In 1968, however, her rejection of her parents' wayof life has a political dimension as well. She longs tobe identified with the other world, Sioux Drive'sopposite, Detroit and to be accepted by its inhabi-tants in order to take sides against her parents. This

V o l u m e S 101


flawed reasoning leads her first to Simon's falsearrest and then to her stubborn posturing in thehouse of correction. Finally, she is forced to con-front the shallowness and pointlessness of her posi-tion when she is beaten up by Princess and Dollywho "vent all the hatred of a thousand silent Detroitwinters on her body.'' After the beating, the narratorrushed back to the safety of Sioux Drive, wherethere are "sugar doughnuts for breakfast," andwhere' 'sunlight breaks in movieland patches on theroof of our traditional contemporary home." Theinjustices and tensions between Detroit and SiouxDrive, between black and white, remain unchanged.

Style

Fragmentary StructureEven many years after the story's publication,

the structure of "How I Contemplated" is stillstriking and somewhat unsettling to readers. Theexperimental form Gates uses is fragmentary andfull of gaps. Instead of writing the story of anaffluent young girl's temporary descent into a lifeon the streets and in a house of corrections, shegives readers only the girl's own notes for an essaythat she may or may not ever write.

What appears to be an orderly outline in twelvesections is really a random and partial arrangementof information recollected a year after the events. Inthe words of critic Sue Simpson Park, the sectionsare "repetitive, disjointed, and dispersive . . . in-dicative of the state of mind of the sixteen-year-oldprotagonist, confused, questioning, attempting tomake sense of the senseless, to impose order uponthe chaos." Although the complete title removesany doubt the reader may have about whether thestory has a ' 'happy ending,'' (she is writing a paperfor a private school and has declared that she beganher life over again), readers still have to piecetogether the narrative and read between the lines.One of the most significant gaps appears in thesection titled ' 'People & Circumstances Contribut-ing to This Delinquency." Under this heading isonly the word, "nothing," which suggests to thereader not that there are no contributing factors, butthat the young narrator cannot see them or doesn'twant to talk about them. In other words, the absenceof reasons prompts readers to speculate and tosupply reasons of their own to explain the girl'sbehavior.

NarrationThe sixteen-year-old girl who composes these

notes for an essay is what is known as an unreliablenarrator. She's the only one who tells the story, butthe version she offers is limited and possibly alteredby her narrow point of view. The narrator's unrelia-bility takes several forms. First, she is only sixteenand thus has the adolescent's limited and self-centered view of the world. In addition, only a yearhas passed since the events and she has not hadsufficient time to gain perspective on what hashappened. In fact, it seems like these notes for theessay represent a preliminary attempt (other thanher visits to the psychiatrist) to organize her experi-ence into a coherent pattern. Second, narrativefeatures like blank spaces for names, series ofquestions ( "A pretty girl? An ugly girl?") andmissing details cast doubt on her credibility. Thesemissing details are especially noticeable because onother occasions she proves herself capable of re-markable candor and keen observation. For exam-ple, she's willing to admit to the other petty crimesshe committed before getting caught shoplifting andshe's able to render a nuanced and vibrant portrait ofsuburban life, complete with such vivid details asthe car heavy enough " to split a squirrel's body intwo equal parts."

The device of the unreliable narrator enhancesthe story's effect. It would be unreasonable andunrealistic to expect a sixteen-year-old to render acomplete and objective account of such a traumaticset of events. The sketchy, uncertain and sometimeevasive narrative structure is typical of an adoles-cent's (especially a troubled one's) world view andcontributes to the story's authenticity and power.Finally, the narrator's unreliability makes the open-ended and ambiguous ending possible. It's impossi-ble to be certain if she is being sincere when sheclaims that she will "never leave home," and thatshe is "in love with everything here."

Historical Context

Urban DecayThe late 1960s and early 1970s in America was

a period marked by huge and permanent economicand demographic changes. Particularly hard hit bythese sweeping changes were many of the country'slarge industrial cities. Detroit became synonymous

1 0 2 S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s


with urban decay and what soon came to be knownas "white flight." As the narrator describes it,Detroit is "a large famous city that is a symbol forlarge famous American cities."

The trends had begun much earlier. In the yearsimmediately following the end of World War II,veterans and their families enjoyed unprecedentedprosperity and the high birth rate now known as thebaby boom. As a consequence these families beganto leave the inner cities for newly created suburbsand housing developments. This exodus from whathad been thriving mixed-use neighborhoods in largecities set off a chain reaction that reached a crisis inthe late 1960s and that continues to reverberatetoday. As families with at least modest meansabandon urban neighborhoods, only those too poorto move remain. The poorer residents are unable tosupport the surrounding businesses and they in turnmust move outward to the suburbs to be closer totheir customers. Thus, the inner city loses the taxbase that commercial property provides, furtherdepleting the resources and degrading the servicesfor the remaining residents. Public schools struggleto meet children's needs and to attract qualifiedteachers. Naturally, major employers soon find thesuburbs more attractive and abandon the city's coreas well. One of the most insidious aspects of thisdemographic shift is the racial segregation that itcauses. The population that moves out to the sub-urbs is primarily white, while those that stay in thecity are primarily people of color. Thus the cycle ofpoverty and lack of opportunity is reinforced andunequal and segregated school systems grow upwithin miles of each other.

Racial Tension and ViolenceNot surprisingly, the demographic configura-

tions and the economic and social disparities in-volved of major United States cities resulted inescalating tensions between the races. In the sum-mers of 1967 and 1968 race riots erupted in majorcities across the country. In several instances, theNational Guard was called upon to restore order.These riots were sparked by a number of causes andfound ample kindling in the deteriorating and mi-nority-dominated inner cities. The civil rights move-ment in the south had awakened black radicalism innorthern cities as well, and black power movementssuch as the Black Panthers gained considerablepopular support among minorities and inspired fearand terror in most white people. The assassinationof Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the spring of 1968

initiated widespread protest, some of which becameviolent. In the summer of 1967 forty-three peoplewere killed in race riots in the streets of Detroit. Theimages of this kind of violence further deterredwhite people from living or shopping in—or evendriving through—the inner cities.

Women's LibThe women's movement of the 1960s sought to

liberate the suburban housewife. Almost exclusive-ly a white, middle-class movement, women's lib, asthis phase of feminism was known, exposed themyth of the happy consumer housewife and im-plored women to seek fulfillment in other areas oftheir lives. Betty Freidan's The Feminine Mystique,published in 1963 and the best-seller book of 1964,was the manifesto. In the words of New Yorkerwriter Daphne Merkin in a recent review of Freidan' sbiography, the book addressed ' 'an amorphous ma-laise that afflicted college-educated American wom-en, who smothered their children with attention, hadunrealistic expectations of their husbands, and thensought to assuage their sense of quiet desperation bydowning pills or having joyless extramarital af-fairs." Of course, many housewives and mothersresisted the radicalizing temptations and stuck firm-ly to the ideals they had inherited from their moth-ers. In the language of the movement, those who didso did not want to raise their consciousness andconfront their dissatisfactions with their traditional,if comfortable, lives. One group, however, whowould have found the rhetoric of women's libimpossible to ignore, is the daughters of thesewomen. Young women rebelled against their moth-ers' examples, unsure of what they would become,but certain never to fall into the confinement of theunfulfilled housewife.

Critical Overview

When The Wheel of Love was published in 1970,Joyce Carol Dates was already an established writerof fiction and poetry. What was still open to debatewas whether she was a serious "literary" writer orjust a popular one. As she has often pointed out ininterviews, this argument is based on the sexistpremise that such a prolific female writer must haveaspired to popularity instead of art. The stories inWheel of Love continued to divide critical opinion,

V o l u m e 8 1 0 3

How 1 Contemplated the World

but in the decades since, several of them, including"How I Contemplated," have taken their placeamong the best of American short fiction.

Writing in the New York Times Book Review,Richard Oilman noted that in some of the storiesGates created "a verbal excitement, a sense oflanguage used not for the expression of previouslyattained insights or perceptions but for new imagi-native reality." Reviewer James A. Avant of theLibrary Journal singled out ' 'How I Contemplat-ed" as one of the stories that demonstrated Gates's"striking expansions of the limits of fiction." Avantalso goes on to concede that "One must really goahead and call her, at the outrageous age of 32, agreat writer." On the other hand, Oilman alsoconcludes that Gates's stories are full of "a greatdeal of 'expressive' rumination about feeling [which]is accompanied by very little feeling itself." Simi-larly, critic R. E. Long wrote in the Saturday Reviewthat the book is "full of cleverness and nimbleinvention, but it lacks the sense of a deep involve-ment with life."

Gates, who has written scores of stories formagazines, said in an interview with Robert Phillipsfor the Paris Review, that if she's "serious about astory," she'll "preserve it in book form." Other-wise she "intends it to be forgotten." Since theearly reviews of The Wheel of Love, some of thestories in the collection, including ' 'How I Contem-plated," in the collection have become staples ofAmerican literature anthologies. Although some-what over-shadowed by another story about adoles-cence in the volume, "Where are your Going,Where Have You Been?", "How I Contemplated"has continued to invite critical readings due to itsinnovative form and its portrayal of adolescentsubjectivity.

Critical responses to the stories in Wheel ofLove are typical of reactions to Gates work through-out her long and amazingly prolific career. In thefirst decades of her career she was often dismissedas just a "woman" writer, not a serious (male)writer. At the same time, however, she faced harshcriticism for writing about violent subjects that wereconsidered off limits to female writers. Ironically,feminist critics who began the project in the 1970sof reconsidering and resuscitating American wom-en writers never really gave Gates the attention shedeserved. This has to do with Gates long-standingrefusal to be identified as (just) a woman writer. In

the words of noted feminist scholar and fellowPrinceton professor Elaine Showalter, "feministcritics have sometimes taken Oates's insistence thatthe imagination has no gender as a denial of hersocial identity as a woman writer,... Oates's senseof herself as what she calls a '(woman) writer' hasintensified during the 1980s. In the last two decades,Showalter claims, Gates has added a new dimensionto her writing, ' 'an exchange with . . . [a] complexfemale literary heritage."

Criticism

Elisabeth Piedmont-MortonElisabeth Piedmont-Marlon teaches American

literature and writing classes at the University ofTexas. She writes frequently about the modem shortstory. In this essay she explains how ' 'How I Con-templated ..." is a subversion of the classic com-ing-of-age story.

In Mark Twain's classic American novel The Ad-ventures of Huckleberry Finn, the protagonist, youngHuck, is last seen preparing to "light out for theterritories." This story of Huck, poised on the brinkof manhood, prepared to test his character and forgehis identity on the frontier has become a masternarrative for the American coming-of-age plot.Oates's "How I Contemplated" employs the ele-ments of the coming-of-age story, but does so in anironic, subversive fashion. At the heart of Oates'sstory is a female protagonist whose "adventures"represent regression rather than progress and whoseexperiences will not arrange themselves into thecoherent pattern that the genre requires.

In the American coming-of-age tale, the hero—usually male—must leave the familiar landscapeand civilizing influences of city or town life in orderto test himself against nature. Even if he doesn'tplan to light out for the territories permanently, likeHuck, he must make at least a temporary excursioninto a hostile or indifferent nature. In "How IContemplated", however, Oates's female protago-nist heads in what appears to be the opposite direc-tion. In Oates's subversive use of the coming-of-ageconventions, the city takes the place of the wilder-ness. The girl leaves behind the lush, green lawns of

104 S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s


Bloomfield Hills and Baldwin Country Day Schooland encounters the city as ' 'wilderness.'' Ironically,the civilized territory she leaves behind carries anIndian name, Sioux Drive. To her the city's topogra-phy is alien, and its inhabitants predatory and sinis-ter. The narrator describes Detroit as a place besetby hazards and warnings: "small warnings of frost,soot warnings, traffic warnings, hazardous lakeconditions for small craft and swimmers, restlessNegro gangs, restless cloud formations, restlesstemperatures aching to fall out the very bottom ofthe thermometer or shoot up over the top and boileverything over in red mercury." In comparison, onSioux Drive, "There is no weather." These "terri-tories" are no place to try to find yourself. AsClarita says to the narrator, ' 'I never can figure outwhy girls like you bum around down here. What areyou looking for anyway?''

What the narrator is looking for, like all pro-tagonists in coming-of-age stories, is her self. Whatshe finds instead is the wreckage of someone elsewho has tried to make the same pilgrimage, Simon,"who is said to have come from a home not muchdifferent'' from her own on Sioux Drive. Simon isthe subversive form of the mentor figure that iscommon to coming-of-age narratives. He had beendown the same path before and is capable of actingas her guide, but in Gates's dark version of the genrehe offers the very opposite of safe passage. He evenacknowledges his role as failed guide when he says,"Once I was Huckleberry Finn, . . . but now I amRoderick Usher." By using the literary analogy todescribe his decline and fall, Simon assures thenarrator that they do come from the same world ofgood schools and good families. But the specifics ofthe comparison itself, spell out how far he has fallenfrom his original ambitions. Huck escapes an abu-sive father and overcomes all manner of obstacles,without losing his moral bearings, on the way toindependence and manhood somewhere on the fron-tier (the "territories"). Roderick Usher (from Ed-gar Allan Poe's,' The Fall of the House of Usher"),on the other hand, is born into wealth and privilege,but descends into madness, addiction, and depravityand becomes so fearful and frail that he cannot leavethe house. Whereas Huck's romanticism propelshim outward and upward, Roderick's sends himinward and downward. Simon's search for identityand the frontier have become a primitive strugglejust to survive. But the narrator remains powerfullyattracted to her wayward mentor, and in probablythe only heroic gesture he's capable of, Simon saves

Buildings in downtown Detroit.

her by turning her in, ironically sending her back tothe safety of the "Indian territory" on Sioux Drive.

Another characteristic of coming-of-age narra-tives is the epiphany, or overwhelming moment ofrealization. Although many features of "How IContemplated" lead readers to believe that thenarrator is poised and ready for an epiphany, Gatesleaves the matter very much in doubt. Even the shorttitle implies that the narrator has experienced apowerful moment of self-realization, contemplationleading to a decision. The long title is even moreexplicit, promising to deliver ' 'A Revelation of theMeaning of Life" and "A Happy Ending." By

V o l u m e S 105


WhatDo I Read

Next?Dubliners (1914; rpt. 1949) by James Joyce is acollection of short stories that has become one ofthe classics of the coming-of-age genre. Joyce'sprotagonists struggle to find their identities andlearn the meaning of life in vividly depictedCatholic neighborhoods of Dublin.

' 'Where are You Going, Where Have You Been?''by Joyce Carol Gates is the companion story to"How I Contemplated" in which a young girl'ssexual awakening occurs against a backdrop ofpotential violence.

This Boy's Life (1989) by Tobias Wolfe is thesuccessful college professor and writer's mem-oir of his childhood in an unstable family in aworking-class town in the Northwest. The book,which was made into a film starring Robert DeNiro and Leonardo De Caprio, is notable becausethe point of view never wavers from the child'sperspective.

advertising these dramatic elements in the title,Dates is trying to call attention to the artificiality ofthe genre, pointing out how in real life our experi-ences do not conform so neatly to dramatic struc-tures. The story's experimental notebook form alsounderscores this point as the narrator appears tolayout all the elements she has learned belong in astory, and then struggles—unsuccessfully— to ar-range her experiences into those categories.

Nevertheless, "How I Contemplated" doescontain an ironic version of the moment of profoundawareness found in classic narratives in the genre.The narrator experiences an epiphany, but it is afalse one that leaves her with more questions andblank spaces than she had before. The false epipha-ny occurs "that night in the lavatory when every-thing was changed." Notice the passive construc-tion in that sentence and how it relieves her fromany responsibility or agency. She does not bringabout change, nor does she acknowledge experienc-ing any essential change herself. Instead, it's every-

thing else that changes, she says. What happens inthe lavatory that changes everything is that she isbadly beaten by two of the other girls in detention.Turning points in coming-of-age narratives usuallydemand that protagonists act, that they imprintthemselves on their circumstances, that they dosomething heroic. In this case, however, the narra-tor is robbed of all control and is viciously actedupon; she is the victim rather than the hero of hercircumstances. Despite this inversion of the con-ventions of the coming-of-age story, however, thenarrator in ' 'How I Contemplated'' does have theopportunity to use her experience as victim ofassault to learn something. In other words, genuineself-revelation is available to her. But it appears thatshe's not capable of such self-reflection. Writingabout "That Night" after nearly a year of twice-weekly visits to her psychiatrist later she still ex-claims, ' 'Why is she beaten up? Why do they poundher, why such hatred?" She doesn't have the cour-age to contemplate her identity in terms that wouldcome close to explaining why Princess and Starwould want revenge on her. She turns away fromthe revelation—painful though it is—that the beat-ing offers her.

Because the narrator rejects, or is not preparedfor, the lessons that her experiences in ' 'the wilder-ness" have to offer her, she is destined to returnunchanged to the safety of "civilization. By con-trast, Huck, at the end of Twain's novel, has com-pletely outgrown the possibility of "civilized" lifewith his Aunt Sally and knows he must seek chal-lenges and opportunities on the frontier. Gates'snarrator, however, returns to the insulating environ-ment of her parents' house and swears that "neverwill she reconcile four o'clock in the morning inDetroit with eight o'clock breakfasts in BloomfieldHills." Whatever dissatisfaction, restlessness, ordesire drove her to Detroit and into Simon's armshas evaporated or is repressed." / will never leavehome, this is my home, I love everything here, I amin love with everything here," she says againand again.

If the narrator's breathless affirmations in thestory's final section (titled "EVENTS") are anyindication, then her journey has been as mucha regression as a coming-of-age. If her objectivehad been to escape her parents' suffocatingprotectiveness, then she has absolutely failed. Likea child, she ' 'burst[s] into tears and hysteria'' and is"convulsed in Father's arms." The house appearsto her as "like a doll's house." Readers no doubtshare her joy at a safe return from such self-



destructive behavior, but wonder if this is the ' 'hap-py ending'' they have been promised. Although it ispossible to interpret her emotional return home asthe beginning of her ability to accept herself and herparents' love. Oates's ending is ambivalent. Thenarrator describes herself in the last section as"saddened and converted." It makes perfect sensethat she is saddened given what she has endured, but' 'converted'' is more difficult to interpret. She maymean that she now prefers to see the world the wayher parents do, satisfied to live their comfortablelives pretending that unpleasantness and injusticedo not exist. She may also be suggesting that herweeks with Simon, whom she still fears and desires,have changed her permanently in ways that she hasnot revealed in these notes. She herself seemsunsure, wondering as she sees her reflection distort-ed in the toaster, "is that my face?".

Source: Elisabeth Piedmont-Marlon, for Short Stories forStudents, The Gale Group, 2000.

Brenda O. DalyIn the following essay, Daly contends that the

characters in Oates's writings (and therefore theauthor's imagination) do not transcend genderconventions.

When Joyce Carol Dates tells us that "most novel-ists divide themselves up lavishly in their novels,"she implies that a writer's imagination enables herto transcend socially determined gender categories.Nevertheless, as I shall show, Oates's early fictionreveals a pattern of authorial self-division that con-forms to gender conventions: her male characters,such as Richard Everett in Expensive People andJules Wendall in them, assume the right to definethemselves, whereas her female characters, Maur-een Wendall and Nadine Greene in them, merely actout roles in some (male) author's fiction. Thisprobably unconscious projection of Oates's authorialpower upon male characters is symptomatic, I be-lieve, of a certain anxious authorship in her fictionin the 1960s, an anxiety rooted more in gender thanin social class. Indeed, in the final pages of themlower-class Maureen asserts herself more effective-ly than does her counterpart Nadine from the upper-middle class suburb of Grosse Point, a passiveprincess whose problems Oates also explores in"How I Contemplated the World."

We see, for example, that the unnamed narratorof "How I Contemplated the World" refers toherself only in the third person, as "the girl,"whereas Richard Everett, as narrator of Expensive

Because the narrator

rejects, or is not prepared

for, the lessons that her

experiences in 'the

wilderness1 have to offer her,

she is destined to return

unchanged to the safety of

'civilization.'"

People, begins his memoirs with the bold, "I was achild murderer". Although both are children ofwealth, only Richard readily assumes an authorialpersona, speaking from the place of a violentlypreestablished, coherent authorial "I." By contrast,the girl, who has no preestablished I, illustratesJudith Kegan Gardiner's point that female identityis a process that does not conform to the Oedipalmyth of a unique, whole, and coherent self. More-over, though Gardiner suggests that women oftendefine themselves through the act of writing, the girldoes not. Although both of these privileged adoles-cents have been educated in elite private schools,only Richard writes well. Moreover, only Richarddares to criticize America. His highly polishedmemoirs are a savage satire of the values of aconsumer society, the same values his parents up-hold. Richard's confession that he has killed hismother, not his father, is even more sophisticatedsatire—an inversion of the Oedipal plot that func-tions as a critique of the model of identity promotedby the Freudian psychiatrists who, of course, fail intheir attempts to "cure" him.

The socially determined personae adopted byboth of these adolescents—the male "author" andthe female "character"—are ultimately self-de-structive. For example, it is apparent from the girl'sessay, a disorganized outline of her experience ofrunning away from home, that she is a character stillin search of a (male) author, a lover to replace herfather; whereas Richard, a mirror image of the girl,is already an accomplished author, but one whose Ihas been established by violence, by matricide. Hissatire reeks of aggression, not only against hisparents but against most adults, including his antici-pated readers. Helplessly acting out the script of the

V o l u m e 8 I 0 7


Yet the girl, as she

calls herself, desires

something. She is hungry for

something. She opens her

essay with a description of

herself before the 'fall'. . . ."

passive female character and the aggressive maleauthor, these adolescents clearly acquiesce to tradi-tional gender roles. Like many other adolescents inDates's early fiction, as Robert Possum says, theyfeel as if they are ' 'actors in a script written anddirected by someone else." Both "How I Contem-plated the World'' and Expensive People also illus-trate Possum's point that "repeatedly, Oates's peo-ple crave an order associated with 'home' and theloving protection of the father. Repeatedly, thisconflicts with the yearning for the 'road' and free-dom from the father."

Of course, "lighting out for the territory" ishardly a new metaphor for the struggle for self-definition in American fiction. Huck Finn and Hoi-den Caufield are well-known examples of adoles-cents who not only run away, but narrate theirstories of flight with considerable insight. This maletradition may lead Possum to conclude that theyearnings of adolescents in Oates's fiction, whetherfor home or for the road, are "expressions of astruggle to control their own lives against the forcesof 'accident,' circumstances, [and] other people."Here Possum minimizes the desire for relationshipimplicit in the metaphor of "home," perhaps be-cause his unexamined model of identity formationis, in fact, based upon male experience. This roman-tic model of identity places emphasis on control andautonomy, almost to the exclusion of connectedness.Yet whether we are at home or in flight, we defineourselves only in relationship to others; even ourdeclarations of independence must be acknowl-edged by someone, as Jessica Benjamin points out.In both her criticism and fiction Gates emphasizes,as does Benjamin, that the self is socially embed-ded, or "interconnected." Gates also shares withBakhtin a belief in the relational nature of con-sciousness, a conception of the self constructed inand through language. And if we accept the notion

that identity is formed through both private andpublic discourses, it follows that, as Bakhtin says,language "ventriloquate[s]" us. It then becomesapparent why Bakhtin asserts that "we must all,perforce, become authors." If we do not authorlanguage, language authors us.

It is not surprising, however, that Oates's expe-riences as a woman make her more attentive thanBakhtin to the ways that gender complicates self-definition or self-authorship. In fact, the problem ofself-authorship became an "obsession" for Gates,as she says in a 1973 comment about "How IContemplated the World." She defines this story'stheme—which, she states, "so obsessed me thatI've treated it half a dozen times, perhaps more"—as the riddle of "why we leave home or make vainattempts to leave home, or failing that, yearn toleave home." She adds, "there are many ways ofleaving." She intimates that one way of leavinghome is literal; another is imaginative. Both wayspose considerably greater problems for young wom-en, as Oates implies in this elaboration of her theme:

While you're away, trying to map out another life,new parents or stray adults or simply anyone with anI.Q. one point above yours conquers you. They justwalk up to you and take hold. That's that. The puzzleis, how do we become these people who victimize us?They are so charming, so much in control of theirbitten-off part of the world; they are so very masculine.

This comment betrays a degree of autobio-graphical anxiety about how Oates herself is toleave home, how she is to leave the house of fictionthe "masters" have built. How, for example, is sheto use her own high I.Q.? How is she to claimauthorial power without becoming one of those whovictimize others, one of those "very masculine"authors who are ' 'so much in control of their bitten-off part of the world'' ?

Yet Gates' s remark about those who' 'just walkup to you and take hold" at least implies a demo-cratic ideal. One might go further and assert that thisimage of over-aggressive masculinity suggests theneed for a more maternal conception of authorialpower, power that nurtures rather than controls.Oates also understands that such nurturant power—more a daughter's inheritance than a son's—lackscultural authority, since it has, historically, beenlimited to the domestic sphere. As Lynda Boose andBetty Flowers point out, the authority a daughterinherits from a mother is not parallel to that which ason inherits from a father. Oates explores this powerdisparity in Expensive People. She lays bare thegender politics of the Oedipal myth of authorial

108 Short S t o r i e s for Students


power by creating a writer who is also Richard'smother. Thus Richard must "kill" his mother,rather than his father, in order to acquire authorialpower. Imagining himself a character in his moth-er's fiction, a violent man in a short story called"The Sniper," Richard literally acts out the part of"the sniper." Eventually, having failed to win hismother's attention, he turns his gun against her,against the mother who is forever abandoning himbecause, as we learn, she is unhappy with theconstraints of her social identity—as Mrs. Everett,wife and mother. Richard's psychiatrists, blindedby their belief in one plot, an Oedipal plot of course,assume that he has fantasized the matricide. Theirown gender politics cause them to deny Richard'scredibility, as he anticipates many of his readerswill also.

But Expensive People is more than a satire ofOedipal plots and psychiatric theories of personali-ty. It is also a satire of Joyce Carol Oates's previousfiction. Some of the titles written by Richard'smother, Natashya (Nada) Everett, are the same asthose by Gates: "The Molester," for example, and"Building Tension in the Short Story." Why thisself-satire? The fact is that, like Nada, Dates haswritten violent plot lines for her male protagonists.Her first two novels end in suicide—Shar Rule's inExpensive People, Swan Revere's in A Garden ofEarthly Delights, and now Richard Everett's, aspromised, at the end of his memoir, ExpensivePeople. This pattern of violent closure explains whyGates perceives herself, like Nada, as sacrificing herheroes for aesthetic purposes: to "build tension" inher fiction. Significantly; in her next novel, them,both Maureen Wendall and her brother Jules physi-cally survive, but they do not escape traditionalgender scripts. Indeed, at the end of the novel, theyseem fated to reenact old scripts, scripts that trans-form victims into victimizers.

How do we [not] become these people whovictimize us? Gates returns to this question in them,once again exploring—through the creation of analternate self—how to nurture the young. This timeshe portrays herself as a teacher, a ' 'Miss Gates''who fails a student just as her counterpart, NadaEverett in Expensive People, failed her son. Inparticular, Miss Gates flunks a young woman namedMaureen Wendall, a student who attended her Eng-lish class at the University of Detroit night school.After leaving the class, Maureen writes a letter toMiss Gates which begins positively, "I think I amwriting to you because I could see, past your talkingand your control and the way you took notes care-

fully in your books while you taught, writing downyour own words as you said them, something likemyself." But in a subsequent letter Maureen saysbluntly, "You failed me," explaining that on theonly paper she had handed in, Miss Gates hadwritten ' 'Lack of coherence and development'' inblue ink, along with a failing grade. Like ExpensivePeople, this novel illustrates the failure of an edu-cated adult woman—writer, mother, or teacher—tonurture the young. Gates has yet to create an adultwoman who uses her imagination, as Gates herselfdoes, to move beyond powerlessness. Although hernovels criticize the socio-economic system thatdestroys the human potential not only of "them"but also of "expensive people," they fail fully toelucidate—or transform—their own equally oppres-sive gender scripts.

In the Author's Note to them, however, Gatescalls attention to this problem, as if after completingthe novel she could finally see the gender issue moreclearly. Although Joanne Creighton thinks that mostreaders will find the author of the Note "indistin-guishable in any way from the 'real' author,"herself at least as a co-creator, shaper of dreams, onewho transforms images into art? Susan Gubar ar-gues that this problem is common to female writers:

Because of the forms of self-expression available towomen, artistic creation often feels like a violation, abelated reaction to male penetration rather than apossessing and controlling. Not an ejaculation ofpleasure but a reaction to rending ... a painful wound-ing, a literal influence of male authority. If artisticcreativity is likened to biological creativity, the terrorof inspiration for women is experienced as the terrorof being entered, deflowered, possessed, taken, had,broken, ravished—all words which illustrate the painof the passive self whose boundaries are being violated.

Waller describes Gates in similar terms, as"almost passively open to the tortures and obses-sions, the agonies of the particular place and time ofAmerica today." But in them it is not a woman buther hero Jules whom Gates describes as "tornapart" by his love for his family—"dragged to thebottom of the river by chains of love," just as,during the writing process, Gates herself is torn bycontending voices. By contrast, Nadine doesn'twant to be touched, doesn't want to '"get themmixed up with myself, everybody so close.'"

This gendered self-division occurs, I think,because Gates projects her authorial powers ontoher male character, Jules, and her anxieties aboutloss of control onto her female characters, Maureenand Nadine. By the early 1970s, in Marriages andInfidelities, Gates escapes monologic (either male

V o l u m e 8 109

How I C o n t e m p l a t e d t h e W o r l d . . .

or female) gender archetypes by redefining thisstruggle for authority as both love and infidelity tothe masters of fiction, both marriage and resistanceto monologic authorial control; but in the 1960s,Gates had not yet satisfactorily defined her ownauthority, or that of her female characters. Thedifficulty is, as Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubarargue, that defining the canon as shaped by Oedipalstruggle—with the pen as phallus—creates difficul-ties for the female writer. Yet as Dates continued toseek a different self, and a new kind of authority, sheresurrected "the girl" again and again. In "How IContemplated the World,'' for example, she gives ayoung woman the persona of author and the chanceto author herself, but all her dreams lead her eitherback home or to her tyrannical lover Simon, both ofwhich are "evil" choices. As Gates comments,"It's a story with an evil ending because not onlymust you return home again (lacking the power, Imean the economic and physical power, to stayaway), but while you're away, trying to map out anew life, new parents or stray adults or simplyanyone with an I.Q. one point above yours conquersyou." This comment may apply to either youngmen or women, but adolescent girls suffer moreseverely from lack of economic and physical power,as well as the habit of allowing others to dominatethem. Men can assume the role of author, of con-queror, whereas women become anxious when theyacquire power. If women are to become self-authoring, how should they redefine authorial pow-er? Thus, the young writer of ' 'How I Contemplatedthe World" enacts Gates's own struggle to leavehome, a struggle to re-imagine both conventionalcharacters and conventional endings.

The young narrator of "How I Contemplatedthe World'' begins bravely, but she too is fated toact out the metaphysics of romance plots. She draftsan essay for Mr. Forest, a man she describes as"sweet and rodentlike," who is nevertheless morepowerful than she because, she writes, he "hasconferred with the principal and my parents andeverything is fixed." According to their agreement,and according to convention, her identity is "fixed,"stable, already defined. Indeed, in the upper-class' 'heaven" of Grosse Point, her desire does not exist.In this materialistic world, even her actions, howev-er "bad," have no consequences. Her parents, theprincipal, and Mr. Forest agree to "treat her as ifnothing has happened, a new start, begin again, onlysixteen years old, what a shame, how did it hap-pen?" Yet the girl, as she calls herself, desiressomething. She is hungry for something. She opens

her essay with a description of herself before the"fall": "The girl (myself) is walking throughBranden's, that excellent store. Suburb of a largefamous city that is a symbol for large famousAmerican Cities. The event sneaks up on the girl,who believes she is herding it along with a small,fixed smile, a girl of fifteen, innocently experi-enced." She sees herself, in retrospect, as "inno-cently experienced," someone who thinks she is incontrol of events but who suddenly finds herselfstealing a pair of gloves. This theft, like leavinghome, is a desperate attempt to resist the role ofpassive virgin. Like Alice in Wonderland, the girldesires experience, desires a fall. This necessaryfall, this journey into the world below—to what shecalls "poking around in the debris" of Detroit—appears regularly in the romance, usually as apattern of descent experienced by the hero. General-ly, of course, the role of heroine in a romance ismore restrictive: she is more often a victim than aninitiator of action, more often concerned with pre-serving her virginity than with gaining experience,sexual or otherwise.

The girl is striving, heroically, to break thispattern, a pattern that Gates also explored in thefigure of Nadine in them. Nadine acts the part of apassive object to the questor Jules who, despite hislower class origins, has greater freedom to initiateaction, and greater freedom of imagination as well.The girl, however, anticipates no response and nochanges in her static world; she assumes that herparents and teachers won't hear her. Yet "How IContemplated the World" also explores ways toalter gender roles in the romance plot, making theyoung woman the initiator of action, and providingher with a guide to the world below. Clarita, theyoung black woman who guides her in the world of' 'them," says,' 'I can never figure out why girls likeyou bum around down here," and asks, "What areyou looking for anyway?" It is difficult for Clarita,who imagines herself moving up—as she watchestelevision—to imagine someone wanting to movedown. Yet Clarita and the girl are both victimizedby Simon. A drug addict and a pimp, Simon mighthave played the part of romantic hero, but havingescaped from a world very much like the youngwhite woman's, he says, cynically, "Once I wasHuckleberry Finn. . . now I am Roderick Usher." Ifhe is Roderick Usher, locked in his mad house, theyoung woman's fate should be obvious to her, andyet she can't seem to resist this mirror image ofherself. Behaving like a sacrificial victim, she al-lows herself to be sexually abused by him and, she

i i o S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s


tells us, sold to other men for drug money when shewas "too low for him." Even so, the girl confessesthat she would go back to Simon, if she could."Would I go back to Simon again? Would I liedown in all that filth and craziness? Over and overagain." Like her author, Joyce Carol Gates, she isdrawn back to a man like Simon, a man whoseapparent capacity for conquest, for the heroic, fas-cinates her.

Gates tells of this fascination in her 1980 pref-ace to Three Plays, plays she describes as rituals ofsacrifice behind "a surface realism and a prosefacade." In these plays it is men who become"mock-saviors and mock-playwrights," and "whoserefusal to be mere third-person characters assuresthem victory." The problem for a female writer ishow to be democratically both, how to be her ownauthor while at the same time a character in the livesof others. Such traditional gendering of authorialpower is a puzzle that Gates explicitly acknowl-edges in a 1982 discussion of her childhood readingof Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Throughthe Looking Glass:

I might have wished to be Alice, that prototypicalheroine of our race, but I knew myself too shy, tooreadily frightened of both the unknown and the known(Alice, never succumbing to terror, is not a real child),and too mischievous.... Though a child like me, shewasn't telling her own story; that godly privilegeresided with someone named, in gilt letters on thebook's spine, "Lewis Carroll."

Having become Joyce "Carroll" Gates, shefound the masculine authorial self a problem through-out the 1960s; she remained puzzled about how tobe a female writer without victimizing others, with-out forcing them to act as characters in a scriptdetermined by someone with "godly privilege."Gates managed to solve this riddle, but not beforeexperiencing a personal crisis.

This personal crisis was resolved, according toJoanne Creighton, by writing the story ' 'Plot.''Although "Plot" may be read as the story of ayoung man who commits suicide, it also tells thestory of the character's author, who self-conscious-ly identifies with her hero, but at the same timestrives to differentiate herself from him. Gates solvesher anxiety about authorial power by sharing it withreaders, by fully disclosing the writing process, bydemystifying it. As the first two lines of the storyshow, this self-disclosure requires graphic self-division:

Given: the existence of X. / Given: the existence ofmyself. / Given: X's obsessive interest in me. / Given:

the universe we share together, he and I, which hasshrunk into an area about two miles square in thecenter of this city.

The writer then hypothesizes that X ' 'is on amission of reclamation, a private detective hired bymy father; he is a police agent." Here it becomesapparent that the character is "he," whereas thewriter, the I, experiences the character, X, as apaternal agent. He = X = Paternal Agent - Author =Violence. The I imagines she has committed someoffense. Could that offense have been to claim theright to be both woman and writer, and furthermore,to write as a woman? This graphic self-divisionmarks the point at which Gates rejects the notion ofa unified self—an I in competition with all others—consciously adopting, as part of her writing strate-gy, Gardiner's notion of identity as process. In' 'Plot,'' Gates makes this process visible, opening aspace—on the same plane—for a writer's moredemocratic self-division into all her characters, re-gardless of gender.

Source: Brenda O. Daly, '"How Do We [Not] BecomeThese People Who Victimize Us?': Anxious Authorship inthe Early Fiction of Joyce Carol Dates," in Anxious Power:Reading, Writing, and Ambivalence in Narrative by Women,edited by Carol J. Singley and Susan Elizabeth Sweeney,State University of New York Press, 1993, pp. 235-52.

Sue Simpson ParkIn the following essay, Park interprets the

story's structure, imagery, motifs, and verbal ech-oes to show that the title reflects the protagonist'sreturn to "a place that before had failed hermiserably.''

Joyce Carol Gates is a most prolific writer. Born in1938, she has now published seven novels, fivecollections of short stories, two volumes of poetry, acollection of critical essays, and a number ofuncollected stories, poems, and essays. Any readerwho undertakes a critical study of Gates's produc-tion finds himself in very fertile but almost whollyuncultivated ground; the primary material is there,rich and teeming, but so far subjected to littleserious analytical consideration. The short fictionparticularly holds abundant possibilities for criticaldevelopment: there are depths of mythic patterns,psychological probings, and structural complexi-ties; however, only the shallowest spade work hasbeen done. Indicative of the richness is the shortpiece of experimental fiction called "How I Con-templated the World from the Detroit House ofCorrection and Began My Life over Again."

V o l u m e 8 1 1 1


extensively developed but

clearly in keeping with the

protagonist's difficulty in

discerning reality, involves

romantic stories and fairy

tales."

The title itself, with its seventeen words, sug-gests a departure from the conventional practice ofrelatively short titles. The headnote for the storyprovides a further hint as to the experimental qualityof what is to follow: "Notes for an essay for anEnglish class at Baldwin Country Day School;poking around in debris; disgust and curiosity; arevelation of the meaning of life; a happy end-ing. ..." A prefiguration of the contrapuntal natureof the story is evident in these preliminaries: on theone hand, the abstractions of contemplation, revela-tion, the meaning of life, beginning life over again;on the other, the tangibility of the Detroit House ofCorrection and an English class at Baldwin CountryDay School.

When the events of the story are arrangedchronologically, what emerges is this: A fifteen-year-old girl from a wealthy family steals a pair ofgloves from a department store, even though shehas money—"bills, she doesn't know how manybills"—in her purse. The store detective stops her,someone notifies her parents, her physician fathertalks to the owner of the store, and no charges arefiled. The girl's mother takes her shopping in anattempt to understand the actions; the girl is apathet-ic, thinking but not saying aloud, "I wanted to stealbut not to buy." Weeks later, the girl leaves schoolin midafternoon and takes a bus to downtownDetroit. There she is taken in by a prostitute, liveswith her and her lover Simon, participates in sexualrelations with Simon and with men Simon brings in.Someone, she thinks Simon, turns her in to theauthorities as a minor and she is taken to the DetroitHouse of Correction, where she is most uncoopera-tive and refuses to give any information as to herpast or her identity, vowing she will never returnhome. Then, one night, two girls beat her severely,

she is hospitalized, and her father takes her home—back to school, with twice-weekly appointmentswith a female psychiatrist. Now sixteen, she sits inher pink room on Sioux Drive in Bloomfield Hillsand makes notes for an essay for her English class.

The "notes for an essay" are presented intwelve divisions marked with Roman numerals. Atfirst glance, one surmises from the form that this isthe work of a careful student, arranging material inan orderly fashion (twelve sections, reminiscient ofThe Aeneid, Paradise Lost, and such novels asJames's The Ambassadors, a year's installments)for the purpose of organizing experience into acoherent system. Such an assumption, however, iserroneous, for the divisions do not constitute atopical outline; neither are they chronological. In-stead, they are repetitive, disjointed, and dispersive—in other words, indicative of the state of mind of thesixteen-year-old protagonist, confused, question-ing, attempting to make sense of the senseless, toimpose order upon chaos.

The major divisions are these:

I Events

II Characters

III World Events

IV People & Circumstances Contributing to ThisDelinquency

V Sioux Drive

VI Detroit

VII Events

VIII Characters

IX That Night

X Detroit

XI Characters We Are Forever Entwined With

XII Events

Three divisions are labeled "Events"—the first,the seventh, and the twelfth. Hence the story begins,centers, and ends in recollected action; and action atleast is relatively unequivocal, however ambiguousthe motives behind the action. Two other sectionsare linked to events—section III, "World Events,"the total content of which is the single word "Noth-ing,' ' and section IX,' 'That Night," a brief descrip-tion (five sentences, two of which are short ques-

; i 2 S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s

An additional motif, not


tions) of the beating which sent the girl to thehospital.

Three divisions are labeled "characters." Sec-tions II and VIII follow immediately ' 'event'' divi-sions, and XI, with the amplified heading,' 'Charac-ters We Are Forever Entwined With," immediatelyprecedes the final "event" division. Section IVseems to link together the idea of characters ("peo-ple") and events ("circumstances"), but again theentire section consists of one word, "Nothing."

The remaining three divisions are basicallydescriptive: V, a picture of Sioux Drive, and VI andX, brief delineations of Detroit. Thus it appears thatthe girl is trying to organize her material aroundthree points, possibly suggested by her Englishteacher. Events, Characters, and Places are the focalpoints of her outline, but there is no intrinsic order tothe arrangement of points; it is random, apparentlyunpurposeful. What knits the scraps of informationtogether into a movingly effective totality is not theprotagonist's pathetic effort to establish meaningfulcontinuity, but the artist's skillful interweaving ofmotifs and verbal echoes.

Basic to the ultimate unity of the story is apattern of contrasts. The title and the headnotesuggest this contrapuntal interplay; the story elabo-rates upon the suggestion. Bloomfield Hills is con-trasted with inner-city Detroit, the girl's motherwith the prostitute Clarita, the girl's father with theprocurer-addict Simon. The differences are vast—and yet in each case the contrast is intensified by acurious and significant identity. But most importantis the duality of the girl herself.

The pattern of contrasts is established by unlikesettings. Bloomfield Hills is an exclusive suburbwith "monumental houses" located on curvinglanes with such names as Sioux Drive and BurningBush Way and Du Maurier Drive and Lois Lane.There are no prosaic ' 'streets'' in Bloomfield Hills.The houses are Georgian and Colonial and French-Normandy, imitations of other cultures and othertimes, with columns and bay windows and "fire-places in living room, library, recreation room,paneled walls wet bar five bathrooms five bedroomstwo lavatories central air conditioning automaticsprinkler automatic garage door . . . a breakfastroom a patio a large fenced lot fourteen trees a frontdoor with a brass knocker never knocked." Detroit,

on the other hand, is a world that is ' 'falling out thebottom." In Detroit there are streets and avenues,12th Street, Fourteenth Street, Woodward Avenue,Livernois Avenue. Instead of the "heartbreakingsidewalks, so clean" of Bloomfield Hills, there isfilthy pavement from which ' 'scraps of paper flutterin the air like pigeons, dirt flies up and hits you rightin the eye, oh Detroit is breaking up into dangerousbits of newspaper and dirt, watch out." While theBloomfield Hills police are ' 'quiet private police, inunmarked cars. Cruising on Saturday evenings withpaternal smiles for the residents," the Detroit citypolice are hated "cops" who are not paternal: "Ittook three of them to get me in the police cruiser...and they put more than their hands on my arm."

Bloomfield Hills is characterized by stores with' 'many mild pale lights, easy on the eye and the soul. . . [and] women shoppers with their excellentshoes and coats and hair dos, all dawdling graceful-ly, in no hurry." The curving residential drives are' 'slow''; the policemen ' 'quiet''; the rooms ' 'lovelyin the sunlight''; this is a world of' 'God in gold andbeige carpeting, . . . and the miracle of a cleanpolished gleaming toaster and faucets that run bothhot and cold water." Detroit is "pavement andclosed-up stores; grillwork over the windows of apawnshop." Instead of quiet and slow and heavy,Detroit is "hazardous," "restless"; it is a worldthat boils and shoots and aches. Instead of beigecarpeting and chandeliers, Detroit rooms have "amattress on the floor" and "wallpaper hanging instrips." Whereas the living room in a five bedroomColonial house at 250 Sioux Drive is "thirty bytwenty-five," Simon lives in a "six-by-six room."

The winds blow nothing to Sioux Drive, "noodors of hollyhocks or forsythia," nothing it doesnot already possess. Sioux Drive has everything itcould desire. In Detroit, however, Simon longs forthe "cold clean air ... from Canada" which mightbring a degree of purification to the dirty citystreets. And in Bloomfield Hills, even weathervanes, "had they weather vanes, don't have to turnwith the wind, don't have to contend with theweather. There is no weather." The suburban wayof life is insulated, artificially cooled and heated andcleaned. As the girl "dreams along the corridors"of the Baldwin Country Day School, she ' 'pressesher face against the Thermoplex glass. No frost orsteam can ever form on that glass." There is no suchinsulation, no such freedom from contention with

V o l u m e 8 113


the elements in the inner city; section VI, the first ofthe two sections describing Detroit, begins,' 'Thereis always weather in Detroit. Detroit's temperatureis always 32°. Fast-falling temperatures. Slow-ris-ing temperatures. Wind from the north-northeastfour to forty miles an hour" and ends, "Detroit'stemperature is 32°. Fast-falling temperatures. Windfrom the north-northeast four to forty miles anhour." Inner-city life is cold, hovering on the pointof freezing, with wildly fluctuating winds.

Bloomfield Hills and Detroit are so differentthat it seems hardly possible that they exist only afew miles apart. The same destructive force whichthe girl experiences in the Detroit House of Correc-tion, however, is for her a terrifying interloper uponthe insulated tranquillity of Bloomfield Hills. Thetwo girls, one black and one white, who corner theprotagonist in the lavatory on "that night" and beather unmercifully are executing "revenge on theoppressed minorities of America! revenge on theslaughtered Indians! revenge on the female sex, onthe male sex, revenge on Bloomfield Hills, revengerevenge." In Detroit "shoppers shop grimly, theircars are not parked in safe places, their windshieldsmay be smashed and graceful ebony hands maydrag them out through their shatterproof smashedwindshields, crying, Revenge for the Indians!"Bloomfield Hills is the place where there is noweather, where the windshields shield residentsfrom the wind, but if the locked locks and thenailed-shut doors of the Detroit House of Correctionprovide no safety, neither does suburbia; the shat-terproof windshields can be smashed. Thus the"happy ending" of the headnote is more accuratelya desperate retreat behind the Thermoplex glass, butwith no real assurance of impregnability. The girl,as she makes notes for the assigned essay, shivers atthe thought of Simon climbing in through her bed-room window to strangle her: ' 'Why do I shiver? Iam now sixteen and sixteen is not an age forshivering." Her teeth chatter at the irrational thoughtof being sued should she unintentionally divulge theidentity of the famous automotive designer forwhom her family's house was originally built. Sheeven fears the maid who evidently has worked forthe family for years; on her return home, the girl is' 'weeping, weeping, though Billie the maid is prob-ably listening" and "Billie the maid is no doubtlistening from the kitchen as I burst into tears andthe hysteria Simon got so sick of." So BloomfieldHills and Detroit, different as they are, are really

two sides of one coin, a coin of insecurity andpotential violence.

The mother-Clarita contrast also fits this pat-tern. Whereas the mother is a "lady [with] hair likeblown-up gold . . . hair and fingers and body ofinestimable grace," Clarita is a "woman" with"hair long and falling into strands, not recentlywashed." The expensive clothing which the girl'smother wears—coat, boots, gloves, a fur hat—provides protection against the cold of the Michiganwinter and, symbolically, against the encroachmentof the ugly in life. Clarita, in contrast, wears jeans, asweater, "unwashed underclothes, or no under-clothes," and there is no protection for this womanwhose face is exhausted, over-wrought, from herexperiences as a prostitute since the age of thirteen."At the age when I was packing my overnight casefor a slumber party at Toni Deshield's [shield,protection, insulation]," the narrator notes, "shewas tearing filthy sheets off a bed and scratching upa rash on her arms." Too, Clarita tells her abouttearing the wallpaper from the walls with her teeth,fighting for her life one night against a "barbarictribe" of men "high from some pills." Theseevents surely are foreign to the mother who drives a"heavy . . . big car, a Lincoln, long and black" inBloomfield Hills where all the women drive "auto-mobiles bought of Ford and General Motors andChrysler, very heavy automobiles. No foreign cars."

Faithfully, diligently, the mother performs theproper rites to care for her body, her mind, and hercivic obligations; she belongs to the athletic cluband the golf club, to the "Village Women's Club atwhich lectures are given each winter on Genet andSartre and James Baldwin, by the Director of theAdult Education Program at Wayne State Universi-ty," to the country club and the art association andthe Founders Society of the Detroit Institute ofArts. She is "in perpetual motion," while Clarita"lounges" by the highway, hitchhiking, or "slouch-es" on a counter stool in a diner. Clarita's "adulteducation" comes from the late movies on televi-sion, where she can experience vicariously "allthose marvelous lives" she might have lived hadherpre-adult education not been so explicit. Claritaknows nothing of Sioux Drive or Raymond Forrest;' 'Harvard Business School could be at the corner ofVernor and 12th Street for all she cares, and Viet-nam might have sunk by now into the Dead Seaunder its tons of debris, for all the amazement shecould show."



Despite their differences, however, the motherand the prostitute are akin. Both are puzzled by thegirl. The mother is first introduced as a voice—"earnest, husky . . . saying, 'If you wanted gloves[love?], why didn't you say so? Why didn't you askfor them?''' She later asks, on the abortive shoppingtrip, "What's wrong with you, what can I do foryou, why are you so strange?'' The girl first encoun-ters Clarita as a voice on the streets of closed-downbarber shops and diners and movie houses andfaces: "Honey, are you looking for somebody downhere?" and later, "I never can figure out why girlslike you bum around down here. What are youlooking for anyway?" Neither woman appreciatesthe younger girl's frustration; neither can answerthe questions raised by her actions. And if Clarita islike the mother in her inability to understand thegirl, the two are also similar in the inadequacy ofwhat they do offer to her. The mother's attempts tobuy things to fill the void in her daughter's life arerebuffed; Clarita's proffered sanctuary from thealien streets is accepted only briefly and then isrejected.

Of particular significance is the likelihood thatthe girl subconsciously considers both her motherand Clarita to be her rivals. Seemingly sensing thatthe competition with her mother is unequal, sheassociates her with grace and motion—and heavi-ness: "Heavy weighs the gold on the back of herhairbrush and hand mirror. Heavy heavy the candle-sticks in the dining room. Very heavy is the big car,a Lincoln, long and black, that on one cool autumnday split a squirrel's body in two unequal parts." Inthis context the squirrel may be representative of thegirl (note the rhyme) since the girl on more than oneoccasion mentions the chattering of her teeth anddescribes herself as wearing a close-fitted coat witha fur collar; thus she may see herself as beingdestroyed in the rivalry with the more powerfulolder woman. The girl, therefore, wants to hurt hermother; she says that "her mother's heart wouldbreak to see'' the dirty yellow Kleenex in her purse;in the same purse is a lipstick called Broken Heart—and in the same sentence there are these words:"Her fingers are trembling like crazy; her teeth arebeginning to chatter; her insides are alive; her eyesglow in her head; she is saying to her mother'sastonished face / want to steal but not to buy."Since the mother is not present at the moment beingdescribed, it is likely that the girl is vitalized by thethought of the shock on her mother's face, the

broken heart, should she tell her mother what she isfeeling. And when the girl returns home after herhospital stay, there is only one sentence whichreveals that the mother is even present—' 'Motherembraces me''—while it is the father in whose armsshe cries. Clarita, too, must be a kind of rival to thegirl, though a less formidable one. When the prosti-tute takes the girl into her apartment above a restau-rant, Simon is the older woman's lover, but in ashort time Simon has become the girl's lover—whether also or instead is not made clear. The girlsupposes that it is Simon who turned her in to thepolice when he grew tired of her; she makes noconscious connection between her arrest and Clarita'ssaying "mournfully to me Honey somebody isgoing to turn you out let me give you warning."Perhaps there is no connection; perhaps, however,her never knowing for sure that her arrest wasSimon's doing is suggestive of a refusal on her partto admit another defeat at the hands of a competitor.

In a parallel fashion, Gates develops the con-trasts between the girl's father and Simon. Thefather is a physician for the "slightly sick" and a"player of squash and golf." His name is nevermentioned; he is Dr. . He evidently is ahandsome man, for the girl describes him as ' 'look-ing like a prince'' when he takes her home from thehospital. Evidently, too, he is a busy man who doesnot have time for his daughter, at least not as muchtime as she wants from him. The fact that he is inLos Angeles at a medical convention when shesteals the gloves suggests that she is thus demandingattention from him; evidently her ploy is successful,for her father talks to Raymond Forrest, the ownerof the store, and gets her off. Where he is weeks laterwhen she runs away from home is not indicated, butin her notes she writes, ' 'And where was he whenClarita put her hand on my arm . . . and said,'Honey, are you looking for somebody down here?'"She is looking for somebody, a father who willadmit her importance, substantiate her self-worth,provide her with an identity so that she can answerher questions about herself: "A pretty girl? Anugly girl?"

Simon is a drifter, a parasite who lives offwomen. He sleeps mornings and afternoons, com-ing alive at night and only then with the stimulationof a pill or a cigarette. Physically he is tall, slightlystooped, with long blond hair in "spent languidcurls." He describes himself thus: "Once I was

V o l u m e 8 I 1 S


Huckleberry Finn, but now I am Roderick Usher."From a wealthy background similar to the girl's, heone day simply walked away and left it, perhapswith the spirit of adventure and the restless vitalitythat characterize Huck Finn; now he is a dweller in ahaunted palace filled with Poe's "Vast forms thatmove fantastically / To a discordant melody; /While, like a rapid ghastly river, / Through the paledoor, / A hideous throng rush out forever, / Andlaugh—but smile no more." At first, he fills thevoid in the girl's life. He is old enough to be herfather—thirty-five. He is Clarita's lover, and, ifClarita is a substitute mother, Simon is a substitutefather. The sexual relationship between the girl andSimon is an acting-out of her Electra complex. Inher notes she asks, "Would I go back to Simonagain? Would I lie down with him in all that filthand craziness? Over and over again." She hasanswered her own question. One must note, howev-er, the typography:

Would I lie down with him in all that filth andcraziness? Over and over again, a Clarita is beingbetrayed as in front of a Cunningham Drug Store sheis nervously eyeing a colored man who may or maynot have money

The period after' 'again'' completes a sentence,but the lower case "a" which follows and thespacing involved compel the reader to see an addi-tional thought: "Over and over again a Clarita [notsimply Clarita, but a Clarita, any Clarita] is beingbetrayed." The betrayal is instigated by Simon, butthe girl shares in it; her ambivalent feelings of guiltand desire are indicative of her sense of havingbetrayed Clarita, the mother who saved her from thestreet, and her sense of having achieved some sort ofvictory in capturing Simon-father, however briefly,for herself.

So Simon is a surrogate father whose wholeattention the girl has managed to attain. The father-daughter analogy is further enhanced by Simon'swords to her: "Ah Baby! " and "You are such alittle girl." One morning Simon ' 'forces her to givehim an injection with that needle she knows isfilthy, she has a dread of needles and surgicalinstruments and the odor of things that are to be sentinto the blood, thinking somehow of her father "(italics mine). But Simon too deserts her. He isdispleased with her moods and when she is ' 'downtoo low for him," he loans her to a bearded friend ofhis for three days; on other occasions, he takes fromher bills which are ' 'passed into her numb hands by

men." When he forces her to give him the injection,she is terrified that the drug may kill him, and yetshe does what he asks, viewing her action as a giftshe can give him, and the drug as a "magic that ismore than any woman can give him, striking theback of his head and making him stretch as if withthe impact of a terrible sun." After the injection,when she tries to embrace him, he' 'pushes her asideand stumbles to his feet. Jesus Christ, he says."

She speculates that it is Simon who, ' 'tired ofher and her hysteria,'' has the city police take her tothe Detroit House of Correction. Even in the Houseof Correction, she will not talk about Simon, keep-ing him her secret while ' 'she aches still for Simon'shands and his caressing breath, though he gave herlittle pleasure.'' Then, when her real father takes herhome, she once again has his attention; she is"convulsed in Father's arms" and vows she "willnever leave again, never, why did I leave, where didI go, what happened, my mind is gone wrong, mybody is one big bruise." In her mind the events ofthe recent past are being replayed over and over,"perpetually are Simon's hands moving across mybody and adding everything up and so too areFather's hands on my shaking bruised back, farfrom the surface of my skin on the surface of mygood blue cashmere coat."

The contrapuntal pattern, omnipresent in thestory, is ultimately traceable to the dichotomy with-in the girl herself. She has a desperate need for love,security, self-approbation. Her insecurity is revealed,for example, in the variety of substantives she usesto refer to herself. She never mentions her name;"Honey" is the only form of address anyone usesfor her. Most frequently she refers to herself as ' 'thegirl" or with a third person feminine pronoun.Occasionally she shifts to first person, as in the firstsentence of the story: ' 'The girl (myself) is walkingthrough Branden's, that excellent store." The sec-ond division of the first section begins, "The girlseated at home... . Someone is talking to me," andthe third division of the first section describes"Mother in her black coat, I in my close fitted bluecoat.... The girl droops along in her coat." Thereare also first-person plural pronouns: "We live onSioux Drive" and "our maid Billie." Once in thisfirst section, she refers to herself indirectly in thesecond person when she says, "The strings drawtogether in a cat's cradle, making a net to save youwhen you fall"; obviously the net of connections



she refers to is the net which "saved" her andbrought her back to Sioux Drive. This same mixingof referents occurs through a large part of the story;only in the last two sections does she consistentlyrefer to herself in the first person; here she has hadforced upon her the decision to retreat into thepseudo-haven of suburbia and, at least for the timebeing, is trying to hold on to her identity throughlinking herself with material objects. She sees herface reflected,' 'distorted'' in the shiny toaster, andwonders, "Is that my face?"

Moreover, she frequently insists that she makesher own decisions, and yet she knows she does not.When she steals the gloves—which she has themoney to buy and does not even really want sinceshe considers them "ugly"—the "event sneaksupon the girl, who believes she is herding it along."In the House of Correction she refuses to talk, "notbecause everyone has warned her not to talk butbecause, because she will not talk; because shewon't say anything about Simon, who is her se-cret." She denies that there have been any "peopleand circumstances contributing to this delinquen-cy," even while she is thinking of her brother,"remembering him unclearly," remembering thathe at the age of ten had stolen "trick-and-treatcandy from some six-year-old kids'' and that he isnot doing well at the Susquehanna Boys' Academy,an "excellent preparatory school in Maine." Re-calling her own stealing which began at the age ofeight, her smashing of a basement window "in herown house just for fun,'' and her failure to do ' 'workcompatible with her performance on the Stanford-Binet." she can still refuse to admit contributoryinfluences. She summarizes "World Events" as"Nothing," attempting to shut out the world be-yond the shaky security of Bloomfield Hills. Never-theless, this self-sufficiency is illusory. It is akin tothe names given to the teenage singing groups ' 'of1968 . . . The Certain Forces, The Way Out, TheManiacs Responsible ."

Typical of nearly every division of the notes isan ambivalence, revealed partially through the de-vice of interrogatives. Of herself she has littlecertain knowledge, only that which can be meas-ured empirically—her age; her height, "five feetfive inches . . . ordinary height"; the color of herhair and her eyes. But value judgments she cannotmake; she wonders whether she is a ' 'pretty girl? Anugly girl?'' Is Raymond Forrest' 'a handsome man?

An ugly man? . . . who is Raymond Forrest, thisman who is my salvation?" Is Clarita "twenty,twenty-five,... thirty or more? Pretty, ugly, what?"

Another device frequently employed to rein-force the pattern of contrasts is the paradox. The girlsees herself as "innocently experienced." She de-scribes her home as "Classical contemporary. Tra-ditional modern." The temperature in Detroit is"always 32°. Fast-falling temperatures. Slow-ris-ing temperatures." Her father's "doctoring is of theslightly sick. The sick are sent elsewhere . . . theunsick are sent to Dr. Coronet (Isabel, a lady), anexcellent psychiatrist for unsick people who angri-ly believe they are sick and want to do some-thing about it."

The shoplifting incident, moreover, also illus-trates the contrast of the worlds inhabited by thegirl. She slips the gloves into her pocket; they areencased in a plastic bag, "airproof breathproofplastic bag," as insulated and lifeless as the rest ofthe Bloomfield Hills world. In her purse, in thebillfold containing her money, are "snapshots ofthe family in clean plastic windows," protectedfrom contamination. The rest of the purse's con-tents, however, is not so tidy: "a blue comb, notvery clean," "a lot of dirty yellow Kleenex,"hairpins, safety pins, a broken pencil, a stolenballpoint. There, too, are a ' 'compact of Cover GirlMake-Up, Ivory Rose," and the lipstick called"Broken Heart, a corrupt pink." The girl carrieswith her the paraphernalia for making herself super-ficially compatible with the pastel pink world of thesuburbs—the covering, masking trappings. Pink isused to characterize the culture of Bloomfield Hills;"bloom" suggests pink; Harriet Arnold's, the shopwhere the mother takes the girl after the glovesepisode, is decorated in pastel pink, with "gracefulglimmering lights''; the most expensive mansion onSioux Drive belongs to "himself, who has the Caccount itself, imagine that!" whose wife has a' 'bathtub of smooth clean glowing pink''; the girl'sroom is pink and she sits in it, making notes for heressay, looking around with "sad pink eyes." Pink, acolor traditionally associated with an innocent babygirl, is also a tainted white and a diluted red, neitherpure nor passionate; it is an appropriate color forthe "innocently experienced" protagonist andher habitat.

The girl's association of herself and the squir-rel, discussed above in another context, is an exam-

V o l u m e 8 117


pie of her use of animal imagery in descriptions ofcharacters, suggestive of inability to perceive her-self or anyone else as distinctly human. The store inwhich she steals the gloves is Branden 's ; she herdsher actions through the aisles; the strings of connec-tions ' 'draw together in a cat's cradle, making a netto save you." She leans against a window and asmudge of grease from her forehead appears on thepane; she wonders if "she could be boiled down togrease'' as are cattle and sheep in a rendering plant.Her English teacher, Mr. Forest, whose "name isplain, unlike Raymond Forrest's, . . . is sweet androdent like. Simon thinks of being chased over the' 'Canadian border on foot, hounded out in a bliz-zard of broken glass and horns." He is "alwayscold," perhaps like a reptile since he "uncoils"emotion in the girl. He ' 'emerges from the cracks atdark" like a rat or a cockroach; he moves in "afeline cautious way, ... always on guard." (Allitalics in this paragraph are mine.)

An additional motif, not extensively developedbut clearly in keeping with the protagonist's diffi-culty in discerning reality, involves romantic storiesand fairy tales. Her psychiatrist is Dr. Coronet (acrown); the doctor's first name is Isabel (QueenIsabella and a variant of Elizabeth); Dr. IsabelCoronet is "queenly, an elegant nicotine-stainedlady." Princess, the black girl who attacks thenarrator in the House of Correction, spends herspare time reading Nancy Drew and Jewel BoxMystery. Simon, who once thought of himself asHuck Finn, now thinks of himself as RoderickUsher. The girl's explanation that her "head hangsheavy as a pumpkin on my shoulders, and my hairhas just been cut by Mr. Faye at the Crystal Salon"invokes images of Cinderella with the pumpkin andthe crystal slipper, Rapunzel with long, heavy hair,and fay, a fairy or elf. The father who takes herhome from the hospital is ' 'a prince himself, cometo carry me off," and on one occasion she specu-lates ' 'that weeds might climb everywhere over thatmarvelous $180,000 house [as in "Sleeping Beau-ty"] and dinosaurs might return to muddy the beigecarpeting, but never never will she reconcile fouro'clock in the morning in Detroit with eight o'clockbreakfasts in Bloomfield Hills."

Religious imagery, too, colors the story, butwithout evidence of serious commitment on thegirl's part. The title and the headnote suggest con-templation, revelation, and rebirth, and indeed the

girl leaves the hospital "bruised and saddened andconverted." Mr. Forrest, the English teacher, vowsto "treat her as if nothing has happened, a new start,begin again," and his essay assignment makes hima confessor in that' 'words pour out of me and won'tstop. I want to tell everything." She thinks ofRaymond Forrest as "this man who is my salva-tion"; when his father dies of a heart attack, shewants to ' 'write Raymond Forrest a note of sympa-thy. I would like to thank him for not pressingcharges against me one hundred years ago, savingme." She wants to write to him "telling of my love,or some other emotion that is positive and healthy.Not like Simon and his poetry . . . but when I try tothink of something to say, it is Simon's languagethat comes back to me, caught in my head like a badsong." Simon, then, is presented as a sort of foil toForrest and thus perhaps an inversion of a savior;there is, of course, his name; his hands bears woundsin the palms, "teeth marks from his previous lifeexperiences"; his poetry, which will not leave herhead, declares,' 'I am heading upward/... And I amgoing to dissolve into the clouds." And when shegives him the injection, she sees his ' 'bright blood''as the drug enters his body,' 'making his face stretchas if with the impact of a terrible sun . . . . JesusChrist, he says."

The story has made clear that Sioux Drive hasnot in the past provided a sense of security and self-worth for the girl, and it seems unlikely that it willbegin to do so now. The "beginning again" of thetitle, as well as the ' 'happy ending'' of the headnote,is really a return to a place that before had failed hermiserably. The house to which the girl returns is "adoll's house, so lovely in the sunlight," sunlightwhich "breaks in movieland patches" on the roof.This is not reality, but a make-believe world ofgames and movies; for the present, though, it offersat least a pretense of safety. Repeatedly the girlacknowledges her retreat into security, howevertenuous it may prove. Nine times in time closingsection of the story she uses ' 'never'' in connectionwith her intention never to leave home again; herinsistence suggests that this is not a consciousdecision to remain, but a desperate attempt to con-vince herself that this is her home, a place of safetywhere inner conflict ends.

This incredibly concentrated story, then, is de-veloped in such a way that structure, imagery,motifs, verbal echoes work together to create for the



reader the actual experience of the experiencingmind of the protagonist. The author's experimentcan only be judged a success.

Source: Sue Simpson Park, "A Study in Counterpoint:Joyce Carol Oates's 'How I Contemplated the World fromthe Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life OverAgain,'" in Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 22, No. 2, Sum-mer, 1976, pp. 213-24.

Phillips, Robert. Interview, in The Paris Review, Fall, 1978,pp. 199-206.

Showalter, Elaine. "My Friend, Joyce Carol Oates: AnIntimate Portrait," in Ms. Magazine, March, 1986, pp. 44-50.

Further Reading

Sources

Avant, James A. Interview, in The Library Journal, Septem-ber 1, 1970.

Oilman, Richard. Review of The Wheel of Love, in The NewYork Times Book Review, October 25, 1970, p. 4.

Long, R. E. Review of The Wheel of Love, in The SaturdayReview, October 24, 1970.

Creighton, Joanne. Joyce Carol Oates, TUSAS, TwaynePublishers: Boston, 1979.

Like all volumes in this series, this book provides anoverview of the author's life and work to date. It alsocontains a thorough and easy to use bibliography.

Milazzo, Lee, ed. Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates,University Press of Mississippi: Jackson, 1989.

A collection of interviews from 1969-1988, the bookprovides insight into the life and work of a dedicatedand prolific writer.

V o l u m e 8 1 1 9

In Another CountryErnest Hemingway

1927

Ernest Hemingway is a legendary figure in twenti-eth-century American literature. His reputation stemsnot only from his body of written work, but from hisadventurous and amorous lifestyle. His crisp, al-most journalistic prose style, free of the long, some-times flowery language common to much of theliterature that appeared before him, has won himgreat acclaim and some of the highest literaryhonors: The Pulitzer Prize, which he won for hisnovella, The Old Man and the Sea in 1952; theNobel Prize for Literature, which he received in1954; and the Award of Merit from the AmericanAcademy of Arts and Letters, which he also re-ceived in 1954.

Despite these accolades, Hemingway is notwithout his critics. Some scholars complain that histough, often violent subject matter is limited andwithout insight, and that his female characters, inparticular, lack dimension. His devotees claim thatbehind his work's often tough, macho exterior lurksa complex world of wounded, complicated humanbeings. His short stories are among those mostfrequently studied and anthologized, especially ' 'TheSnows of Kilimanjaro," "A Clean, Well LightedPlace," "The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio,""The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber,"and "In Another Country," which was first pub-lished in 1927 in Scribner's magazine. His novelsinclude such American classics as The Sun AlsoRises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the BellTolls, and The Old Man and the Sea. He has also

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In A n o t h e r C o u n t r y

written several works of nonfiction, including Deathin the Afternoon, about bullfighting, and The GreenHills of Africa, about big game hunting.

Author Biography

Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois,into an upper-middle-class family. Although hischildhood does not seem to have been particularlytraumatic, in later years he often displayed bitter-ness towards his father, whom he saw as weak andineffectual, and his mother, whom he felt was strictand domineering. By the time he was in high schoolhe had developed an interest in literature, writingfor his school newspaper and its literary magazine.During his family's summers in northern Michigan,he developed a love of hunting, fishing, and outdoorlife. Upon graduation, he took a job at the KansasCity Star, where he honed the spare, objective stylethat would be his hallmark.

When the United States entered World War I,Hemingway volunteered as an ambulance driver forthe Red Cross in Italy. Wounded, he recuperated ina Milan hospital among injured Italian soldiers, anexperience that would provide the background forhis 1927 story "In Another Country." This is alsowhere he met nurse Agnes von Kurowsky, theinspiration for Catherine Barkeley in his novel AFarewell to Arms.

Upon returning to the United States in 1919,Hemingway wrote several short stories, but soldnone. One year later, he met Hadley Richardson;they were wed the following year. They moved toEurope, settling primarily in Paris where their expa-triate colleagues included important literary figures,such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein.During that time, Hemingway published two collec-tions of short stories, followed by his acclaimednovel The Sun Also Rises, which featured charactersbased on his new circle of friends. Not long after, in1927, he and Richardson divorced; Hemingwaymarried Pauline Pfeiffer, a writer, less than twomonths later. In 1929, A Farewell to Arms waspublished, which cemented his literary reputation.

During the 1930s, Hemingway moved to KeyWest, Florida, yet spent much of his time travelingin Spain, where his fascination with bullfightingbecame the subject of his 1932 nonfiction work,Death in the Afternoon. He also pursued big gamehunting, which he wrote about in The Green Hills of

Africa (1935). Hunting figures prominently in manyof Hemingway's stories, including "The Short HappyLife of Francis Macomber," first published in 1936.

In 1937, Hemingway went to Spain to cover theSpanish Civil War for the North American Newspa-per Alliance and began a relationship with writerMartha Gelhorn, whom he had met in Florida. Hereceived a divorce from Pfeiffer in November,1940; Gelhorn became his third wife two weekslater. The same year, he published his novel aboutthe Spanish Civil War, For Whom the Bell Tolls,another major success, and his play The Fifth Col-umn was performed briefly on Broadway.

The 1940s found Hemingway working first as awar correspondent in China, then, along withGelhorn, in Europe during World War II. However,their relationship deteriorated and they divorced in1945. He began a relationship with Mary Welsh,another writer, whom he married in 1946. Theylived in Cuba, as well as the United States andEurope. Hemingway continued to write, but did nothave another major success until his 1952 novella,The Old Man and the Sea, which won the PulitzerPrize in 1953. The next year he received the NobelPrize for Literature, but did not attend the ceremonyto accept the prize. In 1960, after suffering a mentalbreakdown, he entered the Mayo Clinic to undergoelectrotherapy. He killed himself in his home inKetchum, Idaho in 1961.

Plot Summary

' 'In the fall the war was always there, but we did notgo to it anymore." So begins Ernest Hemingway'sshort story, "In Another Country." The war herefers to is World War I; the setting is Milan, awayfrom the scene of the fighting. The narrator de-scribes the city he passes on his way to the hospitalto receive physical rehabilitation for the leg woundshe received while at the front. Though the narratorremains unnamed, scholars generally agree the youngman is Hemingway's alter ego, Nick Adams.

At the hospital, the narrator, a young man, sitsat a machine designed to aid his damaged knee.Next to him is an Italian major, a champion fencerbefore the war, whose hand has been wounded. Thedoctor shows the major a photograph of a hand thathas been restored by the machine the major is using.The photo, however, does not increase the major'sconfidence in the machine.

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Ernest Hemingway

Three Milanese soldiers, the same age as thenarrator, are then introduced. The four boys hangout together at a place called Cafe Cova followingtheir therapy. As they walk through the city's Com-munist quarter, they are criticized for being officerswith medals. A fifth boy, who lost his nose an hourafter his first battle, sometimes joins them. He wearsa black handkerchief strategically placed across hisface and has no medals.

One of the boys who has three medals haslived a very long time with death and was a littledetached. We were all a little detached, and there wasnothing that held us together except that we met everyafternoon at the hospital. Although, we walked to theCova through the tough part of town, walking in thedark, with the light singing coming out of wineshops,and sometimes having to walk into the street wherethe men and women would crowd together on thesidewalk so that we would have to jostle them to getby, we felt held together by there being something thathad happened that they, the people who dislikedus, did not understand. (Excerpt from "In Anoth-er Country")

Having all faced death and survived, the boysare linked in a way that the outsiders cannot un-derstand. This special bond exists between themeven though the narrator as an American, is other-wise more of an outsider to the soldiers than theunwounded Italians on the street who despise them.

They feel particularly connected at the Cova, wherethey drink and carouse with local girls.

The Italian soldiers change their manner to-ward the narrator when they realize he receivedsome of his medals for being an American, and notfor bravery, as they had. Though the narrator likes toimagine he would have been as brave as they had, heknows this is not true because he is indeed afraid todie. Despite their initial common bond, the Italiansoldiers drift from the narrator due to this differ-ence. Only the undecorated boy, without the nose,remains his close friend. This boy will not return tothe war, so will never get the chance to find out if healso is afraid of death.

The major, the great fencer, is cynical aboutbravery, and so the narrator then feels a bond withhim. As they sit at their respective physical therapymachines, the major helps the narrator improvehis Italian.

One day when the narrator feels as hopelessabout his machine as the major does about his, themajor, usually poised and soldier-like, suddenlycalls the narrator "a stupid impossible disgrace,"who he had been "a fool to have bothered with."Standing upright to calm himself, the major asks thenarrator if he is married. He answers, ' 'No, but Ihope to be." The major bitterly tells him, "A manmust not marry,'' explaining that a man ' 'should notplace himself in a position to lose [everything] . . .He should find things he cannot lose." When thenarrator counters this statement, the major angrilyexclaims, "He'll lose it. Don't argue with me!,"then demands his machine be turned off.

The major goes into another room for a mas-sage, then asks for a phone, shutting the door forprivacy. A short time later the major returns, com-posed. He apologizes to the narrator, then announceshis wife has just died. The narrator feels sick forhim, but the major remains controlled, saying,' 'It isdifficult. I cannot resign myself." He then begins tocry. Quickly, however, the major stands erect, like asoldier, and fighting back his tears, exits.

The doctor says that the major's wife, a young,healthy woman, had died unexpectedly of pneumo-nia. The major returns three days later, wearing ablack band on his sleeve to signify mourning, asymbol which further separates him from the narra-tor. Large framed photographs of healed hands havebeen hung to offer the major hope. However, themajor ignores them; instead, he just stares out the

1 2 2 S h o r t S t o r i e s for S t u d e n t s


window, knowing the machines cannot cure him ofthis different kind of injury.

Characters

American SoldierSee Narrator

Italian MajorThe Italian major, a former fencing champion,

is in the Milan hospital because his hand has beenmangled in battle. A controlled military man, he iscynical about the machines that are used to rehabili-tate his wounded extremity, and about the tales ofbravery and heroism he hears from the young Italianofficers. He befriends the narrator, who is alsoinjured, and tutors him in Italian. The Italian majorhas recently married a young woman, something hewould not do until he was injured—and thereforewould not be sent into battle again. However, whenhis wife dies unexpectedly from pneumonia, themajor loses his soldier-like composure, and weeps,not just for her death, but also, according to EarlRovitt in his essay, "OfHuman Dignity: 'In Anoth-er Country,'" for his understanding that he mustnow confront the meaninglessness of life, one thathas shown him that his strict military code could notprotect him from life's vulnerabilities.

MajorSee Italian Major

Major's WifeThough the major's wife never appears in the

story (she is mentioned only in the second-to-lastparagraph of the story), she plays a major role. Ayoung, healthy woman, her sudden death frompneumonia leads the Italian major, her husband, tolearn he cannot control life, a lesson which is alsoobserved by the story's young narrator.

NarratorThe narrator is a young American in Italy

during World War I. Though unnamed, the narra-tor's identity is assumed to be Nick Adams, an alter-ego for many of Hemingway's semi-autobiographi-cal short stories. The narrator is in an Italian hospitalreceiving therapy for his injured leg. He befriendsseveral other officers with whom he shares theexperience of facing death and surviving, and ofgetting decorated for their efforts. When the other

soldiers learn that the narrator's other medals aremerely for his being an American, and not for actsof heroism or bravery, he becomes an outsider totheir circle. Realizing that his fear of death wouldmake him an unlikely member of their group in thefuture, the narrator befriends an Italian major whosehand is wounded, a man whose cynicism towardbravery does not alienate the narrator from him. Thenarrator senses their connection is lost, however,when the major unexpectedly loses his young wifeto pneumonia. According to Laurence W. Mazzeoin his "Critical Survey of Short Fiction," Nickcomes to realize that ' 'nothing of value can last inthis world."

Signor MaggioreSee Italian Major

Themes

' Tn the fall the war was always there, but we did notgo to it anymore." So begins Ernest Hemingway'sshort story, "In Another Country." The war herefers to is World War I; the setting is Milan, awayfrom the scene of the fighting. The narrator is ayoung American man who is in the hospital toreceive physical rehabilitation for the leg wounds hereceived while at the front. Sitting next to him is anItalian major, a champion fencer before the war,whose hand has been wounded and with whom thenarrator speaks about life. At the story's end, havinglearned of his wife's death of pneumonia, the majormust face the future knowing the machines cannotcure him of this different kind of injury.

Dignity and the Human ConditionIn the story, the young narrator has faced death

and survived. This is also true of the Italian officerswho, like the narrator, come to the hospital each dayto receive therapy for the wounds they have re-ceived while at the front. The narrator learns aboutdignity and the human condition primarily throughhis interaction with an Italian major. While theyoung narrator is fearful of dying on the battlefield,the major seems to have made peace with thispossibility. He knows he must do his duty in thedignified manner consistent with being a profes-sional soldier and, more specifically, an officer. Heis uninterested in the bravado expressed by theyoung decorated officers. Bravery requires actingon impulse, making snap decisions based on one's

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MediaAdaptations

Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man is afilm which assimilates the author's Nick Adamsstories into a single narrative. Adapted by A. E.Hotchner, directed by Martin Ritt, starring Rich-ard Beymer (best known as Tony in the filmmusical West Side Story ) as Nick, produced byDe Luxe, 1962.

The Killers begins as a nearly word-by-wordfilm adaptation of the Nick Adams story of thesame name. In the story, Nick is in a diner astwo killers come in looking for a man calledAndersson. The film then segues into an originaldrama about Andersson. Nick is featured in oneof these later scenes. Screenplay by AnthonyVeiller, directed by Richard Siodmak (AcademyAward nomination, best director), starring BurtLancaster (film debut), Edmond O'Brien, andAva Gardner. U-I, 1946.

The film In Love and War chronicles 19 year-old

Hemingway's recovery in an Italian hospitalfrom the wounds he received driving an ambu-lance during World War I. The film focuses onhis love affair with a 26 year-old nurse, thewoman who is said to have inspired the characterCatherine Barkeley in Hemingway's novel AFarewell to Arms. Chris O'Donnell plays theyoung Hemingway; Sandra Bullock portrays thenurse. Richard Attenborough directed. A NewLine Cinema release, 1996.

Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms, a fic-tional version of the same love affair featured inIn Love and War, has been filmed twice, first in1932 by director Frank Borzage, starring GaryCooper and Helen Hayes, a Paramount Picture;then in 1957, starring Rock Hudson and JenniferJones, directed by Charles Vidor, a De Luxerelease.

emotions. The major instead depends on control andprecision. One day, however, the major breaks hiscomposure; while sitting at the machine intended toheal his injured hand, he becomes angry with thenarrator's hope to marry in the future, irately addingthat the young American "should not place himselfin a position to lose [everything].... He should findthings he cannot lose." The major then does thepreviously unthinkable; he breaks into tears. Thenarrator soon learns from a doctor that the major'syoung and, presumably, healthy wife has suddenlydied from pneumonia. When the major returns tothe hospital, three days later—his first break in hisregime of daily visits—he is a more openly vulner-able man. He sits dutifully at his machine, stands inan erect, soldierly manner, but now his dignifiedstance is more hard won. He has learned that lifecannot be controlled, that it is filled with arbitrarytragedies, even off the battlefield, for which onemay be unprepared. The major may have beenprepared for his own death, like any good soldier,

but his wife's sudden passing leads him to confrontlife's meaninglessness, an aspect of the humancondition he, who has survived, must now struggleto face with dignity.

Courage and CowardiceNot unconnected is the theme of courage and

cowardice. While many heroes, particularly in Ameri-can fiction, especially American films, are por-trayed as stoic and unafraid, "In Another Country"depicts a more complex and humanistic type ofcourage. Following the unexpected loss of his wife,the major's return to the hospital signifies his will-ingness to survive, even with his new awareness ofchaos in the world and his inability to prevent beingtouched by it. His willingness to face life with thisnew and painful understanding can be seen as adefinition of genuine courage, the kind of couragebefitting a real hero. This truer, more human hero-ism even requires the initial shedding of tears, an act

124 S h o r t S t o r i e s for S t u d e n t s


that is seen in some circumstances as a sign ofcowardice.

This definition of heroism contrasts with themore traditional kind of heroics, the kind that winsmedals, displayed by the brash young Italian offi-cers. These men are seemingly proud of their naivebravado; however, because they have not dealt withthe emotional consequences of the violence theyhave faced, they have become "a little detached"and withdrawn.

Alienation and LonelinessThis theme is expressed initially in the story's

title, "In Another Country," which refers to beingor feeling alienated from the comfort of the familiar,a circumstance which often leads to loneliness. Inthis story, the narrator is literally in another country,Italy, an ocean apart from his home, the UnitedStates; however, he is also apart in other ways.When he walks in the streets of Milan alongside theyoung Italian officers he is first accepted by, heknows the civilians who verbally abuse them do notunderstand what they, the officers, have faced.Though the officers and these native Milanese sharethe same streets, they are in "another country"from each other, separated by their differing lifeexperiences. Once inside the warmth of the cafe, thenarrator feels the loneliness this alienation causesdisappear. Later, these same officers drift from himbecause they discover that some of his medals arefor being an American, while theirs are for feats ofbravery, acts the narrator knows his own fear ofdeath would probably not permit him to perform.This leads to his being separate, in ' 'another coun-try," from his former friends. Out of loneliness, thenarrator maintains a friendship with the only mem-ber of the group who has not received a medal and,since he is too injured to return to battle, never will.The narrator likes to pretend this friend would belike him in battle, cautious and a little afraid. Thenarrator insists on imagining he and this young manare connected in this way to alleviate the lonelinesshe feels now that he has become alienated from theothers. At the end of the story, the narrator becomesalienated from his new friend, the major, after themajor experiences a loss that the narrator has not,the death of a wife to pneumonia. The major'sresulting understanding of life's cruel lack of mean-ing puts him in "another country" from the young-er, still somewhat idealistic narrator. The mind setof the major is both alien to him and lonely, yet it isinevitable to all human beings. After all, the storysuggests, attempts to avoid loss are only temporary.

Topics forFurther

StudyExplain the multiple meanings of the title of theshort story "In Another Country."

Write about a time when you were alienatedfrom those around you because of a physicalinjury, language barrier, or other circumstances.Relate this to what the protagonist of ' 'In Anoth-er Country" experiences.

Read a book or short story about a soldier in theVietnam War, such as Dispatches by MichaelHerr or In Pharaoh's Army by Tobias Wolff.Compare the attitudes expressed by one of thosewriters toward the Vietnam war to Hemingway'sas expressed in one of his works set duringWorld War I, such as "In Another Country" orA Farewell to Arms.

Style

' Tn the fall the war was always there, but we did notgo to it anymore." So begins Ernest Hemingway'sshort story, "In Another Country." The war herefers to is World War I; the setting is Milan, awayfrom the scene of the fighting. The narrator is ayoung American man who is in the hospital toreceive physical rehabilitation for the leg wounds hereceived while at the front. Sitting next to him is anItalian major, a champion fencer before the war,whose hand has been wounded and with whom thenarrator speaks about life. At the story's end, havinglearned of his wife's death of pneumonia, the majormust face the future knowing the machines cannotcure him of this different kind of injury.

Point of ViewAll of the events that occur in "In Another

Country" are told from the point of view of thestory's unnamed narrator, an American officer re-ceiving physical therapy in a Milan hospital on hisleg, which has been wounded at the front duringWorld War I. The narrator is a young man, presum-ably about 19, the same age as the author when he

V o l u m e 8 1 2 5


also spent time in a Milan hospital, recovering fromleg injuries received while working as an ambu-lance driver for the Red Cross. The events arefiltered through the narrator's perspective, thereforethe first person ' T' is used throughout. How theseevents affect the narrator, particularly those whichare written about in the greatest detail, like themajor's disillusionment following the death of hiswife, is not directly revealed. However, it is appar-ent that what he has witnessed has made a strongimpact on him because he has chosen to recount thestory so vividly. Readers may assume it is an oldernarrator who is telling the story, as it is written in thepast tense.

ObjectivityOne of the most distinctive aspects of this story,

and most of Hemingway's literature, particularlyhis many stories about this same narrator—un-named here, but known as Nick Adams elsewhere—isits objective tone. Though the story is told from thenarrator's perspective, how they affect him is nevermade explicit. Instead, each of the events is de-scribed almost in the way a journalist reports anewspaper story, with as little subjectivity, or per-sonal interjection, as possible. One way this isachieved is by using very few adjectives. This isdone to avoid manipulating the reader's imagina-tion. The specific details of each event are recordedin an objective way, leaving the readers to put thepieces together; this way readers can discover theirown interpretation of what the events mean. Thisdistinctive style, perfected by Hemingway, has beenwidely imitated and greatly praised, though it has itsshare of detractors as well.

ExistentialismExistentialism is a philosophy concerned with

the meaning of existence. One of the aspects of thisphilosophy is the isolation of the individual, acondition all human beings must face at some time.The Italian major comprehends this after the unex-pected death of his wife to pneumonia. When hereturns to the hospital to continue the machinetreatments on his hand soon after her passing, thenarrator observes the major struggle to maintain hisprevious soldierly posture as he stares out the win-dow. It has been implied by scholars that, havinglost his innocent belief that loss can be minimizedthrough discipline and precision, what the majorsees out that window is life's vast emptiness. He iscoming to terms with the fact that all connec-

tions are eventually lost, especially through death,and that life carries with it a sense of its ownmeaninglessness. This knowledge is one of thecornerstones of the existentialist philosophy, and itcan be found in much of Hemingway's literature.

SymbolismThere are several examples of symbolism

throughout the story. One such symbol is the win-dow the major looks out of following the death ofhis wife. Previously, he looked at a wall whilereceiving his machine therapy. But, after his wife'sdeath, he stares out the window instead. The major,at this point, is no longer emotionally walled in; heis open, vulnerable. The window symbolizes thisopening inside him. The machines also have sym-bolic significance. Though utilized by the patients,the men know that they are probably ineffective;yet, they still return to them day after day, followingthe regime their use requires. Humans each followtheir own daily regimes, hoping that they, too, areuseful, purposeful. However, the story suggests,this is unlikely. The machines are an external sym-bol of life's probable futility, a condition whichbecomes apparent to the major after his tragic loss.

IronyIrony occurs when the outcome of an event

contrasts the intention of what has come before it. Aparticularly strong example of this can be seen withthe Italian major. He has lived his life carefully,following a strict military code which has helpedhim maintain emotional control even while havingto confront death, his own and that of others, nearlyevery day while at war. He depends on this, believesit will save him from being unprepared for greatloss. Ironically, this man who believes he is incontrol of his life, soon learns, via the death of hiswife, that his composure, his military precisionworn like armor, cannot protect him from personaltragedy. This irony changes his life, and brings outmany of the story's major themes.

Historical Context

Ernest Hemingway's story "In Another Country"takes place in a war hospital in Milan during WorldWar I. The war began in 1914 when Archduke



Franz Ferdinand, a member of the Hapsburg family,the rulers of what was then known as the Austro-Hungarian empire, was assassinated while on anofficial state visit to the city of Sarajevo in Bosnia.His killer was a young Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip,a member of a secret underground organization whoprotested the Austro-Hungarian empire's claim overtheir country. When the Austro-Hungarians de-manded entrance to Bosnia so they could find andthen bring to trial Ferdinand's assassin, the Bosniangovernment refused, insisting they would conducttheir own investigation. The Austro-Hungariansthen declared war on Bosnia. Quickly, Germanyallied with the Austro-Hungarian empire, whileRussia, France and Great Britain allied with Bosnia,with Italy soon to follow.

The United States joined World War I at theend of 1917. A German submarine had torpedoed aBritish passenger ship, the Lusitania, claiming itsecretly carried American munitions aboard. TheUnited States denied this, but joined the fray whenthe British and French requested their assistance.Most American soldiers were initially stationed onthe Western Front, in France. Believing the Ameri-can army to be inexperienced and, according toHemingway,' 'overfed and under trained,'' the Ger-mans immediately attacked. To much of the world'ssurprise, the Americans, despite being outnumberedand lacking experience, fought off the Germanarmy, solidifying their reputation as a world mili-tary power. The United States and its allies won thewar in 1918. About 118,000 American soldierswere killed in action, more than double the 55,000lost in World War II, a generation later.

Hemingway wrote "In Another Country" whileresiding in Paris in 1926. There he lived among acircle of writers and poets, many of whom would goon to be among the most prominent literary figuresof the century. Expatriates like himself, these au-thors included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood An-derson, John Dos Passos, Thornton Wilder, EzraPound, e. e. cummings, and Hart Crane, along withGertrude Stein and her lover, Alice B. Toklas,whose salon was a common meeting ground for thegroup. Coined "The Lost Generation" by Stein,these writers came to Paris in search of inspirationand a new understanding of the boundaries andpurpose of art. Malcolm Cowley, one of their clique,wrote about this period in his book Exile's Return.A collection of Hemingway's anecdotes of thisexperience was published posthumously under thetitle A Moveable Feast in 1964.

Critical Overview

Hemingway's spare, objective style has been wide-ly imitated and adapted by many other writers. Hischoice of material, and his stoic, masculine way ofdealing with issues of life, death, and love in atroubled, often violent world has made him a con-troversial figure. Though many admire his sparseprose, suggesting it reveals the inner workings ofhis macho male heroes, a share of scholars, femi-nists in particular, have criticized his work, arguingthat rather than illuminating and critiquing the he-men behavior of his characters, he is, instead, em-bracing, even sentimentalizing it. They also com-plain that his female characters have less dimensionthan his male characters, and that they generally fallinto two stereotypical categories, the saintly and thewhorish, showing an underlying dislike of womenin general. Hemingway supporters counter that headores the women he writes about, almost to thepoint of idealization.

His short story, "In Another Country" is oneof his most popular; it is also one of his mostanthologized. Like much of Hemingway's work, ithas been written about at great length. ForrestRobinson in his article "Hemingway's InvisibleHero," published on Essays in Literature arguesagainst the notion that the story's narrator is not' 'merely passive in his painful acceptance of hislack of bravery, and is respectful in his observanceof the [Italian] major's resignation to despair." Hegoes on to say that the narrator is not really thestory's protagonist, which many assume, but thatthe Italian major is.

"In Another Country" is widely considered tobe one of Hemingway's serial, semi-autobiographi-cal Nick Adams stories. In fact, when all the storiesfeaturing Nick were published together as The NickAdams Stories in 1972, "In Another Country" wasincluded in the book. However, James Steinke, inhis article "Hemingway's 'In Another Country'and 'Now I Lay Me,'" published in The Heming-way Review in 1985, argues that the story has been' 'mistakenly seen as one more contribution to com-posite of 'Nick Adams.'" He also writes that theNick Adams stories are not ' 'fictionalized personalhistory," as others claim. He uses a quote by theauthor himself to support his point: ' 'When you firststart writing stories in the first person, if the storiesare made so real that people believe them, thepeople reading them nearly always think the storiesreally happened to you."

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Ambulance and driver on a city street in Italy during World War I.

In addition to having his work labeled fictional-ized autobiography, Hemingway's work has alsoled to the author being called such' 'critical classify-ing terms as Disillusioned Idealist, Realist, Natural-ist, Existentialist and even—after Old Man and theSea—Christian," according to Richard Irwin in hisessay, "Of War, Wounds, and Silly Machines: AnExamination of Hemingway's 'In Another Coun-try.'" Irwin goes on to say that the author may be aNaturalist, but that he is not a true Naturalist. Hefeels Hemingway is a Naturalist "in the sense thatfor him human destiny is largely controlled byfactors which lie beyond the individual will andchoice, and those factors do not operate at the behestof an ultimately beneficent divine being." Howev-er, he feels that Hemingway can not be called solelya Naturalist because his work does not "reveal...sentimentality toward the hard aspects of the humancondition . . . a belief in a benign, responsiblecreator [or] a keen awareness of the 'forces' whichoperate independently of man's conscious will."He also comments that Hemingway's writing doesnot "assume a universe indifferent to the sufferingof human beings," and so does not fulfill thedefinition required to be considered a Naturalist.

Despite the vast array of opinions surroundingthe work of Ernest Hemingway, his popularity and

influence are still felt 35 years after his death. Hisposition as one of the most distinctive and laudedwriters of this century is assured, a title supportedby a long list of devoted readers, the inclusion of hiswork in dozens of anthologies, and several of themost prestigious honors a writer can receive.

Criticism

Michael ZamZam has been an associate professor at Fordham

College and New York University, as well as awriter for the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review andDetails magazine. In the following essay, he exam-ines Hemingway's sparse writing style, and com-pares that style to the early motion-picture tech-nique of montage.

One of the most often-discussed aspects of ErnestHemingway's writing is his distinctive style. Whereasmany writers of his day were still heavily influencedby the verbose, extremely descriptive style of Eng-lish and American authors of the nineteenth centurysuch as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and HermanMelville, Hemingway was not. His literature is freeof the extensive use of adjectives common in the



WhatDo I Read

Next?The Nick Adams Stories (1969) is a collection ofall of Hemingway's stories, including "In An-other Country," featuring Nick Adams, some ofwhich had been previously published in othercollections. Eight stories had never been pub-lished, some of which are unfinished.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories(1927) is a collection of short stories by ErnestHemingway including "In Another Country."

Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story (1969), byCarlos Baker, is a well-known biography ofthe author.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria

Remarque is a classic anti-war novel chroniclingthe fates of several young German men whoeagerly enlist in World War I. Originally pub-lished in the United States in 1929.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love(1980) is one of several short story collections byRaymond Carver. His stories, written primarilyin the 1970s and 1980s, have often been com-pared stylistically to Hemingway's.

Exile's Return by Malcolm Cowley (1934) re-counts experiences of the expatriate writers, in-cluding Hemingway, in 1920s Europe by a writerwho knew them intimately.

work of many earlier writers, and of many of hisimmediate contemporaries. As a result, his work hasoften been described as sparse, objective, and jour-nalistic. It's also been called original, so much sothat even readers who would not consider them-selves scholars can immediately recognize a book, astory, or even a paragraph that he has writtenwithout knowing beforehand that he was its author.His style is so singular, in fact, that to this day thereis an international writing contest held every year inwhich writers are asked to submit a short story in hisstyle. Knowing full well that the results will mostlikely be second rate, the contest is called the ' 'BadHemingway Competition." The winner is awardeda free trip to Italy which includes a complimentarydinner at Harry's Bar in Venice, one of Hem-ingway's old hangouts.

The fact that Hemingway worked throughouthis life as a journalist clearly influenced his spareprose style. In fact, before he had published anyfiction, Hemingway, upon his graduation from highschool, took a job as a junior reporter at the KansasCity Star. Only eighteen years old, and still develop-ing his authorial voice, Hemingway was clearlyinspired by the Star's guidelines which demandedcompression, selectivity and precision for their news

stories. Though his background in news writing wasan undisputed influence on his writing style, there isanother strong influence that guided it as well: themovies. This is not too surprising; Hemingway wasborn just before the start of the twentieth century,the same time mass motion pictures were invented.

At the time that Hemingway began writingprose seriously, just at the end of World War I, in1919, and up until the time he was considered animportant writer some seven years later, movieswere the most popular form of entertainment through-out the western world. This was more than threedecades before television overtook motion picturesin popularity—in fact, television as a technology aswe now know it had not yet been invented. Manypeople commonly went to the cinema several nightsa week in the 1920s (even more so in the 1930s andearly 1940s). The movies these large audienceswere watching were, of course, silent movies.

Films with synchronized sound were not intro-duced to mainstream audiences until 1927, whenThe Jazz Singer, which included several musicalnumbers with synchronized sound, revolutionizedthe industry. That film's astronomical success ledmovie studios, within the year, to stop producingsilent films. Because the sound technology was so

V o l u m e 8 129


Many scholars and

feminists have commented that

Hemingway's work has embraced

the stoic, unfeeling

masculine stereotype."

new, these early "talkies" became more stage-bound, featuring longer scenes with actors clusteredaround flower vases and table lamps that hid strate-gically placed microphones. Movies had, for a time,lost their visual flair. The word overtook the imageas the prime focus of filmmakers. Silent film, start-ing in the late 'teens, and up to 1927 (the same yearsHemingway began seriously writing fiction), hadmatured; film language, dependent on the visualimage to tell its story (with the exception of a fewinter titles for important dialogue), had hit whatmany film scholars consider an artistic peak thatwas not found again for many decades to follow

One of the ways in which the best silent films ofthe time communicated their narratives and theemotions that they wanted their audiences to experi-ence while watching them was through a techniquecalled "montage." Montage is when several unre-lated images are edited together to create a desiredeffect. For instance, if one sees an image of a manturning his head suddenly, then to one of a gunbeing aimed in his direction, to a shot of a treefalling in a nearby forest, the audience instinctivelyknows that the man has been shot, even without thesound of the gunshot. If we see several shots of animpatient crowd, followed by an image of a raisedfist, we know that the fist represents the angryemotion of the mob without having to be told this.Hemingway makes subtle use this same montagetechnique in his writing.

An example of this can be seen clearly in thestory, "In Another Country," especially the firstparagraph.' 'In the fall the war was always there, butwe did not go to it anymore. It was cold in the fall inMilan and the dark came very early. Then theelectric lights came on, and it was pleasant along thestreets looking in the windows." This establishesthe setting and context of the story. Hemingwayfollows with a series of images which collectivelycreate a mood and develop the story's themes.

' "There was much game hanging outside the shops,and the snow powdered the fur of the foxes and thewind blew their tails. The deer hung stiff and heavyand empty, and small birds blew in the wind and thewind turned their feathers." We can feel the ap-proaching winter through these details, and maystart to subliminally sense that the details are alsoshowing us, as opposed to telling us, that death, too,is approaching. Winter is the time when the life thatbloomed in spring, thrived in summer, and weak-ened in fall, is taken away. We may also feel that alife-changing transition is also coming, and that,like the coldest of seasons, it will be a chillyreminder that the life we innocently enjoyed duringthe warmer months will be gone.

This montage technique is also prominentlyused in the story's important climactic sentenceswhen the Italian Major returns to the hospital afterhearing of his wife's sudden death from pneumonia.' 'Then he came at the usual hour, wearing a blackband on the sleeve of his uniform . .. there werelarge framed photographs around the wall, all sortsof wounds before and after they had been cured bythe machines. In front of the machine the major usedwere three photographs of hands like his that werecompletely restored." Hemingway then interjectshis own equivalent of a silent film's inter title,' T donot know where the doctor got them. I alwaysunderstood we were the first to use these ma-chines." But the major, he tells us in the lastsentences, is not moved by the photographs; in-stead, in the story's final, telling image we are toldthat the major "only looked out the window."Again, image builds upon image to create a finalimpression of existential despair, a message artfullyexpressed without being directly stated.

Is it any wonder, then, that Hemingway's workswere quickly scooped up by movie studios? Howev-er, this did not occur until talkies were already inplace and most of these adaptations, critics argue,lack much of the visual expressiveness present inHemingway's writing. In fact, the film version thatis considered most successful on an artistic level isthe first, A Farewell to Arms of 1932. Though it hasits share of characters sitting in rooms talking, likemost films of its period, even these scenes arepunctuated with what one critic called "a strange,brooding expressionist quality," which other adap-tations of his writing lack.

It's important to note that Hemingway wasclearly a filmgoer. According to his letters, pub-lished in a thick volume under the title, Ernest

130 Short Stories for Students

I n A n o t h e r C o u n t r y

Hemingway: Selected Letters: 1917-1961, the au-thor writes many times about film stars, some ofwhom he had met, as well as discussing in somedetail his involvement in casting choices and screen-play ideas he had contributed to several of the filmsmade from his work. Films clearly played a role inhis life and, to some extent, played a part in hiswork as well.

One of the things for which Hemingway hasbeen criticized, particularly in the decades follow-ing his death, is his portrayal of macho characters.Many scholars and feminists have commented thatHemingway's work has embraced the stoic, unfeel-ing masculine stereotype. However, though his he-roes are nearly always strong men who are notweepily sentimental, Hemingway has usually founda way to show the pain these men feel. In fact, partof his interest in writing about these characters is sohe can use them to comment on their macho postur-ing. Again, "In Another Country" can serve as anexample of this. Hemingway shows the story'snarrator spending time with a group of young Italianofficers who are proud of the masculine bravadothey have demonstrated in battle. He writes, howev-er, that they are emotionally "detached," unable toexpress their innermost feelings about the tragediesthey have witnessed and experienced. He contraststheir behavior with that of the Italian major, a manwho, in the end, is held up as a braver man for givingup his controlled facade, for coming to terms withthe deep loneliness and isolation of death and theloss that it entails. Even when the major cries, thatmost unmacho of acts, the author does not criticizehim; in fact, Hemingway seems to be rather approv-ing, as long as the tears do not relate to cowardice.

Source: Michael Zam, "Overview of 'In Another Coun-try,'" for Short Stories for Students, The Gale Group, 2000.

Forrest RobinsonForrest Robinson is affiliated with Western

Illinois University. In the following excerpt, heargues that the reader's revelation in Hemingway's' 'In Another Country'' ' 'can be seen only throughthe consciousness of the invisible first-person nar-rator who—in the creative act of giving a form anda focus to his own past experience—resolves aconflict implicitly disclosed in the process ofnarration.''

Hemingway's "In Another Country" offers unusu-al evidence of the essentially heuristic and therapeu-tic nature of his storytelling. His thematic con-cern—that a person ' 'find things he cannot lose''—

takes on considerable significance when the distinc-tion between the protagonist and the first-personnarrator is clarified. It is the protagonist who, alongwith the Italian major, faces the wall of despair anddeath after being wounded in Italy during WorldWar I. It is the narrator, however, who epitomizesHemingway's hero in this story. True heroism is notpassive. True heroism is the action of the creativeartist, the storyteller of "In Another Country" whodiscovers a "window" through which he can seebeyond the "wall" facing those who suffer per-manent wounds.

Confusion is understandable because Heming-way's narrator in this story is "invisible," that is,nameless, and he tells his own story. Moreover, henever calls attention to himself as narrator exceptindirectly in comments which establish a temporaldistance between his past experience and his narra-tion. Because of the narrator's "invisibility," read-ers can easily fail to see his formal function, there-fore focusing their attention exclusively upon thenarrator's younger self, the protagonist. Conse-quently, they see the young protagonist as one whois merely passive in his painful acceptance of hislack of bravery and is respectful in his observance ofthe major's resignation to despair. To overlook theformal function of Hemingway's invisible first-person narrator, however, represents a failure toapprehend the story as a total imaginative act. It isthe narrator who looks back upon himself in aconflict which he, as protagonist, could not under-stand. As protagonist, he acted blindly, victimizedas he was by his unrecognized responses to theworld around him. "In Another Country," there-fore, is not the protagonist's story, nor is it themajor's. It is the narrator's, and the way into thestory is through an effort to understand his concernin the conflict he recalls. The revelation of the story,then, can be seen only through the consciousness ofthe invisible first-person narrator who—in the crea-tive act of giving a form and a focus to his own pastexperience—resolves a conflict implicitly disclosedin the process of narration.

That the narrator is an older man looking backover the years can be established in two ways. First,and more obviously, the narrator employs the pasttense. Secondly, when he tells about the four sol-diers with whom he used to walk in the streets ofMilan, he offers an explicit statement about thetemporal distance between his narration and his pastexperience. One of the young soldiers wears a blacksilk handkerchief to cover his horribly mutilatedface. The narrator comments upon him in such a

V o l u m e 8 1 3 I


If we realize that the

narrator is 'meeting himself

in his remembered experience,

then we can grasp his concern

in his narrative. Incidents

recalled express his concern

in the present, and the end

of his narrative becomes more

significant if viewed from

this perspective."

way as to indicate a knowledge extending yearsbeyond the action of the story:

They rebuilt his face but he came from a very oldfamily and they could never get the nose exactly right.He went to South America and worked in a bank. Butthis was a long time ago, and then we did not any of usknow how it was going to be afterward.

The failure to consider the function of a narra-tor who is invisible is, I have said, understandable.All of his attention is focused upon himself as ayoung man in his encounters with therapeutic ma-chines, "hunting hawks," and a major. Nonethe-less, whatever the narrator's story discloses growsout of the way in which the machines, the huntinghawks (those men who were brave), and the majorparticipate in the resolution of a conflict within thenarrator's mind.

One way to focus the conflict is to examine thestructure of the story. What the narrator rememberscan be divided into five sections. With the possibleexception of the last paragraph of the story, which isexpository, sharp transitions help to set off eachsection. In the first two-paragraph section, the nar-rator begins to focus his attention in the process ofrecollection. Moving from his memory of specificsensations in the streets of Milan to the variousroutes he and his friends used to walk to the hospi-tal, the narrator allows us to enter his consciousness,thereby enabling us to experience his sense ofisolation as he walks to the new pavilions, whichwere beyond the old hospital and the courtyard

where the funerals begin, and to "the machines thatwere to make so much difference." The machineswhich were to heal their wounds have not, of course,made much difference at all. If we think of the firstsection figuratively, as a recalled movement towardhealing, we will have a way of conceptualizing eachsection of the story as a movement toward a healingwhich fails.

Before moving to the second section, let usreturn to the first sentence: "In the fall the war wasalways there but we did not go to it anymore." Thefall is the season of nature's dying, and it is also theseason for killing game, or hunting. Beyond thecluster of associations recalled by the narrator as heremembers his walks by the shops is the larger andseemingly interminable context of the war. That hesays "... we did not go to it anymore" reveals thefirst element of separation. In other words, thenarrator recollects that he and his four woundedfriends are soldiers who are no longer participatingin the action of the war. As we learn in section three,the protagonist is separated from more than the war;he is cut off from his "hunting hawk" friends whohad earned their medals for bravery. Their onlycommon ground lies in their having been woundedand in their efforts to recover from their wounds bygoing to the "healing machines."

The second section of the story, which beginswith the, doctor's asking the protagonist what sporthe played before being wounded, serves to empha-size a sense of the futility of the therapy. Both theprotagonist and the major he encounters are dam-aged, and they realize that they are permanentlydamaged. Juxtaposed with their awareness of futili-ty is the ineffectual but well-meaning effort of thedoctor to persuade them that the machines are goingto make them completely whole again. The lan-guage the doctor uses—"Did you practice a sport?"and "You will play football again like a champi-on"—implies a lack of knowledge about sports andcalls into question his judgment about the protago-nist's full recovery. When the doctor tells the pro-tagonist that he will play football better than ever,the narrator conveys the impossibility of such resto-ration by simply stating that his calf had beencompletely shot away. Also played down is theintense pain which he must have felt when themachine lurched, indicating that its force met theresistance of the knee that would not bend. Themajor, moreover, is not under any illusions abouthis hand, which is reduced to the size of a baby's.His fencing days are over, and not all of the photo-


IS


graphs in the world can convince him that he willrecover fully from his wound. If the first section isseen as a movement toward the ineffectual healingmachines, the second section can be seen as amovement away from false hope toward no hope.

By regarding the first two sections of the storyas movements of consciousness, the narrator's con-cern—what he is seeking—becomes clearer. Eachmovement of consciousness happens against thebackdrop of the "world" of the story—a world atwar, a world of destruction and death. The narra-tor's concern is how to participate in a world thatinflicts wounds from which there is no permanentrecovery. His football and soldiering are behindhim, and the first of three efforts to recover hasfailed. The healing machines cannot heal permanentwounds. And the narrator recalls that it is the majorwho faced head-on the fact of his condition.

Although the major is not mentioned in sectionthree, this scene immediately follows his flat asser-tion that he has no confidence in the healing ma-chines. The transition is so abrupt that we are likelyto overlook how the major's honesty influences thenarrator's recollection of relationships with the oth-er wounded boys. In fact, the progression of thenarrator's use of the first-person plural "we" to thesingular' T' in this section is framed by the major'sattitude toward the machines and his attitude towardbravery in the first sentence of section four.

In the first paragraph of section three, thenarrator tells us about the sense of camaraderiewhich he and the other three boys experienced asthey were ridiculed when they walked the streets ofMilan. The narrator proceeds in the next paragraphto tell us that they had all received medals except theboy who wore the black silk handkerchief over hisface. He had not been at the front long enough to getany medals. As the narrator focuses upon his rela-tionships with the other young soldiers who hadbeen wounded, he recalls his sense of alienation:"We were all a little detached, and there wasnothing that held us together except that we metevery afternoon at the hospital." The only bondsamong the men were created by the dislike anddiscourtesy of the people in the streets and theuniversally understandable appetites that could besatisfied at the Cova, where in war or peace the girlswere "patriotic." The narrator's comment that hebelieves the girls are still "patriotic" is a minorintrusion; however, it serves to establish further hisdistance in time from the past action.

The shift from "we" to "I" in the fourthparagraph of the third section reveals that the sec-ond method of participation within a context ofstruggle is unsatisfactory. Just as the therapy ma-chines cannot fully restore wholeness of body,neither can other people be encountered in anysatisfying relationship when the basis for humanencounter is an ideal one cannot live up to. Thenarrator recalls that his failure to earn medals forbravery under fire had separated him from thosewho had. He had become a friend against outsiders,but he knew that he was not really one of the"hunting hawks." After the cocktail hour he couldimagine he had been brave enough to earn citations;but in the cold air walking home he knew that hewould never have been brave and that he was afraidto die. In other words, under the warming effects ofalcohol he could, like the well-meaning doctor,avoid facing the fact of his estrangement. In the coldair of the street, however, he is like the major whocoldly faces the fact of his condition.

We can now see that the narrator is recallingtwo aspects of his former condition of estrangementand despair; furthermore, we can realize that he is"meeting himself—from the ground of a presentcrisis—in the events of his past. His process offocusing his consciousness upon these particularevents implicitly discloses his concern about apresent condition of estrangement and despair whichis epitomized in his memory of the healing ma-chines, the relationships with the other woundedsoldiers, and, particularly, the major. The narratorfirst recalls wounds which cannot be healed by theproducts of modern science, the therapy machines.He then recalls his sense of being cut off from thosemen who embodied for him an ideal of selfhoodwhich he felt—and continues to feel—incapable ofattaining. At this point in the story, however, theideal is not articulated. The narrator does this in thenext paragraph.

In the fifth paragraph of section three, theimage of the hunting hawk emerges in the con-sciousness of the narrator as a symbol for thatcapacity to function within a natural order charac-terized by struggle and death. The hunting hawk is abird of prey, capable of sweeping down for the kill,swiftly and instinctively. The narrator remembershow the hawk had become for him an ideal ofselfhood from which he had been hopelessly es-tranged. Significantly, his friend among the otherboys was the one who had been wounded before hewas tried under pressure.

V o l u m e 8 133


II

The context of the war is only one of twocontexts in the story. As we noted, the war serves asa metaphor for the natural order within which peo-ple struggle and die. The second context is thehospital, within which the issue at hand is thehealing of those persons who have been woundedwithin the war-context. By extending these meta-phors, we might suggest that the narrator's stake inhis narrative is the resolution of how to be healed orhow to be rejoined to a world characterized bydestruction and death. The healing machines couldnot make him physically whole again, and he recallsthat he could never be a hunting hawk; consequent-ly, two of the three modes of survival in a destruc-tive element failed to work.

Juxtaposed with the narrator's certainty that hewas not a hunting hawk is his first comment aboutthe major in section four: "The major, who hadbeen a great fencer, did not believe in bravery."Bravery, that quality possessed by the hunting hawks,is of no importance to this man. What is important tohim is what the narrator derives from him: precisionand discipline. These qualities can no longer beexercised in fencing, but they can be in communica-tion. In contrast with the doctor who uses falsephotographs to create the illusion of hope, the majorcalls things as he sees them and insists upon correctgrammar. We might observe, then, that at this pointin his narration the narrator remembers his initialregard for the major as a man of precision andauthority.

By keeping in the foreground our primary ef-fort to discover the narrator's stake in his re-enactedexperience, we can see that he is groping for morethan he has recalled thus far in his narrative. Themajor has given him a greater respect for precisionand discipline in communication, but he has givenhim much more than this. In looking back, thenarrator recalls that the major had also been en-gaged in finding a satisfactory mode of participatingin the destructive element of life. He had acquiredgreat competence as a fencer, and he had provedcompetent enough as a hunting hawk to become amajor. Both accomplishments represent only partialand temporary modes of participation. The majorhad been deprived of his fencing skill by a wound,and the wound had forced him beyond "hawkery,"as a mode of participation, to human love. Further-more, the major had so valued the possibility ofparticipation in life through human love that hewaited until he knew he was permanently out of thewar before he married.

Close to the end of the story the narrator recallsan incident which represents a turning point in hisrelationship with the major. Sensing that his youngwife is going to die, the major tells the protagonistthat he is a fool to hope to get married. Here again,the narrative perspective from which we are view-ing this situation enables us to see more than apassive young man being instructed by an olderman. We can now grasp what the major was tryingto tell him: that there is no single way, once one hasbeen wounded, to be rejoined in life—not by fenc-ing, nor by hawkery, nor even by human love. Thenarrator learns that there are no things he cannotlose. And he also learns (when he recalls that themajor had told him not to address him as "SignorMaggiore") that the possibility of death removesthe distinction of rank, and there is now a commoncondition.

Thus, we can say that the ground upon whichthe narrator stands is similar to the major's at theend of the remembered experienced. Wounded bylife, the storyteller recalls his earlier predicament asa young man physically wounded in the war. Strug-gling, also, for a way to heal his psychic wound—his sense of estrangement in the present—he recallsthe context of healing in the new pavilions at thehospitals in Milan. Just as his body could not berestored to wholeness by the machines, neithercould his estrangement as a young man be over-come by trying to be a hunting hawk. The death ofthe major's wife, therefore, is intensely relevant tothe narrator's present condition. At the conclusionof his recalled experience, the death of a youngwoman seemed to seal off all avenues of recoveryfrom the damage done to the major by life. Evenhuman love cannot be relied upon as a way of re-entering the world.

All that can be done is what the major has done;what the major has done can easily be overlooked,however, because Hemingway's narrator forces eachsentence in his story to carry heavy freight. Forexample, the major had earlier in the story sat at themachine and looked at the wall. At the end of thestory, though, he sat at the machine and looked outthe window. If we briefly retrace what the narratorrecalls, we can see that the major's progressiontoward his particular end is similar to the boy's; andwe can see that it is the narrator who welds bothtogether in a story. The major who looks at the wallhas gone through fencing and hawkery, and isfacing the death of his wife. The young boy has


III


gone through football, has failed at hawkery, anddoes not know where to go from here—except thathe considers the possibility of marriage when hereturns to the States. Although the narrator is dis-tinct from the protagonist, he sees his present crisisepitomized in his earlier experience. If we realizethat the narrator is "meeting himself" in his re-membered experience, then we can grasp his con-cern in his narrative. Incidents recalled express hisconcern in the present, and the end of his narrativebecomes more significant if viewed from thisperspective.

The death of the major's wife shatters themajor's rigid carriage and enables him to moveoutward toward the boy in a way that was notpossible before. This last wound, the death of hiswife, forces the major beyond the wall, that is, to theworld beyond the confines of his personal andineffectual therapy. All of these elements, of course,are remembered by the narrator. And not the least ofthese is what the major has gone through. Thenarrator's concern seems to be what can be donewhen nothing seems to assure complete recoveryfrom the condition of being wounded. Once wound-ed, he realizes, one can never be the same; butperhaps the major points the direction for what canbe done—in fact all that can be done. Instead offacing the wall, one would look out the window.The world lies out there to be seen, thought about,and then rendered into an art form—that activitywhich makes possible a maximum ordering of hislife, a maximum association with others, beyond hispersonal condition of estrangement. The paradoxi-cal truth, however, is that not until one is woundeddoes one see that world and become able to partici-pate in it.

The narrator participates in the world by tellinghis story. We do not see this, however, if we focusupon the major as a figure of despair and the youngboy as a passive witness. By focusing upon theinvisible first person narrator who has relived hispast, we can realize that he is no merely passivewitness, and that he is the focal point in the story.For the narrator has turned to the only method ofhealing available to him, a method of healing whichtranscends that of the major's—the creative act ofgiving a form and focus to his own condition ofestrangement, as honestly and precisely as possible.The narrator, at the end, is like the major in afigurative sense. He is no longer walled in by theimpossible ideal of hunting hawkery, which ex-cludes and therefore cuts off association and partici-pation in the human community at a human level.

Like the major, at the end of the story, the narrator isnot concerned with efforts, no matter how well-meaning, to create the illusion of hope for fullrecovery. Nor does human love, even, serve as alasting mode of participation: love can be killed byany turn of the natural order.

The last word of this story is, significantly,"window." And that window looking out upon theworld offers the only release from the damage doneby a permanent wound and the realization that therecan never be a complete recovery. The world be-yond the major's window is the common groundbetween the major and the boy, and it is the commonground between the narrator and the reader.

Source: Forrest Robinson, "Hemingway's Invisible Hero of'In Another Country,"' in Essays in Literature, Vol. XV, No.2, Fall, 1988, pp. 237^44.

Colin S. CassCass earned his doctorate in American litera-

ture at Ohio State University and has publishedcritical articles on Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Lon-don, and James Gould Cozzens, as well as check-lists for First Printings of American Authors. In thefollowing excerpt, he examines several aspects of' 'In Another Country,'' including Hemingway'swriting style, his allusion to Marlowe's The Jew ofMalta, and his use of "window" and "looking"imagery.

Ernest Hemingway's short story, "In Another Coun-try," is illuminated by three related observations:that the author shifts his attention from the Ameri-can soldier to the Italian major midway through thestory, that he exercises strict control over his titleallusion to The Jew of Malta, and that he cultivates avery elaborate motif of images concerned withlooking and windows.

The first two-thirds of the work is focused onthe nameless [Although nothing in the publishedversion warrants the assumption that the narrator isNick Adams, many critics have suspected that heis.] young narrator convalescing in Milan. At theclimax, however, when the major learns that hiswife has died, the American becomes only an ob-server, and thereafter the major dominates. But thescheme is not as inept as it sounds. For the narrator,several ways of being in another country—for in-stance, as an American in Italy, a newcomer to thelanguage, an officer among hostile civilians behindthe lines, a patient with a serious handicap, and afrightened soldier among genuine war heroes—

V o l u m e 8 135

In Another Country

the windows. The second and

third window images confirm

the spatial equivalents

implied by the first, but from

the opposite point of view."

have already been explored. Hemingway is espe-cially interested in kinds of experience that theAmerican either lacks or underestimates. When themajor emerges as the central character, it is becausethe story moves on to subjects beyond the Ameri-can's experience, namely, love, despair, and death.

The opportunity for the American to witnessthe major's grief is so fundamental that Hemingwayat the climax takes a big risk to secure it. Strictlyspeaking, the major's presence at physical therapythe day his wife dies is implausible. Hemingwaytries to disarm this objection by saying, ' 'She hadbeen sick only a few days. No one expected her todie." But the major knows before the telephone callthat she is either dead or dying, as his extremeagitation makes clear. He not only loves his wife; hehas no confidence in the treatments. So in life hewould have no reason to be present. Yet Heming-way must deliver the bereaved husband to thenarrator. For the American to perceive the depths oflove and despair, he must witness the effects of thewife's death. And there would be no justifica-tion whatever for the American's presence at thewife's bedside. In short, even at the expense of animplausibility, Hemingway is determined to makehis point: the major, having experienced love andthe loss of it, is in another country from the American.

Hemingway's title allusion to Christopher Mar-lowe's The Jew of Malta is well known. But becauseT. S. Eliot draws on the same passage for theepigraph to "Portrait of a Lady," and becauseHemingway reuses the material himself in The SunAlso Rises and Across the River and Into the Trees,criticism has repeatedly been distracted from inter-preting the lines in relation to the present story. AsPhilip Young says [in Ernest Hemingway: A Recon-sideration, 1966], "Unless one knows the origin ofthis title its point is lost." Yet when he then explains

it as "a brutal allusion to the major's bereave-ment," he appears to have lost half the point him-self. In Marlowe ["The Rich Jew of Malta"] theintention of the lines seems clear. Barabas, theMachiavellian Jew, having poisoned his own daugh-ter along with a convent full of nuns, is trying toforestall the charge of murder by interrupting hisaccusers and confessing lesser sins:

2. Fryar. Thou hast committed—Barabas. Fornica-tion? but that was in another Country: And besides,the Wench is dead.

Correspondences between story and play seemobvious. The major's dead wife resembles the Jew'sdead wench, and by extension, the major is counter-part to the Jew. The relationship is, however, patent-ly ironic, not brutal. Hemingway alludes to thecynical, loveless Jew, who fornicated with somewench he cared nothing about, so that we willrecognize by contrast the genuine article—love asthe major knows it. The major's experience withlove places him in another country from both theloveless Jew of Malta and the inexperienced Ameri-can. One cannot shrug off such love as Barabasshrugs off the wench. Such a loss is desolating. Themajor cannot resign himself.

Having lost everything of consequence in hislife, the major becomes an important exemplar ofHemingway's code of conduct. When, three dayslater, he returns ' 'at the usual hour, wearing a blackband," he has stoically resigned himself to thedoubly hopeless situation and recovered his tempo-rarily shattered decorum. But his new experiencewith loss leaves him utterly detached: "The photo-graphs did not make much difference to the majorbecause he only looked out of the window".

This reference to looking out the window isactually the last image in an intricate motif. Besidesmentioning windows three times, Hemingway uses"to look" nine times. This, of course, is a commonverb, yet nine occurrences in 2100 words seemsunusual, a conclusion borne out by comparison with"A Way You'll Never Be" which, chosen at ran-dom, uses the verb eleven times in about 5000words. The percentage for "In Another Country"(0.43%) is twice that for the control (0.22%). Moreo-ver, after the first reference all the looking is doneby the major:

(1) it was pleasant along the streets looking in thewindows. (2) The major held the photograph with hisgood hand and looked at it very carefully. (3) he satstraight up in his chair with his right hand thrust intothe machine and looked straight ahead at the wallwhile the straps thumped. (4) He spoke very angrily


This brings us back to


and bitterly, and looked straight ahead while he talked.(5) "He'll lose it," the major said. He was looking atthe wall. (6) Then he looked down at the machine andjerked his little hand out from between the straps, (7)He looked straight past me and out through thewindow. (8) And then crying, his head up looking atnothing, carrying himself straight and soldierly, withtears on both his cheeks and biting his lips, he walkedpast the machines and out the door. (9) The photo-graphs did not make much difference to the majorbecause he only looked out of the window.

The looking must not be separated from thethree references to windows. They occur preciselyat the beginning, the climax, and the end of thestory, and their main function is to emphasize thedifference between the American's point of viewand the major's. In the widely admired openingparagraph, ' 'It was cold in the fall in Milan and thedark came very early. Then the electric lights cameon, and it was pleasant along the streets looking inthe windows." This looking in from the cold is anepitome of the lonely exclusion that the Americansuffers as an outsider. But it is also more. All themany images of death in the opening paragraph areoutside—the fall, the cold, the darkness, the gamehanging outside the shops, the snow, the wind, thecarcasses "stiff and heavy and empty." The firstwindow image creates spatial equivalents for thecontrast between death outside and bright warm lifewithin. From the narrator's inexperienced point ofview, which dominates the beginning of the story,life seems the way the first paragraph depicts it: heis surrounded by frightening reminders of death andalienation, yet when he looks in the windows, life onthe inside seems bright, warm, attractive.

The major, however, whose view prevails inthe latter half, sees things differently. Several pas-sages suggest that the unflinching manner of hislooking is important. Twice he looks "straightahead," once "straight past," once he looks "car-rying himself straight and soldierly." But what helooks at is surely more informative. When he exam-ines the photograph carefully, the first time he looksat anything, we see both what he would like tobelieve and what he is too realistic to accept. All theother looking occurs on or after the day his wifedies. Then he looks down on the machine anddoesn't even bother to look at the faked photo-graphs. But more eloquently, while his head is fullof his wife's death, he is twice looking "at thewall" and once "looking at nothing." This last, inview of Hemingway's insistence on nada in "AClean, Well-Lighted Place," probably means morethan that the major is not looking at anything. He islooking at death, the blank wall, the nothing.

This brings us back to the windows. The secondand third window images confirm the spatial equiva-lents implied by the first, but from the oppositepoint of view. The major—in every respect thus faran initiated character, an insider—sees through thewindows from the inside out. The second occur-rence falls precisely at the climax, and we know thathis mind is full of death:

"I cannot resign myself."

He looked straight past me and out through the window.

The third occurs in the last line, neatly tying thebeginning and climax to the end. The major by nowhas resigned himself, but the photographs that of-fered no hope the first time he looked still offernone,' 'because he only looked out of the window.''

It is a deft move indeed, for this line, drawingtogether the imagery of looking and windows, alsoturns the structural peculiarity of a split perspectiveinto an asset. Better yet, it discloses what is surelyHemingway's last and best reason for the Marloweallusion. To the major, the fully experienced insid-er, life does not contain the brightness and warmth itseems to the American to have in the first para-graph. In gazing out the window, the major lookstoward death, perhaps even with a lover's longinganalogous to the American's feeling as he looked in.For, of course, the major is still thinking of his wifewho, like Marlowe's wench, is in another country inthe most final sense. Being in death, she occupiesthe one realm of experience from which the majorhimself has been excluded.

Source: Colin S. Cass, "The Look of Hemingway's 'InAnother Country,'" in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 18, No.3, Summer, 1981, pp. 309-13.

Sources

Baker, Carlos, ed. Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters,1917-1961, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981,948 p.

Irwin, Richard. '"Of War Wounds, and Silly Machines': AnExamination of Hemingway's 'In Another Country,'" in TheSerif, Vol. V, No. 2, June, 1968, pp. 21-29.

Mast, Gerald. A Short History of the Movies, 2nd ed.,Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing,1978, 575p.

Robinson, Forrest. "Hemingway's Invisible Hero in 'InAnother Country,'" in Essay in Literature, Vol. XV, No. 2,Fall, 1988, pp. 237-44.

V o l u m e 8 1 3 7


Rovit, Earl. "Of Human Dignity: 'In Another Country,'" inThe Short Stones of Ernest Hemingway: Critical Essays,edited by Jackson J. Benson, Durham, North Carolina: DukeUniversity Press, 1975, pp. 58-68.

Steinke, James. "Hemingway's 'In Another Country' and'Now I Lay Me,'" in The Hemingway Review, Vol. V, No. 1,Fall, 1985.

Further Reading

Baker, Carlos, ed. Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters,1917-1961, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981,948 p.

Collection of letters written by Hemingway to familymembers, friends, and colleagues including promi-nent literary figures as F. Scott Fitzgerald, ArchibaldMacLeish, and John Dos Passos, as well as his editor,Maxwell Perkins.

Rovit, Earl. "Of Human Dignity: 'In Another Country,'" inThe Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: Critical Essays,edited by Jackson J. Benson, Durham, North Carolina: DukeUniversity Press, 1975, pp. 58-68.

Rovit argues that the Major in ' 'In Another Country''represents "Hemingway's attempt to retain the idealof dignity without falsifying the ignobility of themodern human condition.'

Steinke, James. "Hemingway's 'In Another Country' and'Now I Lay Me,"' in The Hemingway Review, Vol. V, No. 1,Fall, 1985.

Steinke compares the two short stories in the title ofhis article, arguing that, despite external similarities,they are actually very different.

Waldhorn, Arthur. A Reader's Guide to Ernest Hemingway,New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1972, 284 p.

A collection of essays discussing Hemingway's ma-jor works.


The Legend of Sleepy HollowThe great American short story "The Legend ofSleepy Hollow" was written while WashingtonIrving was living in England, and it was publishedin England in a volume called The Sketch Book ofGeoffrey Crayon, Gent. The Sketch Book was pub-lished in installments in the United States beginningin 1819, but the section that included this story wasnot issued until 1820. Readers on both sides of theAtlantic Ocean thus encountered the story at ap-proximately the same time.

' 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'' takes place inSleepy Hollow, New York, a snug rural valley nearTarrytown in the Catskill Mountains. Constructedfrom German tales but set in America, it is a classictale of the conflict between city and country, andbetween brains and brawn. Ichabod Crane courtsKatrina Van Tassel, but is frightened away by hisrival, Brom Bones, masquerading as the headlesshorseman. The story demonstrates the two qualitiesfor which Irving is best known: his humor, and hisability to create vivid descriptive imagery.

Readers immediately took to "The Legend ofSleepy Hollow" and another tale from the SketchBook, "Rip Van Winkle." Although little formalcriticism greeted the arrival of the story specifically,the Sketch Book became wildly popular and widelyreviewed both in the United States and in England.It was the first book by an American writer tobecome popular outside the United States, andhelped establish American writing as a serious and

Washington Irving

1820

I 3 9

The Legend of S l e e p y Hollow

respectable literature. In 1864, "The Legend ofSleepy Hollow" was published as a separate illus-trated volume for the first time, and there have beendozens of editions since. Today, most of Irving'swork has been largely forgotten, but the charactersof Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman havelived on as part of American folklore.

Author Biography

Considering that Irving's best-known fiction takesplace in the countryside of rural upstate New York,it is perhaps surprising that he spent most of the firstthirty-two years of his life in New York City, wherehe was born on April 3, 1783. He was the eleventhchild of immigrant parents, and remained close tohis family all his life. Irving's family had moneyand some influence in New York, and he received asolid education and then studied the law. He wasonly a mediocre student, and would probably nothave made a good lawyer. Instead, he turned to asomewhat leisurely life as a man of letters, attend-ing parties and the theatre, traveling around thestate, and writing humorous newspaper pieces un-der a false name, Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent.

In 1807, Irving was part of a group that collabo-rated on a humorous periodical called Salmagundi,poking fun at the manners and customs of the day,describing the fashions, theatre and arts in wickeddetail. The style of the pieces echoed essays writtenby the English writer Joseph Addison, but withdeterminedly American subjects. There were noimportant American literary influences for Irving tofollow; the United States was still young enoughthat its artists had to look to Europe for their models.His first book was A History of New York from theBeginning of the World to the End of the DutchDynasty (1809), satirizing Dutch customs and man-ners, and also the pretentious writing style ofhistorians.

He sailed to Europe in 1815, and lived there forthe next seventeen years, finding acclaim as a writerand as a diplomat. His most enduring book, TheSketch Book, from which ' 'The Legend of SleepyHollow" and "Rip Van Winkle" are taken, waspublished in America beginning in 1819, and inEngland in 1820. It was the first book by an Ameri-can writer to reach a wide international audience,and proved to the world that America had subjectsand themes that were of interest to Europeans.

Irving wrote many more books, but never wrote aswell again as he had in the Sketch Book.

Back in his homeland, he traveled across theplains of the western frontier, and finally bought alarge rural property in Sleepy Hollow, a valley nearTarrytown, New York, where he entertained themany people who wanted to meet the famous writer.He died on November 28, 1859, at the age of 76—along life for the nineteenth century. He is buried inthe Sleepy Hollow cemetery. Although in his ownlifetime Irving was considered the most importantwriter America had ever produced, almost none ofhis books are read today. Only a few of his shortstories live on, still loved for their vivid descriptionsand humor.

Plot Summary

The story opens with a long descriptive passageoffered in the first person by the narrator, who isrevealed at the end of the story to be a man in atavern who told the story to "D. K." Irving'scontemporaries, and readers of the entire SketchBook, know that "D. K." is Diedrich Knickerbock-er, the fictional author of an earlier book of Irving's.The narrator describes the story's setting, creatingimages of a quaint, cozy Dutch village, "one of thequietest places in the whole world," in a "remoteperiod of American history" that seemed long-agoeven to Irving's original readers. The village is notjust far away and long ago; it is a magical place,"under the sway of some witching power, thatholds a spell over the minds of the good people,causing them to walk in a continual reverie."

In this land lives Ichabod Crane, a schoolteach-er and singing instructor who comes from Connecti-cut. His last name suits him. He is tall, lanky andsharp-featured, with clothes too small and ears toobig. Crane is a serious and strict teacher, but likedwell enough by his students and their families. Hehas apparently no real friends in the community, butis welcome as he passes from house to house eatingwhatever he can help himself to in exchange fordoing light chores and entertaining the housewiveswith his stories and gossip. He is much admired forhis intelligence, for, unlike the rest of the village, hehas "read several books quite through," and he isespecially interested in tales of witchcraft and mag-ic. Several local tales feature the ghost of a Hessiantrooper, who was killed by a cannonball and who


The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

rides through the countryside each night looking forhis missing head.

One of Crane's singing students, Katrina VanTassel, has caught his eye, and he dreams of marry-ing her. Katrina is eighteen years old, plump andripe, and ' 'a little of a coquette." Crane desires hernot because of her beauty or her personality, butbecause her father is wealthy and there is alwayswonderful food at the Van Tassel home. He fills histhoughts with images of roast pigs and pies andsausages, and imagines selling off the Van Tasselland to buy a homestead in the wilderness where heand Katrina "with a whole family of children"could go in a covered wagon. So Crane begins tocourt Katrina.

Because she is beautiful and wealthy, Katrinahas other suitors. Chief among them is Brom Bones,a man who is everything Ichabod Crane is not:strong, rugged, handsome, humorous and clever.Katrina seems content to be courted by two men,and does not discourage either man's attentions.Brom's natural instinct is to fight with Crane, butsince Crane will not fight Brom resorts to playing aseries of practical jokes on Crane instead.

One evening, Mr. Van Tassel hosts a big partyfor everyone in the village. Crane dresses up in hisfinest and makes himself look as handsome as hecan. He is so awestruck by the tremendous food-laden tables at the party that he decides to askKatrina for her hand. After an evening of swappingghost stories with his neighbors, he approaches hisintended bride. Although the discussion is not rec-orded, a few minutes later he leaves the house ' 'withan air quite desolate and chop-fallen." Feelingdismal, he begins the long ride home alone. Re-membering all the ghost stories he has heard andtold that evening, he gets more and more nervous.

Suddenly, he sees a large shadowy figure on theroad ahead. It appears to be a headless man riding ahorse, and Crane can just make out the shape of ahead resting on the pommel of the saddle. Terrified,he races away, chased by the headless horseman. Heis unable to escape. The last thing he remembers isthe sight of the rider about to throw the head at him;struck by the flying object, he is knocked uncon-scious to the ground.

The next morning Crane does not come toschool, and he is never seen in the village again. Asearch party finds his hat and a bundle of hispossessions, and nearby on the ground a smashedpumpkin. Brom Bones marries Katrina, and for the

Washington Irving

rest of his life gives a knowing look and a laughwhen the mysterious disappearance of his rival ismentioned. Though some in the village may suspectthat Brom was responsible for Crane's disappear-ance, most of the women maintain that Crane wascarried away by the headless horseman. Crane him-self has become the subject of the kind of ghoststory he so loved to tell.

Characters

Brom BonesSee Abraham Van Brunt

Ichabod CraneIchabod Crane, the protagonist, is a stern school-

teacher and singing instructor who has come toSleepy Hollow, New York, from Connecticut. He islanky and sharp-featured, awkward and somewhatclumsy, but more educated and sophisticated thanthe native villagers. He is quite fond of food, and iswell fed by the neighboring housewives, who sharehis delight in telling and re-telling ghost stories.When he sets his sights on marrying Katrina VanTassel, it is not because of any feeling he has for her,but because her father is wealthy and Crane admires

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MediaAdaptations

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" has been rec-orded by Donada Peters as part of a five-hour setof audiotapes titled Rip Van Winkle and OtherStories. The set is distributed by Books on Tape,Inc. The story is also available on audiocassetteas a musical dramatization that has receivedexcellent reviews. Produced by Reed PublishingUSA in 1993, it is part of the Carousel Classicscollection.

The story is also available on videocassette.Tales of Washington Irving (1987) is a videocas-sette release of animated films made in 1970.Distributed by MGM/UA Home Video, the 48-minute tape contains "The Legend of SleepyHollow" and "Rip Van Winkle", and features

the voice talents of Mel Blanc and other familiarstars. Another videotape, The Legend of SleepyHollow by Washington Irving, uses human ac-tors and sets the story in a recreated early Ameri-can-Dutch settlement. Published by GuidanceAssociates, it is designed to motivate students toread the story.

Among the many film versions, two deservespecial note. Shelley Duvall's Tall Tales andLegends: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a 52-minute film starring Ed Begley, Jr., and is dis-tributed by Trimark. Scheduled for a November1999 cinema release is a major motion picture,Sleepy Hollow, directed by Tim Burton andstarring Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane.

the food that is always displayed in the Van Tasselhome. Katrina refuses him, however, preferring themanly and strong Brom Bones. In his disappoint-ment Crane allows his imagination to run away withhim. He is tricked by Brom into believing that he isbeing chased through the night by a headless horse-man. In the morning he is gone, having left townwithout saying good-bye.

Abraham Van BruntBrom Bones is Crane's chief rival for Katrina's

affections, and is in every way Crane's opposite. Heis large, strong, rough, humorous, and good-na-tured, as well-known for his skill as a horseman asCrane is for his education. When he sees that Craneis paying attention to Katrina, Brom begins a se-ries of practical jokes to humiliate him. Final-ly, he disguises himself as the headless horsemanand chases the impressionable Crane through thedarkness. When Crane leaves town, Bones mar-ries Katrina.

Baltus Van TasselOld Baltus Van Tassel is a veteran of the

American Revolution, and the patriarch of a wealthy

Dutch farming family. He owns a large, well-kepthome and barn, with livestock and fertile fields. VanTassel is a warm and generous neighbor and anindulgent father. He does not interfere in his daugh-ter's dalliances with the local young men.

Katrina Van TasselKatrina is the eighteen-year-old daughter of

Baltus Van Tassel and his wife. She is beautifullyplump and rosy-cheeked, and always dresses toenhance and emphasize her attractiveness. She isflattered by the attentions of the young men, anddoes nothing to encourage or discourage IchabodCrane and Brom Bones from flirting with her. Butwhen Crane presses for a commitment, she sendshim away, and soon after marries Brom.

Themes

City versus CountryOne of the great themes of American literature

and American folklore is the clash between the cityand the country, between civilization and the wil-



Topics forFurther

StudyFind a few of the many illustrated versions of' 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'' in the child-ren's section of the library, or some of thevideo or filmstrip versions. Compare the picturesof Ichabod Crane in these versions with Ir-ving's descriptions in the text. How preciselydoes Irving describe Crane? How closely do thepictures match your own vision of Crane'sappearance?

Find a copy of "The Castle of Indolence," apoem from 1748 written by the Scottish poetJames Thomson. Why might Irving attached fourlines of this poem to his own story? What do thetwo pieces have in common?

Research the status of African Americans inNew York during the end of the eighteenthcentury. Analyze Irving's casual disrespect forthe ' 'Negro'' characters in his story in terms ofhow his contemporary readers would have re-sponded to it, and in terms of how modernreaders might respond.

Closely examine the passages in which Irvingdescribes food in lingering detail. Based on themodern food pyramid, how healthy was the dietof wealthy Dutch farmers in the late 1800s?

derness. As the theme is played out in literaturearound the world, it carries one of two interpreta-tions: either the city is seen as beautiful, civilized,rich, clean and safe, and the country is ugly, dirtyand dangerous, or else the city is dirty and danger-ous, populated by swindlers who love nothing betterthan tricking the kind, gentle people from the beau-tiful country. American folklore from the nine-teenth century tends to favor the second view.Settlers were proud of their wilderness, and excitedby it, and their stories celebrated the skills andqualities one needed to survive on the frontier. Theheroes from this period—Daniel Boone, Mike Fink,Paul Bunyan, John Henry, the Swamp Angel—arerugged, strong and clever. When supposedly edu-cated city slickers venture into the countryside, theyare outsmarted by these heroes every time.

Ichabod Crane, a native of Connecticut, is atypical scholar who wishes he were an outdoorsman.Irving points out that there are two types of menwho come out of Connecticut, "pioneers for themind as well as for the forest,'' who become ' 'fron-tier woodmen and country schoolmasters." Craneis not completely out of place in the forest—he isable to help with the ' 'lighter labors'' on the farm—but thinks of himself and is considered by others "a

kind of idle gentleman-like personage, of vastlysuperior taste and accomplishments to the roughcountry swains." On Sunday afternoons, while hestrolls about with the young ladies of the village,"the more bashful country bumpkins h[a]ng sheep-ishly back, envying his superior elegance andaddress."

Brom Bones, Crane's most formidable com-petitor for the hand of Katrina, is as unlike Crane ashe could be, "burly, roaring, roistering." WhereCrane is ' 'esteemed by the women as a man of greaterudition,'' Brom is ' 'the hero of the country round,which rang with his feats of strength and hardi-hood." Crane is "tall, but exceedingly lank, withnarrow shoulders," while Brom is "broad-shoul-dered' ' and has a ' 'Herculean frame." Crane courtsKatrina "in a quiet and gently insinuating manner,''while Brom's "amorous toyings" are "somethinglike the gentle caresses and endearments of a bear.''

Irving sets up a confrontation between thesetwo opposites, and any reader of American folkloreknows how it will turn out. Crane's education is nomatch for Brom's native wit, his scrawny body andawkward riding are no match for Brom's strengthand skill, and the woman chooses the rough andstrong man over the refined and delicate one. Nei-

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ther man is particularly unlikable, but in America, ayoung country with frontier to be tamed, the valuesof the country win out over those of the city.

Creativity and Imagination"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is a story

about stories and story-tellers, and a lesson in keep-ing the line clear between fiction and reality. Thetitle is significant. Irving identifies this as a legend,a type of story that may be loosely based on truth butis clearly fiction, that may feature the supernatural,that is handed down by a people and that reflects thenational character of that people.

This quality is captured in "The Legend ofSleepy Hollow'' as the narrator reminds the readeragain and again of the special nature of the valleywhere the story takes place. The name of the valleyis no accident, for "a drowsy dreamy influenceseems to hang over the land, and to pervade the veryatmosphere." The place "holds a spell over theminds of the good people, causing them to walk ina continual reverie." Ichabod Crane is not im-mune to the influence, for even outsiders,' 'howeverwide awake they may have been before they en-tered that sleepy region," are sure to "inhale thewitching atmosphere of the air, and begin to growimaginative."

One function of imagination and story-telling isto bind a community together, as seen in the partyscene. Most of the stories told are unverifiable anduntrue: "Just sufficient time had elapsed to enableeach story-teller to dress up his tale with a littlebecoming fiction, and, in the indistinctness of hisrecollection, to make himself the hero of everyexploit." The exaggeration is just part of the fun,and so long as everyone understands this thereis no harm.

Crane, however, does not understand the limitsof imagination. His dreams are too grand; he tries tomake them reality but he can never live up to them.When he sees the bounty at the Van Tassel home, hedreams "in his devouring mind's eye" of "everyroasting-pig running about with a pudding in hisbelly" and every turkey and duck and pigeon be-coming a meal for him. When he looks over the VanTassel land, "his imagination expanded with theidea, how they might be readily turned into cash."And when he looks into the mirror as he prepares forthe party, he sees a cavalier, where the narrator seesonly a "grasshopper." No wonder Crane is bold

enough to ask for Katrina's hand, and no wonder heis surprised when she refuses him.

This lack of discernment is Crane's downfall.Because he imagines himself to be a ' 'knight-errantin quest of adventures," he humiliates himself infront of Katrina. Because he does not understandthat the story of the headless horseman is just astory, he is easy prey for Brom. If only he were aswise as the story-teller in Knickerbocker's post-script, who says of his own story, ' 'Faith sir ... Idon't believe one half of it myself.''

Style

Narration/Narrative/NarratorThere is an almost dizzying number of levels of

narration and narrators in ' 'The Legend of SleepyHollow'': a) Washington Irving is the author of TheSketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. ; b) GeoffreyCrayon is the fictional author of the volume, the oneresponsible for collection or creating the stories andsketches; c) Diedrich Knickerbocker is the charac-ter who supposedly wrote down "The Legend ofSleepy Hollow," and in whose hand the postscriptwas ' 'found,'' presumably by Crayon; d) the legendwas told to Knickerbocker by a ' 'pleasant, shabby,gentlemanly old fellow"; e) within the legend, thecharacters tell stories that they have heard or read,many of them concerning "a figure on horsebackwithout a head.'' Ichabod Crane, then, is a man whois frightened by a story within a story within a storywithin a story.

The narrators are not only numerous, but alsounreliable. Knickerbocker claims that he has repeat-ed the legend ' 'almost in the precise words in whichI heard it related"—a ridiculous claim consideringthe length of the story, the amount of description,and the fact that he heard it only once. The "gentle-manly old fellow" makes a great pretense in thebeginning of his narration of telling the truth, point-ing out that he has heard an explanation for the name' Tarry Town," but he will not' 'vouch for the fact,but merely advert to it, for the sake of being preciseand accurate." By the end, however, he admits thatthe legend might be a bit extravagant, and says, "Idon't believe one half of it myself.''

The inhabitants of Sleepy Hollow are subject tofits of imagination, "they are given to all kinds of



marvelous beliefs," and they enjoy gatherings atwhich each story-teller is encouraged ' 'to dress uphis tale with a little becoming fiction, and, in theindistinction of his recollection, to make himself thehero of every exploit." When the men are nottelling stories of how they won the war single-handedly, they are telling "tales of ghosts andapparitions," and finding the stories delightfullyfrightening. As narrators, they are as unreliable asKnickerbocker and his acquaintance.

The effect of all these unreliable narrators is todistance the reader from the action and from thecharacters. If nothing can be believed, empathycannot develop, and the reader forms no strongfeelings about Crane, either positive or negative. Asa psychological study, "The Legend of SleepyHollow" falls short, because the reader never getsclose enough to the characters to look inside theirminds. Cardboard characters move through a hu-morous situation, and although there is some trick-ery afoot, no one really gets hurt. This emotionaldistance, created by the multiple levels of narration,focuses readers' attention on the humor, and it is thehumor that has made ' The Legend of Sleepy Hol-low" an American favorite for almost two hun-dred years.

ImageryOne of the most striking features of the story is

the long passages of rich descriptive detail. Thenarrator opens with a long reverie on the dreaminessof the landscape, but when the story shifts its focusto Crane and his thoughts, the description becomesmore vivid. When Crane walks home in the eve-ning, for example, the narrator lists every creaturethat frightens him: the whip-poor-will, the tree-toad, the screech-owl, the fire-flies, the beetle.When he looks over the Van Tassel barn,' 'burstingforth with the treasures of the farm," Crane's gaze—and the reader's— lingers over every swallow,martin, pigeon, pig, goose, duck, turkey, guinea-fowl and rooster.

When he sees a farm animal, Crane imagines itas food, and the list of farm creatures is followedimmediately by a longer list of the dishes they mightyield. "In his devouring mind's eye" Crane seesthe pigs roasted, the pigeons ' 'snugly put to bed in acomfortable pie," the ducks "pairing cozily indishes, like snug married couples, with a decentcompetency of onion sauce." Inside the Van Tasselhome, Crane cannot keep his eyes still as he admires

the tools, the furniture, and most importantly thefruits of the earth: ' 'In one corner stood a huge bagof wool ready to be spun; in another, a quantity oflinsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indiancorn, and strings of dried apples and peaches, hungin gay festoons along the wall, mingled with thegaud of red peppers." Where other men are attract-ed to Katrina because of her beauty, Crane sees heronly as a stepping stone to ' 'the treasures of jollyautumn."

William Hedges observes that "the methodof this story is to heap up images of abundanceand contrast Sleepy Hollow's amplitude with themeagreness of Ichabod Crane's body and spirit."Mary Weatherspoon Bowden refers to the sameimages of "glorious autumn days and autumn har-vests, to food, food, and more food, to buxom lassesand merriment and pranks" when she concludesthat the legend is "a celebration of the bounty of theUnited States."

For Americans at the beginning of the nine-teenth century, the United States was still the land ofplenty, a country of endless resources. This was asource of pride for Irving and his American readers,and a subject of fascination and wonder for hisBritish readers, whose national wilderness had beentamed centuries before. Irving uses lush imageryprecisely for its lushness, to demonstrate and cele-brate the endless resources of a new, unproven nation.

Historical Context

The Dutch in New YorkIn its earliest days as an outpost for Europeans,

New York was settled by the Dutch, or people fromthe Kingdom of the Netherlands. Henry Hudson,referred to in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" as"Master Hendrick Hudson," sailed in 1609 frompresent-day New York City to Albany up what theDutch called the Tappan Zee, and what is nowcalled the Hudson River; the Tappan Zee Bridge inNew York City commemorates this today. Hudsonwas British by birth, but was working for the DutchEast India Company, and after his explorations theNetherlands claimed what is now New York as its

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Compare&

Contrast1810: living's home town, New York City, is amajor metropolitan center with a population of80,000. The population of the United States is7,239,881.

1990: The population of New York City is7,322,564.

1810s: Women's bodies are thought to be attrac-tive if they are, like, Katrina Van Tassel's,' 'plumpas a partridge.'' Many women think it is vulgar tobe thin enough that the shape of their bones isrevealed.

1990s: Women are expected to be thin. Definedcheekbones are a mark of beauty.

1810s: Few people in a rural village are educatedenough to teach school. Most people are not ableto read and write. Therefore, teachers come fromoutside, often from the cities.

1990s: Adults who cannot read or write havegreat difficulties managing daily life.

1810s: Veterans of the American Revolution arestill alive, and enjoy telling true and exaggeratedwar stories at social occasions.

1990s: Veterans of the Korean and Vietnamconflicts tend to keep quiet about their experiences.

own territory. The first Dutch settlers arrived atpresent-day New York City in 1624. Although theterritory eventually came under British and thenAmerican control, the Dutch people were still nu-merous and influential throughout New York inIrving's day.

As with any ethnic group, stereotypes of theDutch were abundant. They were said to be jolly,prosperous, well-fed, and foolish. Irving had pokedfun at Dutchmen in A History of New York from theBeginning of the World to the End of the DutchDynasty, whose fictional author was Diedrich Knick-erbocker. Knickerbocker is supposedly the sourceof this story as well, and the stereotypes are used tocomic effect in the characters of Baltus Van Tassel,his daughter Katrina, and their superstitious andsomewhat pompous neighbors. It should be saidthat there were also widespread stereotypical no-tions about Yankees, or people of Anglo-Saxondescent, who were considered—like Ichabod Crane—to be vain, overeducated, sophisticated and lackingin common sense.

Irving made use of the folklore about Dutchpeople, and in a minor way contributed to it. Whenhe created the character of Diedrich Knickerbocker,

he made up the name "Knickerbocker" to soundfunny and at the same time come close enough to agenuine Dutch name to be believable. With Irving'sgrowing popularity, people began to associate thelast name with the people. Dutch people werereferred to as "knickerbockers," and later the bag-gy pants gathered below the knee that the men worecame to be known as "knickerbockers" and then"knickers." Knickers fell out of fashion after the1930s, but the name is still used by the professionalbasketball team the Knickerbockers, or the NewYork Knicks.

The New American FictionIrving was alive and writing at the moment in

American literary history when a true national lit-erature was being called for and created. Previously,the writing coming out of the colonies and then outof the new nation was primarily religious or histori-cal, and was scarcely different from the same kindsof writing coming out of Europe. Ichabod Crane'sown favorite writer, Cotton Mather (1663-1728),was a preacher and a political writer of rational,stern treatises on subjects of the day. His booksabout witchcraft grew out of the Salem witchcraft



trials, and they were neither imaginative, nor in-tended to entertain or to express the writer's experi-ences or emotions. Instead, in The History of NewEngland Witchcraft, which Daniel Hoffman hasidentified as Magnolia Christi Americana (1702),Mather presented case histories of what he believedto be actual and Satanic events, for the purpose ofinforming his readers and arguing against thewitch trials.

By the end of the eighteenth century, there wasa demand for American characters and Americanthemes, and plays filling this need had alreadybegun to appear. The popularity of novels importedfrom England led to the beginnings of the Americannovel, and to serious discussions about what kindsof literature would best reflect the values of ademocratic society. Irving was among the firstAmerican writers who had both the talent and thewill to write American fiction, but he had no Ameri-can models.

The Sketch Book, written in England, containsmore than thirty sketches or stories, and nearly all ofthem have to do with English life and Englishcharacters. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" wasunusual, though not unique, in being set in theUnited States. To create the story, Irving borrowedheavily from the German legends of Ruebezahlfrom the Volksmaerchen der Deutschen, transport-ing the basic action and characters to Upstate NewYork. It was a beginning. The Sketch Book becamethe first book by an American to sell well in Eng-land, proving that it could be done.

Historians and critics have debated for over acentury whether Irving invented the short storywhen he wrote "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"and "Rip Van Winkle." Some have argued that thetwo are not actually stories at all, but merely tales.Whether he was a creator or an adapter, a writer ofstories or of tales, Irving expanded the possibilitiesof American writing, and helped make possible theexplosion of new forms and idioms that would comealong at the middle of the nineteenth century.

Critical Overview

Most early readers of The Sketch Book praised thevolume for its humor and its graceful descriptive

writing, but did not single out "The Legend ofSleepy Hollow" for special attention. Francis Jeffrey,in an 1820 review in Edinburgh Review, did notethat the legend, along with "Rip Van Winkle," wasamong only five or six pieces in the collection ofthirty-five that relates "to subjects at all connectedwith America.... The rest relate entirely to Eng-land." But other than pointing out its existence, hehad nothing to say about the story. Jeffrey wasclearly delighted with the collection, and astonishedthat Irving was able to produce it: ' 'It is the work ofan American, entirely bred and trained in that coun-try. . . . Now, the most remarkable thing in a workso circumstanced certainly is, that it should bewritten throughout with the greatest care and accu-racy, and worked up to great purity and beauty ofdiction."

More recently, critics have attempted to deline-ate just what is American about Irving's fiction.Terence Martin, writing for American Literature in1959, focuses his attention on the newness of theUnited States as a nation during Irving's career, andthe American tendency at the time to equate "theimaginative and the childish." Irving's strugglingto control his appetite and to use imagination prop-erly can be seen as mirroring the struggles of thenew society to behave maturely. He concludes,' 'forIrving there is no place, or a very limited place, forthe hero of the imagination in the culture of earlyAmerica." In The Comic Imagination in AmericanLiterature (1973), Lewis Leary traces the influenceIrving's work had on American humor, and claimsthat in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and otherearly tales, Irving ' 'opened doors which gave accessto native varieties of the comic spirit."

Around the middle of the twentieth century,attention was turned toward finding the sourcesIrving used in crafting his tales. The most importantwork was done by Henry A. Pochmann in 1930. Inarticles in Studies in Philology and PMLA [Publi-cations of the Modern Language Association],Pochmann demonstrated that Irving had translatedand adapted German stories to create "The Legendof Sleepy Hollow" and other tales. In a 1953 articlein PMLA, Daniel G. Hoffman explored Irving's useof American folkloric sources, finding that Irvingused great "originality in interpreting Americanthemes," and he developed his ideas further in his1961 book, Form and Fable in American Fiction.

In the last quarter century, some critics haveexamined the story from a feminist perspective, to

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Ichabod Crane, fleeing on a horse from a ghost holding a head over its shoulders.

examine what the story reveals about Irving's ideasabout the role of women. In her 1975 book The Layof the Land, Annette Kolodny describes SleepyHollow as a feminine pastoral setting. She seesIchabod Crane as a male aggressor who threatensthis community and therefore must be driven away.In 1993, Laura Plummer and Michael Nelson againfind that Crane is "an intrusive male who threatensthe stability of a decidedly feminine place,'' as theyexplain in an article in Studies in Short Fiction.They describe the story as a conflict between maleand female forms of storytelling, and point out its"misogynistic bent."

Other critics have seen Crane as threatening,but in different ways. Writing for American Imagoin 1981, Edward F. Pajak explains how the legend isa variation of the myth of Narcissus, and describesCrane's "poorly integrated identity." Crane's at-traction to Katrina and her father masks his uncon-scious attraction to Brom Bones, and he can findresolution only by "a rejection of the world." ForAlbert J. von Frank, Crane is more than paranoidand regressed. He finds in a 1987 article in Studiesin American Fiction that' 'Irving' s genial reputationlargely obscures the evil that Ichabod represents."Crane's envy, avarice, sloth and gluttony, among



other sins, threaten the community with "moraltaint and eventual destruction," making it neces-sary to drive him from the village.

Criticism

Cynthia BilyBily teaches English at Adrian College in Adri-

an, Michigan. In this essay she discusses Irving'sconception of Sleepy Hollow as an earthly paradise.

Irving's narrator opens "The Legend of SleepyHollow" with a brief description of Sleepy Hollowitself, "one of the quietest places in the wholeworld," a place of "uniform tranquillity." Beforemoving on to introduce his characters he concludes,' 'If ever I should wish for a retreat, whither I mightsteal from the world and its distractions, and dreamquietly away the remnant of a troubled life, I knowof none more promising than this little valley." Inthis opening, Irving establishes Sleepy Hollow asboth of-this-world and not-of-this-world, an "en-chanted region" of unparalleled beauty and fertili-ty. Tapping a literary tradition that stretches backliterally thousands of years, he sets his story in acomic American version of what is often called anEarthly Paradise.

A. Bartlett Giamatti explains in his book TheEarthly Paradise and the Renaissance Epic that"the desire for a state of perfect repose and lifeeternal has always haunted mankind, and poets haveforever been the spokesmen for the dream." Po-ets—and, more recently, prose writers—have creat-ed "idylls, eclogues, odes, epithalamia, epics, sat-ires, romances, and occasional verses all [abounding]with descriptions of such an ideal life in an ideallandscape." These works of literature have tendedto depict their landscapes using a traditional set ofimages and ideas, and Irving uses and adapts manyof them in creating his own "enchanted region."

Stories set in an earthly paradise often takeplace in a Golden Age, a distant time and way ofexistence without strife and care. In the eighthcentury BC the Greek poet Hesiod outlined the fiveages of man in his Works and Days; the five werethe golden age, the silver age, the bronze age, theage of heroes, and the iron age in which we livenow. The golden age was the first, the most simpleand noble, and the yearning to return to the goldenage has figured in ancient and more recent litera-ture. As Giamatti writes, the image' 'never failed, or

fails yet, to evoke that time when the world wasfresh with dew and man was happy." Even today,Americans look to the past (' 'those were the days")as a happier time, and tell themselves that ' 'thingswere simpler then." In creating his earthly paradise,Irving comically sets his story in a new nation'sversion of ancient history, "in a remote periodof American history, that is to say, some thirtyyears since."

The attractive thing about the golden age land-scape is that it does not change. The narrator pines,' 'Though many years have elapsed since I trod thedrowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet I questionwhether I should not find the same trees and thesame families vegetating in its sheltered bosom."Sleepy Hollow is the kind of place where "thepopulation, manners, and customs remain fixed;while the great torrent of migration and improve-ment, which is making such incessant changes inother parts of this restless country, sweeps by themunobserved."

But it is the landscape, not the society, thatmakes an earthly paradise. One of the most commonways of depicting paradise is as a garden, forexample, the Bible's Garden of Eden. Giamattifinds that "in a garden, meadow or field poets havealways felt Nature most nearly approximates theideals of harmony, beauty and peace which menconstantly seek in some form or other." Anothercommon depiction is the beautiful but somewhatwilder landscape used in pastoral poetry as a settingfor love to bloom. Albert J. von Frank sees elementsof both the garden and the pastoral in ' 'The Legendof Sleepy Hollow." In a 1987 article in Studies inAmerican Fiction, he writes, "Like other idealsettings, the larger Dutch community, Sleepy Hol-low, and the Van Tassel farm are enclosed gardens,here concentrically frames, inviting, seductive, andas dangerous to itinerants as the island of the Sirensor the land of the Lotos-Eaters. The societies shel-tered by these nested gardens are themselves closedand static . . . yet magically productive. Followingpastoral convention, Irving describes the land."

One example will demonstrate the images thatIrving is working with. Theocritus, the third centuryBC Greek poet who is credited with inventing thepastoral, wrote a series of "idylls," or brief poemsabout contentment in country life. In his seventhidyll is found this passage: Many an aspen, many anelm bowed and rustled overhead, and hard by, thehallowed water welled purling forth of a cave of theNymphs, while the brown cricket chirped busily

V o l u m e 8 149


WhatDo I Read

Next?"Rip Van Winkle" (1819) is the second of thetwo stories for which Irving is famous today. RipVan Winkle wanders off into the Catskill moun-tains to escape his wife's nagging, plays ninepinswith a group of dwarfs, and sleeps for twen-ty years.

"The Spectre Bridegroom, A Traveller's Tale"(1819) is another story from Irving's SketchBook. A young girl is loved by two men, onefrom her own rural area and one from a far-awaycity. Although it is set in Germany, this story ofcompetition, pranks and the supernatural is in-structively like and unlike ' "The Legend of SleepyHollow."

The Life of Washington Irving (1935) by StanleyT. Williams is a two-volume biography, notablefor its thoroughness and for the strong senseStanley creates of thoroughly disliking his subject.

Davy Crockett's Narrative of the Life of DavidCrockett (1834) is a collection of tall tales, manyof them about Crockett himself but also includ-ing stories of other rugged outdoorsmen out-smarting Eastern men from the cities.

"The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" (1900)is a humorous tale by Mark Twain. A strangeruncovers the secret corruption of small-townAmerica by promising unearned wealth to someof Hadleyburg's important citizens.

The Dark Way: Stories from the Spirit World(1990), edited by Virginia Hamilton, containstwenty-five stories from Italy, Kenya, Russia,the United States and other countries, featuringthe exploits of witches, devils, and tricksters.

amid the shady leafage, and the tree frog murmuredaloof in the dense thornbrake. Lark and goldfinchsang and turtle moaned, and about the spring thebees hummed and hovered to and fro. All naturesmelt of the opulent summertime, smelt of theseason of fruit. Pears lay at our feet, apples on eitherside, rolling abundantly. And the young brancheslay splayed upon the ground because of the weightof their damsons.

Although Irving's story takes place in the fer-tile harvest time of autumn instead of summer, hebuilds his descriptive passages out of nearly thesame images, adding a comic twist here and there.The approach to the Van Tassel farm resembles theopening lines of the Theocritus passage, if a barrelcan be asked to stand for the cave of the Nymphs:' 'A giant elm-tree spread its broad branches over it,at the foot of which bubbled up a spring of thesoftest and sweetest water, in a little well formed ofa barrel." Where the Greeks had lark and goldfinch,here in America Irving boasts of a long catalog ofbirds,' 'taking their farewell banquets. In the fulness

of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping and frolick-ing, from bush to bush and tree to tree, capriciousfrom the very profusion and variety around them."Even the tree-frog appears, not murmuring butgiving a "boding cry."

And the food! The fruits of the Americanparadise are so much more than pears and applesand damsons (plums). There are apples, of course.Ichabod beholds ' 'vast stores of apples; some hang-ing in oppressive opulence on the trees; some gath-ered into baskets and barrels for the market; othersheaped up in rich piles for the cider-press." Butthere are also ' 'great fields of Indian corn, with itsgolden ears peeping from their leafy coverts" and"yellow pumpkins lying beneath them, turning uptheir fair round bellies to the sun'' and the ' 'fragrantbuckwheat fields breathing the odor of the bee-hive." Nearly every feature of Theocritus's poem ispresent in Irving's description.

One detail that is missing is the cricket, butIrving handles that in another way. In one of the

I S O S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s


most vivid images in the story, he shows IchabodCrane riding off to meet his lady with "his kneesnearly up to the pommel of the saddle; his sharpelbows stuck out like grasshoppers." Theocritus'scricket is brown, but Crane wears "rusty black."

This is not to say that Irving had read Theocritus(though he may have), but rather that Irving andTheocritus had read the same things, and had drawnfrom the same well of images. The earthly paradiseoften has other features, some of which Irvingadopts or adapts: the landscape is situated on a highmountain (here it is ' 'a little valley, or rather lap ofland, among high hills"), there is a fountain (herethe brook which seems to flow past every buildingin the valley), the west wind blows. In poems of thefourteenth century and later, the earthly paradisemay be dangerous, the mountain may be in shadow,as Sleepy Hollow is. Giamatti describes a "beauti-ful-seeming earthly paradise where man's will issoftened, his moral fiber unraveled, and his soulensnared. It is the garden where insidious luxuryand sensuous love overcome duty and true devotion."

The danger appears in a familiar form. Giamattitraces the idea of the danger to the fourteenth-century Italian poet Petrarch, in whose Triondod'Amore ' 'a man is tempted to let down his guard, tosuccumb to the desire for security and female domi-nation which the garden promises. Man is weak-ened in such a place . . . in the arms of the womanwho animates the place." Ichabod lets down hisguard—loses his head—in the same way. The nar-rator claims that' 'he would have passed a pleasantlife of it, in despite of the devil and all his works, ifhis path had not been crossed by a being that causesmore perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins,and the whole race of witches put together, and thatwas—a woman."

Irving's use of classical images and themes wasnot an accident of native talent and inspiration. Hewas adequately literate in several languages, andhad read the important literature of Europe and theclassical world. He was well acquainted with SirWalter Scott, whose own novels and poems werebased on legends and myths. As Daniel Hoffmanargues in Fame and Fable in American Fiction(1973), Washington Irving was . . . something of anantiquary. His early Knickerbocker's History ofNew York reveals him to be enchanted with thevery past he satirized. . . . Wherever Irving went hecollected popular sayings and beliefs; he wasprepossessed by a sense of the past, and recognized

images and themes was not

an accident of native talent

and inspiration. He was

adequately literate in

several languages, and had

read the important literature

of Europe and the classical

world."

the power—and the usefulness to a creative artist—of popular antiquities."

Irving knew the value of calling up old images.By echoing the ancients he borrowed some of theirpower, and claimed for his story—even if in amocking way—a place among them. By adaptingEuropean imagery to use American details, he showedin a form of shorthand that America had as much tooffer as the Europeans, and more. In this, he was notalone. But he was one of the first, one of the reasonsGiamatti can state that "American literature isconstantly read as a record of the quest for happi-ness and innocence in the great unspoiled garden."

Source: Cynthia Bily, for Short Stories for Students, TheGale Group, 2000.

Laura Plummer and Michael NelsonIn the following essay, Plummer and Nelson

maintain that the women in Sleepy Hollow maintaintheir power through the tales that they tell. The talesof the women retain their strength as men measuretheir strength by defeating the evils in the women'stales and the women's tale of the Headless Horse-man is a means of removing the aggressive IchabodCrane from the maternally controlled Sleepy Hollow.

Discussions of Washington Irving often concerngender and the artistic imagination, but these topicsare usually mutually exclusive when associatedwith the two most enduring stories from the SketchBook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819-20): "RipVan Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hol-low." Many readings of the former focus on gender,

V o l u m e 8 1 5 1

Irving's use of classical


while discussions of the latter most often explore itsconception of the artist's role in American society."The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" does indeed ad-dress this second theme, but also complicates it bymaking art an issue of gender. Ichabod Crane is notonly a representative of bustling, practical NewEngland who threatens imaginatively fertile ruralAmerica with his prosaic acquisitiveness; he is alsoan intrusive male who threatens the stability of adecidedly female place. For Irving, the issue of art issexually charged; in Sleepy Hollow, this tensionfinally becomes a conflict between male and femalestorytelling. A close look at the stories that circulatethrough the Dutch community shows that Ichabod'sexpulsion follows directly from women's cultiva-tion of local folklore. Female-centered Sleepy Hol-low, by means of tales revolving around the emas-culated, headless "dominant spirit" of the region,figuratively neuters threatening masculine interlop-ers like Ichabod to ensure the continuance of the oldDutch domesticity, the Dutch wives' hearths, andtheir old wives' tales.

Although Irving often places the feminine in apejorative light—the "feminine" in Ichabod is hisunmanly, superstitious, trembling, and gullible side—he himself seems, in this tale, begrudgingly toacquiesce to the female sphere of Sleepy Hollow.And this sphere has none of the abrasiveness soblatant in ' 'Rip Van Winkle.'' We have no shrewishwife, whose death in a "fit of passion" allows forRip's carefree dotage upon his return to the village.Rather, we are left with a sense of relief at Ichabod'sremoval, at this snake's relegation to the mythologyof the Hollow. Thus the tale presents a stark contrastto ' 'Rip Van Winkle." In that story, women attemptand fail to confront men openly; in Sleepy Hollow,female behavior is much more subversive, andeffective.

In "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Irving'sconservatism subverts itself, since conservation ofthe existing power structure means the continuanceof a female (though certainly not feminist) hierar-chy. Irving's tale is one of preservation, then, ofmaintenance of the feminine, and the landscape isthe predominant female. Sleepy Hollow lies ' 'in thebosom'' of a cove lining the Hudson, the valley is"embosomed in the great state of New York," andthe vegetating families of Sleepy Hollow are rootedin its "sheltered bosom." Clearly the repose andsecurity of the place rest in the maternal land-scape—an assumption so pervasive that even ourmale narrator attests to it. For as he observes, in thistale of a Dutch Eden even the adamic act of naming

falls to women. "The good house-wives of theadjacent country, from the inveterate propensity oftheir husbands to linger about the village tavern onmarket days," have named the nearby "rural port""Tarry Town"; the name and the power of nam-ing thus operate as a gently sardonic means ofreproaching unruly husbands and of preservingfemale dominance over the valley.

The narrator is not simply an idle observer,however. He comes to the Hollow to hunt:

I recollect that when a stripling, my first exploit insquirrel shooting was in a grove of tall walnut treesthat shades one side of the valley. I had wandered intoit at noon time, when all nature is peculiarly quiet, andwas startled by the roar of my own gun, as it broke thesabbath stillness around, and was prolonged and re-verberated by the angry echoes. If ever I should wishfor a retreat, whither I might steal from the world andits distractions, and dream quietly away the remnantof a troubled life, I know none more promising thanthis little valley.

The tale thus begins with a paradigm of mascu-line experience in the maternal bosom of SleepyHollow: an acquisitive, intrusive male both perpetu-ates female influence over the region and alsoacquiesces to constraints on male behavior. As thenarrator remarks, the Hollow is his choice for "re-treat" and security. But although the return toSleepy Hollow is therefore a return to the womb,unfortunately, he is no longer welcome there.

For as he praises the soporific atmosphere ofthe Dutch valley, the narrator also admits it hasrepulsed him. It is clear that Mother Nature hereproduces a bower not to be disturbed by the mascu-line aggression of hunting, regardless of its lamenessin the case of this "stripling." Hunting is notpermitted, and trespassers will be startled into sub-mission. Our gun-toting narrator is surprised notonly by the roar of his own gun, his own masculineexplosion into the place, but also by the sense thathis behavior is inappropriate. This womb-like groveis for nurturing dream, not bloodsport; to be treatedwith respect due the sabbath, not rent asunder byblunderbuss ejaculations. Indeed, the "angry ech-oes' ' from the landscape suggest a rebellious reac-tion to such flagrant poaching. Indolent as theepigraph may make the place seem, Sleepy Hollowdoes not take kindly to intruders; hence the narratoris properly awed into acquiescence.

The youthful exploit of this opening scene isechoed by the actions of Ichabod and the HeadlessHorseman. For like the narrator, both Ichabod and"the dominant spirit" of Sleepy Hollow—"the


The Legend of S l e e p y H o l l o w

apparition of a figure on horseback without a head''—are masculine, mercenary interlopers in this femi-nine place. The bony schoolmaster's desire to liqui-date heiress Katrina Van Tassel's wealth, invest it' 'in immense tracts of wild land,'' and take Katrinafrom the Hollow mirrors both the narrator's child-hood intrusion and the former Hessian trooper'sattempt to win Sleepy Hollow for Royalist forces' 'in some nameless battle during the revolutionarywar.'' They embody the essence of masculine impe-rialism: war, fortune hunting, and even squirrelhunting are all expressions of the same will toconquer. Gun, Hessian sword, or birch in hand, thenarrator, the Horseman, and Ichabod all bear au-thority; and all three seek the spoils—political,material or sexual—of invading Sleepy Hollow.

Irving's bawdy imagery strongly suggests thatall male intrusions in this female place are ultimate-ly sexual. Ichabod, for example, is described ininsistently phallic terms:

He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability andperseverance in his nature; he was in form and spiritlike a supple jack—yielding, but tough; though hebent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneaththe slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away—jerk!—he was as erect, and carried his head ashigh as ever.

The pedagogue's "pliability and persever-ance"—Ichabod is elsewhere accredited with pos-sessing "the dilating powers of an Anaconda"—suggest that he will not be as easily scared or awedas the narrator. It will take more than just the roar ofhis gun to frighten this persistent "jack."

Storytelling is also a part of male imperialism.Of the numerous tales that circulate through SleepyHollow, those told by men concern their own fic-tionalized exploits. "The sager folks" at Van Tas-sel's farm sit "gossiping over former times, anddrawling out long stories about the war"; "justsufficient time had elapsed to enable each storytell-er to dress up his tale with a little becoming fiction,and in the indistinctness of his recollection, to makehimself the hero of every exploit." These stories aredesigned to increase the teller's status in the mindsof his listeners by linking him to the heroic, historic,and masculine past.

True to this male practice of self-aggrandizingstorytelling, Ichabod regales his female compan-ions with scientific "speculations upon comets andshooting stars, and with the alarming fact that theworld did absolutely turn round, and that they werehalf the time topsy-turvy!" Though fantastic in

iThe narrator's sardonic

comment that 'the old country

wives . . . are the best judges

of these matters' is clue

enough to a rather

disparaging attitude;

resenting the authority of

women is nothing new to

Irving's fiction."

themselves, these stories are to Ichabod the heightof learning and scholarly achievement. Even histales of the supernatural show him as "a perfectmaster of Cotton Mather's History of New EnglandWitchcraft." Ichabod's familiarity with the subjectattests to his book learning and his reliance on thegreat masters of American thought, not to his under-standing of folklore. Boastfully displaying his knowl-edge of worldly matters, this "travelling gazette"brings word of the ' 'restless country'' of ' 'incessantchange" outside Sleepy Hollow. Part of the pio-neer's repertoire, carried from town to town, hisstories are meant to recommend him to each newaudience by proving his erudition.

While male storytelling is a part of the will tocompete and conquer, storytelling for the women ofSleepy Hollow moves beyond self-image to counterthat male will. The "witching power" the narratorfails to define fully is a female influence that gentlymolds the inhabitants of Sleepy Hollow through thefolklore that emanates from that exclusively female,domestic province, the hearth:

Another of [Ichabod's] sources of fearful pleasurewas, to pass long winter evenings with the old Dutchwives, as they sat spinning by the fire, with a row ofapples roasting and sputtering along the hearth, andlisten to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins,and haunted fields and haunted brooks, and hauntedbridges and haunted houses, and particularly of theheadless horseman, or galloping Hessian of the Hol-low, as they sometimes called him.

Spinning, cooking, and spinning tales are si-multaneous acts; the convergence of folklore andthe domestic imbues everyday events with thesupernatural.

V o l u m e 8 153


The effectiveness of this domestication of thesupernatural is clear from the extent to which folk-lore affects local inhabitants' behavior. At the tale'sclose, the bridge where the Horseman confrontedIchabod is no longer used, the schoolhouse is aban-doned, and Ichabod's "magic books" have beenburned in Hans Van Ripper's censorial flames; thecommunity has accepted that the spirit world islarger than themselves, that despite their boasts andchallenges, the lore of the place is still supreme andaffects nearly every facet of their lives.

Perhaps the most convincing proof of thepervasiveness of female influence in Sleepy Hollowis that all the men have set themselves to challeng-ing it. Accordingly, the narrator not only concedesthe connection between women and spirits, but healso establishes women as the greatest source offear for men:

[Ichabod] would have passed a pleasant life of it, indespite of the Devil and all his works, if his path hadnot been crossed by a being that causes more perplexi-ty to mortal man, than ghosts, goblins, and the wholerace of witches put together, and that was—a woman.

Although this passage is supposed to be humor-ous, it nonetheless reveals Irving's characteristicmisogyny and the male fear of disempowermentplayed out again and again throughout the tale. Incontrast to Rip Van Winkle, however, the Hollowmen displace this fear from women to characters offolklore. It is a misunderstanding that, as in the caseof Ichabod, ensures men's continued thraldom.

Given the misogynistic bent of ' 'The Legend ofSleepy Hollow," it is not surprising that despite thetale's narrative complexity, Irving suppresses actu-al female speech; in fact, the only narratives directlyor indirectly related are spoken by men. This con-spicuous absence of female narration underscoresthe way in which males both fear and resist thefeminine. Thus, the narrator is at a loss to relatewhat Katrina says to Ichabod in their tete-a-teteafter the frolic:' 'What passed at this interview I willnot pretend to say, for in fact I do not know." Thewar stories told at the Van Tassel frolic, like thenarrative as a whole, are told by men. And it isSleepy Hollow men who tell ghost stories at thefrolic. Tales from the female sphere must be validat-ed by male retelling. That is, the story of theHeadless Horseman originates in a tradition kept bywomen; storytelling sessions with women makeIchabod susceptible to local superstition; but menfirst reinforce, and then—as we shall see in theconfrontation between Ichabod and Brom Bones—

capitalize on the fears and superstitions engenderedby women.

The ultimate irony concerning gender andstorytelling, then, is that the very female storiesmales debunk influence their lives, often throughtheir own telling of them. The men who continuallyjoust fictionally with the Headless Horseman notonly inflate their prowess, but also repeatedly con-front in narrative the threatening world formed,unbeknownst to them, by the alliance of female andspirit. Fighting mock battles in which they defeatwhat they mistakenly consider their greatest adver-sary, men actually strengthen the female hold on thecommunity by reinforcing and perpetuating thenarratives through which women maintain order.

Indeed, Brom Bones and Ichabod provide anexample of males literally enacting these stories. Inhis role as the Headless Horseman, by means ofwhich he intends to humiliate his rival, Brom unwit-tingly serves as the means to achieve the goal of thefemale community: the removal of Ichabod andhimself as threats to Sleepy Hollow's quietude.Posing as the Headless Horseman of legend, Bromplays upon Ichabod's superstition and credulity toeliminate his opponent. And it is Ichabod's associa-tion of legend and place, engendered in his mind bythe female-controlled mythology, that proves hisundoing. Riding home alone from the Van Tasselfarm at "the very witching time of night," "all thestories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in theafternoon, now came crowding upon his recollec-tion"; "he was, moreover, approaching the veryplace where many of the scenes of the ghost storieshad been laid." Thus Brom Bones has at his dispos-al a carefully scripted and blocked drama withwhich to exploit Ichabod's credulity and supersti-tious fear.

The phallic language of this passage reiteratesIchabod's sexual threat and clearly indicates that thegullible pedagogue is essentially neutralized orneutered by figurative castration. Bones, masquer-ading as the Headless Horseman, appears as "some-thing huge, misshapen, black and towering" "likesome gigantic monster," while Ichabod flees interror from the apparition "stretchfing] his longlank body away over his horse's head, in the eager-ness of his flight." Indeed, in this drama of compet-ing masculinity, Ichabod's fear is of dismember-ment. Ichabod, "unskilful rider that he was!" hastrouble staying on his mount, slipping and bouncingfrom one side to the other "with a violence that heverily feared would cleave him asunder." Ichabod's


The L e g e n d of S l e e p y H o l l o w

fear is nearly realized when Brom hurls his pump-kin/head at the schoolmaster, "tumbling him] head-long into the dust."

Brom Bones triumphs in this phallic contest ofhorsemanship and sexual potency—Ichabod is nev-er seen in Sleepy Hollow again—but ironically thisejaculatory coup de grace effects his own emascula-tion. His impersonation of the Horseman prefigureshis domestication: donning the garb of the dismem-bered spirit, and ultimately throwing away his head,Brom insures that his days as a ' 'roaring, roysteringblade" are numbered. The ultimate beneficiary ofBrom's midnight prank is the Dutch communityitself, the maintenance of whose dreamy repose anddomestic harmony is the province of women.

The altercation between Brom and Ichabod andits inevitable outcome meet with tacit approval fromthe female sphere. Brom Bones, the ' 'hero of thecountry round" with "more mischief than ill will inhis composition," appears not to share the school-master' s desire to take Katrina and her wealth out ofthe Dutch community. Since marriage is a mostsoporific state for the men of Sleepy Hollow, it ismore than likely that Brom, who "had for sometime singled out the blooming Katrina for the objectof his uncouth gallantries," will soon become ascontent and domesticated, and as plump and vegeta-ble-like, as Katrina's father. Accordingly, there areno "angry echoes" to greet Brom's adventures;indeed, "the old dames" of the country, contentwith merely remarking "aye, there goes BromBones and his gang," indulge him in his revels andpranks. For Brom Bones would be a threat to SleepyHollow only if Ichabod should succeed in his suit,thus extending Brom's bachelorhood indefinitely(and enabling Ichabod to make off with the VanTassel fortune).

Ichabod's expulsion from Sleepy Hollow, then,results from subtle manipulation of local folklore bywomen. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" thusprovides a foil to the open male-female confronta-tion of "Rip Van Winkle"; the story is a darker,more paranoid vision of female power. Indeed, thenarrative frame shows the lengths to which men goto find plausible alternatives to the female versionof Ichabod's disappearance, which relegates him tothe cosmos:

The old country wives, however, who are the bestjudges of these matters, maintain to this day, thatIchabod was spirited away by supernatural means;and it is a favourite story often told about the neigh-borhood round the evening fire.

The male account asserts that Ichabod

had changed his quarters to a distant part of thecountry; had kept school and studied law at the sametime; had been admitted to the bar, turned politician,electioneered, written for the newspapers, and finallyhad been made a Justice of the Ten Pound Court.

This version translates the jerky young maninto the self-reliant American jack-of-all-trades andself-made success. Yet this story is also an import; itarrives via ' 'an old farmer, who had been down toNew York on a visit several years after." Theending is brought into Sleepy Hollow from NewYork, and by a man; it dismisses the supernatu-ral perspective with a very plausible account ofIchabod's fear and mortification as impetus for hisspeedy removal, and places Ichabod in a respectedoccupation.

In similar fashion, Diedrich Knickerbocker at-tempts in the tale's postscript to lend credibility—afactual backbone—to his story, by placing it withina masculine sphere:

The preceding Tale is given, almost in the precisewords in which I heard it related at a corporationmeeting of the ancient city of Manhattoes, at whichwere present many of its sagest and most illustri-ous burghers.

These wise old men are intended to lend cre-dence and authority to a story that operates on aplane beyond that of burghers and business meet-ings. And, as Knickerbocker relies upon the authori-ty of "precise words," we are reminded of thenarrator's having told us early in the narrative thathis aim is to be ' 'precise and authentic.'' Somethingthere is in these male storytellers that doesn't lovea ghost.

The narrator's sardonic comment that "the oldcountry wives . . . are the best judges of thesematters" is clue enough to a rather disparagingattitude; resenting the authority of women is noth-ing new to Irving's fiction. Yet this remark does notalter the fact that the community listens to thewomen's stories. And this particular one is a favor-ite in Sleepy Hollow because it both warns andneutralizes threatening males. Ichabod becomes thecommunity's most recent lesson by example, theshivering victim of his own acquisitive fantasiesand proof positive of the truth of legend.

The postscript to the tale reiterates the genderconflict present in the story proper and the narrativeframe. Diedrich Knickerbocker focuses on the con-frontation between the narrator and a cynical listen-er that ends in the narrator's parodic syllogism andhis ambiguous admission concerning his story that' 'I don't believe one half of it myself." Their verbal

V o l u m e 8 1 5 5


jousting is reminiscent of Brom's and Ichabod'sown rivalry. And Diedrich Knickerbocker's de-scription of the narrator is most telling: he is "onewhom I strongly suspected of being poor, he madesuch efforts to be entertaining." This, too, allies thenarrator with Ichabod and the men of the Dutchcommunity; his performance stands as a final exam-ple of male self-aggrandizing storytelling. Indeed,the tale proper becomes the object of male desireand competition; it is the game our youthful narratorhas waited the length of a "troubled life" to carryoff. In turn, Diedrich Knickerbocker the antiquari-an, and Geoffrey Crayon the sketch writer, extendthis instance of storytelling as appropriation to fillthe entire frame of the tale: its inclusion in TheSketch Book. The presence of gender as a centralconflict is further buried under layers and layers ofmale acquisitiveness and competition.

But in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," sto-ries, like wealth and game, are not exportable. It isthe association of lore and place, of supernaturaland practical, that gives the legend of the HeadlessHorseman its power and efficacy in controllingmales within the Dutch community; the very title ofthe sketch reinforces the primacy of place instorytelling. Like the Horseman himself, the tale ispowerless outside a circumscribed area. The abilityto tell it in New York, where its supernatural ele-ments are so easily debunked, attests not to thepower of the male storyteller who does the debunk-ing—as the postscript would have us believe—butto the element of female storytelling in SleepyHollow that insures the success of the female order:its subtle, self-effacing nature. Diffused throughoutthe folklore and the practical, everyday world of aparticular place, the source of power in the Hol-low—women—is disguised, making belief in thesupernatural a matter of course, not compulsion.When the tale is told outside this female-controlledlandscape of the naturalized supernatural, the effec-tiveness of the story dissolves, leaving only a Hol-low husk.

Source: Laura Plummer and Michael Nelson, "'Girls cantake care of themselves': Gender and Storytelling in Wash-ington Irving's 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,"1 in Studiesin Short Fiction, Vol. 30, 1993, pp. 175-84.

Albert J. von FrankIn the following essay, von Frank explores the

various aspects of the evil in Ichabod Crane'spersonality and actions that necessitates Ichabod'seventual expulsion from the community.

Washington Irving's reputation as a genial writer—as, indeed, America's most genial writer—has beenfirmly established for a century and a half, despitegeneral agreement that his most enduring works aresatires. Knickerbocker's History maintains its goodhumor largely by making its narrator appear foolish,but it is harder to say what keeps ' 'The Legend ofSleepy Hollow" from seemingly overtly caustic,since in the portrait of Ichabod Crane Irving comesrather closer than in the History to adopting thecontrolling assumption of Augustan satire that theridiculous and the evil are one. If Irving's genialreputation largely obscures the evil that Ichabodrepresents, it must also obscure the mythical struc-ture of the story and, consequently, its formal rela-tionship to such later works as "Young GoodmanBrown," "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,"and a score of others. That Ichabod is evil needs allthe more to be said since several modern readings ofthe story have made impressive moral claims on hisbehalf, or, alternatively, have transformed him intoa pathetic hero, a figure more sinned against thansinning. One urges that he be taken "seriously as asymbol of man's higher aspirations," while anotherproclaims that "what he wants is simply a home,like anyone else." Even those who regard Ichabodas a threat to the Dutch community differ signifi-cantly in assessing the nature and seriousness of theproblem he presents.

As Donald Ringe pointed out in 1967, the storyis a work of regional satire, pitting Dutch New Yorkagainst the restless spirit of New England; it is astory that "pleads in effect for the values of thesettler and conserver over those of the speculatorand improver." Irving's satire, however, worksmost significantly not at the sociological or politicallevel, but—as all permanently valuable satire does—at the level of the underlying moral issues. Thesuccess of the satirical method in ' 'The Legend ofSleepy Hollow" lies in Irving's ability to see thefamiliar Yankee character as only superficially comicwhile at the same time discretely ventilating thedeeper moral disease of which that comedy is thenot quite independently conceived mask. The com-plexity of tone arising from such a polarized treat-ment may be traced more specifically to the twouses that Irving makes of the setting. The world ofthe New York Dutch is something more and otherthan an ethnic region realistically sketched; it is,indeed, a mythically conceived community, unfallenand changeless, a place of perfect ripeness. Irvingestablishes the setting in precisely this light andlocates Ichabod's mock-heroic chivalry in the most


The Legend of S l e e p y H o l l o w

incongruous of all possible contexts, while at thesame time raising that portentous central issue ofAmerican literature, the moral spoliation of theNew World garden. Inasmuch as both the seriousand the comic themes converge on the setting,Irving has made the recovery of its meaning aprecondition for any interpretation.

The setting is not a frontier. Although DanielHoffman has persuasively argued that the portrait ofBrom Bones owes a great deal to the type of the' 'ring-tailed roarer," it is not a point with which onecan do much more than Hoffman himself has done.Irving indicates that Sleepy Hollow is in most waysthe precise reverse of a frontier. Not only has it longbeen a settled region (a rural one, to be sure), but it isalso emphatically a European community with Eu-ropean values. Those forces which on the frontieroperate to break down imported cultures—like therest of the "incessant changes" that Irving ab-hors—are outside, beyond the "high hills," andsimply do not function in "such little retired Dutchvalleys, found here and there embosomed in thegreat state of New York," where "population,manners, and customs, remain fixed." The trueAmerican frontier figures but once in the story andthen only by way of the sharpest contrast with theHudson Valley setting: knowing no more than Mil-ton's Satan ' 'to value right / The good before him,''Ichabod proposes to exchange the "middle land-scape" of the Van Tassel patrimony for a tract ofwild land in "Kentucky, Tennessee, or the Lordknows where."

If the setting is not part of the frontier, it is aversion of the American pastoral as Leo Marx hasdefined it, though ironically the distinction of Ir-ving's version is that his innocent shepherds are allEuropeans. They figure in this magic landscape asthe stewards of their own abundant fruitfulness,which fertility takes on a sacramental character inthe description of Baltus Van Tassel's farm, wherearchitecture and institutions melt imperceptibly intothe activity of farming, and that into a humanizedversion of the natural order, all under the benedic-tion of an approving sun:

Hard by the farm house was a vast barn, that mighthave served for a church; every window and creviceof which seemed bursting forth with the treasures ofthe farm; the flail was busily resounding within itfrom morning to night; swallows and martins skimmedtwittering about the eaves, and rows of pigeons, somewith one eye turned up, as if watching the weather,some with their heads under their wings, or buried intheir bosoms, and others swelling, and cooing, and

Of the sorts of falls

that such an agent as he

might induce, consistent with

Irving's fondness for his

Dutch characters, there is the

sort of pillow-soft, post-

Miltonic fall of Brom, who,

encountering evil without

accepting it, passes from

innocence to a knowledge of

virtuous action and in the

process gains his manhood,"

bowing about their dames, were enjoying the sun-shine on the roof.

This sequestered community is more than hometo a company of Dutch farmers; in its shelteredresistance to change, its ungrudging fruitfulness, itsfeminine character, and, ultimately, its vulnerabili-ty, it is the fully elaborated symbol of home as aromantic moral concept.

Like other ideal settings, the larger Dutch com-munity, Sleepy Hollow, and the Van Tassel farm areenclosed gardens, here concentrically framed, invit-ing, seductive, and as dangerous to itinerants as theisland of the Sirens or the land of the Lotos-Eaters.The societies sheltered by these nested gardens arethemselves closed and static (again, unlike the fron-tier), yet magically productive. Following pastoralconvention, Irving describes the land in eminentlyhospitable feminine imagery, indicating in the firstsentence that "in the bosom of one of those spa-cious coves which indent the eastern shore of theHudson'' lies the community named Tarry Town bythe women of the region. Two miles away is thesmaller village of Sleepy Hollow, likened to a"mimic harbour, undisturbed by the passing cur-rent," where one might find even yet "the samefamilies vegetating in its sheltered bosom" In thedescription of the Van Tassel farm these gender-specific topological features recur: it "was situatedon the banks of the Hudson, in one of those green,sheltered, fertile nooks, in which the Dutch farmers

V o l u m e 8 1 5 7


are so fond of nestling." Each specific location is arepetition of the others; each involves the feminineprinciple, repose, and water, so the "small brook"that glides through Sleepy Hollow "with just mur-mur enough to lull one to repose'' is made to well upon Van Tassel's quiet Xanadu as "a spring of thesoftest water" that bubbled along "among aldersand dwarf willows."

Whatever significance may finally attach to thedandy-and-squatter form of Ichabod's conflict withBrom Bones, the moral satire surely depends onseeing Sleepy Hollow less as the frontier setting of amemorable joke than as Irving's romantic notion ofany man's true home. The tone of the story is at allpoints favorable to the settled and home-lovingDutch; it supports their sense of tradition, theirsecurity, their relation to the land, their repose andplenitude, and, most of all, their imagination, whilethe interloper, Ichabod, is point for point the de-structive antithesis of all these traits.

Since the issue of the imagination has appearedto some to support a sympathetic view of IchabodCrane, and since Irving himself indicates that SleepyHollow is an active abettor of the imagination, it isimportant to see how Irving discriminates betweenIchabod and the Dutch on this point. ' 'It is remark-able," writes Irving, "that the visionary propensityI have mentioned is not confined to the nativeinhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously im-bibed by every one who resides there for a time.However wide awake they may have been beforethey entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in alittle time, to inhale the witching influence of the air,and begin to grow imaginative—to dream dreams,and see apparition." As an Arcadian environment,Sleepy Hollow is necessarily a source of inspira-tion, and yet those who dream under its influence doso according to their personalities and capacities.The genuinely inspired acts of imagination all be-long to the Dutch: to Brom Bones most conspicu-ously, the Pan by whom Ichabod is panicked, and apoet not of words, certainly, but of virtuous action;to Yost Van Houten, the inspired architect of theschoolhouse locking system, modelled on ' 'the mys-tery of the eelpot," whereby, "though a thief mightget in with perfect ease, he would find some embar-rassment in getting out"; or to Baltus Van Tassel,who monitors Ichabod's quixotic courtship of hisdaughter by recognizing and observing its appropri-ate symbol, that is, by "watching the achievementsof a little wooden warrior, who, armed with a swordin each hand, was most valiantly fighting the windon the pinnacle of the barn." Ichabod's imagination

is a truly sorry thing in contrast, compounded, atworst, of Cotton Mather and simple credulity, andnever, at its best, escaping the small shrewdness ofhis New England heritage. In his vision of the VanTassel farm all its teeming life lies dead, served upas food for him alone, so that Irving's early descrip-tion of Ichabod as "the genius of famine" comesfinally to have a profounder point of reference thanhis gaunt and awkward appearance. He can easilyimagine sacrificing all life to his own; the businessof the story, however, is to force him to imagine hisown death and ultimately to make that imaginationfeed and sustain the life of the community.

Nowhere is the difference between the Dutchimagination and Ichabod's more evident than intheir respective superstitions. As the allusions toCotton Mather suggest, Ichabod's superstitious-ness is the vestige of a decadent Puritanism fromwhich God and glory have departed equally. Theschoolmaster is thus left with a system of infernalprovidences in which all of nature is supposed tohave the power—even the purpose—of doing harmto Ichabod Crane. Never wholly secure, he is espe-cially skittish after dark when "every sound ofnature . . . fluttered his excited imagination: themoan of the whip-poor-will from the hill side; theboding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm;. . . or the sudden rustling in the thicket, of birdsfrightened from their roost.'' Ichabod is so radicallydisjoined from his environment that he and thenatural world are fated enemies: nature frightenshim, but, by the same token, he can and doesfrighten it. Put another way, the presence of deaththat he senses in nature, nature senses in him.

This development of the protagonist's charac-ter reveals an important aspect of Irving's method,because the frightening of the birds recalls theintroduction of Ichabod as in appearance like a"scarecrow eloped from a cornfield" in a way thatdecisively alters its original comic application, justas the imagined devastation of the farm's teeminglife recalled and deepened the earlier reference toIchabod as the "genius of famine." The thematicaptness of Irving's humor becomes increasinglyapparent as this kind of transformation is severaltimes repeated: the comic details are simply funnywhen first seen undeveloped or apart from a largersocial or moral context (which is to say, fromIchabod's perspective); but when Irving then replantsthem in a more coherent universe (when he providesthem, in effect, some of the morally settled qualityof the Dutch perspective), the regional comedydarkens into moral satire.



It is, of course, the basic coherence of the Dutchimagination that prevents their very pronouncedsuperstitiousness from having anything monstrousabout it. They are on the best of terms with theirghosts, who are, like themselves and unlike Ichabod,intimately attached to life and the local scene. TheDutch women tell of ' 'haunted fields and hauntedbrooks, and haunted bridges and haunted houses";the men tell of "funeral trains, and mourning criesand wailings heard and seen about the great treewhere the unfortunate Major Andre was taken" or"of the woman in white, that haunted the dark glenat Raven Rock." These manifestations are, in theway of folk mythology, so localized, so much a partof familiar nature, that to apply the term "super-natural" to them seems almost inappropriate. Theytell of unexpected life in the landscape, not of deathor threats of death. The Dutch, moreover, tell thesetales artistically, neither as first-hand accounts noras "extracts" from books, as Ichabod does, but asstill living legends. The sole exception is BromBones' account of his match with the HeadlessHorseman, a tale combining a youthful irreverencefor the mythology of his elders with a point that noteven the supernatural is to be dreaded. Generically,the Dutch tales are poles apart from Ichabod'smonstrous and unfriendly indication to his femalehosts of the ' 'fact that the world did absolutely turnround, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy!"

These unsettled and unsettling traits in Ichabodare manifestly related to, and yet go deeper than, theNew England character that on one level is theobject of Irving's regional satire. Not content mere-ly to display and ridicule the social behavior of thetype, Irving probes the character of his Yankee togive the most basic kinds of moral explanations forthe comic inappropriateness of his outward actions.The nature of these explanations is determined bythe structure of the story, which involves the pene-tration of an outsider into the very heart of an earthlyparadise. Seen in this light, Ichabod's unsettlingtraits seem less significantly those of an awkwardlydisplaced regional character or even of a sinfulindividual than, at last, those of sin itself. Indeed,the characterizing details of the story seem clusteredaround the seven deadly sins, even though it is notcertain that Irving consciously meant it to appear so.

Ichabod's envy is indicated in one way by his"large green glassy eyes" which are mentionedfirst as a part of a ludicrous physical description andthen again with the moral implications more fully inevidence. His envy is indicated in another way, of

course, in his whole attitude toward the domain ofVan Tassel:

As the enraptured Ichabod . . . rolled his great greeneyes over the fat meadow lands, the rich fields ofwheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and theorchard burthened with ruddy fruit, which surroundedthe warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearnedafter the damsel who was to inherit these domains,and his imagination expanded with the idea, how theymight be readily turned into cash, and the moneyinvested in immense tracts of wild land, and shinglepalaces in the wilderness."

This is not envy in the simple sense of wantingto own what others own but accords rather with theclassic conception of the sin of envy in which,perversely, one seeks the annihilation of the object.The type of this sin is Satan's envy of the kingdomof God: he cannot hope to share in it, and socommits himself to its destruction. While it mightbe argued that merely selling the land would notdestroy it, surely the point about these Dutch farmsis that they never have been sold, never have had a' 'market value'' or been held by strangers, and thatwhat they represent would be forever lost if any ofthese conditions were to come to pass. Insidious asthis threat is, however, it does not involve a passionthat the Dutch, as the owners of the land, candirectly be tainted with. In this sense, it is rathermore disturbing that Ichabod has introduced envy inan altogether different way to people who seemnever to have felt it before. While the schoolmasterescorts the village damsels about the churchyard onSundays, ' 'the more bashful country bumpkins hungsheepishly back, envying his superior elegance andaddress."

Ichabod's avarice is the concomitant of hisenvy and has already been suggested in the way hisimagination is so casually dominated by the cashnexus. His plans for the Van Tassel-Crane estateshow that he is interested not in the good life but inthe immoderately wealthy life, which, for Ichabod,is the fiscal equivalent of never settling down. His' 'immense tracts'' of frontier are for speculation,not for living on or farming, and reflect a character-istic desire that his wealth should come without labor.

Sloth ought to be a sin difficult to attain in thisparadise, and yet Ichabod aspires even here. Asidefrom being a "flogger of urchins," he earns hisbread not so much by the sweat of his brow as byassisting the Dutch "occasionally in the lighterlabours of their farms." These labors comprise thesort of tasks then commonly assigned to women andchildren and include taking the horses to water and

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making hay. Even these he manages largely to avoidby becoming "wonderfully gentle and ingratiat-ing' ' with the women:' 'He found favour in the eyesof the mothers, by petting the children, particularlythe youngest, and like the lion bold, which whilomeso magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sitwith a child on one knee, and rock a cradle with hisfoot, for whole hours together." Ichabod's almostsystematic avoidance of productive labor is depict-ed mainly through his alliance with female societyand through his adoption of the least consequentialof the activities traditionally associated with wom-en. Thus, for example, he is a major source of gossipin the community and would also "pass long winterevenings with the old Dutch wives, as they satspinning by the fire,... and listen to their marvelloustales." However, his masculinity is most directlychallenged by his being a "man of letters" in acommunity of farmers, where to work is perforce tohave something to show for one's work. The wom-en can appreciate his erudition, "for he had readseveral books quite through," though he was"thought, by all who understood nothing of thelabour of headwork, to have a wonderfully easy lifeof it." It is a moral comment on Ichabod that avariety of his traits, including his problematic rela-tionship to the world of work, divides a fundamen-tally coherent Dutch community along gender lines.

The subject of sloth appears to have been acomplex and perhaps even a sensitive one for Ir-ving, who, in the persona of Geoffrey Crayon,maintained a vested interest in the innocence ofrepose. The epigraph from Thomson's Castle ofIndolence, a poem that successively celebrates thepleasures and indicts the decadence of indolence,contributes to the complexity of the issue by seem-ing to oblige the author to discriminate carefully inmoral terms between the sloth he is condemning andthe repose to which he is temperamentally andartistically committed. The distinction turns out,once again, to favor the Dutch, who never, through-out the course of the story, are shown at work. In theVan Tassel barn, ' 'the flail was busily resounding. . . from morning to night," but workers neitherwork nor appear. The repose of the Dutch is simplyprelapsarian, which means that they have, as theschoolteacher does not, something vital on whichthey can repose. Ichabod, who is shown working,who puts in his time at the schoolroom and performshis odd job, is nevertheless constantly preoccupiedwith schemes for rescinding the penalty of originalsin in his own personal case, which is a large part ofwhat Yankee ingenuity comes to in Irving's satire.

This fundamental difference parallels and at thesame time further explains the qualitative distinc-tion between the Dutch imagination and Ichabod's,the one effortless, natural, and supremely located,the other artificial, self-indulgent, and frenetic. Fromanother point of view, Irving clearly had profession-al reasons for raising this issue, for if he was lesspersonally concerned than Nathaniel Hawthornewith the public's perception of the value of thewriter's vocation, he nevertheless knew that litera-ture and scholarship in America were not alwaysheld in high esteem, that, indeed, they were oftenassociated with idleness and self-indulgence. Bycreating in Ichabod a slothful character at whomsuch charges might be levelled with perfect justice,he shows that they are most appropriately broughtagainst the poseur, the man of self-deluding preten-sions to literature, and not against the true writer (orartist) at all. And by creating in his Dutch charactersan imagination rooted in innocent, even blessedrepose, he affirms the value and explains the virtueof his own art.

If, in Eden, sloth is difficult, gluttony is simplyungrateful. It suggests a certain doubt as to theextent and continuance of divine providence, and,as Irving shows, leads to envy:

[Ichabod] was a kind and thankful creature, whoseheart dilated in proportion as his skin was filled withgood cheer, and whose spirits rose with eating, assome men's do with drink. He could not help, too,rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuck-ling with the possibility that he might one day be lordof all this scene of almost unimaginable splendour.

Despite the narrator's gentlemanly imputationof thankfulness, the apparent fact is that Ichabod,having found heaven, aspires to be, not thank, its' 'lord.'' The appetite that prompts him is the sinisterelaboration of the early, comic observation that "hewas a huge feeder . . . though lank," while thetransition from the physical fact to its spiritualimplication has been prepared by Irving's interme-diate use of the imagery of gluttony to describeIchabod's mental processes. He is an intellectualgourmand: "His appetite for the marvellous, andhis powers of digesting it, were equally extraordi-nary. . . . No tale was too gross or monstrous for hiscapacious swallow." After he is introduced toKatrina, it is, as the narrator says, "not to bewondered at, that so tempting a morsel soon foundfavour in his eyes," or that "his devouring mind'seye" could transform at a glance all the farm's lifeto food. If Ichabod's imagination is thwarted andtraversed by his sloth, it operates ineluctably inservice to his belly. Even as he goes for his last



interview with Katrina, he is "feeding his mindwith many sweet thoughts and sugared suppositions."

There are three moments in the story that shedlight on Ichabod's tendency to the sin of anger, andthey appear to form, as in the case of his gluttony, apattern of deepening seriousness. His willingness toflog his students, and particularly the stronger, morethreatening children, is consistent with his personalinsecurity and impatience with "inferiors." Be-neath the artfully dispassionate surface of his be-havior ("this he called 'doing his duty by theirparents,'" the anger is, though visible, well sub-merged and controlled, so much so that Irving iscontent merely to hint at it and at the same time towarn his readers against concluding too quickly thatIchabod is "one of those cruel potentates of theschool, who joy in the smart of their subjects." ThatIchabod takes no "joy" in it is sufficiently easy tobelieve. The second moment occurs at the VanTassel farm where Ichabod, flush with food, con-templates the possibility of being "lord of all thisscene." Here the surface parts to reveal how hecontends emotionally with the prospect of success:"Then, he thought, how soon he'd turn his backupon the old school house, snap his fingers in theface of Hans Van Ripper, and every other niggardlypatron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue out ofdoors that should dare to call him comrade!" Withperfect ironic aptness, his idea of success involvesbecoming the niggardly patron he despises, but themore important point is that his greatest wrath isreserved for his own alter ego. This mounting senseof anger when he ought to be most satisfied andplacid is concisely indicated in the succession ofverbs, which points ultimately to the self-hatred atthe heart of the sin of anger. In the third and finalmoment, Ichabod's social controls, along with hisgreat expectations, collapse at the end of the party inhis private interview with Katrina. Here the surfaceparts in a different way: "Without looking to theright or left to notice the scene of rural wealth, onwhich he had so often gloated, he went straight tothe stable, and with several hearty cuffs and kicks,roused his steed most uncourteously from the com-fortable quarters in which he was soundly sleeping,dreaming of mountains of corn and oats, and wholevalleys of timothy and clover." The horse, sharingIchabod's physical traits and innermost dreams, isanother alter ego, though now the kicking hasbecome actual.

In the sentence describing this outburst of pas-sion, much of the humor centers on the word"uncourteously," which signals the whole issue of

the ill-starred lover's chivalric self-image. The nar-rator's sarcastic allusion is to the ruins of what hadbeen, from the start, the preposterous vehicle ofIchabod's conscious pride: his assumption that hewas a bit too good for a community of bumpkins. Inpoint of pride, he is the opposite of Baltus VanTassel, who is "satisfied with his wealth, but notproud of it." Unlike the man he seeks to supplant,he is eager to misapply the social leverage of hisprospective good fortune by—class-consciously—kicking itinerant pedagogues out of doors. But inperhaps the most telling revelation of all, Ichabod'spride appears at odds not with individuals but withsacred and communal values:' 'It was a matter of nolittle vanity to him to take his station in front of thechurch gallery, with a band of chosen singers;where, in his own mind, he completely carried awaythe palm from the parson." Appropriately, theprofane Ichabod, the supercilious critic of the church-yard epitaphs, is avowedly the parson's self-anointedantagonist.

The treatment of lechery in "The Legend ofSleepy Hollow" is understandably circumspect,and yet it is very close to the effective center of thesatire. The fact that Ichabod is a portrait of perverseand misdirected sexuality is arguably the author'sfinal comment on his representative Yankee. HereIrving supplies two general contexts for Ichabod'sbehavior: one is the fertile feminine land that theschoolmaster threateningly lusts after, and the otheris the prevailing sexuality of the Dutch, which is, forthe most part, no sexuality at all. These are ' 'generalcontexts" mainly in the sense that while they arerather inertly present all the while, they take on aheightened significance in conjunction with moreparticular details. For example, the first of thesecontexts is quickened when, on several occasions,Irving intimates that nothing is easier for Ichabodthan to divert his sexual appetite into an appetite forfood. After school he would sometimes followstudents home "who happened to have pretty sis-ters, or good housewives for mothers, noted for thecomforts of the cupboard." The change in thedirection of this sentence, as the rest of the storygoes to show, suggests a transformation rather thana competition of motives. By constantly pairingwomen and food in this metonymic way as objectsof Ichabod's attention, Irving seems to imply thatthe gluttony is merely displaced lechery, and not,because food seems always to take precedence, thathe is without lust.

Irving's favorite phallic symbols—on which somuch of his early bawdy humor centers—are guns,

V o l u m e 8 161


swords, and noses. In ' 'Rip Van Winkle'' there isthe "clean well oiled fowling piece" that in twentyyears of disuse became rusty and dysfunctional;there is, too, among the men of Hendrick Hudson'screw playing at the masculine game of nine-pins,one whose face "seemed to consist entirely of nose,. . . surmounted by a white sugarloaf hat, set off witha little red cock's tail." This individual is singledout by the narrator from a group who carried ' 'longknives in their belts'' and of whom ' 'most . . . hadenormous breeches." The commander of this crewis further distinguished by having a ' 'broad belt andhanger." In "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" the"long snipe nose... that . . . looked like a weather-cock" belongs to Ichabod, and Irving is even pre-pared to suggest, more directly than he ordinarilydoes, that this nose is a kind of reproductive organ:' 'There are peculiar quavers still to be heard in thatchurch, and which may even be heard half a mileoff, quite to the opposite side of the mill pond, of astill Sunday morning, which are said to be legiti-mately descended from the nose of Ichabod Crane."The final image in the story —that of a loiteringploughboy hearing these notes ' 'among the tranquilsolitudes of Sleepy Hollow"—seems in turn toallude to one of the very first images, that of thenarrator breaking ' 'the sabbath stillness around'' bythe startling "roar of [his] own gun," so that thestory is framed by mutually defining instances ofintrusion in which the virgin stillness of this en-chanted feminine ground is symbolically violatedby a foreign sexuality.

Another set of three images seems to work inmuch the same way, though it sheds a rather differ-ent light on the theme of Ichabod's lubricity. Thetransformation of the schoolhouse by the Dutch intoan elaborate eelpot implicitly but quite directly castsIchabod in the role of the eel. As though to under-score this impression, Irving shortly thereafter as-serts, in one of the more surprising metaphors of thestory, that Ichabod ' 'had the dilating powers of anAnaconda." The effect of Irving's likening hisprotagonist to an eel becomes fully apparent onlylater, at the Van Tassels' harvest festival, where"the sons [appeared] in short square coats withrows of stupendous brass buttons, and their hairgenerally queued in the fashion of the times, espe-cially if they could procure an eel skin for thepurpose, it being esteemed throughout the countryas a potent nourisher and strengthener of the hair."The schoolhouse, then, is explicitly an eel-trapconstructed by a community that values eels as asource of male sexual potency. Apart from this

connection, it is difficult to see why either detailshould be in the story. Read, thus connected, in thegeneral context of the prevailing Dutch sexuality—that is, in the division of the Dutch characters intomenopausal and pre-pubescent groups—it becomesnecessary to look upon Ichabod as, in a manner ofspeaking, the serpentine source of sex in paradise oras the necessarily extrinsic agent, procured by YostVan Houten in the name of Dutch folk wisdom, tohelp Brom Bones over the portal of maturity. In thisevent, Katrina's coquettishness takes its place as asingle element in a much larger ritual, one thatmanages to include the whole community.

The husband-to-be is near to the point of escap-ing the socially useless boy-culture of "Brom Bonesand his gang," but so long as his "amorous toyings"continue to be "like the caresses and endearmentsof a bear'' he will clearly never pass muster with theblooming Katrina. His rite of passage, as it turnsout, involves more than the simple conquest of arival. It involves him in the first socially useful actof his life, his first act as a member of the wholecommunity. The expulsion of Ichabod simply is thedefense of that whole community from moral taintand eventual destruction, while, considered in rela-tion to the marriage that ensues—the marriage that,indeed, it makes possible—it is the rejection orexpulsion of "Yankee sexuality," of the perverseand aggressive lust of one who ' 'in form and spirit[was] like a supplejack—yielding, but tough: thoughhe bent, he never broke; and though he bowedbeneath the slightest pressure, yet, the moment itwas away—jerk! he was as erect, and carried hishead as high as ever." It is to break this, once andfor all, that the "Headless Hessian" at long lastcarries his head high, and, in the event, so frightensthe hard-riding Ichabod as nearly to bring off thelatter's castration "on the high ridge of his horse'sback bone." Irving, though, is mercifully contentwith the symbolic castration of a blow to the ' 'crani-um," which is, appropriately yet problematically,the real seat of Crane's lechery.

To read ' The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'' inthis way is to see its formal relation to an importantsub-genre of American fiction that Roy Male, indefining it, called ' 'the Mysterious Stranger story."This form is

an inside narrative with an enclosed structure; its plotand characterization consist of the effect of a semi-supernatural and usually ambiguous stranger upon acrowd, a family, or an individual; its theme tends tocenter around faith and the contagiousness of good, ordistrust and the contagiousness of evil and violence....



The trickster-god appears unexpectedly, usually indisguise, tests or transforms a mortal, and disappears.

In Irving's Mysterious Stranger story all theelements are present, and yet, perhaps because hewas more interested in the conflict than in itsresolution and sequel, perhaps because he lackedthe deeper ironic intelligence—certainly, in anyevent, because he made his devil too much thefool—Irving evades some central implications ofthe form, or, more particularly, has no use for theissue of "the contagiousness of evil and violence"that the structure of such a story raises. So far as thecommunity is concerned, Ichabod is simply ab-sorbed into the local mythology as the morallyneutralized spectre that haunts the decaying school-house. Death is absorbed into life. In a realm of suchenchantment, there is no clear sign that Ichabod willhave a lasting subversive effect on Sleepy Hollowor that anything serious will follow from the neces-sity that he himself created of expelling him bydevious and forceful means. And if in the end thereis no lurking worm of guilt, no paradise quite lost,yet it is to be remembered that Irving is attacking,not defending, the Puritan possibilities. Were he toinsist that the expulsion of Ichabod is reflexivelycorrupting, it would be tantamount to giving thedemonic mythology of New England precedenceover the benign mythology of the Dutch. By refus-ing to give the devil his due, Irving in effect choosesto stress the preserving innocence which the recol-lection of home, safe from betrayal or violation,inveterately has in the memory.

Still, fictional forms have a force and a meaningof their own, built up of the uses to which they havepreviously been put by other writers. For this reasonat least, Irving cannot quite escape the implicationthat Ichabod has forever changed Sleepy Hollow.Of the sorts of falls that such an agent as he mightinduce, consistent with Irving's fondness for hisDutch characters, there is the sort of pillow-soft,post-Miltonic fall of Brom, who, encountering evilwithout accepting it, passes from innocence to aknowledge of virtuous action and in the processgains his manhood. All that is shown of his life aftermarriage is that he would "look exceedingly know-ingly whenever the story of Ichabod was related,"and that some were led to "suspect that he knewmore about the matter than he chose to tell," a sortof deviousness which, harmless enough in appear-ance, is certainly no longer an Arcadian simplicity.

Another kind of fall is suggested by the wholeretrospective, memorial tone of the narration, aug-mented, perhaps, by a knowledge of the historic fate

of these Dutch communities. The story is set in thepast, but the wistfully receding perspective in whichit is presented is a function mainly of the layerednarration, a device which, as Irving handles it, tellsits own story of declining prosperity and increasingsophistication. The first narrator is "a pleasant,shabby, gentlemanly old fellow . . . with a sadlyhumourous face; and one whom I [Dietrich Knick-erbocker, the second narrator] strongly suspected ofbeing poor. He tells his story—orally—in the samespirit in which the supernatural tales are given at theVan Tassel party, neither as "literature" nor asveritable history, claiming in the end not to "be-lieve one half of it myself." Knickerbocker, whowrites it all down, has literary aspirations and asense of wider audiences, though as the Historyindicates, he is ultimately defeated by poverty. Hefigures at last as a deadbeat fleeing from a hotel, awandering solitary man survived only by his papers.With the emergence of Geoffrey Crayon as theexecutor of this literary estate, the tradition haspassed from the Dutch altogether, and the fall seemscomplete.

Source: Albert J. von Frank, "The Man That CorruptedSleepy Hollow," in Studies in American Fiction, Vol. 15,No. 2, 1987, pp. 129-43.

Sources

Bowden, Mary Weatherspoon. Washington Irving, Boston:Twayne, 1981, p. 72.

Giamatti, A. Bartlett. The Earthly Paradise and the Renais-sance Epic, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,1966, pp. 3,6, 34, 126-27.

Hedges, William L. Washington Irving: An American Study,1802-1832, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1965, p. 142.

Hoffman, Daniel G. Form and Fable in American Fiction,New York: Oxford University Press, 1961.

. "Irving's Use of American Folklore in The Leg-end of Sleepy Hollow,'" in PMLA, Vol. 68, June, 1953,pp. 425-435.

Jeffrey, Francis. Review of The Sketch Book, in EdinburghReview, Vol. 34, August, 1820, pp. 160-76.

Kolodny, Annette. The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experi-ence and History in American Life and Letters, Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press, 1975, pp. 68- 70.

Leary, Lewis. "Washington Irving and the Comic Imagina-tion," in The Comic Imagination in American Literature, ed.Louis D. Rubin. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press,1973, pp. 63-76.

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Martin, Terence. "Rip, Ichabod, and the American Imagi-nation," in American Literature, Vol. 31, May, 1959,pp. 137-149.

Pataj, Edward F. "Washington Irving's Ichabod Crane:American Narcissus," in American Imago, Vol. 38, Spring,1981, pp. 127-35.

Plummer, Laura, and Michael Nelson. "'Girls Can TakeCare of Themselves'; Gender and Storytelling in WashingtonIrving' s 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,"' in Studies in ShortFiction, Vol. 30, 1993, pp. 175-84.

Pochmann, Henry A. "Irving's German Tour and Its Influ-ence on His Tales," in PMLA, Vol. 45, December, 1930,pp. 1150-87.

. "Irving's German Sources in The Sketch Book," inStudies in Philology, Vol. 27, July, 1930, pp. 477-507.

Theocritus. "Idyll VII," in The Greek Bucolic Poets, trans-lated by J. E. Edmonds, Cambridge, Mass.: Loeb Library,1938, lines 135-46.

von Frank, Albert J. "The Man That Corrupted SleepyHollow," in Studies in American Fiction, Vol. 15, No. 2,1987, pp. 129-143.

Further Reading

Aderman, Ralph M., ed. Critical Essays on WashingtonIrving, Boston: G. K. Hall, 1990.

A survey of Irving criticism, with a selection of earlynineteenth-century reviews as well as twentieth-cen-tury scholarly articles.

Bowden, Edwin T. Washington Irving: Bibliography, Bos-ton: Twayne, 1989.

Volume 30 in The Complete Works of WashingtonIrving, this is the most complete and up-to-date bibli-ography available.

Bowden, Mary Weatherspoon. Washington Irving, Boston:Twayne, 1981.

The best introduction for the general reader, dealingchronologically with each of Irving's major works.

Hedges, William L. Washington Irving: An American Study,1802-1832, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1965.

Insightful literary analysis of Irving's major works,which Hedges believes are those written before hisreturn to the United States.

Tuttleton, James W., ed. Washington Irving: The CriticalReaction, New York: AMS Press, 1993.

Sixteen critical essays about Irving's work. Three ofthe essays treat "Sleepy Hollow" directly, and twoothers help establish the context for the early work,including The Sketch Book.

Wagenknecht, Edward. Washington Irving: Moderation Dis-played, New York: Oxford University Press, 1962.

An accessible biography and critical overview, em-phasizing Irving's stature during his own lifetime asthe United States' most significant writer.


George Eliot's novella "The Lifted Veil" was firstpublished in 1859. Eliot had written "The LiftedVeil" between the publication of her first novelAdam Bede, and that of her second novel, The Millon the Floss. Eliot's publisher was hesitant to pub-lish the story, because it was nothing like AdamBede, for which she had gained critical acclaim. Hewas concerned that this tale of horror would be badfor her literary reputation, but reluctantly publishedit in a literary journal, albeit anonymously.

"The Lifted Veil" concerns themes of fate,extrasensory perception, the mystery of life and lifeafter death. Eliot's interest in these themes stemmedpartly from her own struggles with religious faith,as she was an extremely devout Christian as a childand young adult who later renounced Christianitycompletely. She also felt that she herself, like Latimer,the main character in ' 'The Lifted Veil,'' had extra-sensory powers of perception, which she referred toas "double consciousness."

While Eliot came to be considered one of thegreatest novelists of the 19th Century during herlifetime, "The Lifted Veil" is one of her lesser-known stories, probably because it is so differentfrom the realist novels for which she is so wellknown. Yet, while is does not seem to match the restof her ouevre, "The Lifted Veil" does fit squarelyinto the Victorian tradition of Gothic horror stories,which began with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein(1818) and included Robert Louis Stevenson's

The Lifted VeilGeorge Eliot

1859

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Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), aswell as Bram Stoker's Dracula (1895). Such worksof fiction were precursors of modern horror movies,such as Psycho, Night of the Living Dead, andNightmare on Elm Street, as well as modern horrorfiction, such as the novels of Stephen King.

Author Biography

George Eliot was born Mary Ann Evans in Englandon November 22, 1819. Her mother died when shewas 16, and, apart from her time away from home invarious boarding schools, she lived with her fatheras his housekeeper and caregiver until 1849, whenhe died. Her early schooling instilled in her a strongsense of Christian piety, and she was known to havedressed in rather severe, austere clothing. But expo-sure to free-thinking intellectuals eventually ledEliot away from her strict Christian faith, whichresulted in a major conflict with her father in 1842.She eventually compromised by promising him thatshe would continue to attend Church in order tomaintain a respectable appearance, although shewould not be compelled to actually believe in theteachings of the church.

In 1851, Eliot moved to London to live as afreelance writer. There, she was further exposed tosome of the leading intellectuals of her day, whomaintained free-thinking attitudes about literature,politics, and religion. Through these connections,Eliot began to work as a journal editor and translatorof some of the cutting edge essays and booksemerging from this milieu. That year, Eliot wasintroduced to George Henry Lewes, a leading jour-nalist and drama critic of the day. Lewes wasmarried at the time, but his wife was notoriouslyunfaithful to him and had born two sons by anotherman. Although legal policies prevented Lewes fromdivorcing his wife, they eventually settled into astate of separation, during which time Eliot andLewes became romantically involved. Althoughthis was a happy union, which lasted over 20 years,Eliot suffered a loss of social status in maintaining adomestic partnership with a married man, includingcomplete disaffection from her favorite brother,Isaac. Nevertheless, she and Lewes considered them-selves to be husband and wife, living together inLondon and in Europe until his death in 1878.

Lewes was a strong influence in encouragingEliot to write and publish essays, and it was he who

first suggested she attempt to write fiction. In 1858,she began to publish under the pseudonym GeorgeEliot. Although she published countless essays incontemporary journals, her most important literarylegacy includes the novels Adam Bede (1859), TheMill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861) andMiddlemarch (1871-72), universally agreed uponas her masterpiece. Eliot was widely recognized as asuccessful novelist by the late 1870s, which helpedto make up for the loss of social status she incurredas a result of her unconventional relationship withLewes, and the two of them became well known fortheir Sunday afternoon social gatherings.

In 1880, Eliot, still in a state of grief over thedeath of Lewes, married her banker, John WalterCross, who was only 40 at the time, while she was60. It was only upon this legal marriage that herbrother Isaac reestablished contact with her. OnDecember 22, less than a year later, Eliot died andwas buried next to Lewes in Highgate cemetery.

Plot Summary

Latimer is the first-person narrator of ' 'The LiftedVeil," as well as the main character. The storybegins, as he informs the reader, exactly one monthbefore his death. "Before that time comes," heexplains, ' 'I wish to use my last hours of ease andstrength in telling the strange story of my experi-ence." The story thus comes as the confession of adying man who entrusts his lifelong secrets to thereader's sympathy. "I have never fully unbosomedmyself to any human being," he says.

Through a flashback structure, Latimer tells his"strange story," beginning with childhood, whenhe first discovered that he had what he refers to as"superadded consciousness." A sickly, unscholarlyand dreamy child, Latimer is dominated by hisfather's wish to expose him to all of the subjects hehates most: math, science, etc. At the age of 19,recovering from a long illness, Latimer finds that heis capable of envisioning an event before it actuallyoccurs. He first experiences this "clairvoyance"moments before meeting his older brother, Alfred'ssoon-to-be fiancee, Bertha Grant. When, momentsafter his vision, the exact same scene is played out inreality, Latimer is so struck with the sight of Berthathat he faints.


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As Alfred's impending marriage to Bertha growsmore and more certain, Latimer becomes utterlyromantically fixated on her. Bertha, for her part,seems to enjoy teasing and flirting with Latimer,while maintaining a cool distance from him. Oneday, Latimer has a vision many years into his ownfuture, during which Bertha, now his wife, suggests,with hatred in her voice, that he commit suicide.Yet, despite this presentiment of a horribly doomedmarriage, Latimer is not swayed from his desire forBertha. When Albert fall off a horse and dies,Latimer is left to marry Bertha himself.

As Latimer had foreseen, he and Bertha, oncemarried, develop a deep hatred of one another. OnceBertha's mystery has been dispelled, and Latimersees that she is shallow, selfish and hateful, hecompletely looses interest in her. Bertha, for herpart, no longer the object of Latimer's devotion,seeks the company of other men, spending most ofher time socializing outside their home. Latimer,now completely alienated from all human society,spends these years alone in his house. Once Ber-tha's mystery is dispelled, Latimer's life no longerhas meaning, and he spends his time anticipatingwith dread the encounter he had foreseen beforetheir marriage, in which she suggests that he goahead and kill himself. Yet, when this scene finallyoccurs, years later, Latimer finds that it is thorough-ly anti-climactic, and not a turning point or crisis inhis life at all, but merely one more in a lifetime ofcruel and horrible encounters with his wife.

When Bertha hires a new maid, Mrs. Archer, tothe household, Latimer senses that he is beginningto loose his power to perceive the thoughts of otherpeople. Furthermore, Bertha and the new maid seemto be conspiring together over some secret endeav-or. Eventually, however, Latimer perceives thatBertha and the maid have begun to hate one anoth-er. Yet, when the maid, an older woman, growssick, Bertha maintains a solicitous vigilance overher sick bed.

One night, Charles Meunier, an old grade schoolfriend of Latimer, whom he hasn't seen in years,pays a visit to the household. As it becomes evidentthat the maid is just hours from death, Meunier, aworld renowned medical doctor, asks Latimer if hemay try an experiment on the corpse, as soon as theold woman is dead. When the time comes, Meunierconducts a transfusion of his own blood to that ofthe newly dead Mrs. Archer. The corpse then comesto life, opens its eyes, points an accusatory finger at

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

Bertha, and confesses that she had been hired byBertha to poison Latimer. The corpse then falls backto its permanent death.

This revelation having been made, Latimer andBertha go their separate ways, she to remain inEngland, and he to travel throughout Europe. Dur-ing these years, Latimer, increasingly ill, is made tosuffer with the foreknowledge of the circumstancesof his own death. Upon completing the final pagesof his story, Latimer gives himself over to "thescene of my dying struggle."

Characters

AlfredLatimer's older brother Alfred is his opposite.

Latimer describes him as ' 'a handsome, self-confi-dent man of 6 and 20 a thorough contrast to myfragile, nervous, ineffectual self." Alfred is theirfather's favorite, as he embodies all that the fatherdesires in a son. When Latimer is introduced toBertha as a probable future wife to Alfred, hisnatural dislike of his brother turns to envious hatred.Right before he is to be married to Bertha, Alfred

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MediaAdaptations

George Eliot's novel Silas Marner was recordedon audiocassette by Recorded Books in 1988.

George Eliot's novel Adam Bede was recordedon audiocassette by Books on Tape in 1994.

George Eliot's novel Middlemarch was rec-orded on audiocassette by Blackstone AudioBooks in 1994.

George Eliot's novel The Mill on the Floss wasadapted to the screen in 1939, directed by TimWhalen and starring Geraldine Fitzgerald andJames Mason.

George Eliot's novel Silas Marner was adaptedby BBC-TV in 1985, directed by Giles Fosterand starring Ben Kingsley.

George Eliot's novel Middlemarch was adaptedas a 3-part mini-series by PBS in 1994, directedby Anthony Page.

dies from falling off a horse, leaving Latimer free tomarry Bertha.

Mrs. ArcherMrs. Archer is the new servant Bertha hires, a

woman whose arrival Latimer dreads: "I had avague dread that I should find her mixed up with thedreary drama of my life that some new sickeningvision would reveal her to me as an evil genius."Latimer describes her as "a tall, wiry, dark-eyedwoman, this Mrs. Archer, with a face handsomeenough to give her coarse, hard nature the odiousfinish of bold, self-confident coquetry." Latimerremains wary of Mrs. Archer, as he perceives thatshe and Bertha share some dark secret from him. Onthe night of Mrs. Archer's death, Latimer allowsCharles Meunier to perform a blood transfusion onher dead body. As a result, the body comes to lifeand points an accusatory finger at Bertha. In thisbrief moment of life after death, Mrs. Archer revealsthat Bertha had hired her to concoct a poison to kill

Latimer. This revelation made, the body once againassumes the posture of death.

The FatherLatimer's father is cold, distant and disapprov-

ing of his sickly, unmotivated child. He hires a tutorto school the young Latimer in all of the subjectswhich he most dreads, and in which he is leastcapable. After Latimer's older brother Alfred, thefavorite, dies, his father becomes more endeared toLatimer, who becomes sympathetic to his father,and is careful to please him as much as possible, aswell as to care for him in his sorrow and old age.

Bertha GrantBertha is first introduced to Latimer as his

brother's future fiancee. She is described as "nomore than twenty, a tall, slim, willowy figure, withluxuriant blond hair." Because she is the onlyperson whose mystery Latimer's powers of "dou-ble consciousness" cannot penetrate, Latimer be-comes fixated on her as an object of his devotion.But after Arnold's death and their subsequent mar-riage, Bertha becomes for Latimer an object ofhatred. Once Bertha's inner thoughts have beenrevealed to him, and she is no longer a mystery,Latimer finds that she is evil, heartless and shallow.Bertha, for her part, hates Latimer because of hisunwillingness to maintain his former devotion toher. As their marriage develops into one of mutualhatred, Bertha seeks the company of other men.Years into their marriage, Bertha hires a new ser-vant, Mrs. Archer, to poison Latimer. After Mrs.Archer dies, and is then momentarily brought backto life, she points an accusatory finger at Bertha,revealing Bertha's evil plan. Latimer and Berthathen separate for life.

LatimerLatimer is the main character and narrator of

"The Lifted Veil." He is a sickly child and a gravedisappointment to his father. When Latimer is intro-duced to his older brother's soon-to-be fiancee,Bertha, he becomes hopelessly infatuated with her.At the same time, Latimer discovers that he has themysterious power to foresee certain events beforethey happen. This supernatural power, which Latimerrefers to as "double-consciousness," also giveshim the ability to read the thoughts of those aroundhim. After Arnold, his older brother, falls off a horseand dies, Latimer is left to marry Bertha. Butalready Latimer has seen a future incident whichindicates that he and Bertha will come to despise


The Lifted Veil

each other. After their marriage, Latimer's powersof ' 'double-consciousness'' make the developmentof this mutual hatred between husband and wife thatmuch more horrible to him. When it is revealed toLatimer that Bertha had been scheming to poisonhim, the two of them separate for life. At the story'send, Latimer is waiting for the dreaded moment ofhis own death, a moment he had perceived in exactdetail a month earlier.

Charles MeunierIn the first half of "The Lifted Veil," Charles

Meunier is the young Latimer's only childhoodfriend. Latimer describes the young Meunier asalmost his opposite, one "whose intellectual tend-encies were the very reverse of' his own. Of poororigins, Meunier pursues medical studies "for whichhe had a special genius." In the second half of thestory, Meunier, now a renowned physician, comesto visit Latimer, whom he hasn't seen in years. Onenight of his visit, Mrs. Archer, the servant, is on herdeathbed, and Meunier asks Latimer permission toperform an experiment on her corpse, the minuteshe is dead. He subsequently performs a bloodtransfusion from his own body into that of the deadservant. She instantly comes to life, opens her eyes,and points an accusatory finger at Latimer's wife,revealing a deadly secret which uncovers evil inten-tions. At the end of the story, it is suggested that thisincident jolts Meunier into a contemplation of thespiritual, rather than the scientific; upon the corpse'srevelation,' 'Meunier looked paralyzed: life for thatmoment ceased to be a scientific problem for him.''

Themes

Science versus the supernatural"The Lifted Veil," like many Gothic tales,

interrogates the boundaries between scientific knowl-edge and the supernatural, between the rational andthe irrational. This set of dichotomies is laid out inthe differences between Latimer and his friendMeunier. Latimer describes their childhood friend-ship as an attraction of opposites, a meeting ofminds between "the dreamy and the practical." Asa doctor, Meunier is schooled in the field of science,the epitome of rational thought. Latimer, on theother hand, has no practical occupation, but pos-sesses supernatural powers, associated with theirrational. Toward the end of the story, however,when Meunier performs the blood transfusion whichbrings Mrs. Archer momentarily back to life, this

distinction is put into question. It is through Meunier'sscientific experimentation that this episode of lifeafter death produces an effect which allows a glimpseinto the supernatural or spiritual realm. Thus, forMeunier, ' 'life ceased to be a scientific problem forhim," upon witnessing this evidence of the spir-it world.

Playing God"The Lifted Veil" shares a similar theme to

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, in that it questionsthe morality of scientific inquiry which threatensthe boundaries of the spiritual realm. Dr. Frankenstein' 'plays God'' by endeavoring the create human life,using scientific methods. In "The Lifted Veil,"Meunier's transfusion brings the dead Mrs. Archermomentarily back to life, bringing into question themorality of such an endeavor.

Clairvoyance"The Lifted Veil" is about a man who suffers

from his powers of clairvoyance. In the 19th Centu-ry, as now, many people believed that some humansmay possess what we now refer to as "psychic"powers, to see into the future or past, or read theminds of other people. "The Lifted Veil" exploresthis theme in centering around a main character,Latimer, who possesses such powers. Yet, Latimerdoes not make good use of his clairvoyance. Rather,he only causes himself and those around him tosuffer because of it. He does not use his powers toany creative or spiritual end, or to help people in anyway. He is almost selfish in his "double conscious-ness." What he sees when the daily thoughts ofthose around him are revealed is a world of pettinessand selfishness.

The Mystery of Life"The Lifted Veil" suggests that human beings

are better off when kept from seeing beyond the"veil" of mystery which shrouds the human condi-tion and the boundary between life and death. ForLatimer, life becomes drained of almost all mystery.He is drawn to Bertha before their marriage becauseshe is the only person who remains a mystery tohim. After their marriage, when her selfish, pettythoughts are revealed to his supernatural powers ofperception, she no longer holds any interest orromance for him. The poem at the beginning of thestory comes in the form of a prayer to "Heaven"not to be granted extrasensory powers beyond thoseof common humanity. The story very clearly sug-

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The Lifted Veil

Topics forFurther

StudyAt the time of writing "The Lifted Veil," GeorgeEliot was interested in various forms of super-natural experience, including mesmerism (hyp-notism) and clairvoyance. Yet, she was not alone.Interest in the supernatural abounded in the 19thCentury. Research and write about some of thetrends in seeking out supernatural experiencesduring the 19th Century. Compare to currenttrends in extrasensory perception (ESP) and oth-er forms of belief in the supernatural?

George Eliot's ' 'The Lifted Veil'' can be catego-rized as Gothic fiction of the 19th Century,which was a precursor to the modern horror film,from Psycho to Night of the Living Dead toHalloween to the Friday the 13th to Nightmareon Elm Street and beyond. Watch a modernhorror film and discuss what elements it has incommon with Gothic fiction such as ' 'The LiftedVeil." In what ways does the movie portray adifferent perspective on the phenomenon of thesupernatural from the perspective portrayed in"The Lifted Veil."?

In addition to George Eliot, a number of notablefemale novelists were successful writers duringthe 19th Century, such as Charlotte and Emily

Bronte and Jane Austin. Research the biographyand writing of one of these novelists. What werethe conditions under which these women wereable to achieve literary notoriety despite theirposition as women in Victorian society?

George Eliot's life spanned a good portion of the19th Century, referred to as the Victorian era inBritish history, because it was characterized bythe reign of Queen Victoria. Research life in theVictorian era. Focus on one element of Victorianculture, such as advances in science, medicine,political reform, intellectual trends, the condi-tions of women or other trends in literature andart, such as Romanticism.

Eliot's "The Lifted Veil" was published in1859, the same year that Charles Darwin pub-lished On the Origin of Species, in which he putforth his theory of evolution. Find out moreabout the impact of Darwin's theories on Victo-rian ideas about science and religion.

American writer Edgar Allen Poe wrote shortstories in the genre of Gothic fiction duringroughly the same era in which Eliot wrote. Readone of Poe's short stories for comparison.

gests that the powers of clairvoyance only drain themystery from life, and do no earthly good.

Life after DeathIn the climactic moments of "The Lifted Veil,"

Mrs. Archer, Latimer's maid, is momentarily re-vived from death by means of blood transfusion. Inthese brief moments of life after death, Mrs. Archerpoints an accusatory finger of Bertha, revealing thatshe had been hired by Bertha to poison Latimer.Latimer's exclamation at this point is telling: "GreatGod! Is this what it is to live again.. . . to wake upwith our unstilled thirst upon us, with our unutteredcurses rising to our lips, with our muscles ready toact out their half-committed sins?" This message

simultaneously unburdens the soul of the deadwoman of her sins, and exacts a revenge uponBertha for drawing her in to such a deed. This storysuggests that human beings are better off with alimited knowledge of what lies beyond the "veil"of death.

FateFate is the idea that human destiny has been

predetermined by some supernatural force and can-not be altered. "The Lifted Veil" explores thetheme of fate because it questions whether or notLatimer would have been able to escape the painfulevents he foresaw in his own future. Latimer'ssuffering is in part focused on his vision of a

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moment in his marriage with Bertha during whichshe bitterly suggests that he commit suicide. Yet,despite this prevision of suffering, Latimer doesnothing to alter his fate—he marries Bertha any-way, and spends years anticipating with dread thismoment in their marriage. The reader is presentedwith the implied question: Would Latimer havebeen able to avoid this scene, had he tried? Or was ithis fate to follow this course in life, and any effort toalter it would have failed anyway?

Style

Narration' 'The Lifted Veil'' is written in the first person,

meaning that the story is told entirely from theperspective of one individual, the main character,Latimer. "The Lifted Veil" is Eliot's only storywritten in the first person. Because the reader seesthe events of the story only through the eyes of themain character, the narrative creates the effect of aninternal, psychological flow of ideas. Because thestory is told as it is written by Latimer over thecourse of the month before his death, and recalls theevents of his life, beginning in childhood, it takes onthe form of an intimate confession, of adying man'slast effort to clear his conscience.

Narrative StructureThe story is structured in "flashback" form, as

Latimer begins the story exactly one month beforehe knows he's going to die, then takes the narrativeback to his childhood and adult experiences, andthen ends the story once again in his sitting room, ashe writes the last words of the story, before dying, ashe knew he would. This flashback structure takes onanother dimension, however, due to the fact thatLatimer is a clairvoyant, who can see events in thefuture before they occur. In that way, several keyevents of the story are told in a "flash forward," asLatimer describes events which then occur inthe future.

Setting"The Lifted Veil" is set in Victorian England,

in the early-to-mid 19th Century. Latimer's father'shouse, later his own, is a country estate. In hischildhood, Latimer lives in Switzerland, and travelsto Prague. After his separation from Bertha, hetravels the world, staying in inns, but never too longin any one place. Latimer's visions of future events

include scenes which take place in Switzerland,Prague and England.

The Epigraph PoemEliot attached an epigraph poem to the begin-

ning of "The Lifted Veil" after she had completedthe story. These four lines are written in the form ofa prayer, "Give me no light, great Heaven," whichessentially asks Heaven to grant the speaker nopowers or knowledge beyond those of the everydayhuman world. In other words, it asks not to begranted the clairvoyant, or extrasensory powerswith which Latimer is plagued, and which causeshim such suffering. This epigraph is in some wayssuggestive of the "moral" of the story, which is thatperhaps it is better not to "lift the veil" of themystery of life and death.

Gothic Horror' 'The Lifted Veil'' can be categorized as Goth-

ic fiction, also referred to as Gothic horror. Gothicfiction is characterized by suggestions of supernatu-ral occurrences, and often contains scenes of horror,including the appearance of ghosts and other formsof life after death. This literary genre, associatedwith 19th Century England, began with Mary Shel-ley's Frankenstein, and includes Robert Louis Ste-venson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as well as BramStoker's Dracula. The Gothic elements of "TheLifted Veil" include Latimer's supernatural abilityto read the thoughts of others and to see into thefuture. The climactic scene in which Mrs. Archer'sbody is momentarily brought back from the dead isthe key Gothic scene in the story, because it in-cludes elements of Gothic horror such as the goryscene of the blood transfusion and the dead bodycoming back to life to point an accusatory finger atBertha. These Gothic elements of the story are whatcaused Eliot's publisher at the time to hesitate inpublishing it.

Historical Context

The Victorian EraAlexandrina Victoria (1819-1901), Queen of

the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland(1819-1901) was born in the same year as GeorgeEliot. Victoria's reign lasted from 1837 until herdeath. Because her life span and reign came tocharacterize this period in history, it came to be

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Compare&

ContrastVictorian Era: Experimentation and curiosityabout the human mind and the supernatural leadto several trends of inquiry and experimentationin Victorian England. Mesmerism (now referredto as hypnotism) was thought to create alternatestates of consciousness. Clairvoyance, the abilityto read the thoughts of others, see into the future,or describe scenes of distant cities, etc., was alsoa subject of experimentation and general interest.

1999: There is general interest in E.S.P., tar-ot cards, "new age" spirituality, astrology, etc.Hypnotism is now used in psychotherapy, aswell as other, less scientifically accepted, prac-tices, such as getting in touch with past livesor the dead. Clairvoyance, now commonly re-ferred to as extrasensory perception, (ESP), orthe people who have this power as "psychics,"is doubted by many, but also believed by many,to be a real phenomenon. Police detectives havebeen known to call in psychics to helpsolve crimes.

Victorian Era: Phrenology is the study of theexternal shape of the human head as a means ofdetermining intelligence and character.

1999: The study of phrenology has been com-pletely debunked in the late 20th Century, and isassociated with racist pseudo-sciences.

Victorian Era: Gothic fiction, or Gothic horror,

was developed as a literary genre in the 19thCentury. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is consid-ered to be the first Gothic novel of note, followedby others, such as Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Late 20th Century: Gothic fiction in the late20th Century has developed into two distinctgenres. On one hand, the modern horror storyflourishes, in both the novel form, with suchprolific writers as Stephen King, and in film,with such films as Psycho, Night of the LivingDead, Friday the 13th, Halloween, and A Night-mare on Elm Street. On the other hand, themodern, mass-market paperback romance novel,often referred to as Gothic romance, is descend-ed from the Gothic novel.

Victorian England: In Victorian England, bloodtransfusion was a subject of scientific experi-mentation. Scientists experimented with animals,reporting that dead animals had momentarilysprung to life, following a transfusion. Bloodtransfusion was also used on women duringpregnancy and after birth.

1999: Blood transfusion is a standard medicalpractice during some surgeries and other medicalprocedures. Although it saves lives, it is notconsidered to be bring the dead back to life.

known as the "Victorian" Era. Victorian Englandis associated with restrictive moral attitudes andrepressive standards of social behavior. There was,however, a strong element of criticism of thesestandards among many prominent writers and intel-lectuals of the time.

The Industrial RevolutionThe 19th Century can now be seen as a period

of transition from a pre-industrial economy to anindustrial economy in most of the Western world. In

England, the Industrial Revolution was accompa-nied by great political and cultural changes, as wellas scientific advances. The development of rail-roads was seen by many to indicate a major change,while various reform bills marked a shift in thepolitical, economic and social structure of the cul-ture. These changes produced new class formationsand a new class consciousness in England. TheGreat Exhibition of 1851, which brought visitorsfrom all over Europe, showcased industrial ma-chines by way of celebrating England's lead in theindustrial revolution.

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Charles Darwin, On the Origin ofSpecies (1859)

In 1859 (the same year "The Lifted Veil" waspublished) Charles Darwin (1809-1882) publishedOn The Origin of Species by Means of NaturalSelection, in which he put forth his theory of evolu-tion through natural selection, known as Darwin-ism. Theorizing that humans are descendants ofapes, Darwinism was controversial, in that it poseda challenge to existing Christian ideas about theorigin of life. However, among most scientists,Darwinism was readily received and quickly ac-cepted. Herbert Spencer, a close friend of GeorgeEliot, was an influential thinker and leading propo-nent of Darwinism.

Mesmerism, Phrenology andClairvoyance

There were many areas of "pseudo-science"which piqued the interest of intellectuals and othersin Victorian England. Phrenology was a theory thatone could determine a person's character and abilitybased on a close examination of the shape and sizeof their head. (Phrenology has been debunked in the20th Century as a pseudo-science, used to supportracist ideas). Mesmerism, based on the practices ofthe physician Charles Mesmer, was the precursor tomodern practices of hypnotism. Clairvoyance re-ferred to having knowledge beyond that of everydaythought and perceptions, a phenomenon now com-monly referred to as extrasensory perception (ESP).

Women in Victorian EnglandThe rights of women in Victorian England were

severely restricted. Women writers and novelistsoften chose a male penname, for fear that publicknowledge of their sex would either restrict theirpublication options, negatively effect the responseof critics or cause social disgrace. The rights ofwomen were also severely restricted in terms ofmarriage laws. Divorce was difficult or impossibleto obtain legally and looked down upon socially. Awoman and man living together out of wedlockresulted in severe social stricture, often cutting offties to family and friends. In the realm of highereducation, women had few, if any, options.

Literary TrendsThe mid-1850s saw two distinct trends in Eng-

lish literature—realism and Gothic romance. Eliotis widely considered to have mastered the realistnovel through most of her works of fiction. AnthonyTrollope, a contemporary of Eliot, is also known for

his style of realist novel. The Gothic novel, mean-while, was developed through such works as MaryShelley's Frankenstein, Charlotte Bronte's JaneEyre, and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Goth-ic fiction, which borrowed its name from the style ofmedieval architecture, was characterized by darktales, often delving into the realm of the supernatu-ral, and grotesque images. In the United States,Gothic fiction was mastered by Edgar Allan Poe, insuch short stories as "The Fall of the House ofUsher," and Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his collectionof stories, Twice-Told Tales.

Critical Overview

After years spent as a journal editor, critical essayistand translator of the books of others, Eliot's unoffi-cial husband, George Henry Lewes, encouraged herto try her hand at fiction. In 1857, she first assumedthe penname George Eliot, and began to write herfirst novel, Adam Bede, which was published in1859. Adam Bede brought Eliot immediate criticalacclaim, suggesting to some critics that she posed achallenge in literary accomplishment even to thewell-established Charles Dickens. Close on the healsof Adam Bede, Eliot published her second novel TheMill on the Floss in 1860. The following year, herthird novel, Silas Marner, was published. Her master-piece, Middlemarch, was published in 1871-72.

Publishing "The Lifted Veil"Eliot paused between the publication of Adam

Bede and completion of The Mill on the Floss towrite her (long) short story, "The Lifted Veil."Blackwood, her publisher, was reluctant to publishthe story, because it didn't fit in with her previousnovel, and because he feared the controversial na-ture of its supernatural subject-matter would not bewell received. Blackwood wrote her that, althoughit was ' 'a very striking story, full of thought andmost beautifully written," he "wished the themehad been a happier one." Eliot herself described"The Lifted Veil" as "a slight story of the outrekind[,] not ajeud'esprit, but ajeu de malancholie.""The Lifted Veil" was, nevertheless, publishedanonymously in a literary journal in 1849. ButBlackwood's opinion of the story remained nega-tive, as he advised Eliot not to include ' The LiftedVeil," as well as another of her stories, in his 1866edition of her works.

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Sketch of donor giving first direct blood transfusion to patient, under doctor'ssupervision.

' The Lifted Veil" has remained to this day oneof Eliot's lesser known works, perhaps because it isan anomaly among her more famous novels. Asbiographer Rosemary Ashton has remarked, "TheLifted Veil" is "indeed an uncharacteristic storyfor George Eliot to have written." Ashton explainsthat it was her only story written as a first personnarrative, and the only one to include elements ofthe occult or pseudo-science. However, it's place inliterary history fits snugly into the category of theGothic tale of horror, published between MaryShelley's Frankenstein (1818) and Robert LouisStevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), bothof which integrate themes of scientific inquiry which,as in Eliot's story, borders on the edge of thesupernatural.

The Height of SuccessBiographer Frederick Robert Karl has stated

that, by 1876, Eliot was "regarded as England'sgreatest living novelist." He goes on to say that' 'she was respected as a national treasure." Karl hasstated that Eliot was "the voice of her century."According to Gordon S. Haight, by her contempo-rary critics she "was acknowledged the greatestnovelist of her time." Biographer Elizabeth S.

Haldane notes that Eliot "indeed took her placeamong the great figures of the Victorian Era." Karlconcurs that, ' 'At the peak of her achievement, shewas one of the three most famous women in Eng-land, along with Queen Victoria and FlorenceNightingale."

Despite her socially unconventional domesticarrangements (living as husband and wife with amarried man), Eliot's literary reputation by the1870s had become so highly acclaimed that herposition as a socially disgraceful woman was large-ly overlooked. She and Lewes hosted popular Sun-day gatherings in their London home, and she waseven privileged to dine with royalty.

Post-Humus ReputationEliot died at the height of her literary career.

Karl states that, ' 'At the time of her death, despiteher detractors, Eliot was something of a cult figure,a legend." However, this reputation quickly de-clined in the years following her death. Althoughher funeral was attended by an impressive list ofher surviving contemporary writers and intellectu-als, her questionable social standing during lifeimmediately came back to haunt her. Despite herwidespread fame and recognition, she was denied

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the right to burial in the "poet's corner" of West-minster Abbey, where the graves of many no-table figures can be found. However, Eliot wasburied near her lifelong companion, Lewes, inHighgate cemetery.

The first biography of Eliot to appear waswritten by John Walter Cross, the husband of herbrief marriage at the end of her life. Cross's biog-raphy has since been widely criticized for itsdisingenuousness in attempting to paint a picture ofEliot which would leave her a respectable woman inthe eyes of posterity. Subsequent biographies haverevealed the more interesting and scandalous ele-ments of her relationships with men, as well as theless flattering but more psychologically complexelements of her character. Despite, or perhaps dueto, Cross's efforts to normalize the story of Eliot'slife, her literary reputation went into rapid declineafter her death, and was not revived until over 40years later.

By the turn of the century, Eliot had fallen outof favor with literary scholars and critics, and,according to biographer Ina Taylor, ' 'by the end ofthe century her work had become too demode (outof fashion) to be read." But writers Virginia Woolfand F. R. Leavis came ' 'to recognize that her novelsranked among the greatest in the language." Theywere both instrumental in ensuring that "by themiddle of [the 20th] century George Eliot wasaccorded the recognition and immortality she hadalways sought." Thanks to the efforts of Woolf andLeavis, Eliot's reputation as one of the greatestnovelists of the 19th Century has been, and contin-ues to be, fully revived. In 1980, during the cen-tenary celebration of her death, she was givena monument in the Poet's Corner of Westmin-ster Abbey.

Criticism

Liz BrentBrent has a Ph.D. in American Culture, with a

specialization in cinema studies, from the Universi-ty of Michigan. She is a freelance writer and teachescourses in American cinema. In the following essay,she discusses the "curse" of clairvoyance in "TheLifted Veil."

The "Curse" of the Lifted VeilThe "veil" in George Eliot's novella "The

Lifted Veil'' symbolizes the boundary between the

natural world and the world of the supernatural,which in this story includes the realm of the spiritand of death. The words "shroud" or "curtain"also appear throughout the story as references to theimage of the "veil." Latimer's powers of clairvoy-ance, his ability to both see into the future and hearthe internal thoughts of people around him, is de-scribed in terms of his ability to see beyond the"veil" which separates the natural world from thatof the spirit world. While these powers of clairvoy-ance would seem to be a gift, Latimer experiencesthem as a "curse," which drains life of all pleasure,bringing him only misery and suffering.

The "veil" or "curtain" which separates hu-man beings with ordinary powers of perceptionfrom foreknowledge of the future is lifted for Latimer,allowing him to see events before they actuallyoccur. But this "superadded consciousness" whichallows him to see into the future deprives him of allhuman pleasure in the present. He recalls his child-hood, before the "curtain of the future" had beenlifted to him, as a happy one, ' 'For then the curtainof the future was as impenetrable to me as to otherchildren." For Latimer, the "hope" of his child-hood was a result of possessing, like other children,no knowledge of his own future, "I had all theirdelight in the present hour, their sweet indefinitehopes for the morrow." Once he has seen into hisown future, however, there is no basis on which toharbor any sense of "hope." Also, because hebecomes preoccupied with these visions of thefuture, he no longer experiences "delight in thepresent hour."

Latimer describes his only pleasures in life as achild, before acquiring his powers of clairvoyance,in terms of nature, both in association with themystery of life and with his memories of maternallove. Latimer's love of nature is specifically associ-ated with his fond early memories of his mother,who died when he was quite young. Althoughgenerally a lonely child, Latimer describes his "leastsolitary moments" as occurring in the presence ofnature, which he describes in terms of the "cherish-ing love" of his mother's embrace: "It seemed tome that the sky, and the glowing mountain-tops, andthe wide blue water, surrounded me with a cherish-ing love such as no human face had shed on mesince my mother's love had vanished out of mylife." Latimer further describes his experience ofnature in terms of a spiritual, heavenly or godlikequality, as ' 'the sight of the Alps, with the settingsun on them seemed to me like an entrance toheaven." He goes on to describe his experience of

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WhatDo I Read

Next?Middlemarch (1871-72) is considered to beGeorge Eliot's masterpiece of provincial life inVictorian England.

Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley is consid-ered to be the first Gothic novel of note. Dr.Frankenstein creates a monster which he thenseeks to destroy.

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886),by Robert Louis Stevenson, recounts how Dr.Jekyll concocts a potion which causes his personto split into one Mr. Hyde, a despicable creaturewho embodies all of the doctor's basest impulses.

Twice-Told Tales (1837), by Nathaniel Haw-thorne, contains some stories with Gothic ele-ments in an American setting.

The Dead Zone (1979), by Stephen King, por-

trays a man who is haunted by his ability to seeinto the future.

The Madwoman in the Attic (1979), by SandraGilbert and Gubar, is a landmark feminist cri-tique of the place of women authors in the canonof English literature.

George Eliot: A Life (1886), by Rosemary Ashton,is a biography which discusses Eliot's life andwork in the cultural and historical context ofVictorian England.

The Lifted Veil: The Book of Fantastic Literatureby Women, 1800-World War II(1992) contains acollection of stories by women which explore therealm of the fantastic.

nature in terms which suggest religious fervor; hefinds himself in a state of a "perpetual sense ofexaltation," or almost religious awe "at the pres-ence of nature and all her awful loveliness."Latimer's delight in the mystery and spiritual prop-erties of nature are lost, however, when the "en-trance to heaven" is in effect opened for him, in theform of his powers of clairvoyance. Once he is ableto see beyond the realm of life and nature to therealm of death and the soul, this reverence for, andawe in the face of the mystery of nature is no longera part of his experience.

Once both his future, or "destiny," and thethoughts and souls of other human beings are re-vealed to him by the lifting of the "veil" of life'smystery, Latimer no longer takes pleasure in thenatural world. He thus comes to the conclusion thatit is the mystery of life and of death which is the solecause of pleasure in human life. In fact, he comes tobelieve that human beings thrive on that which isunknown to them.

So absolute is our soul's need of something hiddenand uncertain for the maintenance of that doubt and

hope and effort which are the breath of its life, that ifthe whole future were laid bare to us beyond to-day,the interest of all mankind would be bent on the hoursthat lie between.

Because of Latimer's powers of clairvoyance,life for him contains nothing "hidden and uncer-tain" and is drained of any "interest," and there-fore of any "doubt and hope and effort."

The Mystery of BerthaLatimer's instant fixation on Bertha as an ob-

ject of his adoration is thus due both to the fact thatshe is the only person whose inner soul remains amystery to him, and because he associates her withimages of nature. Latimer describes Bertha, uponhis first introduction to her, as if she had emergeddirectly from the world of nature: ' "The pale-greendress, and the green leaves that seemed to form aborder about her pale blond hair, made me think of awater-Nixie,—for my mind was full of Germanlyrics, and this pale, fatale-eyed woman, with thegreen weeds, looked like a birth from some coldsedgy-stream, the daughter of an aged river." In

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describing Bertha on their wedding day, Latimeragain describes her in terms of nature imagery,which is also endowed with a spiritual element:"Bertha, in her white silk dress and pale-greenleaves, and the pale hues of her hair and face, lookedlike the spirit of the morning." In Bertha, Latimersees both the spiritual mystery and the maternal lovehe associates with his childhood experience of nature.

Latimer's fixation on Bertha is described mostemphatically, however, in terms of the fact that sheis the only person in the world who remains amystery to him. Because Latimer is denied thehuman pleasures of not being able to see beyond the"veil" of life's mystery, of the spiritual world,Bertha, "my oasis of mystery in the dreary desert ofknowledge," becomes the only source of pleasurein his life. It is what he doesn 7 know about Berthathat fascinates him. His fascination with Bertha isattributable to the fact that she is the only ' 'enigma''left in his world,' 'amidst the fatiguing obviousnessof the other minds around me.'' He explains that theoverpowering "effect" Bertha had on him "waschiefly determined by the fact that she made theonly exception, among all the human beings aboutme, to my unhappy gift of insight." BecauseLatimer's ability to see into the future spoils hissense of hope, Bertha's mysteriousness becomes hisonly source of pleasure in life, since "she had forme the fascination of an unraveled destiny."

He goes on to describe the "closed secret" ofBertha's face in terms of religious iconography; herface to him was the "shrine of a doubtfully benig-nant deity which ruled his fate." It's as if Bertha,being the only remaining mystery in Latimer's life,takes on all the power of the mystery of a ' 'deity,''or god, which Latimer had previously attributed tonature. She comes to represent for Latimer therealm of the unknown which, for him, is the sourceof all human delight in life. Bertha thus becomes forLatimer a mysterious godlike presence to which heblindly devotes himself.

In the beginning of their marriage, Bertha con-tinues to be a mystery to Latimer, and thereforecontinues to capture his attention: "Bertha's inwardself remained shrouded from me, and I still read herthoughts only through the language of her lips anddemeanour." While her "inward self is "shroud-ed" from Latimer, he is still able to "find in heralone among my fellow-beings the blessed possi-bility of mystery, and doubt, and expectation."Eighteen months after their marriage, however,upon the death of Latimer's father, the "veil which

, In other words, the

'speaker' of the epigraph

sends up a prayer to 'heaven'

to be spared the curse of

supernatural powers of

clairvoyance."

had shrouded Bertha's soul" from Latimer is lifted:"The terrible moment of complete illumination hadcome to me, and I saw that the darkness had hiddenno landscape from me, but only a blank prosaicwall." Once this veil is lifted, and Bertha no longera mystery to him, Latimer loses all interest in her,and she loses all power over him: "Before marriageshe had completely mastered my imagination, forshe was a secret to me. But now that her soul waslaid open to me, now that I was compelled to sharethe privacy of her motives, to follow all the pettydevices that preceded her words and acts, she foundherself powerless with me''

Latimer's "curse of insight" into life's myster-ies has the result of causing him such suffering thatit has "annihilated religious faith within me." Hisonly "deity" had been that which he imagined tohave been enshrined in Bertha's face, and, once thatshrine is shown to be empty, there is no longer anypossibility of faith for him. Latimer spends theremainder of his life, after the revelation of Bertha'smaid that she had been trying to poison him, flee-ing from "my old insight" into the "UnknownPresence."

The EpigraphFifteen years after the initial publication of

"The Lifted Veil" George Eliot added a shortepigraph to the story.

Give me no light, great Heaven, but such as turnsTo energy of human fellowship;No powers beyond the growing heritageThat makes completer manhood.

This poem is written in the form of a prayer,whereby the speaker asks Heaven to give him ' 'nolight"—meaning, no knowledge or insight—"butsuch as turns to energy of human fellowship." Inother words, the speaker asks to be granted no

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special powers of knowledge or insight ("light"),such as clairvoyance, which would turn his ' 'ener-gy" (thought or intention) away from "humanfellowship." The speaker asks to be granted onlythose ordinary powers of knowledge and perceptionwhich direct his "energy" toward "fellowship"with humans in the natural world. This clearly refersto Latimer's supernatural powers of clairvoyance—as if the heavens had granted him the "light" bywhich to see beyond the "veil" which shrouds thefuture, the spirit world and the realm of death frommost human eyes. The poem goes on to pray for' 'nopowers beyond the growing heritage that makescompleter manhood." The speaker asks to be sparedany supernatural power beyond the wisdom en-dowed to a natural development of "manhood," orhuman experience. In other words, the "speaker"of the epigraph sends up a prayer to "heaven" tobe spared the curse of supernatural powers ofclairvoyance.

Given that Eliot chose to add it fifteen yearsafter original publication, it may be that the epi-graph functions as a sort of''moral'' to the story of"The Lifted Veil." Because Latimer experienceshis powers to see beyond the "veil" of life'smystery as a "curse," the epigraph functions al-most as a warning to the reader not to wish for suchpowers, but, rather, to turn the "energy" of hisearthly knowledge and insight ("light'') to ' 'humanfellowship," to the natural world of humanity, for itis the mystery itself of the "Unknown Presence"which gives meaning, "hope" and "interest" tohuman life.

Source: Liz Brent, for Short Stories for Students, The GaleGroup, 2000.

Kevin AshbyIn the following essay, Ashby Interprets "The

Lifted Veil" in light of the "transcendent ego"standard of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine aswell as the magazine's treatment of such charactertypes as the spasmodic poet and the uncertainscientist.

How may "The Lifted Veil" throw light on thesubject of regionalism and George Eliot? As Barba-ra Hardy has pointed out, the tale is, in part, aboutthe intersection of the homely and the exotic. Halfthe action takes place during a fateful two months inEurope, half in the shires. In this case, however, theplay between local and cosmopolitan experience isnot one between embedded and enlarged sympa-thies. Latimer's imaginative "gifts" originate on

the continent, but withdrawal and isolation aretheir result.

In fact, "The Lifted Veil" takes as its subjectthe marginal role played by centrifugal humanisticpursuits. In Latimer's discourse, traditionally cen-tral relationships are the site of comically squander-ed intellectual and emotional energies. Narrow-horizoned and ephemeral affairs predominate asfathers hunt for musical snuff-boxes, wives givedinner-parties and brothers recommend hunting asan existential cure-all. Grander discourses, repre-senting human solidarity and progress, are alsoineffective. Connubial love is roundly bemockedand education decided by a phrenologist. Latimer,sensitive, "artistic," compassionate (he says), is amere puzzle to his associates. Meunier, for all his"European reputation," far-sighted interests andlarge-minded character, can make of life only a"scientific problem." Even consciousness is a tis-sue of "frivolities, .. . suppressed egoism, . ..puerilities . . . and make-shift thoughts."

This is a pessimistic picture. It depends, how-ever, on reading the tale out of context. If we restorethe story's originary frame of reading—the flagshipVictorian periodical Blackwood's Edinburgh Maga-zine—some pertinent complications emerge. At onelevel, the pessimism is confirmed. The discourse ofthe magazine exposes more substantial problems ofvalue with Latimer and Meunier than absorption bythe arriviste families of provincial England. Atanother level, it provides a situation in which thatpessimism may be partially reduced. There is noeffective civilised activity in "The Lifted Veil"itself. There is in the kind of reading the storyexpects to receive.

The implied hermeneutic activity is signalledby adaptions of certain character types known inBlackwood's in the 1850s, namely, the Spasmodicpoet and the unsound scientist and his experimentalsubjects. The context is important because the maga-zine attached a curious mixture of sympathy andmistrust to these cultural figures. Their epistemo-logical status was ambiguous, their discourse fullof partial insights but no overall authority; andBlackwood's recommended particularly self-con-scious handling of them. One could enjoy a certainkind of interesting but unsolid figure while notdeviating from the knowledge of its partial nature.This was a work at once of sustained intellectualclarification and strenuous moral resistance. ForBlackwood's it was a kind of work which confirmeda person's essential and productive humanity, re-


The L i f t e d V e i l

fleeting its central standard of the "transcendentego." In evoking it, "The Lifted Veil" could besaid to nurture not merely the surface reception ofhumanistic concerns, but their experiential investi-gation. The former would have been served by anomniscient narrator doling out careful moral disqui-sition—Eliot's more typical form. Here, readers areasked to identify Latimer unaided, actively makingthemselves a civilised community.

Let us examine these relations more fully,beginning with Latimer's connection to the so-called Spasmodic Poet. "Spasmodic" was an epi-thet coined by the magazine's main literary review-er during this period, W. E. Aytoun. It covered thepractitioners and products of a mode of poetryfashionable in the 1840s and 1850s, of which JamesBailey's Festus (1839), Alexander Smith's LifeDrama (1853) and Sydney Dobell's Balder (1853)were the most celebrated examples. Tennyson'sMaud (1855) and Barrett-Browning's Aurora Leigh(1856) also show the influence of Spasmodic preoc-cupations. As Aytoun's epithet implies, commercialsuccess did not bring critical acclaim in Blackwood's.The terms of the attack are illuminating.

According to the magazine, what is wrong withthe Spasmodic poet is his mode of consciousness.This is realised throughout a Spasmodic work.Metric eccentricity, imagery, subject matter and thetypical character of its hero all reveal the sameproblem: deficient intellectual and moral controlover the streams of sensibility which are the materi-als of art. W. H. Smith, another regular contributor,called Festus, ' 'poetic rant, a mere farrago of dis-tracted metaphors, and crude metaphysics and be-wildering theology." The terms are repeated. ForAytoun, Maud lacked "simplicity" of style—"whenall false images and far-fetched metaphors" havebeen removed. Its politics were "ill-conceived . . .distorted and indistinct." Aytoun refers later to"hyperbole" and a "violent style of writing,"words Smith had also used. The source of thesefaults, however, is not lack of talent. Bailey has"ardent imagination and . . . strong passion"; Ten-nyson, even in Maud,' 'such extraordinary rhythmi-cal music, that the sense became subordinate to thesound." The difficulty is rather one of excess andlack of consideration. The poets have failed to exerttheir forming and clarifying intellectual powers.Tennyson ' 'formerly bestowed great pains upon hisstyle," according to Aytoun, to attain the "utmostdegree of lucidity combined with energy." ' 'Imagi-nation ought not to be divorced from sense," said

There the problem is the

lack in every character of

that kind of self-possession,

Latimer's incapacity for 'the

sublime resistance of poetic

production' is an index of his

abandonment, as is Meunier's

scientific obsession and the

inability of father, brother

and wife to see more than what

boosts their own interests."

Smith. Bailey had better have "waited till his ownopinions . . . had settled into something approach-ing consistency and harmony." Carelessness, notinfacility, caused the "hideous cacophony" and"discord" of both poets' verse.

The poets' abandonment to the "torrent" ofthought, sensation and image in their own minds,then, is the root of the matter. It is fixed by compari-sons of Spasmodic verse to "monomania," "hypo-chondriacal brilliancy," or "maudlin imitations ofpassion, such as a tragedian . . . might utter, whenthe effects of [an] overdose of gin . . . were begin-ning to wear off." Delirium, staginess, inebriation,the terms add to the typology. They associate the"headlong career" of "unregulated," poetry-likethought with a risible delinquency. The same asso-ciation with insipidity also connects the Spasmodichero's turbulence and alienation. Maud's speaker is"morbid and misanthropical," by turns "abusive"or "silly" and "namby-pamby." The suicidal de-spair of the hero of Life Drama is premature andfaintly ridiculous. Festus (that is, Faust), pouringout his cosmological vision, is a muddle-headedbore, while his Lucifer is "at one time the grandPersonification of the Principle of Evil, . . . , atanother, . . . a very slave to the passions of anamorous swain." The descriptions make the traitsindivisible, mutually reinforcing. Indulging "poet-ic" trains of thought without a corresponding exerciseof intellect means indulging extravagant, muddled,anti-social, sickly and weak-willed consciousness.

V o l u m e 8 179


Latimer exemplifies this experience of con-sciousness and these traits. His timidity and lack ofexertion is commented on many times. Misanthro-py, however much disguised by later ' 'pity," loomsadmittedly through his contempt for brother andfather. The narrative begins with a global con-demnation of human unkindness. Alienation andunhealthiness, though it is a ' 'horror'' to bemoan, isalso something to pique oneself on.' 'I believe I washeld to have a sort of half-womanish, half-ghostlybeauty; ... But I thoroughly disliked my ownphysique, and nothing but the belief that it was acondition of poetic genius would have reconciledme to it."

More important than these, however, are thegeneral condition of alienation and "unregulated"imagination. The young Latimer enjoyed poetic"reveries." Rather than learn about water, he wouldwatch i t ' 'gurgling among the pebbles and bathingthe bright green water plants, by the hour together. . . [with] perfect confidence that there were goodreasons for what was so beautiful." This experienceof natural inspiration continues in Geneva. Thewhole condition is described in terms which verbal-ly echo the strictures about Spasmodic poetry.Latimer has "the poet's sensibility without hisvoice" along with the attendant misery. He is"humiliated" by his dreams because they are "ut-terly disjointed and commonplace." When he triesto 'imagine' Venice "I was only colouring theCanaletto engravings that hung in my old bedroomat home; the picture was a shifting one, my mindwandering uncertainly in search of more vivid im-ages." Imitation and lack of coherent form arefamiliar designations of a secondary mode ofimagination.

The visions after his "terrible illness" alsorelate to the Spasmodic prototype. Latimer cannotcontrol either the premonitions or the mind-reading.The insights are extraordinarily vivid, but eitherfragmentary—as in the case of Prague and thevisions of Bertha—or reducible to no coherentform—as in the streams of others' thoughts whichinvade him. Later, after marrying Bertha, the vi-sions—"of strange cities, of sandy plains, of gigan-tic ruins, of midnight skies with strange brightconstellations etc."—are so frequent he "live[s]continually" among them. It is as if his conscious-ness is always full of the material of poetry, but hehas no power to shape it. We already know he lacks"intellectual" capacity. This combination leads tohis calling the condition at first an "intermittentdelirium," "a diseased activity of the imagina-

tion," then an "abnormal sensibility." As if tocompound the associations, the second-sight beginsduring "the languid monotony of convalescence."

The combination of disease, alienation,negativity, feebleness and an untrammelled streamof poetry-like insight are all present. The referenceis not an idle one. It alerts readers to a specific kindof hermeneutic activity. Says Smith ofFestus: "Readit by all means, and with the pencil in your hand; forthe probability is, that you will not work your waythrough it twice, and there are many things in it youwill not be content to have caught a glimpse of onlyonce." Aytoun on Maud clarifies the kind of atten-tion required, when he tells us of the relief from itafforded by "Come into the garden." "[It is] theone passage we can read . . . with a perfect convic-tion that it is the strain of a true poet... we feel thatour hands are bound, like those of Thalaba, whenthe enchantress sang to him as she spun." In effect,readers of Spasmodic verse must be productive.They cannot passively rely on a Spasmodic's dis-course, but may not lazily reject it either. Sympa-thetic suspicion must be exercised instead. Alert fortrue poetic ore, one shovels away the "Sacramentomud'' of rant and befuddlement.

This process, none other than what a successfulpoet would do while composing, has contradictoryimplications for Latimer's narrative. On the onehand, it casts doubt on the authenticity of his clair-voyance and exponentially degrades his charac-ter. The incessantly petty, egotistic voices in thepoor man's head may be only his sickly, wretch-ed, jaundiced projections. If this is so, the storyis bleaker than we thought: there is no centrifu-gal voice at all. On the other hand, regardless ofthe hero's status as a seer, the reader's activitynow quickly supplies what his discourse lacks. Anunequivocally artistic—thus socially unifying—endeavour now shapes it. The reader progressesthrough the text, discarding as dross the narrator'sweaklier judgements, retaining the purer and moreclear-headed ones. For instance, we may questionclaims of paternal indifference. Latimer's fatherdrops whatever his business was to be at his son'sbedside when the latter falls ill—day after day, formonths, in a foreign land—and does not leave himfor the convalescence. We note, "My diseasedconsciousness was more intensely preoccupied with[my brother's] thoughts and emotions than withthose of any other person," but that Latimer alwaysenvied and disliked his brother. Conversely, weapplaud the son's eventual access of love and com-passion for his father.

ISO Short Stories for Students

The Lifted Veil

Two objections might be raised to the forego-ing. Latimer dismisses his own capacities, exercis-ing the self-recognition a Spasmodic did not.' 'I sawin my face now nothing but the stamp of a morbiddisposition." This suggests that his reports of sec-ond sight, which "provisions of incalculable wordsand actions proved . . . to have a fixed relation tothe mental processes of other minds," are notconsciously deceptive or unreflectively recorded."Morbidly sensitive," yes, but "self-distrustful"enough to suspect himself "diseased." What evi-dence is there, besides, that the premonitions werehallucinatory?

Another typology familiar to Blackwood's read-ers sheds some light. Investigations with supernatu-ral implications were the subject of two articles ofthe early 1850s, "What is Mesmerism" and "TheNight Side of Nature." The latter reviewed tworecent publications. In one, "Researches on Elec-tricity, Magnetism etc. In Relation To The VitalForce," translated by Dr. Gregory, Professor ofChemistry at Edinburgh University, Karl, Baronvon Reichenbach, reported a series of experimentsmade with magnets upon human subjects. The Bar-on claimed to have discovered a new force ofnature, the "odylic" force, which could producesensory effects at distance. While emphasizing histhorough belief in Reichenbach's "good faith, per-fect integrity and unwearied industry," the review-er was sceptical. "All his deductions are founded oncertain vague, indescribable sensations, in personseither morbidly sensitive or very peculiarly sensi-tive." (The more trustworthy witnesses are "art-ists.") All the effects arise from the mind's subjec-tive effort, from ' 'causes within the patient herself'(sic). This psychological explanation was repeatedin the comments about Catherine Crow's "TheNight Side of Nature." This deals directly withclairvoyance, which the reviewer equates with thevisions of sleep-walkers. Both clairvoyant andsomnambulist live inside an illusion which onlyconvinces them. The sleepwalker's world is par-ticularly curious. One stage on from dreaming, it is avividly projected simalcrum which the victim tourswhile simultaneously perambulating a real place(his bedroom, house etc.). The former adapts itselfto the changes of the latter but the illusion is neverbroken. Latimer, let us recall, says his visions aredream-like but "more distinct" than dreams; andwhile undergoing them he does not lose conscious-ness of the real place he is in.

The typology concerns willingness to take para-normal experiences at their face value. It is the over-

sensitive and quasi-artistic who do so: but they findthemselves in a seductively life-like parallel realitywhich is only a "coinage of the brain." In ourterms, they take off at a tangent from the common-sense, consensual human world. The Mesmerismarticle offers a more censorious version of theparadigm. It is in the form of a letter, answered by aneditorial postscript. Eagles, the author, imperson-ates an interested, concerned but inexpert reader ofthe magazine who has investigated "mesmeric in-fluence." His theory is that mesmerism, if it actual-ly occurs, consists of a spiritual force, involvingomniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence in themesmeriser. It would be an objective effect, where-by the mesmeriser travels outside his own body,causes inanimate objects to arrest people's move-ment and changes their moral natures. After com-plete initial scepticism, Eagles's character's obser-vations lead to him to express horrified convictionthat at least some of the mesmerist's claims may betrue. The mesmerist can enter another mind, read itand use it to be in two places at once. In the editorialpostscript, however, written by the then Professor ofMoral Philosophy at Edinburgh University, thisconclusion is reversed. As with the real Reichenbach,the mythical correspondent's ' 'candour and becom-ing gravity" are acknowledged. Nevertheless, mes-merism is decidedly a subjective phenomenon. Themesmerist is a cunning charlatan; the mesmerised"weak," "credulous" and "infatuated." The latterself-indulgently wish to be deprived of their ownwill and collude in ' 'degenerate'' fashion in halluci-natory experiences.

Whether clairvoyance, somnambulism or mes-merism is its source, claims to extrasensory percep-tion cut no ice in the magazine. Even where aninvestigator adopts the tones of a disinterested ob-server, no credence can be given. Experience ofthese subjects itself signifies a reduced human cen-trality, "a physique and a morale greatly below theaverage" (Ferrier's italics). What chance for Latimer,then, who is decidedly interested and whose person-ality mirrors that of the experimental subject of thisunsound science? Even his great friend Meuniermay not be so admirable. His interest in resurrectionplace him within the sphere of charlatan investiga-tion, or at best that of the industrious but misguidedvon Reichenbach and the "excellent" Eagles char-acter, dabbling in the supernatural. His other greatinterest, "the psychological relations of disease,"also makes him suspect. In an article about the trialof Edward Oxford, failed assassin of Queen Victo-ria, there was criticism of the medical evidence

V o l u m e 8 1 8 1

The Lifted Veil

presented by the defence. Lack of self control, ofmotive, eccentricity and involuntary giggling in thedock were given as symptoms of insanity, responsi-bility reduced by disease. They define criminal ir-responsibility, said Blackwood's. The medical pro-fession had not fully considered the common-senseimplications of its ideas.

We may now consider the internal evidenceof the hallucinatory nature of Latimer's powers.Despite his own desperate belief, Latimer saysof Prague only that it was "of a piece" withhis premonition. The bridge in the vision wasnightmarishly "unending" not the prosaic thingLatimer rushes across. A star-shaped point of lightwould not be difficult to find in a city's Jewishquarter. Similarly, it is significant that the premoni-tion of Bertha occurs after Latimer has glanced outof his hotel window. Could he not have seen her andhis father out of the corner of his eye? They enteronly a few minutes later, so they must already be inthe hotel's environs. We have only Latimer's wordthat the scene with a married Bertha is in factrepeated. As for the mind-reading, we have alreadypointed to the way it concentrates on a brotherLatimer is peculiarly anxious about, reflecting his"antagonism." That Bertha is at first immune alsoquestions the reality of the power: it only works toconfirm what he wants to know. (Latimer deliber-ately denies his awareness that he and she areincompatible.) In addition, Latimer's self-pityingmisanthropy is linked from the beginning withmadness. He quotes Swift's epitaph as a mirror ofhis own case—but Swift is by no means a healthyprecedent. One need not take all these signs asmarks of delusion for the main point to be grasped.Latimer too may be a von Reichenbach—simplymisguided. But there is enough in the text to makethe reader's work of anti-credulity necessary. Thefurther effect of that work is worth pondering.Speaking of a ' 'terribly interesting chapter entitled'Doppelgangers and Self-Seeing'" in "The NightSide of Nature," Blackwood's remarked "as arepertory of marvellous matter... read it through tothe end," but do not take the reports as factual.Disbelief, in other words, does not preclude theextension of sympathy to the enjoyment of theimpossible. As with a Spasmodic poem, the injunc-tion seems to be—' Take whatever significance youcan. Let such tales illuminate and extend your mindbut never forget the boundaries of your own identityand your own standards."

If this is the case, the reader is meant to providethe civilising thrust ostensibly lacking in the tale in

more ways than one. It is not merely the epistemo-logical matter we noted earlier. The reader is askedto avoid certain moral failures that the credulousLatimer or his scientist prototypes succumb to. Theknowledge Eagles's correspondent, Catherine Crowand von Reichenbach proffer is suspect because itsfield is contaminated by self-indulgent, morbid na-tures. Some of that morbidity and lassitude rub offon the poor investigator, who lets his enthusiasmbetter his sobriety. Reichenbach should have reject-ed a line of observation "which can yield no satis-factory result." That he did not indicates a loss ofwill, a chasing of personal chimeras.

This is the same failure as that of the Spasmodicpoet, led astray by "theories" and caprice fromconsideration of consensual truths. It is a moralquestion because it involves a damaging abandon-ment of the "transcendent ego" which I earlieridentified as the core of the magazine's ideologi-cal project.

The theory of this object was set out in a seriesof articles by James Ferrier in the later 1830s, whosestandards remained valid throughout the period weare concerned with. "Ego" here means the basicsense of identity, one's feeling of being an autono-mous, independent, conscious self. It is created inan act of will that is also an act of knowing.Originally, it is the act of understanding the mean-ing of the word ' 'I,'' says Ferrier. A baby's first useof the word is the founding act of will, a sheerdecision to be an "I." As the founding act of will itis the basis of all active personality, all morality, allaccountability and all human freedom.

This self-consciousness may be endangered ina number of ways. One may become absorbed in aparticular state of mind—a passion, sensation ortrain of reason—and so lose the sense of self. This isdangerous because, no longer monitoring what is inone's head, one becomes enslaved, a mere "ma-chine". The self can be nurtured, on the other hand,by detachment from the things which attract oraffect one most. Freedom, responsibility and mo-rality, then, the basis of ' 'all that is good in or evil inman or society," depend on the denial of one'spassionate interests.

In theory, such an ideal would reconcile ahumanity with proliferating interests on the homeground of selfhood. Everyone would have to ac-knowledge the danger of absorption by their ownpet theories and ideas. No doubt this is why it is the

Short S t o r i e s for S t u d e n t s1 8 2

The Lifted Veil

dominant concern of "The Lifted Veil." There theproblem is the lack in every character of that kind ofself-possession. Latimer's incapacity for "the sub-lime resistance of poetic production" is an index ofhis abandonment, as is Meunier's scientific obses-sion and the inability of father, brother and wife tosee more than what boosts their own interests.

Yet Blackwood's readers are alerted to thiscondition by the constant references to other cul-tural figures with fallible egos. Spasmodic poetslost sight of their status as selves in passion.Mesmerised persons morbidly submitted to ' 'pros-tration." Somnambulists were asleep. Such a per-son's discourse, unlike that of a "true poet," wasnot one a reader could lose themselves to. To bereminded of it was therefore to recall that it wasoneself reading. Progressing at every point ofLatimer's narrative with the pleasure due to a tale ofthe marvellous, one had to ask ' 'Do / think this ismeant to be true?'' This is a morally self-confirmingeffort of sympathetic imagination. It is also a groundon which any reader could meet any other, wheth-er they liked Latimer or not, whether they wereScot, provincial banker or metropolitan intellectual.Evoking in all readers an act of fundamental mor-al responsibility, however, "The Lifted Veil" al-so aligns itself rather well with the rhetoric ofBlackwood's itself. This may be appropriate, for inmany respects the periodical's cultural position wasanalogous to Eliot's. It spoke out of an "inferior"political position in the Anglo-Scottish Union, sheout of an "inferior" gender position. Like her too, itwas proud that its marginal origin masked attach-ment and contribution to national, even universal,culture. For instance, it supported the orthodoxState Church, but without obscurantist rejection ofnew scientific and metaphysical discourses.

Blackwood's mix of intellectual elitism andcommon-sense Unionism was not entirely benevo-lent, however. The transcendent ego it theorisedwas, after all, rather a convenient excuse for inertiain the political domain. It eschewed Casuabonesquedisdain for women's intellectual capacities, but inan article responding to the proposed Divorce Billand Married Women's Property Bill, the transcen-dent ego was somewhat disturbingly deployed."Pause," it warned in "The Laws concerning wom-en," before you "break a lance upon the grandabstract tyrant, man." Judicious thought recognizesthat ' 'the law may be unnecessarily particular; butare its opponents on just ground?". It also saw areturn to moral freedom in the nationalistic, belli-cose prosecution of the Crimean War.

Perhaps we should question then, by way ofconclusion, the success of Eliot's experiment inreader-response. In ' 'The Lifted Veil'' she deploresthe parochialism of a self-obsessed mind (Latimer's),who hijacks the discourse of pity and sympathy.Simultaneously, she deplores the parochialism ofthe materialistic mind (Bertha's, Latimer's fami-ly), which sees no gain of prestige in humane-ness. To do both at once, she relied on a peculiar-ly attuned reader. But there are other kinds ofparochialism, not least historical parochialism, anattachment to tradition that could see in militarismand institutionalised material inequity a test of trueselfhood. Perhaps for this reason Eliot did not repeatthe experiment. In practice, the sense of identity hertale fostered was not cosmopolitan enough. Thetranscendent ego of Blackwood's was too com-placently bound to its historical locality.

Source: Kevin Ashby, "The Centre and the Margins in 'TheLifted Veil' and Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine," inGeorge Eliot—George Henry Lewes Studies, Vol. 24-25,No. 2, 1993pp. 132-46.

Anne D. WallaceIn the following essay, Wallace sees "The

Lifted Veil" as demonstrating the "failures anddelusions of memory,'' a challenge to ' 'Wordsworth'sassertion of recollection as the foundation of bothpoetry and human community. "

Although The Lifted Veil is still little-read, influen-tial critical evaluations by Terry Eagleton, GillianBeer, and Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar offer usexcellent points of access to this deeply pessimisticnovella. Gilbert and Gubar, in particular, work todefine the intersecting investigations of sexual andartistic identity that outline George Eliot's difficul-ties in being both woman and writer. All the extanttreatments focus on Latimer's prescience and clair-voyance, and on the failures or dangers of hissupernaturally enhanced perceptions. But Latimerhas yet another mode of perception that lifts the veilof temporality, one commonly available to us alland one insistently identified as a crucial element ofartistic vision during the nineteenth century: memo-ry, the recollection and transformation of past expe-rience. Most of Eliot's work appears to carryWordsworth's assertion of recollection as the foun-dation of both poetry and human community steadilyforward in the popular imagination.

Yet The Lifted Veil asserts not only the horrorsof supernaturally acute perceptions of present andfuture, but the failure and delusions of memory as

V o l u m e 8 1 8 3


View of Prague.

well. Through a narrator who aspires to be aWordsworthian poet, a narrative which repeatedlycalls attention to the failure of recollection in bothlife and art, and a structure which mimics the greaterRomantic lyric but does not fulfill its expecta-tions, The Lifted Veil runs explicitly counter toWordsworthian poetics. Thus the novella consti-tutes a working-out of Eliot's artistic identity, notonly in the terms already recognized by Gilbert andGubar, but in terms of a direct and thorough contra-diction of one of Eliot's "master voices."

Since the novella is seldom read, let me sum-marize what are, for our discussion, its most salientpoints. The entire story is told in first person by theprotagonist. Beginning with the words, "The timeof my end approaches," Latimer vividly describeshis vision of his own death, noting the day, the time,the servants' indifference, the pain and terror ofhelplessness, and his final experience of "passingon and on through the darkness," his thought mov-ing endlessly onward without sensation or sight. Hethen offers a memoir of his life from his childhoodto the present, just a month before his death. Latimerdescribes a childhood happy only in its contrast toadulthood, lightened mostly by the memory of hismother's comforting love. While she still lives, hesuffers an illness that temporarily blinds him; after

her death he is subjected to a regimen of mechanicaland scientific training designed to balance what hisfather perceives as an oversensitive nature. ButLatimer remains much as he was, an older versionof the boy thrown into ' 'mingled trepidation anddelicious excitement" by the echoes of hooves andvoices and barking dogs in the resounding stablenear his home. He regards himself as a poet insensibility, aware of his surroundings to the point ofagony, but lacking the crucial power of expression.Even after three years of education in Geneva,which he passes in ' 'a perpetual sense of exultation,as if from a draught of delicious wine, at thepresence of Nature in all her awful loveliness," heis unable to describe the scenes around him orexpress the emotions he experiences:

A poet pours forth his song and believes in thelistening ear and answering soul, to which his songwill be floated sooner or later. But the poet's sensibili-ty without his voice—the poet's sensibility that findsno vent but in silent tears on the sunny bank, when thenoonday light sparkles on the water, or in an inwardshudder at the sound of harsh human tones, the sightof a cold human eye—this dumb passion brings with ita fatal solitude of soul in the society of one's fellow men.

In this state of continuing isolation, Latimerfalls ill again and, as he recovers, has the first of fourfully recounted episodes of presentiment or previ-



sion: a vision of Prague; a vision of his first meetingwith Bertha, whom he will fall in love with andeventually marry; a vision of the moment when herealizes Bertha's hatred for him and the cold shal-lowness of her soul; and the vision of his own death.Each of these is a true vision, later confirmed by hisactual experience. He also develops clairvoyanceor, as he calls it, "insight" into others' minds, intowhat he calls the "naked, skinless complications"of human thought. The only one immune to hiscapacity is Bertha, who temporarily becomes his' 'oasis of mystery in the dreary desert of knowledge."

With the sharp desire of beings that can imag-ine omniscience but cannot attain it, we humanslong for Latimer's visionary gifts daily, almostinvoluntarily: ' 'if I had known then what I knownow ..." But Latimer's supernatural perceptionsprove useless at best, curses at worst. His knowl-edge of the future does not enable him to avoid itssorrows; his knowledge of others only breeds con-tempt for the petty, disconnected consciousnessesthat lie below the graceful drapery of social inter-course. Some of these incapacities and feelings,clearly, are due to Latimer's own natural passivityand misanthropy. But, the narrative asserts, theuselessness of vision derives mostly from the com-mon human condition, one in which mystery anddesire play an irreplaceable part. Here, in a voicethat is unmistakably that of George Eliot teachingthrough her narrator's mouth, Latimer meditates onhis inability to turn aside from the known horror ofhis future with Bertha:

So absolute is our soul's need of something hiddenand uncertain for the maintenance of that doubt andhope and effort which are the breath of its life, that ifthe whole future were laid bare to us beyond to-day,the interest of all mankind would be bent on the hoursthat lie between; we should pant after the uncertaintiesof our one morning and our one afternoon; we shouldrush fiercely to the Exchange for our last possibility ofspeculation, of success, of disappointment; we shouldhave a glut of political prophets foretelling a crisis or ano-crisis within the only twenty-four hours left opento prophecy.. . . Our impulses, our spiritual activities,no more adjust themselves to the idea of their futurenullity, than the beating of our heart, or the irritabilityof our muscles.

So it is with Latimer, who, in knowing terror,lives through his courtship, marriage, utter disillu-sionment, and, finally, death. In a few closingsentences, he returns the reader to his openingvision, now (the open-ended construction implies)actually occurring: "It is the 20th of September1850.1 know these figures I have just written, as ifthey were a long familiar inscription. I have seen

envision Latimer as a figure

in a landscape, imagining his

deficient psychology in terms

of natural forms, but Latimer

figures his expectation of

Bertha's mind as an exterior,

natural landscape, full and

poetic and offering continued

opportunities for

exploration, only to discover

a narrow interior scene

bounded by 'blank prosaic

walls.'"

them on this page in my desk unnumbered times,when the scene of my dying struggle has openedupon me...."

Following and expanding upon the commen-tary of U.C. Knoepflmacher and Rudy Redinger,Gilbert and Gubar detail the parallels betweenLatimer and Eliot herself. Their familial relations,defined by a dead angel-mother, a strong pragmaticfather, and an irritatingly successful and conven-tional brother, place each in positions of emotionaland economic dependence and inferiority. Bothdisplay an initial distrust of strangers; both disliketheir bodies, which in each case deviate from theculture's sexual ideals, with the result that physicalillness and weakness is an everyday affair. In eachcase, too, illness coincides with the onset of extraor-dinary visions which either promise or precedeliterary expression; and in each case that expressionis deferred or denied.

These parallels suggest, as Gilbert and Gubarindicate, that Latimer's case is in some ways Eli-ot's: given an artist's extraordinary vision, each isthwarted in the expression of that vision, Latimer byan unsuitable mind and temperament, Eliot by theexternal and internal constraints imposed by cultur-al representations of sexuality. In each case, in fact,

V o l u m e 8 1 8 5

NOt only does Bertha


the problem might be abstractly rendered as aconflict between apparent and experienced gender,the comparison enforce by Latimer's invertedmirroring of Eliot's "masculine" mind in an "unat-tractive' ' woman's body: he is technically male, butboth his mental and his physical characteristics aretraditionally "feminine." One of the primary issuesof the Veil, then, is the interrogation of the conflictsbetween Eliot's gender and her artistry.

Gilbert and Gubar also thoroughly explore howthe image of the veil traditionally functions in malerepresentations of woman as angel/monster, notingthat "the recording of what exists behind the veil isdistinctively female because it is the woman whoexists behind the veil in patriarchal society, inhabit-ing a private sphere invisible to public view." Thisimage, clearly, is crucial to our understanding ofEliot's novella, particularly because it acts as anexus for sexual and artistic identities. Withoutdiminishing their emphasis, let me analyze "theveil" in a slightly different way.

There are at least three veils (not unrelated toeach other) which would, under normal circum-stances, both isolate Latimer and shield him fromthe terrific and deadening vision that afflicts him:the veil of individuality, the veil of sexuality, andthe veil of temporality. The first lifts for extendedand agonizing periods of time, as Latimer is ex-posed to the thoughts of others. As we have alreadynoted, the narrative asserts that Latimer's clairvoy-ance does little but give him pain; and since Latimerlacks or will not wield the power of poetic expres-sion, his understanding remains entirely one-sided.Until he begins to write this last memoir, Latimertells us, he has "never fully unbosomed myself toany human being."

The second veil, as his choice of terms heresuggests, remains drawn despite sexually ambigu-ous characterizations that imply difficulty in draw-ing hard lines between the male and the female.Latimer's traditionally female sensitivity and in-tuition are unmixed with the masculine talent forartistic expression, and remain trapped in an"effeminately" weak, sickly, hysterical body whichnonetheless is read as "male." He cannot, indeed,unbosom himself, not only because he cannot shedhis passivity but because he is not gendered female.His potential femininity and any possible advantagethat might carry are short-circuited by the nominalappearance of masculinity, an appearance that causespeople to expect rather different behavior from him.In one sense Latimer's very existence tears the veil

between man and woman, but neither he nor anyoneelse is freed from their gender roles by that invol-untary act.

The last veil, that of temporality, is most clearlymanifest as a veil of mortality, the "dark veil" ofdeath. When this veil is drawn briefly aside, duringthe temporary resurrection of Mrs. Archer and inLatimer's vision of his own death, the results areonce again active destruction or helpless pain: Mrs.Archer wakes only long enough to reveal Bertha'splan to poison Latimer, violently completing theirgrowing disaffection and ending their married lifetogether; and although Latimer sees his death, hecan neither avoid it nor reconcile himself to it.Finally, the veil of death functions as the decisivelimit to the narrative itself. Likewise, Latimer'sforesight produces successful but inefficacious vio-lations of the normal temporal bounds of knowl-edge. He does know the future, but often in unintel-ligible forms (as in his late visions of unknownplaces and persons), and can do nothing to altereven those aspects of the future he does fullycomprehend.

But memory provides a third way to lift the veilof temporality (in this case the veil of the past), onenaturally available to people, and which should, inWordsworthian doctrine, stimulate individual mor-al growth, artistic expression and human communi-ty. Wordsworthian poetics, in formulas as familiarto Eliot as they are to us, establish memory as thefoundation of poetic expression. Since "all goodpoetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerfulfeelings," a poet must be "possessed of more thanusual organic sensibility'' (' 'Preface to Lyrical Bal-lads [1802]". But he must also have "thought longand deeply":

For our continued influxes of feeling are modified anddirected by our thoughts, which are indeed the repre-sentatives of all our past feelings; and, as by contem-plating the relation of these general representatives toeach other we discover what is really important tomen, so by the repetition and continuance of this act,our feelings will be connected with important sub-jects, till at length, if we be originally possessed ofmuch sensibility, such habits of mind will be pro-duced that . . . we shall describe objects, and uttersentiments, of such a nature and in such connectionwith each other, that the understanding of the being towhom we address ourselves, if he be in a healthfulstate of association, must necessarily be in somedegree enlightened, and his affections ameliorated.

Thus poetry "takes it origin from emotionrecollected in tranquillity," the process of remem-bering the past experience gradually causing the



disappearance of the present tranquillity and theproduction of ' 'an emotion, kindred to that whichwas before the subject of contemplation. . . [which]does itself [that is, the kindred emotion] actuallyexist in the mind." The substance and form ofWordsworth's poems overtly enforce his declaredpoetics, as even a brief review of some of the best-known poems ("Tintern Abbey," "Michael," "TheRuined Cottage," the Intimations Ode, "I Wan-dered Lonely," and so forth) quickly reveals. Nar-rative recollection of past emotion re-presents thatemotion and its original context, claiming to pro-duce not only poetry but the achievement of orpotential for the enlargement of the individual con-sciousness and of human community.

The most significant formal manifestation ofWordsworthian (and early Coleridgian) poetic is thedevelopment of the greater Romantic lyric, a formdescribed to us by M. H. Abrams:

[Greater Romantic lyrics] present a determinate speakerin a particularized, and usually a localized, outdoorsetting, whom we overhear as he carries on, in a fluentvernacular which rises easily to a more formal speech,a sustained colloquy, sometimes with himself or withthe outer scene, but more frequently with a silenthuman auditor, present or absent. The speaker beginswith a description of the landscape; an aspect orchange of aspect in the landscape evokes a varied butintegral process of memory, thought, anticipation,and feeling which remains closely intervolved withthe outer scene. In the course of this meditation thelyric speaker achieves an insight, faces up to a tragicloss, comes to a moral decision, or resolves an emo-tional problem. Often the poem round upon itself toend where it began, at the outer scene, but with analtered mood and deepened understanding which isthe result of the intervening meditation.

In The Lifted Veil, Eliot offers us a narrator whoaspires to be a Wordsworthian poet, communicatingto us in a form which replicates the subjectivecircularity of a greater Romantic lyric but whichcompletes itself with no alteration in the narrator'smood or understanding. Latimer's hyper-sensitivi-ty, his intense emotional reliance on nature, and (aswe shall see) his deliberate attempts to become apoet by the specific mechanism of recollection markhim not just as a poet, as he calls himself, but as aWordsworthian poet. Certain telling details of hislife buttress the theoretical identification. In Gene-va, he finds his greatest solace in rowing his boat outinto the center of the lake:

it seemed to me that the sky, and the glowingmountaintops, and the wide blue water, surroundedme with a cherishing love such as no human face hadshed on me since my mother's love had vanished outof my life. I used to do as Jean Jacques did—lie down

in my boat and let it glide where it would while Ilooked up at the departing glow leaving one moun-tain-top after the other . .. Then, when the whitesummits were all sad and corpse-like, I had to pushhomeward, for I was under careful surveillance, andwas allowed no late wanderings.

Latimer directly identifies his experience withRousseau, an allusion explored in Hugh Witemeyer's1979 article on "George Eliot and Jean-JacquesRousseau." But at least two other echoes are pres-ent. In another tale exploring gender and creativity,Victor Frankenstein floats in his boat on LakeGeneva, trying to find comfort in the peace of nature(an allusion Gilbert and Gubar miss, although theydo connect the Veil with Frankenstein). More to ourpresent point, Latimer's experience also recalls thefamous row-boat passage in Wordsworth's Prel-ude', the lake surrounded with mountains, the move-ment from initial delight and liveliness to deathlysadness (though here rendered in more anthropo-morphic terms) the sense of being watched and ofbeing out of bounds all resonate with the boy-Wordsworth's account.

Notice, moreover, the date of Latimer's death, adate named in the second paragraph of the novellaand repeated in its last paragraph: "the 20th ofSeptember 1850". Although the day and monthseem random (the "20th" only mildly pointing to apossible "23rd"), the year is momentous—it is theyear of Wordsworth's death, and of the publicationof his master-work on the development of a poet'smind. Without context, one might dismiss this as anarbitrary choice. But this apparently slight linkbetween Wordsworth and Latimer takes on sub-stance in the context of the latter's obviously ac-ceptance of Wordsworthian poetics and the failureof his attempt to practice them.

For Latimer, in fact, remembering almost neverresurrects past experiences or enables the renova-tion of human feeling and community, but insteadobscures original perceptions and deadens feeling.The one exception is his memory of his mother andher love, an exception which may, by its veryisolation, further substantiate Gilbert and Gubar'sidentification of Latimer and Eliot. At every otherpoint the narrative's overt insistence falls on theinefficacy of memory. When Latimer gains thepower of clairvoyance, he describes the horrors ofseeing in other people's minds "all the strugglingchaos of puerilities, meanness, vague, capriciousmemories and indolent makeshift thoughts, fromwhich human words and deeds emerge like leaflets

V o l u m e S 187


covering a fermenting heap." Again, as Latimerstrives to see what Bertha has been hiding in hercabinet (it is the poison with which she plans to killhim), he finds that memory obscures rather thanpreserves her experiences: "[t]he recollections ofthe past become contracted in the rapidity of thoughttill they sometimes bear hardly a more distinctresemblance to the external reality than the forms ofan oriental alphabet to the objects that suggestedthem." Not only does his insight reveal that memo-ry, far from transforming present experience orpreserving the past, drains the substance from whatis remembered, but the terms of both metaphorssuggest that verbal or written expressions based onrecollection function either to obscure the truth, asin the deceptive leaflets covering the chaos ofhuman minds, or to render them unintelligible, as inthe translation of' 'reality'' into an ' 'Oriental alpha-bet"—actually a system of characters, completelyillegible to Westerners used to an alphabet.

Nor can his visions of the future grant power bymeans of his recollection of them. As Latimerrelates his fascination with Bertha despite his knowl-edge of their future, he asks us to imagine ' 'thisdouble consciousness at work within me, flowingon like two parallel streams which never mingletheir waters and blend into a common hue": "myvisions, when once they had passed into memory,were mere ideas—pale shadows that beckoned invain, while my hand was grasped by the living andthe loved." In every case, memory, this common-ly human, canonically approved source of con-sciousness, knowledge and community functions todesubstantiate, to deaden, so that the veil of the past,too, remains unlifted.

A particularly telling case of the failure ofmemory appears in Latimer's recounting of his firstvision, in which he sees Prague as a city

unrefreshed for ages by the dews of night, or therushing rain-clouds; scorching the dusty, weary, time-eaten grandeur of a people doomed to live on in thestale repetition of memories ... urged by no fear orhope, but compelled by their doom to be ever old andundying, to live on in the rigidity of habit, as they liveon in perpetual mid-day, without the repose of nightor the new birth of morning.

In part, no doubt, it is Latimer's pessimism thatdarkens this vision. But the agent which he per-ceives as the deadening force here is "the stalerepetition of memories," the dead hand of a pastthat, in the process of recollection into the present,stifles new life.

Immediately after this, hoping that his vision is"a picture that my newly liberated genius hadpainted in fiery haste, with the colors snatched fromlazy memory," Latimer tries to perform an act ofWordsworthian recollection: ' 'I stimulated my im-agination with poetic memories, and strove to feelmyself present in Venice, as I had felt myselfpresent in Prague." But this is a complete failure:Latimer can only recall, uncertainly, old engravingson his walls at home: ' 'It was all prosaic effort, notrapt passivity." He continues to perform this ex-periment for some time, always watching and hop-ing for the flowering of his poetic gifts under thestimulus of deliberate recollection, and alwaysdisappointed.

These overt narrative assertions of the failure ofmemory appear in a prose version of a poetic formdesigned to celebrate the power of recollection.The entirely first-person point-of-view, a mostuncharacteristic choice for Eliot, has a plot-basedexplanation: Latimer has never before communicat-ed his crucial experiences of prescience and clair-voyance to anyone, and so only he can tell his storyand verify the truth of his visions. Formally, howev-er, Eliot's choice follows the formula of the greaterRomantic lyric, the speaker moved by a particularvision to recollection and expression. Latimer'snarrative [is just] such a circular memoir, told in hisown voice to the silent auditor, his readers, begin-ning with the vision of his death and ending with thedeath itself.

Classically, the scene the narrator of a greaterRomantic lyric contemplates at the beginning andend of his story should be "a localized, outdoorsetting," so that the impressions of natural formsgive rise to recollection. In this The Lifted Veilappears to deviate from our expectations. But Iwould argue that Latimer does contemplate a "land-scape' ' here, the landscape of the mind. To think insuch terms is, after all, most Wordsworthian: thewhole point of contemplating a natural scene is notto explore that scene (although that is an analogousprocess to what follows) but to explore the land-scape as it is remembered, the landscape in the mindand the "landscape" of the mind. In "TinternAbbey," for instance, the outdoor scene appearsonly briefly at the beginning of the poem, with thenarrator then turning to descriptions of his ownfeelings as they are elicited by the landscape re-membered, thus entering into a wholly psychologi-cal process. Latimer's account moves directly tothat interior scene which is the primary concern ofthe greater Romantic lyric.


The Lifted Veil

That Eliot's narrator thought in these terms,conceiving of mind as landscape, is signaled by hiscomments on the moment when Bertha's hatred andshallowness are revealed to him:

I saw myself in Bertha's thought as she lifted hercutting grey eyes, and looked at me: a miserableghost-seer, surrounded by phantoms in the noon-day,trembling under a breeze when the leaves were still,without appetite for the common objects of humandesire, but pining after the moonbeams . . . The terri-ble moment of complete illumination had come to me,and I saw that the darkness had hidden no landscapefrom me, but only a blank prosaic wall: from thatevening forth, through the sickening years whichfollowed, I saw all round the narrow room of thiswoman's soul . . .

Not only does Bertha envision Latimer as afigure in a landscape, imagining his deficient psy-chology in terms of natural forms, but Latimerfigures his expectation of Bertha's mind as anexterior, natural landscape, full and poetic andoffering continued opportunities for exploration,only to discover a narrow interior scene bounded by"blank prosaic walls." With the mind or characterunderstood as landscape, then, only two things aremissing from this greater Romantic lyric: its ' 'alter-ed mood and deepened understanding," the quick-ening of moral sense in narrator and (by implica-tion) reader, and the achievement of the poetry (asopposed to prose) which might bring this about.Although the form is fulfilled, the expectations setup, there is no transformation, no learning or shift,no renewal of the individual or of human communi-ty, and there is no elevation from the commonunderstandings of prose into the sympathetic feel-ing of poetry. Despite memory, despite the repre-sentation of the past, all remains as Latimer firstenvisions it, bounded absolutely by the death of theindividual consciousness.

There are many reasons for the increasing dis-trust of memory as an artistic and spiritual source inthe Victorian period, most importantly the increas-ingly obvious permanence of the loss of agrarianlife and values to industrialization, and that neverlifting, always accelerating sensation of inevitablechange. To look back in one's search for stablevalues becomes irrelevant, as the past itself be-comes a series of changes. But for George Eliot, inparticular, the search for value and verification inmemory is dreadfully problematic. When a womanwriter seeks her grounding in tradition, where willshe find it? The influence of the Brontes and MaryShelley, as Gilbert and Gubar demonstrate, is palpa-ble. But when Eliot consciously thinks about her

antecedents, she must of necessity think mostly ofmen—of Shakespeare, of Milton, of Goethe, andmost of all, of Wordsworth. One remembers hercontinual rereading of Wordsworth, and her com-ment to John Blackwood that she wonders thatanyone other than herself will be interested to readSilas Mamer "since William Wordsworth is dead".At this crucial moment, in the midst of writing hersecond novel and faced with increasing demands forthe public revelation of her identity, Eliot must havefelt the extreme pressure of Wordsworth's valoriza-tion of the past—which now included the traditionsof his own writing—and needed a means by whichto question its demands, even if she finally chose toaccept them. I suggest, then, that The Lifted Veil notonly investigates the common conflict betweenartist and woman, but confronts Wordsworth, Eli-ot's own master voice, and denies the fundamentalpremise of his power.

Source: Anne D. Wallace, '"Vague Capricious Memories':'The Lifted Veil' 's Challenge to Wordsworthian Poetics," inGeorge Eliot—George Henry Lewes Studies, Vol. 18-19,September, 1991, pp. 31-45.

Marcia M. TaylorIn the following essay, Taylor re-evaluates

Bertha Grant as the product of Latimer's creativeinterpretation of her as woman as subject.''

In the conclusion of George Eliot's novella, TheLifted Veil, Bertha Grant's maid, Archer, is broughtback to life momentarily by a blood transfusion.This revivication, brief as it is, is long enough forArcher to reveal in her second death-bed scene, thatBertha has plans to "poison" her husband. Arch-er' s eyes meet Bertha's in ' 'the recognition of hate''and she says in a gasping voice, "... the poison is inthe black cabinet . . . I got it for you... ." Of thewitnesses to the "poison" plot: Dr. Meunier issworn to secrecy; Bertha is mute, forever silencedby Latimer's narrative; Archer is dead, presumedlyfor the last time. Latimer, the speaking subject,narrates the entire story from his first clairvoyantvision of a young woman he will later learn isBertha, to his last scrawled words as he awaits hisown foreseen death.

Criticism of The Lifted Veil in the past threedecades has given primacy to the text's positionwithin Eliot's canon, to her exploration of narrativestructure, and according to individual analytic agen-da, to the possibilities of conflicting ideology in thetale's extended metaphors.

V o l u m e 8 1 8 9


it is Latimer who is incapable

of love. Bertha remains at

least partially an unknown,

but she is capable of

affection and sensuality."

Regardless of theoretic approach, when Berthais mentioned at all, she holds the distinction ofhaving more chilling adjectives affixed to her namethan any other female character in fiction whocomes to mind (with the possible exception of LadyAudley). For example: "evil," "wicked," "vam-pire-like," "sinister." Of course all of these quotesare used out of their context for my own purposes.

What is curious is that while critical evalua-tions of The Lifted Veil seek to find meaning hiddenbehind Eliot's multi-layered veil, Bertha Grant ismost often given an analytic reading based onLatimer's creation of her. As narrator it is his story.But, also as narrator, he is empowered; Latimer andthe critical enterprise surrounding the tale haveglossed (or omitted) Bertha Grant. Charles Swann'scompelling article, "DejaVu: DejaLu: 'The LiftedVeil' As An Experiment In Art," points to thestory's "rather sideways look at some of the prob-lems raised by determinism," but, more important-ly, to Eliot's extended and often uncomfortableconfrontation with her consciousness of what itmeans to be an author. Swann notes that Eliotexperiments with the reader's expectations of narra-tive form and ' 'challenges two of her dearest values:sympathy and memory as the bases of moral ac-tion." To do this, according to Swann, she createsan obvious fiction, and turns narrative form andLatimer's means of "Knowing" up-side-down, bothreversing and questioning conventional modes oftransmission.

In addition, Latimer's personal failures whichhe interprets and inscribes, such as his physicalweaknesses, and his inability to voice his poeticimpulses, are analogous to his failure to discern thelarger issues, such as his lack of sympathetic feel-ings for human beings. This failure of insight (in theintuitive sense) into self and other also isolates him

from his own text. Bertha Grant is his fantasy: afiction which he creates, reads and inscribes. Seenfrom this perspective, Latimer's creation of BerthaGrant as an evil enchantress invites a re-reading ofhis possible mis-reading.

The lengthiest and most thorough critical ap-praisal of Bertha Grant appears in Sandra Gilbertand Susan Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic.This reading places Eliot in the role of a Miltonic"dutiful daughter," Bertha, a "Satanic Eve," andthe poison in the cabinet a metaphor for the com-plicity of women, ' 'offering the apple of death totheir man". Whether the "poison in the cabinet"metaphor is interpreted as a complicitous and lethalinjection of hemlock into the apple, as Gilbert andGubar posit, or, in an anti-Edenic version, simply asBertha's contempt for Latimer locked and seethingwithin the "cabinet" of her body and mind, be-comes immaterial seen in the light of subsequentevent which Eliot dictates. What critical appraisalsof Bertha Grant have appeared to overlook is thatnothing happens. Bertha never actively unlocks thecabinet, either literally or metaphorically, althoughshe has ample opportunity to do so. A vague span orsuspension of time is indicated in Latimer's narra-tive between his notation of the "locking up ofsomething in Bertha's cabinet" and the letter fromDr. Charles Meunier which announces that he willvisit. If Bertha's release or activation of the "poi-son" is to be an actual event, this interim beforeMeunier arrives provides the temporal space inwhich to act. The ' 'poison'' in any sense, remains insuspension, deferred; a desire which may play therole of intent through the action of possessingand "locking," but remains unclear and lacksmomentum.

My purpose is not to refute Gilbert and Gubar'sreading, but to inject new blood into their resolutionof Bertha as "fallen" in perpetuity: "doomed tolive on in stale repetition." In short, I will attempt togive Bertha a transfusion that allows her the possi-bility of revivication, but without the necessity ofre-creating her into a paragon. 'Granted,' both per-nicious hatred or intent to "poison" are corruptive.Neither would function to justify valorizing Bertha.But, the weight that the "poison" metaphor carrieswith it has served to obscure other readings ofBertha which are counterpoint to Latimer's creationand narration of her. The severity of the chargeswhich Archer makes against Bertha, in concert withwhat Latimer tells us about her all along, secure hisreading and his control over her. Latimer's text hasbecome yet another veil.


It is My contention that

The Lifted Veil

Entries into Latimer's creation and textualizationof Bertha are numerous. Bertha's "birth" intoLatimer's text as a "spectre of Romantic myth" andhis consistent objectification of her as seen in theconcluding passages of the story will serve. Inaddition, Eliot's provisions for Bertha, the fictionwithin the fiction, are of interest.

As Latimer's story begins by telling the readerhow it will end, I will also begin (in the middle ofthis essay) with the end, and circle back to thebeginning. At Archer's first deathbed scene, whenLatimer tells us that Bertha wants Archer to die,without "lifting the veil" which would reveal the"secret," he appraises Bertha's appearance andattire. She was:

fit to figure in a picture of modern aristocratic life: butI asked myself how that face of hers could ever haveseemed to me the face of a woman born of woman,with memories of childhood, capable of pain, needingto be fondled?

Latimer's question is rhetorical; it may be seenas Eliot's ultimate irony and a transparent exampleof Latimer's inability to comprehend himself, Ber-tha or his text. Just as Latimer continues to objectifyBertha, this time into a picture, (and not even that;she is ' 'fit to figure'' in a picture) his authorship ofher never allows her human birth, but creates anenchantress from his own fantasy. Bertha is neverallowed a childhood or memories of it; if she sufferspain, Latimer silences it efficiently throughout histext; her touch is never returned, her sensualitynever answered. What Latimer claims is his passionfor her is "locked" within his own "cabinet" andreplaced by his fear of her as subject.

At the onset of Latimer's first illusory experi-ence, a vision of an unrefreshed dry city of Prague,doomed to repetition, he is recovering from a seri-ous illness. When he ' 'sees Bertha for the first time,in his second visionary episode, he has been lookingfrom the window of a hotel suite in Geneva at "thecurrent of the Rhone just where it leaves the dark-blue lake." What Latimer "sees" is a face without:

a girlish expression . . . the features were sharp, thepale grey eyes at once acute, restless, and sarcastic.They were fixed on me in half-smiling curiosity, and Ifelt a painful sensation as if a sharp wind werecutting me.

Bertha's gaze confronts Latimer directly, andhe reads into her eyes both her subjectivity and herappraisal of him. The sharp wind that he feelscutting him, his terror of the other who demands

subjectivity, demands his denial or figurative kill-ing of the subject. It begins with his first illusionof Bertha.

Latimer's description of Bertha continues. Herimage, he says,

made me think of a Water-Nixie—for my mind wasfull of German lyrics, and this pale, fatal-eyed wom-an, with the green weeds, looked like a birth fromsome cold sedgy stream, the daughter of an aged river.

Bertha is not born from woman, but emergesfrom a cold stream, the daughter of an aged river.Carroll Viera and Jennifer Uglow, among others,have commented on the mythological, watery spiritof Bertha. Uglow writes that Bertha "represents theopposite of his loving, life-giving mother," butBertha's watery entry "is one which contains thepromise of death, not birth". At the same timeBertha may also represent an opposition to Latimer'sfirst vision of the scorched and thirsty Prague withits people "doomed" to live on in a "stale repeti-tion of memories." Latimer's earlier associationswith watery images comprise his most pleasantmemories. These textual recollections are immedi-ately followed by his re-creation of his first illusionof Prague, ' 'unrefreshed . . . by . . . the rushingrain-cloud. ..."

Gillian Beer in a footnote to her article,' 'Mythand the Single Consciousness: Middlemarch and"The Lifted Veil," attributes elements in bothBertha and Rosamond Vincy Lydgate to Friedrichde la Motte Fouque's Undine, published in 1811.This tale is of a beautiful and willful water spritewho marries a mortal in order to find love and gain asoul. The two women who vie for Huldbrand areUndine, the water sprite, and the selfish, spitefulBertalda. What is problematic is that Undine, thewater sprite, does gain a soul through her marriageto Huldbrand, and it is she who is the nurturing, life-giving woman. Mistreated and forsaken in favor ofthe scheming Bertalda, the water gods consignUndine back to the deeps, but she returns and isreconciled with her husband. Huldbrand, the waverer,recognizes his love for Undine, and drowns, as heknows he will, in her tears. If Latimer's head is fullof German Water-Nixies as he looks from hiswindow onto the Rhone, and if, as Beer states,Undine is a possible source, then Latimer from thebeginning synthesizes the two fictional women,Undine and Bertalda, and creates a third fiction,Bertha Grant—in the image of the water sprite,Undine, but with the depraved soul of the calculat-ing Bertalda.

V o l u m e 8 1 9 1


As Gilbert and Gubar point out, Bertha has novoice. Neither does she have a history. Latimerreports that she is an orphan, adopted by her uncleand aunt, and that the uncle "means to provide forher . . . as if she were his own daughter." This isBertha Grant's personal history in its entirety. Noth-ing is ever told of her beginnings, her family, hermemories. How can she, unlike Prague, be doomedto live in repetition of a past which doesn't exist?When Latimer asks how her face could have seemedto him the face of a woman with memories ofchildhood, the only possible response is that itnever did.

As Eliot intended, a good case may be built forreading Latimer with sympathy. The second son ofa capitalist, he has been raised without expectationsas a physical weak and feminized ' 'other." Thoughhe blames his misfortune on seeing the evil withinmen's hearts, his foresight does not foster a raisedconsciousness which might allow him to see that hehimself instigates his alienation from other people.He cannot penetrate Bertha's mind. He says that thismystery is the reason that drives his passion. U. C.Knoepflmacher states that "he has willfully delud-ed himself by loving a creature incapable of love,"and that George Eliot implies that while Latimer'scontempt for his fellow beings is excessive, "shealso makes it clear that it is warranted by his unusualpredicament."

It is my contention that it is Latimer who isincapable of love. Bertha remains at least partiallyan unknown, but she is capable of affection andsensuality. Early in the story on two occasions whenthey are alone, Bertha initiates physical contact,first by her arm slipped through his and then bygrasping his wrist. Both times Latimer escapes bygoing into a trance. He gives her an opal ring andchides her for not wearing it. She draws a gold chainfrom her bosom. The ring hands upon it. She says,' 'it hurts me a little, I can tell you . . . to wear it inthat secret place...." Latimer can only blush likethe opal and he can't ask her to keep it where it was.

Their marriage takes place "on a cold and clearmorning in April, when there came hail and sun-shine both together...." Latimer admittedly hur-ries through the rest of his story, ' 'leaving ...feelings and sentiments to be inferred." Their life isaround of social engagements, a whirl which leavestheir "solitary moments with hastily snatched ca-resses." Latimer is less reticent about the growth ofhis own wretchedness, despair, and passivity andBertha's escalating coldness. What can be "in-

ferred' ' is that their marriage has sealed a bond ofphysical and mental alienation. Latimer can now"see" into her soul, and he sees "repulsion andantipathy harden into cruel hatred." The hostilitywhich he had envisioned between them has becomereality. Latimer continues to objectify her, and hetells the reader more than he himself knows. Hesays,' 'For Bertha too, after her kind, felt the bitter-ness of disillusion." He attributes her disillusion-ment to her failure to achieve mastery over him, andhe claims that she had had mastery before theirmarriage because she was a secret to him, masteringhis imagination.

Whose passions consume whose? Is Bertha aWater-Nixie seeking her soul through love? Is she asiren/enchantress, created evil without reprieve?What Latimer's text says is that she is curious andacute, aggressive and confrontational, affectionateand sensual. She is capable of selfishness, anger andhostility, of ' 'hail and sunshine both together." Sheis, in Victorian terms, everything which is evil. Sheis woman as subject.

At the conclusion of my injection, I offer atextual citation which follows Archer's death-bedrevelation.

Since then Bertha and I have lived apart—she in herown neighborhood, the mistress of half our wealth, Ias a wanderer in foreign countries, until I came to thisDevonshire nest to die. Bertha lives pitied and ad-mired; for what had I against that charming wom-an, whom every one but myself could have beenhappy with?

However we choose to read Bertha as meta-phor: as evil; as a product of Latimer's createdfiction; as a stand-in for Eliot's created fiction;subjectively as woman; or as all, with or withoutirony, George Eliot, who had experience in beingself-created, jointly created, and as creator, leavesBertha Grant admired by friends in her own neigh-borhood, wealthy, and free.

Source: Marcia M. Taylor, "Born Again: Reviving BerthaGrant," in George Eliot—George Henry Lewes Studies, Vol.18-19, September, 1991, pp. 46-54.

Mary CarrollIn the following essay, Carroll describes the

important character of Latimer as a masochistattempting to change by going "into the sadism"that dominates him.

Give me no light, great Heaven, but such as turns Toenergy of human fellowship; No powers beyond thegrowing heritage That makes completer manhood.



Through her altruistic epigraph to a painfulstory, George Eliot suggests that the journey togreater human fellowship often requires a passagethrough suffering. In The Lifted Veil, Eliot exploresthe form of pain that shackles sado-masochisticrelationships, and the roots of that pain—buried inthe misperception that punishment is deserved. Thispaper will explore Latimer's attempt to change bymoving through his masochistic stance into thesadism which has bound him.

The masochistic need for the sadist is capturedby Eliot when she has Latimer moan:

While the heart beats, bruise it— it is your onlyopportunity; while the eye can still turn towards youwith moist timid entreaty, freeze it with an icyunanswering gaze; while the ear, that delicate mes-senger to the inmost sanctuary of the soul, can stilltake in the tones of kindness, put it off with hardcivility, or sneering compliment...

Although Latimer's lament rings with self-pity,it also illustrates the tightness of the trap. Latimer'sresponse at the onset of his heart attack represents alast resistance to change:

I make great effort, and snatch at the bell again. I longfor life, and there is no help. I thirsted for the un-known: the thirst is gone. O God, let me stay with theknown, and be weary of it: 1 am content.

Latimer's cry for help is understandable, butsurges through entrenched psychological or socialstructures usually have to be finalized in solitude.The courage to engage in the solitary completion ofthe journey arises from earlier accomplishmentsand future promises.

Eliot presents a bleak picture of Latimer's earlyexperiences and his response to them. As a result ofhis eye complaint, his mother kept him "on herknee from morning to night." It is doubtful that aneye complaint would require such a symbiotic hold,but assertable that it would have a crippling effecton a child's growth. And it is in the crippling of thedrive toward self-sufficiency that sadism finds itsready target. Bereft of his mother's knee and leftwith a father described as: "one of those peoplewho are always like themselves from day to day,who are uninfluenced by the weather, and neitherknow melancholy nor high spirits'' Latimer is help-lessly alone.

Latimer's development is also blocked voca-tionally: "hungry for human deeds and humanemotions," he is forced to study mechanical sci-ence. The murderous impulses emanating from suchan environment and their self-destructive accept-ance by the victim is captured by Eliot when she has

Death lies under the

veil. The spiritual death of

sado-masochistic

relationships, and the death

of the old that must be faced

in change."

Latimer say: "my nature was of the sensitive,unpractical order, and. . . it grew up in an uncongenialmedium which could never foster it into happyhealthy development."

Away from the oppression of his home envi-ronment, Latimer forms a friendship with the or-phan science student, Meunier. It is a friendship thatarises from mutual isolation and develops into aspansion of poetry and science. Strengthened by hisfriendship with Meunier, Latimer falls ill:

This happier life at Geneva was put an end to by asevere illness, which is partly a blank to me, partly atime of dimly-remembered suffering, with the pres-ence of my father by my bed from time to time.

Latimer's prevision of Prague, as he recoversfrom his illness, may be taken as a metaphor for hislife: "a city under the broad sunshine, that seemedto me as if it were the summer sunshine of a long-past century arrested in its course ..." He emergesfrom the dream full of creative energy havingfocused on the rainbow light rather than the bleaknessof the scene and recognizing that he has changed:"Was it that my illness had wrought some happychange in my organization—given a firm tension tomy nerves—carried off some dull obstruction?''

Latimer has glimpsed a way out of his maso-chistic helplessness, but in order to turn his lifearound, he will have to understand his past from allsides. He will have to go into the sadism, if he is toleave his masochism. Latimer's journey begins withhis response to his prevision of Bertha Grant:' 'I felta painful sensation as if a sharp wind were cuttingme." Upon meeting Bertha he faints at the prospectof the task ahead of him, but he continues.

Eliot gives Latimer clairvoyant abilities in or-der to demonstrate his mesmeric attraction to Ber-tha, and to show in conscious form the unconsciousbond of sado-masochistic relationships. Latimer

V o l u m e 8 193


focuses on the negative as he enters the minds ofothers, and his pain increases as he proceeds fromacquaintances to family members. He is blocked,however, from entering the mind of the woman hewill marry. Externally, he perceives Bertha as:

... keen, sarcastic, unimaginative, prematurely cyni-cal, remaining critical and unmoved in the mostimpressive scenes, inclined to dissect all my favouritepoems, and especially contemptuous towards the Ger-man lyrics which were my pet literature at that time.

Yet he describes each day in her presence as"delicious torment," thus capturing the sexual en-ergy that swirls through sadism and binds the maso-chist. Eliot recognizes the nature of control in suchrelationships when she has Latimer state: "there isno tyranny more complete than that which a self-centred negative nature exercises over a morbidlysensitive nature perpetually craving sympathy andsupport."

Larimer's conscious perception of his bind clearsas he views the painting of Lucrezia Borgia:' 'I felt astrange poisoned sensation, as if I had long beeninhaling a fatal odour, and was just beginning to beconscious of the effects." He marries Bertha statingthat: "The fear of poison is feeble against the senseof thirst."

The marriage follows a surge toward maturity.Prior to Alfred's death, Latimer had realized "myselfishness was even stronger than his—it was onlya suffering selfishness instead of an enjoying one."And he is able to empathize with his father's feel-ings of loss at the death of Alfred.

Strengthened by his maturity, Latimer lifts theveil and penetrates Bertha's mind after the death ofhis father. His knowledge renders Bertha helpless,and Latimer grows increasingly sadistic toward her.He is not, however, able to leave the relationship:

Towards my own destiny I had become entirelypassive; for my one ardent desire had spent itself, andimpulse no longer predominated over knowledge. Forthis reason I never thought of taking any steps towardsa complete separation, which would have made ouralienation evident to the world.

A public proclamation means there is no turn-ing back, but it cannot be made until the essence ofthe tie is penetrated.

Bertha hopes Latimer will commit suicide, butthat is not in his nature even though he is preoccu-pied with thoughts of his own death. As Latimerwithdraws, Bertha shifts her focus to Mrs. Archer, aservant whose name implies a masochistic orienta-tion. Latimer also obtains a new partner. Meunier,

the scientific man, arrives to visit Latimer, ends upcaring for Mrs. Archer, and saving Latimer fromBertha's poison. Latimer penetrates Bertha's es-sence as she refuses to leave the sick room of herdying servant:

The features at that moment seemed so preternaturallysharp, the eyes were so hard and eager—she lookedlike a cruel immortal, finding her spiritual feast in theagonies of a dying race. For across those hard featuresthere came something like a flash when the last hourhad been breathed out, and we all felt that the dark veilhad completely fallen.

Death lies under the veil. The spiritual death ofsado-masochistic relationships, and the death of theold that must be faced in change. The motivationof the sadist, unperceived by the masochist, isexpressed by Mrs. Archer as she reveals Ber-tha's scheme:

You meant to poison your husband.. . the poison is inthe black cabinet... I got it for you . . . you laughed atme, and told lies about me behind my back, to makeme disgusting . .. because you were jealous ...

Eliot ends her story with Latimer and Berthapoles apart, but remaining as halves of a whole untilLatimer dies of a heart attack.

A relationship between the blossoming of GeorgeEliot's writing career and the story of The LiftedVeil has been clearly established chronologically,but dimly understood metaphorically. Perhaps ananalogy can be drawn between Eliot's success withAdam Bede followed by her writing detour in TheLifted Veil, and Latimer's journey into pain afterseeing the rainbow in Prague. The difference, how-ever, lies in George Eliot's survival and triumph.

Source: Mary Carroll, "The Painful Challenge of GeorgeEliot's Epigraph," in The George Eliot Fellowship Review,1991, pp. 57-60.

Sources

Ashton, Rosemary. George Eliot: A Life, New York: PenguinPress, 1996, pp. 218-219.

Haight, Gordon S., ed. Selections from George Eliot's Let-ters, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985, p. vii.

Haldane, Elizabeth Sanderson. George Eliot and her Times:A Victorian Study, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1927, p. 5.

Karl, Frederick Robert. George Eliot: Voice of a Century: ABiography, New York: W. W. Norton, 1995, pp. 575,643-644.

Taylor, Ina. A Woman of Contradictions: The Life of GeorgeEliot, New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1989,pp. 229-230.

/ 9 4 S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s


Further Reading

Ashton, Rosemary. George Eliot: A Life, New York: PenguinPress, 1996.

A recent biography of Eliot which approaches her lifethrough her personal psychology, her writing and thepolitical, social and intellectual context of VictorianEngland. Each of her major works is examined in detail.

Beer, Patricia. Reader, I Married Him: A Study of the WomenCharacters of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, ElizabethGaskell, and George Eliot, New York, Barnes and No-ble, 1974.

Examines key female characters in the novels ofprominent female writers of 19th Century England.

Dickerson, Vanessa D. Victorian Ghosts in the Noontide:Women Writers and the Supernatural, Columbia, Mo.: Uni-versity of Missouri Press, 1996.

Examines Victorian Era fiction by women, such asCharlotte and Emily Bronte and George Eliot, whichincludes elements of the supernatural. Dickerson ex-amines the relationship between the supernatural andissues of gender in the lives and work of these authors.

Haight, Gordon S., ed. Selections from George Eliot's Let-ters, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.

Haight has selected some of the most interestingexcerpts from the thousands of Eliot's letters to createa single chronological narrative of her life and work.This selection includes the details of the writing andpublication of her work.

Haldane, Elizabeth Sanderson. George Eliot and her Times:A Victorian Study, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1927.

Haldane examines Eliot's ideas and writing in termsof larger intellectual and social trends in VictorianEngland. An intellectual history of the writer, whichexplains her life and work in its broader cultural andhistorical context.

Karl, Frederick Robert. George Eliot: Voice of a Century: aBiography, New York: W. W. Norton, 1995.

Karl examines Eliot's life and work in terms of herrole as the "voice" of her century, the Victorian era.Eliot expressed the sentiments of a Victorian Englandundergoing many historical changes and culturalconflicts.

V o l u m e 8 195

The Magic BarrelBernard Malamud

1954

Bernard Malamud's short story, "The Magic Bar-rel," was first published in the Partisan Review in1954, and reprinted in 1958 in Malamud's firstvolume of short fiction. This tale of a rabbinicalstudent's misadventures with a marriage broker wasquite well received in the 1950s, and Malamud'scollection of short stories, The Magic Barrel, wonthe National Book Award for fiction in 1959.

As Malamud attained a reputation as a respect-ed novelist in the 1960s and 1970s, his short storieswere widely anthologized and attracted consider-able attention from literary students and scholars. Awriter in the Jewish-American tradition, Malamudwrote stories that explore issues and themes centralto the Jewish community. A love story with asurprising outcome, "The Magic Barrel" traces ayoung man's struggle to come to terms with hisidentity and poses the religious question of howpeople—Jews and others— may come to love God.Is human love, the story asks, a necessary first stepto loving God? Malamud's "The Magic Barrel" isa story remarkable for its economy, using just a fewstrokes to create compelling and complex characters.

Author Biography

Bernard Malamud was born in Brooklyn, NewYork, in 1914 to Russian Jewish immigrants named

196

The M a g i c B a r r e l

Max and Bertha Malamud. He later described hisparents as "gentle, honest, kindly people." Max,the manager of a small grocery store, was themodel for Morris Bober, the grocer protagonist ofMalamud's second novel, The Assistant (1957).Malamud went to high school in Brooklyn andattended the City College of New York, graduatingin 1936. In 1942 he received a Master of Arts degreefrom Columbia University.

Malamud did not begin writing seriously untilafter World War II, when the horrors of the Holo-caust became known to the international communi-ty. The revelation seems to have made Malamudmore actively aware of his own Jewish identity. "Iwas concerned with what Jews stood for," herecalled,' 'with their getting down to the bare bonesof things. I was concerned with . . . how Jews feltthey had to live in order to go on living."

In 1945 Malamud married Ann de Chiara. Tothe Malamud family, traditional Jews, Bernard'smarriage to a gentile woman seemed an unforgiv-able act. After the wedding Max Malamud wentthrough the rituals of mourning for his son—an actreminiscent of Salzman's actions in "The MagicBarrel." Ann and Bernard moved to Oregon in1949, after Bernard accepted a teaching position atOregon State University. There, Malamud recalled,' 'I was allowed to teach freshman composition butnot literature because I was nakedly without aPh.D." It was at Oregon State that Malamud wrote' 'The Magic Barrel'' in the basement of the univer-sity library.

In 1952 Malamud published his first novel, TheNatural, a poignant treatment of the American heroas baseball player. His second novel, The Assistant(1957), is the heartbreaking account of an impover-ished grocer and the Catholic drifter who comes towork for him. In 1961 Malamud and his familymoved to Vermont, where he took a job teachingcreative writing at Bennington College—a positionin which he would continue for almost twenty-five years.

A highly respected teacher, Malamud was him-self skeptical of creative writing courses: "In es-sence, one doesn't teach writing; he encouragestalented people whom he may be able to do some-thing for. I feel that writing courses are of limitedvalue although they do induce some students to readfiction with care." Malamud won the Pulitzer prizein fiction for his 1966 novel, The Fixer, and theAmerican Library Association's Notable Book cita-tion for Dubin 's Lives in 1979. Malamud continued

actively to teach and write almost until his deathin 1986.

Plot Summary

PartiLeo Finkle has spent the last six years studying

to become a rabbi at New York City's YeshivahUniversity. After hearing that he would have betterjob prospects if he were to get married, Leo decidesto consult a matchmaker. Matchmakers, also calledmarriage brokers, were common in many EuropeanJewish cultures, as well as in some Jewish immi-grant communities in the United States. Leo's ownparents were brought together by a marriage broker,and Leo is determined to find his bride through thesame tradition. He contacts Pinye Salzman, a mar-riage broker who has advertised in The Jewish DailyForward, New York's leading Yiddish newspaper.(Written in Hebrew characters and based on thevocabulary and syntax of medieval German, theYiddish language was spoken by many EuropeanJews and their American immigrant descendants.)

Salzman arrives at Pinkie's apartment one daylate in February and the two set about their task:

Leo had led Salzman to the only clear place in theroom, a table near a window that overlooked thelamp-lit city. He seated himself at the matchmaker'sside but facing him, attempting by an act of will tosuppress the unpleasant tickle in his throat. Salzmaneagerly unstrapped his portfolio and removed a looserubber band from a thin packet of much-handledcards. As he flipped through them, a gesture andsound that physically hurt Leo, the student pretendednot to see and gazed steadfastly out the window.Although it was still February, winter was on its lastlegs, signs of which he had for the first time in yearsbegun to notice. He now observed the round whitemoon, moving high in the sky through a cloud menag-erie, and watched with half-open mouth as it penetrat-ed a huge den, and dropped out of her like an egglaying itself. Salzman, though pretending througheyeglasses he had just slipped on, to be engaged inscanning the writing on the cards, stole occasionalglances at the young man's distinguished face, notingwith pleasure the long, severe scholar's nose, browneyes heavy with learning, sensitive yet ascetic lips,and a certain, almost hollow quality to the darkcheeks. He gazed around at the shelves of books andlet out a soft, contented sigh.(Excerpt from "TheMagic Barrel")

Salzman boasts to Finkle that he has so manyclients that he has to keep their cards in a barrel athis office. He summarizes the attractions of threeyoung women to Finkle, listing their age, appear-

V o l u m e 8 197


Bernard Malamud

ance, dowry, and the financial assets of their respec-tive fathers. Finkle becomes embarrassed by theovertly commercial nature of the conversation and,wondering what role love might play in an arrangedmarriage, asks Salzman to leave.

Leo spends the next day restless and unsettled,wondering if he should try another matchmaker or ifhe should find a wife on his own. That eveningSalzman returns to Leo's apartment, asking if thestudent has reconsidered any of the three women hedescribed. Salzman particularly recommends oneLily Hirschorn, an unmarried schoolteacher. Finklepretends to be ambivalent about the idea, but isintrigued; Salzman leaves the apartment confidentthat Leo and Lily will meet.

Part IIThe next Saturday Leo takes Lily for a walk.

She turns out to be' 'not unpretty,'' is au courant (orup to date) on a variety of topics, and talks easilyand intelligently. Leo has the uneasy feeling thatSalzman is hiding somewhere nearby, watchingthem. He pictures the matchmaker as "cloven-hoofed Pan" (in Greco-Roman mythology Pan isthe god of nature, depicted as half man and halfgoat) sprinkling flower buds in their path to cele-brate their union. Lily presses Leo for details about

his calling as a rabbi, and Leo realizes that Salzmanhas represented him to Lily as a passionately relig-ious man. In a moment of unguarded honesty, Leoconfesses to Lily: "I think . . . I came to God notbecause I loved him, but because I did not." Lily isdisappointed in his answer and the afternoon endswith the understanding that there will be no match.

Part IIILeo returns home in despair. The conversation

with Lily has made him realize some disturbingthings about himself, in particular that he lacks theability to love. Leo's religious vocation seems mean-ingless because he has lived an empty life. How canhe love God if he does not love man? He considersleaving the university, then decides to continue hisstudies, but to find a wife to love on his own terms.When Salzman arrives the next day, Leo criticizesthe matchmaker for having misrepresented the situa-tion to Lily, and tells him that he will no longerrequire his services. Salzman departs, but leaves anenvelope containing photographs of other womenfor Leo to consider.

After a few weeks, Leo opens the envelope.Inside are six photographs of women who are ' 'pasttheir prime." Disappointed, he returns the photo-graphs to the envelope; at the last moment, a sev-enth photograph falls out. Leo looks at it a moment,then lets out a cry of love. The face in the photo-graph is beautiful, melancholy, and carries "animpression, somehow, of evil." Leo falls desperate-ly in love with the image in the picture. He findsSalzman and presses him for the woman's name.Salzman hesitates, claiming that the picture wasincluded in the envelope by accident, then burstsout:' 'This is my baby, my Stella, she should burn inhell." Salzman's daughter Stella, it is implied, hascommitted some terrible act of disobedience againsther father and Jewish tradition. As punishment, shehas been disowned.

Part IVLeo cannot stop thinking of Stella. Finally, he

resolves to find her and to' 'convert her to goodness,himself to God." He encounters Salzman in aBroadway cafeteria and insists that Salzman set up ameeting. Salzman agrees, and Leo suspects thatSalzman had planned for him to fall in love withStella from the beginning.

PartVShortly after, Leo finally meets Stella on a

spring night. She stands smoking beneath a street-



light and he runs to her with a bouquet of flowers.We are then told that:' 'Around the corner Salzman,leaning against a wall, chanted prayers for thedead." In Jewish tradition, a parent will say theKaddish, or the prayer for the dead, for a living childonly when that child has committed a sin of disobe-dience so grave as to cause a final separation fromthe parent.

Characters

Leo FinkleLeo Finkle has spent the last six years studying

to become a rabbi at New York's Yeshivah Univer-sity. Because he believes that he will have a betterchance of getting employment with a congregationif he is married, Leo consults a professional match-maker. Leo is a cold person; he comes to realize that' 'he did not love God so well as he might, becausehe had not loved man." When Finkle falls in lovewith Salzman's daughter, Stella, the rabbinical stu-dent must confront his own emotional failings.

Lily HirschornLily Hirschorn is introduced to Leo Finkle, the

rabbinical student, by Pinye Salzman, the match-maker. She is a schoolteacher, comes from a goodfamily, converses on many topics, and Leo consid-ers her "not unpretty." It soon becomes clear,however, that the match between them will not work.

Pinye SalzmanLeo consults Pinye Salzman, who is a profes-

sional matchmaker. Salzman is an elderly man wholives in great poverty. He is unkempt in appearanceand smells of fish. While Salzman works to bringcouples together, Leo has reason to believe that thematchmaker, or "commercial cupid," is occasion-ally dishonest about the age and financial status ofhis clients. Salzman seems greatly dismayed whenLeo falls in love with Stella. Yet Leo begins tosuspect that Pinye, whom he thinks of as a ' 'trick-ster," had "planned it all to happen this way."

Stella SalzmanStella Salzman is the daughter of Pinye Salzman,

the matchmaker. Salzman has disowned his daugh-ter, evidently because she has committed some

grave act of disobedience. When Leo, who hasfallen in love with Stella, asks her father where hemight find her, the matchmaker replies: ' 'She is awild one—wild, without shame. This is not a bridefor a rabbi." When he finally meets Stella she issmoking, leaning against a lamp post in the classicstance of the prostitute, but Leo believes he sees inher eyes "a desperate innocence."

Leo consults Pinye Salzman, who is a profes-sional matchmaker. Salzman is an elderly man wholives in great poverty. He is unkempt in appearanceand smells of fish. While Salzman works to bringcouples together, Leo has reason to believe that thematchmaker, or "commercial cupid," is occasion-ally dishonest about the age and financial status ofhis clients. Salzman seems greatly dismayed whenLeo falls in love with Stella. Yet Leo begins tosuspect that Pinye, whom he thinks of as a ' 'trick-ster," had "planned it all to happen this way."

Themes

IdentityMalamud's Leo Finkle is a character trying to

figure out who he really is. Having spent the last sixyears of his life deep in study for ordination as arabbi, he is an isolated and passionless man, discon-nected from human emotion. When Lily Hirschornasks him how he came to discover his calling as arabbi, Leo responds with embarrassment:' 'I am nota talented religious person.... I think . . . that Icame to God, not because I loved him, but because Idid not." In other words, Leo hopes that by becom-ing a rabbi he might learn to love himself and thepeople around him. Leo is in despair after hisconversation with Lily because ".. .he saw himselffor the first time as he truly was—unloved andloveless."

As he realizes the truth about himself, he be-comes desperate to change. Leo determines to re-form himself and renew his life. Leo continues tosearch for a bride, but without the matchmaker'shelp: "... he regained his composure and someidea of purpose in life: to go on as planned. Al-though he was imperfect, the ideal was not." Theideal, in this case, is love. Leo comes to believe thatthrough love—the love he feels when he first seesthe photograph of Stella Salzman—he may beginhis life anew, and forge an identity based on some-thing more positive. When at last he meets Stella he

V o l u m e 8 1 9 9

T h e M a g i c B a r r e l

Topics forFurther

StudyWhen did Jewish people settle in large numbersin New York City? Describe the Jewish commu-nities in New York City or in another largeAmerican city. In what way can "The MagicBarrel'' be read as a story about the descendantsof immigrants?

In chapter twenty of the Book of Exodus in theBible, Moses sets forth the Ten Commandmentsto the Israelites. Do the characters in "TheMagic Barrel" follow the Commandments? Whatdoes this say about them?

What does the story suggest about the relationbetween love and self-knowledge? What mustLeo Finkle learn about himself before he is trulyable to love?

"pictured, in her, his own redemption." That re-demption, the story's ending leads us to hope, willbe Leo's discovery through Stella of an identitybased on love.

God and ReligionCentral to Malamud's "The Magic Barrel" is

the idea that to love God, one must love man first.Finkle is uncomfortable with Lily's questions be-cause they make him realize ' 'the true nature of hisrelationship to God." He comes to realize "that hedid not love God as well as he might, because he hadnot loved man." In spite of the zeal with which hehas pursued his rabbinical studies, Leo's approachto God, as the narrative reveals, is one of cold,analytical formalism. Unable fully to love God'screatures, Leo Finkle cannot fully love God.

Once again, the agent of change in Leo's lifeseems to be Stella Salzman. The text strongly im-plies that by loving Stella, by believing in her, Leowill be able to come to God. Just before his meetingwith Stella, Leo "concluded to convert her to good-ness, him to God." To love Stella, it seems, will beLeo's true ordination, his true rite of passage to thelove of God.

Style

Point of ViewPoint of view is a term that describes who tells a

story, or through whose eyes we see the events of anarrative. The point of view in Malamud's "TheMagic Barrel" is third person limited. In the thirdperson limited point of view, the narrator is not acharacter in the story, but someone outside of it whorefers to the characters as "he," "she," and "they."This outside narrator, however, is not omniscient,but is limited to the perceptions of one of thecharacters in the story. The narrator of the storyviews the events of the story through the eyes of LeoFinkle even though it is not Leo telling the story.

SymbolismSymbolism is a literary device that uses an

action, a person, a thing, or an image to stand forsomething else. In Malamud's ' 'The Magic Barrel''the coming of spring plays an important symbolicrole. The story begins in February, "when winterwas on its last legs," and ends "one spring night"as Leo approaches Stella Salzman under a streetlamp. The story's progression from winter to springis an effective symbol for the emotional rebirth thatLeo undergoes as he struggles to grow as a hu-man being.

IdiomIdiom may be defined as a specialized vocabu-

lary used by a particular group, or a manner ofexpression peculiar to a given people. In otherwords, different groups of people speak in differentways. While the narrator and most of the charactersin "The Magic Barrel" speak standard English,Pinye Salzman, the matchmaker, speaks Yiddish.Written in Hebrew characters and based on thegrammar of medieval German, Yiddish was thecommon language of many European Jewish com-munities. A Russian Jew at the turn of the century(Malamud's father, for example) might read theTorah in Hebrew, speak to his gentile neighbors inRussian, and conduct the affairs of his business andhousehold in Yiddish.

Since World War II, Yiddish has become lessprevalent in Europe and in the immigrant Jewishcommunities of North America. In another genera-tion, it may totally die out. Many of Malamud'scharacters, however, still use the idiom. WhenSalzman asks Leo, "A glass tea you got, rabbi?";when he exclaims, "what can I say to somebody



that he is not interested in school teachers?"; andwhen he laments, ' 'This is my baby, my Stella, sheshould burn in hell," the reader hears an idiomaticversion of English seasoned with the cadences ofYiddish speech.

Historical Context

Malamud's "The Magic Barrel" was first pub-lished by the Partisan Review in 1954 and reprintedas the title story in Malamud's first volume of shortfiction in 1958. The period between those two dateswas an eventful time in American history. In 1954the United States Supreme Court unanimously re-jected the concept of segregation in the case ofBrown v. Board of Education, which found that thepractice of maintaining separate classrooms or sepa-rate schools for black and white students wasunconstitutional.

In the same year Senator Joseph McCarthy wascensured by the Senate for having unjustly accusedhundreds of Americans of being communists. In1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the firstsatellite to successfully orbit the earth, sparkingconcern that the Soviets would take control of space.

While the text of' 'The Magic Barrel'' is almostentirely free of topical or historical references thatmight allow readers to place the events of the storyat a particular date, one detail establishes Leo'sencounter with Salzman as taking place roughly atthe time of the story's publication in the mid-fifties.Finkle is about to complete his six-year course ofstudy to become a rabbi at New York City's YeshivahUniversity. Yeshivah, in Hebrew, means a place ofstudy. Yeshivah University is the oldest and mostdistinguished Jewish institution of higher learningin the United States. While its history goes back to1886, the school was not named Yeshivah until1945, when its charter was revised. At the end of thetraditional six years of study to become a rabbi,then, Leo would probably be considering marriagesometime early in the 1950s.

By consulting a professional matchmaker tofind a bride, Leo is acting more like his immigrantgrandparents than an American Jew of the 1950s. InYiddish, the secular language of many Europeanand American Jewish communities, the word for"matchmaker" is shadchen (pronounced shod-hun).Before the seventeenth century, the shadchen was ahighly respected person, responsible for the per-

petuation of the Jewish people through arrangedmarriages. As European Jewish communities grewlarger and as modern secular notions of romanticlove became pervasive, professional matchmakersbecame less scrupulous in their dealings and werefrequently the objects of satire and derision. Indeeda wealth of humor at the expense of the shadchendeveloped during the nineteenth and twentieth cen-turies; representative is the remark of the Yiddishwriter Sholom Aleichem (1859-1916), who quippedthat the shadchen was best defined as "a dealer inlivestock."

Regardless, the shadchen tradition survivedJewish immigration to the United States. In hishistory of Jewish immigrant life on New YorkCity's lower east side, World of our Fathers, IrvingHowe describes the typical shadchen as similar toMalamud's Pinye Salzman: "Affecting an ecclesi-astic bearing, the matchmaker wore a somber blacksuit with a half-frock effect, a silk yarmulke (skull-cap), a full beard." The matchmaker, according toHowe, "customarily received 5 percent of the dow-ry in addition to a flat fee, neither one nor bothenough to make him rich." Pinye Salzman is inmany ways, then, a stereotypical figure who hasstepped from the world of Jewish oral humor intothe pages of Malamud's story. Leo, in seeking theshadchen's help in the 1950s, reveals himself notonly as a formal, but as a very old fashionedyoung man.

Critical Overview

When Malamud's "The Magic Barrel" first ap-peared in Partisan Review in 1954, it provided acolorful glimpse into the world of American Jews.Fours years later, after his second novel, The Assist-ant, had been enthusiastically received, Malamudreprinted "The Magic Barrel" as the title story in acollection of his short fiction. The collection soldwell, and was praised by reviewers for its honesty,irony, and acute perception of the moral dilemmasof American Jews. It won the National Book Awardfor fiction in 1959.

Between the publication of the collection in1958 and his death in 1986, Bernard Malamudbecame one of America's most respected writers offiction, publishing six more novels and numerouscollections of short fiction. Malamud's writing hasbeen the subject of critical debate for three decades.Writing in 1966, Sidney Richman examines the

V o l u m e 8 2 0 1


Compare

Contrast1950s: Decades of immigration from Easternand Western Europe have led to a considerableJewish population in the United States. Strongand vibrant Jewish communities thrive in manyAmerican cities. Yet discrimination against theJewish people exists.

1990s: Through intermarriage and assimilation,many people in the Jewish community believethat Jewish culture is endangered. Unfortunate-ly, discrimination still exists in the United States,but many groups fight misinformation and dis-crimination against Jews.

1950s: The Jewish matchmaker, also known asthe "shadchen," performs a vital function with-in the community. Arranged marriage, althoughlosing popularity among Jewish families, is stilla viable option for young Jewish men and wom-en of age.

1990s: Matchmaking is considered an antiquat-ed tradition. It is mainly used in orthodox Jewishcommunities, as other networking opportunitiesallow Jewish men and women to meet and findpossible marriage partners.

emotional sterility of the protagonist Leo Finkle.According to Richman, "... Finkle knows the wordbut not the spirit; and he makes it clear that in asecret part of his heart he knows it."

Theodore C. Miller, in 1972, compares "TheMagic Barrel" to Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter,pointing out that both stories explore ' 'the love ofthe minister and the whore." Unlike Hawthorne'sminister, Arthur Dimmesdale, however, Malamud'srabbinical student, Finkle, ' 'comes to accept Stellafor the reason that he accepts universal guilt."Miller also contends that Salzman has arranged thelove affair between Leo and Stella because hewishes "to initiate Leo Finkle into the existentialnature of love." When at the end of the storySalzman says Kaddish, the traditional Jewish prayerfor the dead, he is ' 'commemorating the death of theold Leo who was incapable of love. But he is alsocelebrating Leo's birth into a new life."

Both Richard Reynolds and Bates Hoffer offerinterpretations of "The Magic Barrel" based onspecific Jewish religious traditions. Reynolds's fo-cus is on the role of Kaddish, maintaining thatSalzman hopes that Leo will bring Stella, "theprodigal daughter," back to a moral life. In thatcase, reciting the Kaddish is particularly appropri-ate given the ancient prayer's emphasis on resurrec-tion. Hoffer compares the five-part structure of the

story to the Torah (the first five books of theOld Testament, the sacred text of Judaism) andclaims that Leo has broken a majority of the tencommandments.

Finally Carmen Cramer maintains that Leo'sstory is a journey of emotional maturity. Rather,"The Magic Barrel" chronicles the rabbinical stu-dent's "Americanization," his gradual assimilationinto American culture. Cramer asserts that Finkle"possesses few of the typical American traits—decisiveness, emotionality, action-orientation—buthe melts into the American pot by the end ofBernard Malamud's polished piece of writing...."

Criticism

Benjamin GoluboffGoluboff has taught English at Lake Forest

College In Lake Forest, Illinois. In the followingessay, he places the story within the context ofJewish fiction of the 1950s and focuses on the themeof inter-generational relations.

Publishing "The Magic Barrel" in 1954, BernardMalamud was at the beginning of his career, andnear the beginning of a brief and remarkable periodin the history of Jewish-American writing. For


&

The Magic B a r r e l

WhatDo I Read

Next?The Jews in America, a work by Arthur Hertzberg,is an accessible and entertaining history of Jew-ish people in the United States from colonialtimes to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers is a powerfulnovel about a family of Russian immigrant Jewson New York's Lower East Side.

The Assistant is Bernard Malamud's second nov-el. Frank Alpine, a drifter and dreamer, works in

the corner grocery of Morris Bober, an impover-ished and hard working Jew. Through his friend-ship with Morris and his daughter Helen, Franklearns about Jewish culture and religion.

The Stories of Bernard Malamud, published in1983 several years before the author's death,contains stories of great wit and frighteninginsight.

perhaps a decade, from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, the American literary imagination seemed tohave been captured by a series of books by andabout Jews. In 1953 Saul Bellow published TheAdventures of Augie March, a story of tragicomicmisadventures set in Chicago's Jewish immigrantmilieu. In 1957 Malamud brought out his secondnovel, The Assistant, the tale of an impoverishedBrooklyn grocer who becomes a kind of Jewishevery man. 1959 saw the literary debut of PhilipRoth, whose Goodbye, Columbus was the accountof a doomed love affair between two Jewish youngpeople divided by social class.

Goodbye Columbus won the prestigious Na-tional Book Award for fiction in 1960, as Bellow'sAugie March had done in 1954, and as Malamud'scollection of short stories, The Magic Barrel, had in1959. Equally distinguished Jewish-American writ-ers—such as Norman Mailer, Joseph Heller, andChaim Potok—attracted attention on the literaryscene during these years as well.

The novelists who made their reputations dur-ing this time didn't always have Jewish concerns asthe focus of their fiction. Still, for a decade or so,Malamud's fiction seemed to be part of a movementof the American novel toward the lives and prob-lems of Jews. Of course, Jewish-American fictionwas not invented in the 1950s; novels by and aboutAmerican Jews comprised a tradition of some sig-nificance and depth by the time Malamud began

his career. In one important respect—in its themeof change and conflict between generations—Malamud's "The Magic Barrel" is solidly embed-ded in the tradition of Jewish-American fiction.

The first important Jewish-American novel wasMary Antin's The Promised Land of 1912. Born inRussian Poland, Antin immigrated to Boston as achild in 1894 and became a social worker in theimmigrant neighborhoods of that city. The Prom-ised Land is based on Antin's own immigrantexperience, contrasting the poverty and persecutionof Jewish life in Eastern Europe with the freedomand economic opportunity available to immigrantsin the United States.

The vision of America is not so happy, howev-er, in The Rise of David Levinsky by AbrahamCahan (1917). Cahan was a Russian immigrant whofound success in America as an editor and journal-ist. (He edited the The Jewish Daily Forward, theYiddish newspaper in which Leo Finkle reads PinyeSalzman's ad.) Like his creator, David Levinskyencounters an America where opportunity is pur-chased at great sacrifice. As David rises in NewYork's garment industry, his success costs him loveand personal integrity. Most of all, David's successresults in his betrayal of those Jewish spiritualtraditions that had sustained his ancestors in Russia.David ends the novel as a representative of animmigrant generation that has lost the integrity of itsancestors.

V o l u m e 8 203


, Consequently, Pinkie's

transformed character would

suggest that, unlike their

ancestors, the younger

generation is open to passion,

to change, and to new

beginnings exempt from the

influence of tradition."

The theme of change and conflict among gen-erations appears powerfully in Anzia Yezierska's1925 novel Bread Givers. Yezierska's novel drama-tizes the conflict between Sara Smolinsky, a livelyyoung Jewish woman, and her dictatorial father, aRussian immigrant Rabbi. Rabbi Smolinsky hasdevoted his life to study of the Torah, and insiststhat his daughters work to support him as he contin-ues his studies in America. Sara dreams of receivinga secular American education and becoming a teach-er, but to do so she must defy the will of her father:"More and more I began to see that father, in hisinnocent craziness to hold up the Light of the Law tohis children, was a tyrant more terrible than the Tsarfrom Russia." Sara eventually realizes her dream,becoming a teacher in the New York Public Schools,but only at the price of breaking off her relationshipwith her father. When the two reconcile at the end ofthe novel, it is because Sara has come to recognizethat the drive and will that allowed her to finish hereducation came from her father.

As Leo Finkle and Pinye Salzman pursue eachother through the pages of Malamud's "The MagicBarrel," the theme of generational conflict presentsitself with rich ambivalence. It's as clear from hisprofession—an arranger of marriages in the waytraditional to nineteenth-century European Jewishcommunities—as it is from his Yiddish-inflectedspeech that Pinye Salzman is the story's representa-tive of an older generation of immigrant Jews. LeoFinkle, born in Cleveland and bearing a gentilegiven name, as clearly embodies a younger popula-tion—perhaps those second- or third-generationAmerican Jews who came to maturity in the 1950s.What's less clear, however, is with which of the twogenerations the story encourages us to empathize.

Who has moral authority in the story, old Salzmanor young Finkle?

It is tempting to read the story as favoringyouth, especially in light of the emotional transfor-mation that Leo Finkle undergoes. Leo enters thestory as a cold and passionless young man. Herequires a bride not because he is in love, butbecause he is about to be ordained as a rabbi andbelieves that he will find a congregation morereadily if he is married. Leo praises Salzman'sprofession with chilly formalism; the matchmaker,he says, makes "practical the necessary withouthindering joy." After his date with Lily Hirschorn,Leo comes to recognize and deplore his ownpassionlessness. Prompted by the matchmaker, Lilyhad expected Finkle to be a man of great human andspiritual fervor. Leo disappoints her, of course, andsees ' 'himself for the first time as he truly was—unloved and loveless."

In the aftermath of this revelation, Leo appearsto change. He tells the matchmaker, ' 'I now admitthe necessity of premarital love. That is, I want to bein love with the one I marry." Salzman's reply tothis declaration seems to identify the matchmakerwith the older generation: "'Love?' said Salzman,astounded. After a moment he remarked, 'For us,our love is our life, not for the ladies. In the ghettothey—.'" (Finkle interrupts here with more abouthis new resolve to find love on his own.) In hisfragmentary response Salzman seems to say that forthe older generation—those who had lived in theJewish ghettoes of Europe—romantic love was afrivolous luxury. Survival was what mattered ("ourlife"), not "the ladies." With that remark, Salzmanappears to inhabit a past whose dangers are nolonger real to any but himself.

Finkle's transformation is complete when hefalls in love with the photograph of Salzman'sdaughter, Stella, left accidentally among pictures ofthe matchmaker's other clients. Loving this fallenwoman, and loving her only on the basis of herphotograph, is just the passionate leap of faith ofwhich Leo has been previously incapable. His eyesnow "weighted with wisdom," Leo has learned atlast the redemptive nature of passion.

Old Salzman, however, is more inflexibly thanever rooted in tradition. He considers his daughterdead because of her mysterious sin, and even Finkle'snewfound passion for her can't restore Stella to theliving in her father's eyes. In the story's mysteriousfinal section, Finkle rushes to Stella with a bouquet


The

M a g i c B a r r e l

o

f flower s while : "Aroun d th e corner , Salzman ,

leanin

g agains t a wall , chante d prayer s fo r th e dead. "

I

f w e interpre t Salzman' s Kaddish —the tradi -

tiona

l Jewis h praye r fo r th e dead—a s bein g fo r hi s

daughter

, the n a s representativ e o f th e olde r genera -

tio

n Salzma n i s s o committe d t o traditio n tha t h e

see

s onl y deat h wher e lif e ha d jus t begun . Conse -

quently

, Finkle' s transforme d characte r woul d sug -

ges

t that , unlik e thei r ancestors , th e younge r genera -

tio

n i s ope n t o passion , t o change , an d t o ne w

beginning

s exemp t fro m th e influenc e o f tradition .

On

e proble m wit h thi s interpretatio n i s tha t th e

stor

y mor e tha n onc e suggest s tha t Finkle' s sudde n

passio

n fo r Stell a migh t no t hav e bee n a n accident ,

tha

t i t migh t hav e bee n planne d b y th e wil y Salzman .

Finkl

e suspect s tha t th e ol d ma n i s capabl e o f

intrigue

. A s h e walk s wit h Lil y Hirschorn , Finkl e

sense

s Salzma n "t o b e somewher e around , hidin g

perhap

s hig h i n a tre e alon g th e street , flashin g th e

lad

y signal s wit h a pocke t mirror . ... " Jus t befor e

th

e story' s conclusion , whe n Salzma n ha s finall y

agree

d t o le t Finkl e mee t Stella , Le o i s suddenl y

'

'afflicte d b y a tormentin g suspicio n tha t Salzma n

ha

d planne d i t al l t o happe n thi s way. " I f Leo' s

meetin

g wit h Stell a i s par t o f th e matchmaker' s

plan

, the n w e woul d hav e t o attribut e t o him , an d t o

th

e olde r generatio n h e represents , a knowledg e o f

huma

n frailt y an d passio n superio r t o tha t o f th e

formalisti

c rabbinica l student .

What

, then , d o w e mak e o f th e Salzman' s

sayin

g Kaddish a t th e story' s conclusion ? I f hi s pla n

ha

s bee n al l alon g t o educat e Le o i n th e necessit y o f

passion

, the n i t woul d b e inconsisten t wit h tha t pla n

fo

r Salzma n t o mour n jus t whe n h e ha s succeede d i n

bringin

g th e lover s together . Criti c Theodor e C .

Mille

r ha s suggeste d a persuasiv e wa y ou t o f thi s

dilemma

: ".. . i f Salzma n ha s planne d th e whol e

episode

, the n th e matchmake r throug h hi s Kaddish

i

s commemoratin g th e deat h o f th e ol d Le o wh o wa s

incapabl

e of love . But he is als o celebratin g Leo' s

birt

h int o a ne w life. " Viewe d i n thi s way , th e

matchmaker'

s praye r o f mournin g celebrate s th e

succes

s o f hi s pla n fo r Le o an d Stella , th e "Yiddishe

kinder"

(Jewis h children) .

Becaus

e Malamud' s "Th e Magi c Barrel " i s a

wor

k o f ar t an d no t a sociologica l stud y o f inter -

generationa

l relations , i t mus t remai n a matte r o f

interpretatio

n whethe r th e stor y privilege s th e olde r

o

r younge r generation . Becaus e it s centra l interpretiv e

questio

n involve s thi s judgmen t betwee n tw o gen -

erations

, however , "Th e Magi c Barrel " i s a stor y

solidl

y grounde d i n th e traditio n o f Jewish-Ameri -

ca

n fiction .

Source

: Benjami n Goluboff , "Overvie w o f 'Th e Magi c

Barrel,''

' fo r Short Stories fo r Students, Th e Gal e Group , 2000 .

Sidney

Richman

In

the following excerpt, Richman provides a

plot

synopsis and an examination of the major

themes

of' 'The Magic Barrel.''

V o l u m

e 8

205

The Magic Barrel


T h

e M a g i c B a r r e l

Source

: Sidne y Richman , "Th e Stories, " i n Bernard Malamud

an

d th e Critics, edite d b y Lesli e A . Fiel d an d Joyc e W . Field ,

Ne

w Yor k Universit y Press , 1979 , pp . 305-31 .

Bates

Hoffer

In

the following excerpt, Hoffer identifies par-

allels

between the first five books of the Old Testa-

ment

and the structure of the story, arguing that

Finkle

is a ' 'sinner" rather than a hero.

V o l u m

e 8

207


No synopsis is a substitute for ["The Magic Bar-rel"]. One is given here in case you have not readthe story for some time.

Leo Finkle, a rabbinical student, hears that hemay have a chance at a better position if he ismarried. He approaches Salzman, a poverty-riddenmatchmaker who smells of fish, who wears oldclothes, and whose suggested brides are not shall wesay big winners. After rejecting the few suggestedby Salzman, Leo finds a picture in the file of adifferent girl and immediately falls in "love." Thepicture is of Salzman's daughter and the story doesnot make clear whether the picture is there bymistake (as Salzman says) or by design (as Leosuspects). It is clear that Salzman has indeed dis-owned his daughter who has gone completely bad.Leo demands to meet her, no matter what herbackground and condition. As the story closes, Leois rushing toward her with a bouquet while she isstanding under a streetlight dressed in red andwhite. The last paragraph then reads:

Around the corner, Salzman, leaning against a wall,chanted prayers for the dead.

As common in Malamud's stories, the closingpicture is ambiguous upon a superficial reading.Salzman is chanting for whom? His daughter? Leo?The current state of Judaism? Someone even sug-gested to me that Salzman is singing in happinessbecause he is a Jew who is about to get his daughtermarried!

One example of a previous interpretation of thestory is given by Rovit [in Bernard Malamud andthe Critics, 1970]:

The aesthetic form of the story—the precise evalua-tion of forces—is left to the reader....

In the best of his stories in The Magic Barrel, the samepattern of ultimate poetic resolution by metaphoris evident.

I assume that you will agree, after re-readingthe quote, that Rovit does not provide an interpreta-tion at all. In fact, he finds purposeful ambiguity, asevidenced by:

The dramatic action of the story attempts to lead thecharacters into a situation of conflict which is "re-solved" by being fixed poetically in the final ambi-guity of conflicting forces frozen and united in theirvery opposition. (Italics added)

In other words, the answer to the question' 'Who is he chanting for?'' is ' 'Who knows?'' Thatanswer is only sufficient if there is no evidence at allfor an answer. That there is abundant evidence ismade clear below.

Another example is from Rahv's Introductionto A Malamud Reader.

Of all Malamud's stories, surely the most masterful is" The Magic Barrel," perhaps the best story pro-duced by an American writer in recent decades

. . . Salzman contrives to leave one picture in Finkle'sroom by which his imagination is caught as in a trap.When tracked down, he swears that he had inadvert-ently left the fatal picture in Finkle's room. "She'snot for you. She is a wild one, wild, without shameLike an animal, like a dog. For her to be poor was asin. This is why to me she is dead now .. . This is mybaby, my Stella, she should burn in hell." (Rahv thenquotes the last two paragraphs of the story.)

Thus the rabbinical student who, as he confesses, hadcome to God not because he loved Him but preciselybecause he did not, attempts to find in the girl fromwhose picture "he had received, somehow, an im-pression of evil" the redemption his ambiguous na-ture demands. (Italics added)

Rahv, then, sees the basic ambiguity in Finkleand does not worry about Salzman.

But worry we must. Where Rahv assumesSalzman "contrives" to leave Stella's picture, oth-ers feel that Salzman tells the truth when he swearsit was an accident. Assumptions and feelings willconvince no one who does not agree with us.Therefore we must look for evidence in the story forsupport of one view or another. Let us, then, turn toindependent but mutually supporting arguments,based on the story itself, for a non-ambiguousinterpretation. We should only accept ambiguityafter exhausting all procedures and even then real-ize that someone else may find the key to clear upthe ambiguity. . . .

We start by noting that Leo is a final yearrabbinical student about to obtain a doctoral degreefrom Yeshiva, a highly prestigious university. Asrabbi, as scholar deeply knowledgeable of the Pen-tateuch, the Law, he will be "master" and "teach-er' ' of the Law to generations of Jewish children.We therefore begin our analysis of Leo by judginghis thoughts, words and deeds in light of his voca-tion. Although we might go deeply into the Law—and the reader is encouraged to do so—in order tojudge, here we will mainly use the "basic" part ofthe Law which most of us know, the Ten Command-ments from Deuteronomy 5:6-21. (I use MonsignorKnox's translation for a variety of reasons. It isimportant to note that Catholics, Protestants andJews often number the verses, and consequently thecommandments, differently.) Surely we can expecta rabbi to support at least the fundamental partsof the law.



Deuteronomy 5

6 And thus he spoke: I am the Lord thy God, it was Iwho rescued thee from the land of Egypt, where thou

7 didst dwell in slavery. Thou shah not defy me by

8 making other gods thy own. Thou shall not carvethyself images, or fashion the likeness of anything inheaven above, or on earth, to bow down and

9 worship it. I, thy God, the Lord Almighty, amjealous in my love; be my enemy, and thy children, tothe third and fourth generation, shall make amends;

10 love me, keep my commandments, and mercy shallbe thine a thousand-fold. (Commandment 1)

11 Thou shall not take the name of the Lord Ihy Godlighlly on thy lips; if a man uses that name lightly, hewill nol go unpunished. (2)

12 Observe Ihe Sabbalh day and keep il holy, as

13 Ihe Lord Ihy God has bidden thee. Six days fordrudgery, for doing all the work Ihou hast to do;

14 when the seventh day come, il is a sabbalh, a day ofresl, consecrated to Ihe Lord Ihy God. Thai day, allwork shall be al an end, for thee and for every son anddaughter of thine, thy servanls and serving-women,Ihy ass, loo, and Ihy ox, and all thy beasls, and Ihealiens that live within Ihy cily walls. Il musl bring resllo Ihy men-servanls and Ihy maid-servants,

15 as to thyself. Remember that thou too wast a slavein Egypt; what conslraining force Ihe Lord used, whala display he made of his power, lo rescue Ihee; andnow he will have thee keep Ihis day of resl. (3)

16 Honour Ihy falher and Ihy molher, as Ihe Lord IhyGod has bidden Ihee; so shall Ihou live long lo enjoyIhe land which the Lord Ihy God means lo give thee. (4)

17 Thou shall do no murder. (5)

18 Thou shall not commit adultery. (6)

19 Thou shall nol steal. (7)

20 Thou shall nol bear false wilness againslIhy neighbour. (8)

21 Thou shall nol covel Ihy neighbor's wife. (9)

Thou shall nol sel Ihy heart upon thy neighbour'shouse or lands, his servanls or handmaids, an ox or assor anylhing lhal is his. (10)

The first three commandments pertain to Godand the next seven to man. As we go throughthe story and compare Leo's behavior against thestandards of the law, recall that the first threewere summarized by Christ with the phrase fromDeuteronomy 6:5, "Thou shall love the Lord thyGod with the love of thy whole heart, and thy wholesoul, and thy whole strength," and the last sevenfrom Leviticus 19:18, "Thou shall love thy neigh-bor as thy self; Ihy Lord is his.'' Note, then, that loveof God is the focus of all.

I am convinced that they

believe that breaking God's

law, dropping religious

beliefs, and doing anything

your little ole heart desires

are the marks of maturation."

So now we look to Leo. Instead of observingthe Sabbath, he goes oul on a date with Lily. On thedate he mentions the name of God in ordinaryconversalion.... And on Ihe dale he says he "cameto God not because I loved Him, but because I didnot." Poof! The firsl three commandments disap-pear, nol broken bul evaporated! We begin lo sus-pect we are nol here reading of a dedicated relig-ious leader.

Before turning to Ihe other commandments, letus pause and look closely at the definition of love inthe Law and compare it with Leo's version. Incommandmenl number one we find lhal love of Godincludes keeping the commandments: ' 'If you loveMe, keep My commandments." "Love," then, is acommitment of the will to behave in a certainmanner. It might be helpful to use an example here.In the commandment against adultery, the word"adultery" itself refers to an "adulteration" of thelove of God by an illicit love of someone or some-thing. Thus fornication or sex outside marriage, andsex when married, are both adulterations of theDivine love. Human love is a reflection of Divinelove and, therefore, true love is always within thelimits of the Divine will expressed in the command-ments and elsewhere. Yet when we turn lo Leo'sversion of love, we find that he has decided to throwaway the divine definition:

Love, I have said lo myself, should be a by-producl ofliving and worship ralher lhan ils own end. Yel formyself I find il necessary lo eslablish Ihe level of myneed and fulfill it.

He changes "love" to "need" and seeks nolGod's will but his own: "my" need, he says. Recallhere that Leo's great "love" for Stella all comesfrom a cheap piclure. He has not yet mel her or seenher in the story. "Who can love from a piclure?"Salzman asks. ' 'If you can love her, ihen you canlove anybody." Then Leo confirms what we have

Volume 8 209


suspected, that he has thoroughly confused ' 'love''with sex, desires, needs and etc. "Just her I want,"he murmurs. This bastion of Judaism has spentalmost seven years in rabbinical preparation andstill has the understanding of "love" of a sex-starved sophomore. There is no evidence in thestory of any commitment to his religion or hisvocation, no evidence of any real practice of hisfaith or any real knowledge of it. We find that hisstudy has not been rewarding. You can find, if youlook, the several other places which indicate thatLeo is not what you would call your model rabbi.

Let us go on to the other commandments.Numbers 6 and 9 deal with sex. There is evidencethat Leo does not understand the morality of sex atall. When he goes out with Lily, he thinks he seesSalzman as a "cloven-hoofed Pan, piping nuptialditties" throwing flowers in their way. Note thepagan image for marriage. When he first thinks ofusing a matchmaker, he looks out the window and

observed the round white moon, moving high in thesky through a cloud menagerie, and watched withhalf-open mouth as it penetrated a huge hen, anddropped out of her like an egg laying itself.

My judgement is that Leo is thinking primarilyof the physical part of the marriage, to put itdiplomatically. The last example here occurs whenhe discovers Stella's picture. You should re-read thewhole paragraph, but in case you do not have a copyhandy, here are some critical lines:

It was not, he affirmed, that she had an extraordinarybeauty—no, though her face was attractive enough; itwas that something about her moved him. Feature forfeature, even some of the ladies of the photographscould do better; but she leaped forth to his heart—hadlived, or wanted to—more than just wanted, perhapsregretted how she had lived—had somehow deeplysuffered: it could be seen in the depths of thosereluctant eyes, and from the way the light enclosedand shone from her, and within her, opening realms ofpossibility: this was her own. Her he desired. His headached and eyes narrowed with the intensity of hisgazing, then as if an obscure fog had blown up in themind, he experienced fear of her and was aware thathe had received an impression, somehow, of evil. Heshuddered, saying softly, it is thus with us all.

"Her he desired." He senses she is "evil" andshudders with excitement. Here at the 3/4 point ofthe story, the climax, he makes his decision topossess the evil. His desire must be attained. Thatshe is evil is clarified by Salzman as he and Leo talk:

"She is not for you. She is a wild one—wild, withoutshame. This is not a bride for a rabbi."

"What do you mean wild?"

' 'Like an animal. Like a dog. For her to be poor was asin. This is why to me she is dead now."

"In God's name, what do you mean?"

"Her I can't introduce to you," Salzman cried.

"Why are you so excited?"

"Why, he asks," Salzman said, bursting into tears.' 'This is my baby, my Stella, she should burn in hell."

Ultimately, Leo chooses the wild animal, thedog, the disinherited Stella ' 'dead'' in sin. We canonly conclude, following this line of reasoning, thateventually Leo consciously chooses evil and turnshis back on God Whom he said he did not loveanyhow. Leo is not, to put it mildly, thoroughlydedicated to the Law.

The other commandments are broken or ig-nored in less powerful ways. For example, Leobreaks the one against stealing when he refuses togive Salzman's picture of Stella back. The com-mandment against greed, avarice and envy of oth-er's goods may be involved in the reason why Leoapproached the matchmaker in the first place. Quitesimply he wanted to "win" a better congregation.By which might be meant a bigger or more affluentone. The commandment against lying is brokenwhen Leo turns down the lame girl; he tells Salzman,"because I hate stomach specialists," the profes-sion of her father. The one against honoring motherand father is ignored when he decides to avoid thematchmaking institution. [At one point] he couplesthat institution with the honoring of his father andhis mother. Indeed the only Commandment he doesnot overtly break is the one against murder—andmy judgment is that he does indeed "murder" hisown soul by choosing evil.

With all this evidence that Leo is precisely theworst possible rabbi—we have not time to note theother rules and laws he breaks—we must concludethat Leo is not a positive picture of a modern rabbi.He may be a picture of some modern rabbi, butMalamud does not give us a positive picture. Leomay even be a picture of one type of rabbi graduat-ing today, one pursuing a "thrust for life" (to useRahv's phrase) which is actually a grasp of spiritualdeath. At the story's close, Salzman is around thecorner chanting prayers for the dead, which refers toLeo and Stella and their offspring to the third andfourth generation and to that part of Judaism whichhas a Leo, a great "lion" of God, as its master andteacher....

There is a richer and deeper analysis of ' TheMagic Barrel" which carries us across the sweep ofJewish history and takes us into the heart of the

S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s2 / 0


Pentateuch itself. For a few moments forget allyou have read above and read this subsectionindependently.

In much great literature there is an underlyingstructure which borrows from religious and/or liter-ary structure. James Joyce builds his Portrait onDante's Inferno, Greene builds End of the Affair onJohn of the Cross' Dark Night of the Soul, Faulknerbuilds The Sound and the Fury on the New Testa-ment through Revelations. Examples abound in anygood survey of Western literature. To posit such astructure for "The Magic Barrel" is to suggest thatsome of the story's power derives from its allegori-cal structure.

The underlying structure begins to take shapewhen you see that the story is in five parts and thatLeo has been studying the Pentateuch, the five partsof the Torah. Here is a brief version of each book.. . :

GENESIS: "In the beginning" the focal point is thefall of Adam which begins the redemption story.

EXODUS: "The going out" has Moses as the centralfigure. The deliverance by means of crossing the RedSea is referred to throughout the Bible. The wander-ing in the desert and the manna from heaven aremajor points.

LEVITICUS: "The Levites" or Israelite priesthooddiscusses the ministry of the Levitical priesthood.This highly legalistic book demands perfect obedi-ence and sets up the rites of the Day of Atonement inprecise detail. Obedience will bring redemption.

NUMBERS: "In the wilderness" the Israelites aregiven final preparation for their entrance into thePromised Land. Numbers stresses that disobediencereceives its due reward, but repentance results inpardon and restoration.

DEUTERONOMY: The "second law" describes theIsraelites as they are about to enter the PromisedLand. Moses will not be allowed to enter because of asin. Moses exhorts the people to follow the law anddescribes the results of a lack of obedience. Theconcluding part is an added section on the deathof Moses.

Before starting the broad outlines of the parallelsbetween the Pentateuch and "The Magic Barrel,"recall the simple point that allegories as defined inLinguistics in Literature are parallel structures. Thestory is divided into five sections overtly, that is, byspaces on the page.

"In the beginning" of the story Leo has hissexual image fantasy about the moon while Salzmanis there talking about women.

In part two, parallel to Exodus or "the goingout", he literally "goes out" with Lily. We notice

the mention of his walking cane even as Mosescarried a staff. This section contains an image that isextremely hard to explain except by reference toExodus. The winged loaves of bread that Leo sees atthe end of the story make perfect sense if we accepta parallel to the "bread from heaven" or mannawhich occurs in Exodus. The manna came downfrom heaven as if frost or snow in Exodus and ofcourse just after the loaves of bread fly high over-head it snows in part two. Note also that part twoends with Leo still "out."

In part three Leo spends much time thinking ofthe priest hood (Leviticus), his reasons for hisdecisions, and so on. Leo seeks redemption for selfin the sense of establishing the level of his need. Theredemptive picture given by Salzman is the choiceof good or evil, that is, he tells Leo that Leo shouldnot choose Stella, "she should burn in hell."

In part four, parallel to Numbers in which themethods and choices in the redemption story be-come clear, Salzman offers Leo yet one more chanceto avoid evil. "Who can love from a picture? . . . ifyou can love her, then you can love anybody."

Finally, again only in the broadest terms, in partfive Leo rushes towards his serf-defined ' 'promisedland," Stella. Parallel to the funeral prayer forMoses, who could not enter the Promised Land, thesection which concludes Deuteronomy, we find theprayers for the dead concluding this part.

Now let us pause for a while and reflect. Theanalysis above accounts for a whole potful of seem-ing aberrations in the story, for several occurrenceswhich cannot be explained in an internally consis-tent way by any other analysis: loaves of breadflying overhead; a matchmaker who "appears" outof thin air, who is "transparent," almost "vanish-ing' '; the prayers for the dead when no one is deadand so on. If, however, we had only the aboveparallels few would bother searching for the moreparticular parts of the parallel structure. Here I willgive one extended parallel and drop a few hints forparallels you can have fun finding for yourself.

Let's look for a moment at the choice whichLeo faces, Lily or Stella, coupled with a centralchoice which the priest has in Leviticus. In makingan offering to God, the priest must choose only aclean animal, never an unclean. He must be able todistinguish them. We note here that the girl pro-posed by Salzman is named "Lily," surely a sym-bolic name for purity. The priest must also dosomething to the clean animal or the offering is not

V o l u m e 8 2 1 1


valid. That something is that it must be salted. Herewe notice that Salzman (which means "salt- man")has disinherited his impure daughter. She is not only"unclean" but unsalted. Thus we find that thenames of Lily and Salzman are perfectly suited tothe parallel structure.

Let's go a little more deeply into Leviticus.Aaron's two sons mentioned in chapter 10 decide tohonor the Lord more than their orders require bymoving closer to the holiest place. They decided todo more; that is, they think they are choosing goodwhen they decide to do it their own way. They arethen consumed by fire from the Lord. Leo, too,wants to decide for himself and he decides Salzman'sdaughter is "good" despite all evidence to thecontrary (100% of it). Now if I had written "TheMagic Barrel" and had set up the parallel to thispoint, I would look for a girl's name which suggestspurity or whiteness but which also suggests thefire which consumes her ("she should burn inhell") and will, by extension, consume Leo. Infact, ' 'Stella'' does the job to perfection since itmeans "star."...

There are several other parallels you couldtrack down. Part two ought to have a body of water(i.e. "Red Sea"). It does. Leo ought to have otherparallels to Moses. He does. There ought to be moreexamples of law and tradition breaking, since Leo isthe great Law-Breaker rather than a Moses or Law-Giver. There are. Since Salzman appears and disap-pears on "wings of the wind" and has a relativewho has fallen and burns in hell, it shouldn't be toodifficult to relate them to the redemption story. (Ifyou will permit me—if she indeed is burning, it isinteresting to note that when Leo first sees her she isstanding "by the lamp post, smoking.")...

One last line of analysis must be given here toshow clearly that what Leo thinks is a "redemp-tion" process is precisely the opposite. We look atLeo at the end of each section and find how he had"entangled himself to such an extent that hebecame suspicious of "Salzman's machinations."He acted ' 'frenziedly" in his craving for Stella, was"afflicted" with a "tormenting suspicion" andfinally had "prayers for the dead" prayed for him.Leo looked upon evil, decided it was good, and ranto greet it with flowers outthrust.

I do not see how anyone could find the story"ambiguous" with respect to Leo's decision.

The analysis presented above uses a great dealof direct textual evidence (such as breaking of

various rules) to show that Leo is the opposite of ahigh-level rabbi and it uses direct textual evidencefor parallels between the story and the Pentateuch,that which Leo studied for years and that which hewould be expected to teach as a rabbi. In the latterinterpretation, Leo becomes the great Law-Breakeras contrasted to the author and "hero" of thePentateuch, the Law-Giver, Moses. Leo seeks notthe Promised Land offered by God, but the prom-ised land of his own desires, union with a prostitutewhom he does not even know, save from a cheappicture. Leo breaks God's laws, the Mosaic law, thenatural law, the standards appropriate to a rabbini-cal student and to a Jew in general; he breaks thetraditions of his religion, his race, his ancestors, hisparents; he breaks the rules of common courtesy andkindness. He seeks that which makes him shudder, apicture of evil which he decides will become hisgood. From direct textual evidence, Leo is perhapsthe greatest loser in the history of literature sinceLucifer's Fall.. . .

You may disagree with the last sentence, butthe point there was exaggerated for a particularreason. Over and over again the commentators onthis story project Leo as a winner, as someone whohas "matured" and seeks his redemption. PinyeSalzman is even seen as a "criminal." How cananyone hold the idea that Leo is somehow "matur-ing" by choosing a hooker? Here I would like toattempt an answer, not by quoting endlessly, but bycommenting on the type of criticism involved. Letus therefore begin by presenting a case for Leo asthe good guy.

As we read "The Magic Barrel" we note thatLeo is suspicious that Pinye arranged for him tofind Stella's picture and that the whole story wasstaged. Leo is presented pictures of older or crip-pled girls so that Stella will seem better. Stella iscondemned so as to make her more attractive toLeo. Pinye is a poor, undignified representative ofthe old, repressive system that must be brokenthrough for true maturation to take place. (Matura-tion, in this interpretation, consists of doing exactlywhat one wants to do.) Leo runs toward his redemp-tion to the tune of violins.

What precisely is it that is the key to the twopolar opposite—and hence ambiguous?—interpre-tations? Clearly it is the interpretation of the role ofthe matchmaker. Is Leo right in his suspicion thatthe whole affair was staged or is Pinye right indenying any duplicity? If you side with Leo, theneverything Pinye says is suspect because after all



lying is breaking a commandment. If you side withthe matchmaker, then you see Leo as having a guiltyconscience, one that turns Pinye into a Pan or a liaror a fraud. How do we resolve the issue? We lookclosely at the story for evidence that one is present-ed as a positive character and the other as negative.Only if the evidence is mixed can we accurately saythe story is ' 'ambiguous.'' A close analysis showsLeo to be the consummate loser. The only evidencefor Pinye as wrong comes from Leo's thoughts. No,Leo as hero simply will not hold up if you use theevidence of the story itself.

OK, you ask, but aren't we back where westarted? How can someone cling to the view thatLeo is the good guy? The answer is rather harsh, butI think the harshness is fully justified. My judgment,after some years of studying the issue, is that thosecritics actually believe that breaking all the rules andsleeping with a prostitute is a maturational experi-ence. ... Those critics must actually believe that"adult" movies are indeed adult, rather than mereadolescent sex fantasies. I am convinced that theybelieve that breaking God's law, dropping religiousbeliefs, and doing anything your little ole heartdesires are the marks of maturation. They aren't, inthe abstract, but the issue raised by their misunder-standing is a serious one. Let us spend a few lines onit. Leo may represent the ' 'mature'' modern rabbiwho abandons his entire background and perhaps hemay in a more general sense represent the Jew whohas nothing of Jewishness left except his race.Certainly that interpretation fits with other MalamudJews, especially Henry Levin (of "The Lady of theLake'') who changes his name to Henry R. Freemanand heads for Europe to escape and denies hisJewishness to one and all. But there is more to itthan that, simply because Leo's story is more thanabandoning his past values. Leo actually decides totreat what is shudderingly evil as a positive goodthrough which to achieve redemption. The criticsand commentators who find Leo a ' 'model" for ouryouth must have absorbed the same reversal ofvalues, which reversal after all so pervades Ameri-can society. Leo, then, may also represent all of uswho are faced with the profoundly spiritual ques-tion: which value system do I choose? We knowLeo's choice and have clear and direct textualevidence that he chose wrong. The evidence fromthe story is clear, but we have come to the point inliterary criticism where we may ignore the text,ignore the structure of the story, ignore anythingthat clashes with the interpretation we want tomake. We have come to the point where the choos-

ing of evil is considered a positive good—just asLeo considered it.

"The Magic Barrel" is a great short story. Itspower is evident whether you seek a deeper level ofmeaning or not. It is anthologized widely and dis-cussed by thousands of people every year. Analysesof it are still appearing. The point of this article isthat Malamud has constructed his story of thestudent of the Pentateuch on the structural frame-work of the Pentateuch and that any interpretationwhich fails to take into account this integration ofcontent and form is deficient. The conclusion of thisanalysis is that Malamud as master craftsman andMalamud as artist of vision has created for us apowerful short story which will stand the test oftime as a classic of our century.

Source: Bates Hoffer, "The Magic in Malamud's Barrel,"in Linguistics in Literature, Vol. 2, 1977, pp. 1-26.

Richard ReynoldsIn the following excerpt, Reynolds investigates

the meaning of the prayers for the dead that Salzmanchants at the conclusion of' 'The Magic Barrel.''

Published analyses of Bernard Malamud's "TheMagic Barrel" praise the "richly ambiguous" con-clusion. The consensus is that to reduce the story tospecific meaning is to do the author an injustice.Perhaps, however, an interpretation may be sus-tained that points to a consistent moral thread.

Pinye Salzman is, as Professor Bellman sug-gests [in ' 'Women, Children and Idiots First: TheTransformation Psychology of Bernard Malamud,''Critique (1965)], "almost supernatural." The titleof the story supports that. What exactly is a magicbarrel? Apparently Malamud did not have a specificanalogue in mind, but the concept is quite clear; it isa barrel which produces surprises, usually inex-haustible quantities or unique qualities, or both.Plainly Salzman's briefcase is the magic barrel,providing first an endless number of possible bridesfor Leo Finkle, and then yielding, as if from amysterious compartment, the special girl, Stella.There is thus an irreducible element of magic in thestory; the narrative combines sheer fantasy with theidea that love and marriage are divinely supervised.

But Salzman also operates in the earthy sphereof gefilte fish, dingy tenements, and Broadwaycafeterias. At this level, and at least in this oneinstance of Leo and Stella, Salzman is a superbmanager, whose art is based on his understanding ofLeo's character and situation. He gives Leo the

V o l u m e 8 213


But Salzman also

operates in the earthy sphere

of gefilte fish, dingy

tenements, and Broadway

cafeterias. At this level, and

at least in this one instance

of Leo and Stella, Salzman

is a superb manager, whose

art is based on his

understanding of Leo's

character and situation,"

chance to learn about himself by associating withpeople. The meeting with Lily Hirschorn brings Leoto the realization that "he had never loved any-one. . . . he did not love God so well as he might,because he had not loved man." The supposedlyaccidental appearance of Stella's picture from themagic briefcase leads to Leo's eager pursuit of herand to Salzman's evasions and assertions of hisdaughter's wild life. "If you can love her, then youcan love anybody," Salzman tells Leo, apparentlywith scorn, but knowing this is exactly the challengeLeo wants. The image Salzman has presented ofStella contrasts sharply with Leo's own life. She hasdared, sinned, suffered. She is the prodigal daugh-ter. Leo has gone from a sheltered home in Cleve-land to six years of intensive study in a small room.' 'Put me in touch with her . . . Perhaps I can be ofservice," Leo says to Salzman. He has learned thathe will not reach God through books, that he needsto involve himself with mankind, and that he andStella can assist each other.

Whether Stella is the fallen woman Salzmanhas suggested and Leo has visualized, is uncertain.She plays the part, standing by the lamp post smok-ing. But she waits for Leo ' 'uneasily and shyly . . .her eyes . . . filled with desperate innocence." Sheis probably much less experienced than her fatherhas indicated. That is of less importance than therevolution that Salzman has achieved in Leo's heart.

But what about the prayers for the dead, whichSalzman is chanting at the end of the story? Does he

do so because the meeting of Leo and Stella is a"disaster?" That hardly agrees with Leo's ownnotion that Salzman has been managing Leo's pro-spective marriage for some time. Is it [as Earl Rovitasks in his "Bernard Malamud and the JewishLiterary Tradition," Critique 6, No. 2] simply thematchmaker's "final dignified behavior," his partin the concluding tableau? Is it [as Sidney Richmanasks in his 1966 Bernard Malamud] "impossible totell for whom Pinye chants?'' To decide, we mustconsider the nature of the Kadish, the prayers for thedead. [According to Meyer Waxman in A Hand-book of Judaism, 1947:]

[The Kadish] is not primarily a prayer for the dead.... Itis not known definitely when the Kadish became thespecial prayers for mourners, and various reasons areadvanced for this appropriation. The real reason seemsto be that the Kingdom of God is so closely associatedin the entire Talmudic and Rabbinic literature with theMessianic times when resurrection will take place,that a plea for its realization was considered indirectlya plea for the resurrection of the departed.

No one would appreciate this better than LeoFinkle, after six years' study about to be ordained.If, as one may well suppose from the story, Leoknows where Salzman is and what he is doing—reciting the Kadish—then the matchmaker is play-ing his part to the end: he has specifically told Leothat he considers Stella dead; Leo and love are toeffect her resurrection. The understanding and art ofSalzman have brought about a prospect of happiness.

Source: Richard Reynolds, '"The Magic Barrel': PinyeSalzman's Kadish," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 10, No.1, Winter, 1973, pp. 100-02.

Theodore C. MillerIn the following excerpt, Miller discusses the

role of love in ' 'The Magic Barrel.''

Although Bernard Malamud has colored his shortstory "The Magic Barrel" with the language andthe manners of the Jewish ghetto, he also makes useof a cultural past that has a closer relationship toNathaniel Hawthorne and Blaise Pascal than toSholem Aleichem.

Malamud, of course, is using the same motifthat Hawthorne mined in The Scarlet Letter—thelove of the minister and the whore. Hawthorne'sDimmesdale, the man of God, was destroyed be-cause he could not accept Hester and her emblem ofsexual transgression. In Malamud's story too, LeoFinkle, the young rabbinical student, is at firstrepelled when he senses the sexual history of Stella,the matchmaker's daughter. Although he does not



yet know specifically that she is a whore when hefirst sees her picture, his attraction is stifled, for' 'then as if an obscure fog had blown up in the mindhe experienced fear of her and was aware that he hadreceived an impression, somehow, of evil." ButFinkle, unlike Dimmesdale, comes to accept Stellafor the reason that he accepts universal guilt. WhenMalamud adds that "[Finkle] shuddered, sayingsoftly, it is thus with us all," Finkle is well on hisway to becoming a Dimmesdale redeemed.

But Malamud's minister is ultimately quitedifferent from Hawthorne's. For Leo Finkle doesnot fall in love primarily for a reason—but rather heloves for no reason at all. Malamud—who echoesPascal in several other stories too—is suggestingthat' 'Le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaitpoint"—one must love even if all the evidencedenies the emotion. Like Pascal, Malamud proposesthat love is existential.

And if Salzman is Malamud's spokesman in thestory, then he only appears to be the comic stereo-type of the Jewish marriage broker. Although he hasdecided that his own daughter should be the bride ofthe young rabbinical student, he does not reallybelieve in the matchmaker's ethic that love is theproduct of reason. Salzman is the sage who wouldinitiate Leo Finkle into the existential nature oflove—but that is a peculiarly difficult task sinceFinkle is the eminently rational young man commit-ted to the life of reason. The student wants to marryfor the solid cause that it will prove beneficial to hisprofessional status. He has even turned to the rab-binate, not for love of God, but because he isinterested in the Talmudic law—rules of reason.Therefore, in order to work his ends, Salzman mustengage in a ruse—he initially enters into Finkle'ssystem of thought, offering him several young womenwho should prove highly attractive according to allthe rules of logic. One has a father, a physician,ready to give a handsome dowry; another has aregular teaching license—the reasons derive fromthe middle-class Jewish ethic.

But Finkle's rational world fails him, for de-spite all the logical good inherent in these youngladies, he cannot fall in love with them. Instead, hebecomes filled only with existential despair as herealizes the emptiness of his life—and of his relig-ious calling. Only after he has exploded Finkle'ssystem can Salzman make sure that Finkle seesStella's picture. But he must present her in a contextso that it is absurd to marry her. And preciselybecause it is absurd, Finkle falls in love.

would initiate Leo Finkle into

the existential nature of

love—but that is a peculiarly

difficult task since Finkle is

the eminently rational young

man committed to the life of

reason,"

Several critics have accepted literally the de-scription of Stella as a "carnal young lady" and a' 'girl of the streets." And indeed within the text, sheevokes ' 'a sense of having been used to the bone,wasted"; Finkle has that "impression of evil"; andSalzman, himself, describes his daughter as ' 'a wildone—wild, without shame." But the accuracy ofthese characterizations is most ambiguous sincethey are all subject to double meanings. That Stellahas been "used to the bone" may mean only thatshe has suffered. That she evokes "an impression. . . of evil'' may be interpreted not in a sexual sense,but in Hawthorne's sense that all men bear humanguilt. And Salzman's own statement may be part ofhis ruse to complete Finkle's initiation—and bringhim to the marriage altar with his daughter. Just asSalzman only pretends to be a comic marriagebroker who offers young women for rational cause,he must also pretend that his daughter is a whore, agirl whom there is no reason to marry. Near the endof the story Finkle himself recognizes that Salzmanhas perhaps planned this outcome from their firstencounter.

When Finkle finally encounters Stella, her puri-ty is suggested by the whiteness of her dress andfurthermore by the explicit statement that Finklesees a look of ' 'desperate innocence'' in her eyes.

But more important, her innocence clarifies thepuzzling ending when the reader is told that Salzmanis chanting a prayer for the dead. In the orthodoxJewish ritual, a parent may in extreme cases enactthe ritual of mourning for a child who has broken aprimary taboo. If Stella is really a trollop, her father,considering her and the rabbinical student to be amost unfit couple, is rejecting them both through his

V o l u m e S 215

Salzman is the sage who


prayer. But if Salzman has planned the whole epi-sode, then the matchmaker through his kaddish iscommemorating the death of the old Leo who wasincapable of love. But he is also celebrating Leo'sbirth into a new life. Salzman's remark to Leo aboutStella "if you can love her then .you can loveanybody'' is ironically not a statement disparaginghis daughter as a social outcast. Rather Salzman issuggesting that if Leo can love Stella, he has un-locked his heart to mankind and God. He will havelearned that the barrel in which Salzman keeps hispictures is then indeed a magic barrel, for love is amagic that cannot be explained by the normal lawsof logic.

Source: Theodore C. Miller, "The Minister and the Whore:An Examination of Bernard Malamud's 'The Magic Bar-rel,"' in Studies in the Humanities, Vol. 3, 1972, pp. 43-4.

Sources

Antin, Mary. The Promised Land, first published 1912,reprinted, New York: Penguin, 1997.

Cahan, Abraham. The Rise of David Levinsky, first published1917, reprinted, New York: Harper's, 1960.

Cramer, Carmen. "The Americanization of Leo Finkle," inCyahoga Review, Vol. 1, No. 2, Fall, 1983, pp. 143-147.

Hoffer, Bates. "The Magic in Malamud's Barrel," in Lin-guistics in Literature, Vol. 2, No. 3, 1977, pp. 1-26.

Miller, Theodore C. "The Minister and the Whore: AnExamination of Bernard Malamud's 'The Magic Barrel,'" inStudies in the Humanities, Vol. 3, 1972, pp. 43-4.

Reynolds, Richard. '"The Magic Barrel': Pinye Salzman'sRadish," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 10, c. 1973,pp. 100-102.

Richman, Sidney. Bernard Malamud, Twayne, 1966.

Yezierska, Anzia. Bread Givers, first published 1925, re-printed, New York: Persea Books, 1975.

Further Reading

Astro, Richard and Jackson Benson, eds. The Fiction ofBernard Malamud, Oregon State University Press, 1977.

Gives a comprehensive study of Malamud's short andlong fiction.

Field, Leslie A. and Joyce W. Field, eds. Bernard Malamud:A Collection of Critical Essays, Prentice- Hall, 1974.

Explores various aspects of Malamud's work.

Meeter, Glenn. Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth: A Criti-cal Essay, Eerdmans, 1968.

Examines the two writers in the context of Jewishfiction.

Pinsker, Sanford. "The Achievement of Bernard Malamud,"in Midwest Quarterly, Vol. 10, July, 1969, pp. 379-89.

Provides an assessment of Malamud's career.

Richman, Sidney. Bernard Malamud, Twayne, 1966.Gives a detailed survey of Malamud's life and works.


The Man to Send Rain CloudsWritten in 1967 and published two years later in theNew Mexico Quarterly, "The Man to Send RainClouds" established Silko as a brilliant new NativeAmerican writer. The story brought her wide recog-nition as well as a grant from the National Endow-ment for the Humanities.

The story is based on an incident Silko hadheard about in her hometown of Laguna, NewMexico: an old man had been found dead in a sheepcamp and had been given a traditional Indian burial.The local Catholic priest resented the fact that hehad not been called in to officiate at the service.Silko's story explores the Indians' blending ofCatholic rituals with traditional Indian rituals dur-ing a funeral ceremony. The tension of maintain-ing traditional Pueblo practices and the co-optingof outside influences—in this case, the Catholicchurch—is a recurring interest of Silko's and ap-pears in several of her stories.

As a story about Native Americans,' 'The Manto Send Rain Clouds" describes the quality ofcontemporary Laguna Pueblo life. The story isadmired for Silko's masterful portrayal of the Indi-ans' quiet acceptance of death and for its highlycontrolled narrative.

Leslie Marmon Silko

1969

217

The Man to Send Rain Clouds

Author Biography Plot Summary

Silko is one of the major authors to emerge from theNative American literary renaissance of the 1970s.Born in 1948 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, shegrew up on the nearby Laguna Pueblo Reservation,where she was raised within a family of mixedIndian, Mexican, and white descent. Life on thereservation was a daily balancing act of Pueblo andChristian ways. Storytelling, or story-sharing, wasan important part of Pueblo culture, and Silko grewup listening to stories of the Indians' struggles andtheir survival as a people. The stories lived on in hermemory, and in later years she drew heavily uponher heritage in her writings.

She majored in English at the University ofNew Mexico because, as she put it, ' 'I loved to readand write about what I'd read." Silko graduatedmagna cum laude in 1969, the same year shepublished "The Man to Send Rain Clouds." Thisshort story would launch her career as a writer. Sheattended law school for a short time, but, disillu-sioned with the legal system, she left school afterthree semesters, having decided to seek justice forher people through the power of her imaginationand stories. Since that time she has establishedherself as an important chronicler of AmericanIndian life, though she hesitates to call herself arepresentative of the Pueblo, as she is but "onehuman being and one Laguna woman."

Silko's other works include the verse collectionLaguna Woman (1974), the novels Ceremony (1977),Storyteller (1981), and Almanac of the Dead (1991),the autobiography Sacred Water (1993), and theessay collection Yellow Woman and a Beauty of theSpirit (1996). Also, in 1985 her letters to and fromJames Wright were published as The Delicacy andStrength of Lace. She has also written film scriptsand given numerous interviews which provide in-sights into her works.

Silko has garnered much critical acclaim andnumerous awards and grants for her fiction andpoetry, including a Discovery grant for her shortstory "The Man to Send Rain Clouds" in 1969, agrant from the National Endowment for the Arts anda poetry award from Chicago Review in 1974, andthe Pushcart Prize for poetry in 1977. In 1981 shewas awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthurFoundation grant.

' 'The Man to Send Rain Clouds'' is set on an Indianreservation in the American Southwest, with itswide mesas (plateaus) and arroyos (ravines). As thestory opens, Leon and his brother-in-law, Ken, findan old man, Teofilo, dead under a cottonwood tree.They ritually paint his face and take his body,wrapped in a red blanket, to their home for atraditional Pueblo funeral ceremony. (The Pueblopeople paint the faces of the dead so that they will berecognized in the next world. They also scatter cornand sprinkle water to provide food and water for thespirit on its journey to the other world. To thePueblo, death is not the end of existence, but part ofa cycle in which the spirit of the deceased returns toits source and then helps the community of theliving by returning with rain clouds for the nourish-ment of the earth.)

On their way home, Leon and Ken encounterFather Paul, a young Catholic priest who expresseshis sorrow that the old man had died alone. Teofilo'sfuneral is performed in the traditional Native Ameri-can way until Leon's wife suggests to her husbandthat he should ask the priest to sprinkle holy wateron the grave. At first, Father Paul refuses to use theholy water as part of an Indian burial ceremony.After reconsideration the priest, still confused abouthis role the ceremony, changes his mind and sprin-kles the grave with the holy water:

The priest approached the grave slowly.... He lookedat the red blanket, not sure that Teofilo was so small,wondering if it wasn't some perverse Indian trick—something they did in March to ensure a good har-vest—wondering if maybe old Teofilo was actually atthe sheep camp corralling the sheep for the night. Butthere he was, facing into a cold dry wind and squintingat the last sunlight, ready to bury a red wool blanketwhile the faces of his parishioners were in shadowwith the last warmth of the sun on their backs.

His fingers were stiff, and it took him a long time totwist the lid off the holy water. Drops of water fell onthe red blanket and soaked into dark icy spots. (Ex-cerpt from "The Man to Send Rain Clouds")

Here the story ends, for now Leon is ' 'happyabout the sprinkling of the holy water; now the oldman could send them big thunderclouds for sure."

Characters

GrandfatherSee Teofilo



KenKen is the brother-in-law of Leon and a minor

character in the story. Like old Teofilo and Leon, healso believes in following Indian ways, and he helpshis brother-in-law any way he can.

LeonLeon is Teofilo's grandson. He manages to

integrate American Indian ways and Christian ways;he is a Christian who still respects his roots andcultural heritage. He smiles as he paints his deadgrandfather's face according to the Native Ameri-can custom and believes that the old man's spiritwill bring rain. He is a man of few words and has acalm, strong sense of dignity. After finding Teofilo'sbody, Leon does not talk about it. At home, Leoninforms his family of Teofilo's death with fewwords. The fact that he is able to persuade the priestto sprinkle holy water at the grave site with a fewwell-chosen words—without argument—reveal hischaracter.

LouiseLouise is Leon's wife. Efficient and capable,

she plans Teofilo's funeral and suggests to Leonthat it would be appropriate to use holy water tosymbolically quench the thirst of the old man.Although her part is minor, it is her suggestion thattriggers the culture clash in the story.

Father PaulFather Paul is a young Catholic priest strug-

gling to lead a parish on an Indian reservation. Hehas affection and respect for his parishioners, asseen in his concern for old Teofilo. He also under-stands that the spirit of the law is more importantthan the letter of the law. Although he is troubled bythe persistence of Indian customs in his parish, helearns to adapt to them. When Leon asks him to useholy water at Teofilo's burial service, he at firstrefuses, but he later sprinkles the water on the grave.

TeofiloTeofilo is "the man to send rain clouds," the

old man who is found dead under the big cotton-wood tree. Teofilo is perhaps the most importantcharacter in the story, since the plot concerns theconflict that arises after his death between Ameri-can Indian ways and Christian ways. A NativeAmerican living on a reservation in New Mexico,he was fiercely independent. He adhered to both thenew and old ways: he wore mainstream Americanclothing, but also wore his white hair long in the

Leslie Marmon Silko

traditional Indian manner and still believed in theold ways. He made new moccasins for the ceremo-nial dances in the summer and was not keen ongoing to church. Teofilo was old and well respected,as evidenced by the affection shown him by Leonand his family.

Themes

CreativityIn her short story "The Man to Send Rain

Clouds," Silko perceives creativity as a source ofstrength for Native Americans, a theme that recursin her later works. In particular, Leon's strength liesin his ability to creatively combine Indian ritualswith Catholic rituals. He does not strictly follow theIndian ways, but adds a new element by asking theCatholic priest to sprinkle holy water on Teofilo'sgrave. Throughout the story, Silko emphasizes thatthe strength of Pueblo traditions lies in their abili-ty to incorporate alien elements into their ownway of life.

Custom and TraditionSilko's story is concerned with the strength of

the customs and traditions of the Native Americans,

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The M a n to Send Rain Clouds

MediaAdaptations

Although "The Man to Send Rain Clouds"has not been adapted to a multimedia version,the videotape Running on the Edge of the Rain-bow: Laguna Stories and Poems (1979) offersreadings from Silko's works and the author'scommentary on Pueblo culture in Laguna,New Mexico.

and how to resolve a conflict between Native Ameri-can customs and Christian customs. Leon asks theCatholic priest to participate in the community'sIndian rites. Father Paul refuses at first, but laterdecides to sprinkle holy water on the grave, honor-ing the Native American belief that the spirit musthave plenty of water in its journey to the otherworld. The story reveals how clashes over differ-ences in customs and tradition can be avoidedthrough a combination of customs.

Appearances and Reality' 'The Man to Send Rain Clouds" addresses the

theme of appearances versus reality through thecharacter of Father Paul. At one point excited andfull of plans for his Native American parish, FatherPaul finds the reality of working in an Indian parishvery different from what he had expected. WhenLeon asks the priest to participate in the burialceremony, Father Paul looks with tired, unseeingeyes at the "glossy missionary magazine. .. full oflepers and pagans" and refuses, but after a mo-ment's reflection he decides to go with Leon.

Culture ClashIn "The Man to Send Rain Clouds," Leon and

Father Paul belong to different cultures, and there isthe moment of confrontation when, at Teofilo'sburial service, Father Paul asks, "Why didn't youtell me he [Teofilo] was dead? I could have broughtthe Last Rites anyway." Leon replies, "It wasn'tnecessary, Father." The conflict is resolved withFather Paul agreeing to participate in an Indianritual. Although it is not strictly a Christian burial,the dead man receives the blessings of both tradi-tional and Christian cultures.

Style

DeathRelated to the theme of custom and tradition in

"The Man to Send Rain Clouds" is the theme ofdeath, which is presented from a Native Americanperspective. Death is not an end, but part of a cyclewherein the spirit departs to return in time withrainstorms. As he finishes painting the dead face ofTeofilo, Leon is not sad; instead he smiles andoffers the conventional Pueblo prayer asking thedead man to send rain clouds.

Individual versus CommunityAnother theme in "The Man to Send Rain

Clouds" is the struggle of the individual versuscommunity. As the priest of a Native Americanparish, Father Paul must oversee the Catholics in hisregion. Yet after the old man dies, Leon does notinform the priest, though the rest of his parishionershave been informed. Father Paul is the last person tojoin his parishioners in the graveyard, and as heempties ajar of holy water on Teofilo's grave he, ina small way, joins the Native American community.

Point of ViewThe story is told through an objective, third-

person narrative, and unfolds in a rigidly objectivetone. There is no hint of the narrator's personalvoice as each character is presented. With the ex-ception of the graveyard scene that concludes thestory, the narrator does not explain the character'sthoughts, but presents only the action of the story.

SettingThe story is set on the Laguna Indian Reserva-

tion in New Mexico. The landscape of the story withits arroyos and mesas is an integral part of the story.Silko captures the landscape very effectively in hernarrative. For instance, "The big cottonwood treestood apart from a small grove of winterbarecottonweeds which grew in the wide, sandy ar-royo.... Leon waited under the tree while Kendrove the truck through the deep sand to the edge ofthe arroyo.... But high and northwest the bluemountains were still in snow.. . . It was gettingcolder, and the wind pushed gray dust down the


The Man t o Send Rain Clouds

narrow pueblo road. The sun was approaching thelong mesa where it disappeared during the winter.''

AllusionsThe title "The Man to Send Rain Clouds"

alludes to the Pueblo belief that the dead are associ-ated with rain clouds. The narrator makes severalreferences to the Indian burial ceremony and thehistory of the Pueblo people. The story's title istaken from a traditional prayer in which the Indianspray for the spirit of the deceased to send rain cloudsso crops will grow and the community will notstarve. To the Pueblo, death is not the end ofexistence, but part of a cycle in which the humanspirit returns to its source and then helps the com-munity by returning with rain clouds. The Pueblopaint the face of the deceased so that he will berecognized in the next world. They also scatter cornand sprinkle water to provide food and water for thespirit on its journey to the other world. The refer-ence to the Catholic church's "twin bells from theKing of Spain" is important as it points to thehistory of the Pueblo's initial encounter with Chris-tianity. In 1598, when the Pueblo swore allegianceto the king of Spain, Catholic missionaries arrivedto convert Native Americans to Catholicism. Al-though Christianity was forced on them, the Indianscontinued to observe their traditional religiouspractices.

HumorIn this story, Silko uses humor as a double-

edged tool. The encounter between the young priest,who is denied the opportunity to perform Catholicrites, and Leon, who insists that such rites are notnecessary, is humorous. The exchange also pro-vokes an awareness of intercultural conflict. Oneillustration of this is the following passage: "Thepriest approached the grave slowly... . He lookedat the red blanket, not sure that Teofilo was so small,wondering if it wasn't some perverse Indian trick—something they did in March to ensure a goodharvest—wondering if maybe old Teofilo was actu-ally at the sheep camp corralling the sheep for thenight. But there he was, facing into a cold dry windand squinting at the last sunlight, ready to bury a redwool blanket while the faces of his parishionerswere in shadow with the last warmth of the sun ontheir backs."

Topics forFurther

StudyResearch the historical experiences of NativeAmericans by reading the introduction to GearyHobson's anthology The Remembered Earth orportions of Major Problems in American IndianHistory, edited by Albert Hurtacto and PeterIverson. Relate what you have learned to Le-on's story.

Study ' "The Man to Send Rain Clouds'' within alarger context, specifically the spread of Christi-anity among other nations and cultures. Forexample, compare Father Paul's experience onthe Pueblo reservation with the missionary'sexperience in India in Robin White's novel Houseof Many Rooms.

Was Silko successful in creating the landscape ofNew Mexico in ' 'The Man to Send Rain Clouds?''Discuss the importance of the story's geographi-cal location and physical features and relatethese features to the main themes of the story.

the direct opposite of—the literal one. Irony can beverbal or situational. Silko demonstrates a skillfuluse of irony in the story, notably in her depiction ofthe young priest, an authority figure who wants theIndians to follow Catholic ways but, in the end,himself uses holy water as part of a traditionalIndian ceremony, participating in a non-Christianceremony.

DescriptionSkillful use of adjectives and attention to detail

are the hallmarks of Silko's descriptions. For in-stance, in ' 'The Man to Send Rain Clouds'' she usessuch expressions as "wide, sandy arroyo," "low,crumbling wall," "brown, wrinkled forehead" and' 'He squinted up at the sun and unzipped his jacket''to enhance the beauty of her narrative.

IronyIrony is a literary device used to convey mean-

ing to a phrase quite different than—in fact, often

DialogueSilko employs an interesting mixture of narra-

tion and dialogue. The dialogues between Leon and

Volume 8 2 2 1


Father Paul, and between Leon and Louise, presentthe characters to the readers directly. Readers areable to draw their own conclusions as to the charac-ters' respective natures and motivations.

Historical Context

Silko wrote the story "The Man to Send RainClouds'' in 1967 for a creative writing class, basingit upon a real-life incident in Laguna, New Mexico.In the late 1960s there was an interest in indigenouscultures in America. Many Indians moved off thereservations and into mainstream American culture,becoming more visible as a result. Peter Farb'sMan's Rise to Civilization (1968) generated interestin Native Americans, while Scott Momaday, aNative American, won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize forfiction with his novel House Made of Dawn. Silkoasserts,' 'It was a kind of renaissance, I suppose....It is difficult to pinpoint why but, perhaps, in the1960s, around the time when Momaday's books gotpublished, there was this new interest, maybe it wasnot new, but people became more aware of indige-nous cultures. It was an opening up worldwide."Native Americans were suddenly publishing booksand Silko was one of the first published Pueblowomen writers.

The story reflects life on the Laguna IndianReservation in the 1960s. For more than 12,000years the Pueblo had lived in the region and tradi-tional religious beliefs permeated every aspect oflife. Even when Christianity was introduced, it wasincorporated into older Pueblo rites. Scholar A.LaVonne Ruoff maintains: "Silko emphasizes thatthese Pueblo Indians have not abandoned their oldways for Catholicism; instead, they have taken onepart of Catholic ritual compatible with their beliefsand made it an essential part of their ceremony."The essence of the story lies in the "instance ofcultural clash with the feelings and ideas involved."

The rituals in the story underscore the Puebloconcept of death. According to Per Seyersted, forthe Indians, ' 'man is a minute part of an immensenatural cycle, and his death has nothing threateningin it because, after a life which contained both thegood and the bad he goes back to where he camefrom, and in line with the communal thinking, it ishoped that his spirit will help the group he leavesbehind by returning with the rain clouds."

Critical Overview

Michael Loudon maintains that' 'The Man to SendRain Clouds" "testifies to the essential role ofstorytelling in Pueblo identity, giving the peopleaccess to the mythic and historic past and relating acontinuing wisdom." In Silko's novel Ceremony,one character notes, "At one time, the ceremoniesas they had been performed were enough for theway the world was then. But after the white peoplecame, elements in this world began to shift; and itbecame necessary to create new ceremonies. I havemade changes in the rituals. The people mistrust thisgreatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremoniesstrong. ..." A. LaVonne Ruoff sees this theme ascentral to "The Man to Send Rain Clouds." PerSeyersted views the story as an example of Silko'sability to perceive life from a dual perspective: as aPueblo and as a mixed-blood person who can per-ceive Laguna from the outside. Some critics believethat this story may become one of the classics ofAmerican literature.

Criticism

Angelina PaulPaul is a doctoral candidate in English litera-

ture at the University of Hyderabad and currently isa Fulbright Visiting Researcher in South Asia Re-gional Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.She has published literary criticism American Lit-erature Today and the Indian Journal of AmericanStudies. In the following essay, she offers a generalintroduction to "The Man to Send Rain Clouds, "including an overview of the story's receptionby critics.

Her work widely anthologized, Leslie Marmon Silkois considered the preeminent Native American wom-an novelist, a legend in her achievements in the fieldof Native American literature. Her writings areincluded in the syllabus of various American litera-ture courses in high schools and colleges. Raised onthe Indian reservation in Laguna, New Mexico, sheincorporates into her writing the stories, myths, andlegends she heard as she grew up. Of Pueblo,Mexican, and white descent, she was both an insiderand outsider in Laguna, and this makes her aninteresting chronicler of stories about modern-day



Compare&

Contrast1960s: Minorities, such as African Americans,Native Americans, and the Gay community, or-ganize and fight the established system to gainequal rights in the United States. Women alsostruggle to obtain equal opportunity under thelaw. In several instances, violence erupts be-tween groups; a national debate rages over theimplications of racial and sexual discrimination.

1990s: Affirmative action for many minoritygroups has been overturned in some parts of thecountry. Other legislation is under attack andcongress refuses to pass a Federal hate crimesstatute.

1960s: Native American voices emerge to tellthe Native American experience. Writers such asLeslie Marmon Silko are published to criticaland commercial acclaim and become an impor-tant part of the American literary scene.

1990s: Native American writers continue to of-fer insightful perspectives on American life. Inmany universities, the study of Native Americanliterature and culture is an important part of thecurriculum.

life on the reservation. In an interview she hasstated: ' 'Oral literatures of the indigenous popula-tions worldwide contain (these) kind of valuableinsights.... You can look at the old stories thatwere told among the tribal people here in a northcountry and see that within them is the same kind ofvaluable lessons about human behavior and that weneed them still." In the Pueblo community, alleducation is achieved in a verbal, narrative form,and when Silko began writing at the University ofMexico, stories came naturally to her. She has said,"[The] professor would say, now you write yourpoetry or write a story; write the way you know,they always tell us. All I knew was my growing upat Laguna, recalling some other stories that I hadbeen told as a child."

It was at the University of New Mexico that shewrote her first story, "The Man to Send RainClouds," which won her a Discovery grant from theNational Endowment for the Humanities. The storyis based on an incident she had heard of in Laguna,that an old man had been found dead in a sheepcamp and had been given a traditional Indian burial,and that the local Catholic priest had resented thefact that he had not been called in. Having based herfirst work of short fiction on this incident, "TheMan to Send Rain Clouds" brought Silko recogni-

tion and established her as a promising NativeAmerican author.

Silko claims that Pueblo narratives are lean andspare because so much of what constitute the storiesis shared knowledge. Although the larger audiencefor "The Man to Send Rain Clouds" has no sharedknowledge of the landscape or rituals, Silko stillchooses to use the lean narrative mode, as thethemes are universal and can be understood by anyaudience. But an understanding of the Pueblo burialcustoms gives an added dimension to an under-standing of the story. In Pueblo culture, it is be-lieved that neglect of tribal rituals can result in deathand sickness, because the ghost returns withoutblessings, having been unable to enter the otherworld. To avoid this unhappy prospect, a prayerfeather is attached to the hair of the deceased, andhis face is painted so that the he will be recognizedin the next world. These tasks are ordinarily per-formed by the village Shaman (religious priest),while corn meal is offered to the wind and water issprinkled on the grave so that the spirit has nourish-ment on its journey to the other world. The ceremo-ny concludes with the prayer, "Send us rain clouds."Familiarization with the landscape inhabited by thePueblo Indians further enhances the reader's under-standing of ' The Man to Send Rain Clouds,'' for as

V o l u m e 8 223


Native-American couple from Laguna Pueblo, hometown of Leslie Marmon Silko andsetting for ' 'The Man to Send Rainclouds.''

Silko has written elsewhere, the landscape sits in thecenter of Pueblo belief and identity.

A character in Silko's later novel, Ceremony,says,' 'At one time, the ceremonies as they had beenperformed were enough for the way the world wasthen. But after the white people came, elements inthis world began to shift; and it became necessary tocreate new ceremonies. I have made changes in therituals. The people mistrust this greatly, but onlythis growth keeps the ceremonies strong...." ScholarA. LaVonne Ruoff sees this theme as central to"The Man to Send Rain Clouds." Leon's strength

lies in his creative combination of traditional Indianrituals with Catholic ritual. He does not strictlyfollow the Indian ways but adds a new element byasking the Catholic priest to sprinkle holy water atTeofilo's burial service, at his wife Louise's sug-gestion. Through this story, Silko emphasizes thatthe continuing strength of Pueblo traditions lies inthe ability of the people to incorporate alien ele-ments for their own purposes. Leon continues tofollow the Pueblo rites and persuades the FatherPaul to participate in them, as well. Per Seyerstedsees the story as an example of Silko's dual vision as



YfhatDo I Read

Next?Storyteller (1981) is a collection of Silko's shortstories, anecdotes, historical and autobiographi-cal notes, poems, and folk tales.

Yellow Woman and the Beauty of the Spirit:Essays on Native American Life Today (1996) isa collection of Silko's essays.

The Pueblo Indians, Joe S. Sando's 1976 bookon the history of the Pueblo, enhances the read-er's understanding of the Pueblo community.

Redefining American Literary History (1990),

edited by A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff and Jerry W.Ward, Jr., provides a context for the study ofNative American literature in the United States.

House of Many Rooms, Robin White's 1958novel, chronicles the story of an American mis-sionary in India. There Christians still followHindu customs, to the bewilderment of the mis-sionary—who finally accepts their choices. Thiswork provides an interesting thematic parallel to"The Man to Send Rain Clouds."

both a Pueblo and as a mixed-blood person who hasthe ability and freedom to see Laguna from theoutside. Linda Danielson sees the sense of commu-nity in the story as central to understanding it, andviews it in terms of Father Paul's entry into thecommunity through the flexibility and power ofIndian ritual, which assures the continuance of life.

In addition to these themes, the story also treatsan indigenous community's encounters with Chris-tianity. I use the word "indigenous" in the sensethat Silko defines it in an interview. She says,' 'When I say indigenous people I mean people thatare connected to the land for, let's say, a thousand ortwo thousands years." She further adds that one cansee similarities in some of the struggles of indige-nous peoples in Africa, in the Americas, and inAsia. This is exemplified in the part of the story inwhich Father Paul is depicted as bewildered by theincorporation of Catholic ritual in an Indian cere-mony. Although the reservation Indians are Catho-lic, they retain pagan rituals and customs. In authorRobin White's works one addresses a similar themein her works about the American missionary experi-ence in India. In White's novel House of ManyRooms, a missionary is at first bewildered by hisreception by Christianized natives who use Hindurituals. He refuses to accept the native Christianpriest's hospitality, as his own Western notion ofChristianity is offended. Later he ends up being a

good friend of the native priest and becomes part ofthe Christian community in India. Further parallelscan be drawn between the history of Christianity inother indigenous cultures, in other literary and his-torical works.

The theme of death and time is also central to"The Man to Send Rain Clouds." Death is not anend or a frightening experience, but a fact of life tothe Pueblo. The spirit returns to its source andreturns bringing rain clouds to the community,staving off drought. A LaVonne Ruoff has writtenthat the dead "are associated with cloud beings(storm clouds or Shiwana in Keres) who bring rainand who live in the six or four regions of theuniverse." Death is also, of course, associated withthe notion of time. Silko has said that, for the Indianpeople, time is round, and not a linear string. Timein its historical dimension is unimportant as it is anendlessly repeating cycle in which man is but aminute part of the cycle. Because of these notions oftime and death, Leon can accept old Teofilo's deathin a calm, serene manner with the traditional prayerasking his spirit to send rain cloud. This is contrast-ed in the story with traditional Catholic thinking,which in Seyersted's words, "looks at (death) asone sinful mortal's final, critical meeting with hisMaker, in which it is hoped that the blessing sym-bolized by the holy water will help.": Hence, forFather Paul, the sprinkling of holy water has a much

V o l u m e 8 225


The theme of death and

time is also central to 'The

Man to Send Rain Clouds,"1

different significance than Leon's belief that it willsimply quench the spirit's thirst on its way to theother world.

Apart from its thematic concerns and its cultur-al context, Silko's short story stands out as a techni-cally masterful story. Skillful use of adjectives andattention to detail are the hallmarks of Silko'sdescriptions. For instance, she writes of a "wide,sandy arroyo," "low, crumbling wall," a "brown,wrinkled forehead" to enhance the beauty of thenarrative. The skillful mixture of narration anddialogue also maintains the reader's interest. Thedialogues between Leon and Father Paul, and be-tween Leon and Louise, present the characters to thereaders directly, thus enabling readers to draw theirown conclusions as to the characters respectivenatures and motivations.

With this said, and because of the high accom-plishment of the story itself, "The Man to SendRain Clouds," a narrative of Pueblo life, deserves tobe recognized as a classic Native American shortstory within the canon of American literature.

Source: Angelina Paul, "Overview of 'The Man to SendRain Clouds,'" for Short Stories for Students, The GaleGroup, 2000.

Linda L. DanielsonDanielson teaches English at Lane Community

College in Eugene, Oregon. In the following ex-cerpt, she offers a feminist interpretation of Silko's' 'The Man to Send Rain Clouds.''

Over the last twenty years, the general developmentof scholarship about women' s lives and art parallelsan unprecedented flowering of creative writing byAmerican Indian women. But in view of theseparallel developments, American Indian womenhave shown little interest in the feminist movement,

and conversely mainstream feminist scholarshiphas paid strikingly little attention to the writing ofAmerican Indian women.

Leslie Silko's Storyteller (1981), a product ofthis literary florescence, has remained virtuallyundiscussed as a whole by critics of any stamp.With its emphasis on women tradition bearers,female deities, and its woman author's personalperspective, Storyteller seems to ask for a feministcritical treatment....

Particularly applicable to Silko's Storytellerare feminist critical strategies to reclaim as legiti-mate literary subjects, women's experience andfemale mythic power. Sandra M. Gilbert sees thisstrategy as a matter of re-vision, seeing anew:' 'When I say we must redo our history, therefore, Imean we must review, reimagine, rethink, rewrite,revise, and reinterpret the events and documentsthat constitute it." [Feminist Criticism: Essays onWomen, Literature, and Theory, edited by ElaineShowalter, 1985].

Silko's Storyteller represents just such a re-vision of the world from her vantage point as aLaguna Indian woman. In fact, understanding herre-vision and reinterpretation of personal and tribalmemory leads us past the easy impulse to callStoryteller a collage, a family album, or pastiche, oninto a conception of its unity and significance as aliterary work. In seeing anew, Silko expresses adeeply unified view of the world, reclaiming ascentral to her craft the tribe, the significance ofordinary women's and men's lives, and the set ofvalues arising from the female power of the primaryKeresan deities....

Silko presents a highly personal view of tribalways and at the same time a tribal slant on herpersonal memories, richly fed by the foremothersand forefathers whose words inspire Storyteller.Through the book she reclaims both personal andtribal traditions about men and women, animals andholy people, community and creativity....

"The Man to Send Rain Clouds" returns tothemes of creativity and community. In accordancewith Keres tradition, Old Teofilo, even in death, isstill a valued member of the community, for thepeople are looking to him to send them big thunder-clouds. There is seriousness and ceremony, but nosorrow at his death. He is not lost, just redefined

2 2 6 Short Stories for Students


within the community as a Kat'sina spirit associatedwith the cloud beings who bring rain.

[A. La Vonne] Ruoff observes that the strengthof Indian tradition for Silko is not in rigid adherenceto old ways, but in creative incorporation of newelements [MELUS, 5, 4, Winter, 1978]. In "TheMan to Send Rainclouds," modern Indian peoplenot only create new ritual, but offer community toan outsider. The gift of water for the old man' s spiritcomes from the Catholic priest whom Leon inducesto participate in the funeral, on Indian terms. But thepriest remains an outsider, suspicious of "someperverse Indian trick—something they did in Marchto insure a good harvest". Nonetheless, his actionbrings him to the edge of the community: "Hesprinkled the grave and the water disappeared al-most before it touched the dim, cold sand; it remind-ed him of something—he tried to remember what itwas, because he thought if he could remember hemight understand this." The flexibility that can findneeded ritual power and extend the hand of commu-nity to the outsider assures the continuance of life,like water and thunderclouds.

Source: Linda L. Danielson, "Storyteller: GrandmotherSpider's Web," in Journal of the Southwest, Vol. 30, No. 3,Autumn, 1988, pp. 325-55.

Per SeyerstedIn the following excerpt, Seyersted provides a

thematic overview of Silko's ' 'The Man to SendRain Clouds.''

In a sense [Leslie Marmon Silko] started to write inthe fifth grade: ' 'A teacher gave us a list of words tomake sentences out of, and I just made it into a storyautomatically" (interview in Dexter Fisher, ed.,The Third Woman . . .). But it was only at college in1967 when she was forced to write a story in acreative writing course and found again that whatwas difficult for others came naturally to her, thatshe realized she was a writer. Back at Laguna shehad just heard in headline form that an old man hadbeen found dead at a sheep camp and had been givena traditional burial and that the priest had resentedthe fact that he was not called in. Unable to think ofanything else, she decided to write about this inci-dent and to try to imagine the scene and how thepeople had felt. The result was ' 'The Man to SendRain Clouds," which was quickly published in New

Clouds' returns to themes of

creativity and community. In

accordance with Keres

tradition, Old Teofilo, even

in death, is still a valued

member of the community, for

the people are looking to him

to send them big

thunderclouds."

Mexico Quarterly and also earned for her a "Discov-ery Grant."

In Rosen's 1974 anthology, Silko wrote aboutherself: "I am of mixed-breed ancestry, but what Iknow is Laguna. This place I am from is everythingI am as a writer and human being.'' And she has alsosaid (in Laguna Woman): ' 'I suppose at the core ofmy writing is the attempt to identify what it is to be ahalf-breed or mixed blooded person; what it is togrow up neither white nor fully traditional Indian."It is as if she is saying that she is wholly a LagunaPueblo and will write about the place where shegrew up, but that at the same time she is a mixed-blood and therefore has been given the ability andthe freedom to see Laguna also from the outside.Her first story exemplifies this double vision.

When Ken and Leon in their pickup comelooking for old Teofilo, they already have with themwhat is needed to perform the preliminaries for atraditional burial, such as painting his face. Whenthey have completed these tasks, Leon smiles andsays, "Send us rain clouds, Grandfather." Return-ing to the pueblo with the body under a tarpaulin,they meet Father Paul, who is led to believe thatTeofilo is alive and well at camp. Later at home, thefuneral is performed with clanspeople and old menwith medicine bags attending. While the others goto the graveyard, Leon acts upon Louise's sugges-tion that he ask the priest to sprinkle ' 'holy water forGrandpa. So he won't be thirsty." Father Paulprotests that a Christian burial would require the

V o l u m e 8 227

The Man to send Rain


.What we have in the

story are two different ideas

of death, or rather, of our

whole existence,"

Last Rites and a Mass, but in the end he reluctantlycomes along, and when the besprinkled body islowered, Leon is happy: "now the old man couldsend them big thunderclouds for sure."

Silko's interest in this story does not lie in thedescriptions of the rituals themselves. She has saidthat while she has looked at anthropologists' reportson Laguna, she does not consult them. For onething, she doubts that the informants (among whomwere some of her own ancestors) always gave thescholars the true story, and more important, theirreports are dead to her compared to the living realityof what she has heard and seen and felt herself.Also, she is an artist who wants to apply herimagination to the telling of tales, and to her, theessence of this particular incident is the story of thisinstance of cultural clash with the feelings and ideasinvolved.

To be sure, she does want us to see that these areLaguna rituals and attitudes. For example, she givesus such local details as that Leon ties a gray featherin Teofilo's hair and that he paints the old man'sface with stripes of certain colors. But she does nottell us what the medicine men do at the importantevent of the funeral in Teofilo's home. Thus wehave to guess that some of the things they all do,such as Leon's application of paints, may be part ofthe task of making ' 'him so that he may be recog-nized" in Shibapu, and that others, such as Louise'ssprinkling of corn meal and her concern that herGrandpa shall not be thirsty, are intended to makesure that he has "water . . . and also food for histraveling provisions" (Boas, Keresan Texts, 1928;rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1974 ...).

What we have in the story are two differentideas of death, or rather, of our whole existence. TheIndian, as Vine Deloria has reminded us, is weddedto place rather than time and to group rather thanindividual. On the one hand, as Ortiz has written,

"Indian traditions exist in, and are primarily to beunderstood in relation to, space; they belong to theplace where the people exist or originated," theirexistence being likened metaphorically to that of aplant. And he adds: "time in its linear, historicaldimension . . . is unimportant" compared to "cy-clical, rhythmic time, time viewed as a series ofendlessly repeating cycles, on the model of theseasons or, again, plants" (Indian Historian, Win-ter 1977 ...). And on the other hand, as alreadysuggested, pueblo societies see the survival of thegroup as more important than the existence of theindividual. That is, man is a minute part of animmense natural cycle, and his death has nothingthreatening in it because, after a life which con-tained both the good and the bad that all Pueblosbrought with them from Shibapu, he simply goesback to where he came from, and in line with thecommunal thinking, it is hoped that his spirit willhelp the group he leaves behind by returning withrain clouds. This is of course wholly alien to Catho-lic thinking, which sees death in terms of the indi-vidual rather than the group and which looks at it asone sinful mortal's final, critical meeting with hisMaker, in which it is hoped that the blessing sym-bolized by the holy water will help.

It is part of the mastery of this short story thatSilko only lightly suggests all this in her spare,highly controlled narrative, in which she hardlyenters into the protagonists' minds. Furthermore, asan objective writer, she does not take sides, butgives a balanced, sensitive presentation of the char-acters. In her depiction of the Pueblos she makes usfeel what David B. Espey has termed "the mood ofpeace and simplicity, the quiet assurance with which[they] react to death," accepting from Catholicismonly what they can use; and in her sympatheticpicture of the priest we sense both his good will andhis bewilderment. In the one riddle she leaves uswith—Father Paul is reminded of something, butdoes not know what, when the water immediatelydisappears into the sand—she seems to suggest thathe is on the verge of understanding the impossibilityof Christianizing this proud, independent, "for-eign" people who look to Mt. Taylor, looming upbehind the graveyard, as a holy shrine and who havedecorated most of the walls of the church in whichhe works with signs of thunder, clouds, and rain-bows. In the quiet dignity of the telling of thismoving tale, Silko makes it clear that she is anintelligent writer and a born storyteller.

Source: Per Seyersted, in Leslie Marmon Silko, Boise StateUniversity, 1980, pp. 15-18.



A. LaVonne RuoffAt the time that this piece was published, Ruoff

was affiliated with the University of Illinois/Chica-go Circle. In the following excerpt, she asserts thatthe story gives an example of the strength andadaptability of tribal traditions.

For Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna), the strength oftribal traditions is based not on Indians' rigid adher-ence to given ceremonies or customs but rather ontheir ability to adapt traditions to ever-changingcircumstances by incorporating new elements. Al-though this theme is most fully developed in herrecent novel Ceremony (1977), it is also present inher earlier short stories, ' 'The Man to Send RainClouds," "Tony's Story," "from Humaweepi, War-rior Priest,'' and' 'Yellow Woman,'' included in thevolume The Man to Send Rainclouds: Contempo-rary Stories by American Indians [edited by KennethRosen, 1974].

The history of Silko's own Laguna Pueblo,influenced by many different cultures, providesinsight into why she emphasizes change as a sourceof strength for tribal traditions. According to theirorigin legends, the Laguna tribe (in existence sinceat least 1300), came southward from the MesaVerde region. Some versions indicate that afterpausing at Zia, they were joined by the head of theParrot clan, who decided to take his people south-ward with them. After wandering further, first south-ward from the lake at Laguna and then northwardback to the lake, they settled Punyana, probably inthe late 1300s. After founding Old Laguna (Kawaik)around 1400, they issued invitations to other pueb-los to join them. Those which responded were theParrot clan from Zia, the Sun clan from Hopi, theRoad Runner and Badger clans from Zuni, and theSun clan from Jemez. The tribe occupied the site ofwhat is now called Laguna by the early 1500s.Additional immigration occurred during the 1690s,when the Lagunas were joined by Indians from theRio Grande, probably fleeing both drought and thehostility of the Spanish after the Pueblo Rebellion in1680 and the renewed uprising in 1696. Theseimmigrants came chiefly from Zia, Cochiti, andDomingo, but a few came from Jemez, Zuni, andHopi. Although some remained to join the Lagunatribe, others returned to their own pueblos whenconditions improved. Over the years, a few Navajosintermarried with the tribe, bringing with them theNavajo Sun clan and kachina.

that these Pueblo Indians

have not abandoned their old

ways for Catholicism; instead,

they have taken one part of

Catholic ritual compatible

with their beliefs and made

it an essential part of their

own ceremony, . , ,"

The Spanish first entered the area in 1540,when Francesco de Coronado led an expedition toZuni and two years later passed through the presentsite of Laguna on his way back to Mexico. AntonioEspejo, who commanded an expedition to NewMexico in 1582, visited the area in 1583. Betweenthe appointment of Juan de Onate as New Mexico'sfirst governor in 1598 and the Pueblo Rebellion in1680, there is little historical data on Laguna. Al-though the pueblo was not subjected to as manyattacks from the Spanish as the Rio Grande pueblos,it was forced to surrender in 1692 after an attack bythe troops of Governor Diego de Vargas.

Concerning the mixture of people who settledat Laguna, Parsons comments that' 'it is not surpris-ing that Laguna was the first of the pueblos toAmericanize, through intermarriage'' [Elsie ClewsParsons, Pueblo Indian Religion, 1939]. Around1860 and 1870, George H. Pradt [or Pratt] and twoMarmon brothers (Walter and Robert) came to thepueblo, married Laguna women, and reared largefamilies. Silko indicates that her great grandfatherRobert and his brother had a government contract toset out the boundary markers for Laguna. Walter,appointed government teacher in 1871, married thedaughter of the chief of the Kurena-Shikani medi-cine men. The chiefs son later took his place.According to Parsons, this group led the Americani-zation faction which was opposed by the pueblohierarchy. The conservatives removed their altarsand sacred objects from Laguna and moved toMesita; around 1880, part of this group resettled inIsleta. While Robert Marmon served as governor,

Volume 8 229

Thus, silko emphasizes


the two kivas of Laguna were torn down by theprogressives and what was left of the sacred objectswas surrendered. There were no kachina dances forsome time after the Great Split and the laying of therailroad on the edge of the village. When a demandarose later for the revival of the dances, Zuniinfluences were introduced into Laguna rituals.Parsons closes her description of Laguna with thecomment that although the ceremonial disintegra-tion was so marked when she first studied it (around1920) that it presented an obscure picture of Keresanculture, it now (1939) offered "unrivaled opportu-nities to study American acculturation and the im-portant role played by miscegenation." Silko her-self comments on these changes in her descriptionof the impact of mixed-blood families on Lagunaclan systems and the varying attitudes toward thesefamilies in the stories of that pueblo:

People in the main part of the village were ourclanspeople because the clan system was still main-tained although not in the same form it would havebeen if we were full blood.... The way it changedwas that there began to be stories about my great-grandfather, positive stories about what he did withthe Laguna scouts for the Apaches. But then afterWorld War One it changed. Soon after that there cameto be stories about these mixed blood people, half-breeds. Not only Marmons but Gunns [John] andPratts too. An identity was being made or evolved inthe stories the Lagunas told about these people whohad gone outside Laguna, but at the same time of theoutsiders who had come in. Part of it was that thestories were always about the wild, roguish, crazysorts of things they did [Lawrence Evers and DennisCarr, Sun Tracks, III, Fall, 1976].

The continuing strength of Laguna traditionsand the ability of her people to use alien traditionsfor their own purposes are strikingly portrayed inSilko's story "The Man to Send Rainclouds." Thetitle alludes to the belief that the dead are associatedwith cloud beings (storm clouds or shiwanna inKeres) who bring rain and who live in the six or fourregions of the universe (Parsons). The story dealswith an Indian family's observance of Pueblo funer-al rituals despite the local priest's attempts to cajolethem into observing Catholic ones. Ironically, theyoung priest is trapped by the Indians into takingpart in their ceremony. The importance of ritual inPueblo Indian life is emphasized at the beginning ofthe story when Leon and Ken, after finding oldTeofilo dead, immediately observe the first stagesof the funeral rites. Neglect of burial or death ritualcan result in death or sickness because the ghostreturns (Parsons). Before wrapping the body in a

blanket, the men tie a gray prayer feather to the oldman's long white hair (a custom similar to that ofthe Zuni) and begin to paint his face with markingsso that he will be recognized in the next world—tasks ordinarily performed by a shaman. The facepainting is interrupted by an offering of corn meal tothe wind and is concluded with the prayer ' 'send usrain clouds, Grandfather."

The pressure on Pueblo Indians to practiceCatholicism is introduced when Father Paul stopsLeon and Ken on their way home to ask aboutTeofilo and to urge them all to come to church.Using the age-old Indian technique of telling thenon-Indian only what they want him to know, Leonand Ken answer the priest's questions about the oldman's welfare ambiguously enough to keep himfrom learning about Teofilo's death. Only after theIndian funeral rites are almost completed does thefamily feel the need for the priest's services—toprovide plenty of holy water for the grave so thatTeofilo's spirit will send plenty of rainfall. Cornmeal has been sprinkled around the old man's bodyto provide food on the journey to the other world.Silko skillfully and humorously characterizes theconflict between the frustrated priest, who is deniedthe opportunity to provide the last rites and funeralmass, and Leon, who doggedly insists that these arenot necessary: "It's O.K. Father, we just want himto have plenty of water." Despite his weary proteststhat he cannot do that without performing the properCatholic rites, Father Paul finally gives in whenLeon starts to leave. Realizing that he has beentricked into participating in their pagan rites andhalf suspecting that the whole thing may be just aspring fertility ceremony rather than a real funeral,he nevertheless sprinkles the grave with a whole jarof holy water. Leon feels good about the act whichcompletes the ceremony and ensures that "now theold man could send them big thunderclouds forsure." Thus, Silko emphasizes that these PuebloIndians have not abandoned their old ways forCatholicism; instead, they have taken one part ofCatholic ritual compatible with their beliefs andmade it an essential part of their own ceremony....

In all four of these stories, Silko emphasizes theneed to return to the rituals and oral traditions of thepast in order to rediscover the basis for one'scultural identity. Only when this is done is oneprepared to deal with the problems of the present.However, Silko advocates a return to the essencerather than to the precise form of these rituals and



traditions, which must be adapted continually tomeet new challenges. Through her own stories,Silko demonstrates that the Keres rituals and tradi-tions have survived all attempts to eradicate themand that the seeds for the resurgence of their powerlie in the memories and creativeness of her people.

Source: A. LaVonne Ruoff, "Ritual and Renewal: KeresTraditions in the Short Fiction of Leslie Silko," in MELUS,Vol. 5, No. 4, Winter, 1978, pp. 2-17.

http://www.altx.com/interviews/silko.html. An Interview withLeslie Mormon Silko, by Thomas Irmer (Alt-X Berlin/Leipzigcorrespondent).

White, Robin. House of Many Rooms, New York:Harper, 1958.

Further Reading

Sources

Danielson, Linda L. "Storyteller: Grandmother Spider'sWeb,'' in Journal of the Southwest, Vol. 30, No. 3, Autumn,1988, pp. 325-55.

Krupet, Arnold. "The Dialogic of Silko's Storyteller," inNarrative Chance, edited by Gerald Vizenor, University ofNew Mexico, 1989, pp. 55-68.

Ruoff, A. LaVonne. "Ritual and Renewal: Keres Traditionsin the Short Fiction of Leslie Silko,'' in MELUS, Vol. 5, No.4, Winter, 1978, pp. 2-17.

Seyersted, Per. Leslie Marmon Silko, Boise State Universi-ty, 1980.

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony, New York: VikingPress, 1977.

. Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit, Simonand Schuster, 1996.

Danielson, Linda L. "Storyteller: Grandmother Spider'sWeb,'' in Journal of the Southwest, Vol. 30, No. 3, Autumn,1988, pp. 325-55.

An interpretation of Silko's "The Man to SendRainclouds," particularly with regard to themes ofcreativity and community, analyzed from a feministperspective.

Ruoff, A. LaVonne. "Ritual and Renewal: Keres Traditionsin the Short Fiction of Leslie Silko," in MELUS, Vol. 5, No.4, Winter, 1978, pp. 2-17.

An analysis of the traditions at work in Silko's work,suggesting on pp. 2-5 that the story provides anexample of the strength of tribal traditions throughadaptability.

Seyersted, Per. Leslie Marmon Silko, Boise State Universi-ty, 1980.

Addresses Silko's biography, and provides a briefhistory of the Pueblo people and an analysis of Silko'sworks, in particular a study of the theme of cultureclash in "The Man to Send Rain Clouds" on pp. 15-18.

V o l u m e 8 2 3 I

The Masque of the Red DeathEdgar Allan Poe

1842

Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Masque of theRed Death" was first published in 1842. In theoriginal publication, the title was given the Englishspelling of ' 'mask," yet it was changed to ' 'masque''in 1845. In this macabre tale, a Prince Prospero sealshimself and a thousand of his friends into the abbeyof a castle in order to protect them from a deadlypestilence—The Red Death—that is ravaging thecountry. But when the group indulge in a lavishcostume ball in order to distract themselves from thesuffering and death outside their walls, the RedDeath, disguised as a costumed guest, enters andclaims the lives of everyone present. The story isnarrated in a manner which gives it the quality of amyth, allegory or fairy tale, exploring themes ofman's fear of death, sin, madness, and the end ofthe world.

This tale is a prime example of Poe's Gothichorror fiction. Poe evokes a dark and eerie mood ina story that focuses on images of blood and death,while the personification of the Red Death lends anelement of the supernatural. ' 'The Masque of theRed Death" embodies Poe's mastery of the shortstory; in addition, it illustrates his literary philoso-phy. According to Poe, a short story should betightly focused so that every word, from beginningto end, contributes to the overall effect. In "TheMasque of the Red Death," powerful imagery andan illusive narrative voice are tightly woven into amacabre tale of horror with insight into the humancondition.

2 5 2

The Masque of the Red Death

Author Biography

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachu-setts, on January 19, 1809. The son of minor stageactors, Poe was orphaned at any early age, as hisfather abandoned him and his mother died of tuber-culosis when he was still a very young child. He wasthen adopted by John Allan and Francis Allan, butMrs. Allan, Poe's beloved foster mother, died oftuberculosis in 1829, when he was still a teenager.Although John never legally adopted him, Poeadded the Allan surname to his own.

Poe spent his early adult life in and out of thearmy, engaging in an ongoing struggle over moneywith his foster father, and developing the notorioushabits of alcoholism and debt. In 1835, at the age oftwenty-six, he married his young cousin, VirginiaClemm, who was only thirteen. The exact nature oftheir relationship is unknown, although it is general-ly said that his treatment of her was more that of afather than of a husband. Virginia, however, died oftuberculosis in 1847, the third significant woman inhis life to have died of the same disease.

Although a controversial figure during his life-time, Poe's literary contribution to nineteenth andearly twentieth century literature has been invalu-able. His long poem, "The Raven," launched himinto instant national, and eventually, international,success. The poem is perhaps the most famous andwidely read of his works. His literary influence,however, derives largely from his numerous inno-vations in the art of the short story. Poe raised theshort story to the status of an art form, solidifying aprinciple of short-story writing still in practicetoday: that the short story must be about one centralidea or event, and one only.

He is considered to have single-handedly in-vented the modern detective story, of which theSherlock Holmes stories are a direct descendent.Furthermore, Poe mastered the art of Gothic fictionin his tales of the macabre; his stories can best becharacterized as "dark," focusing on death andtaking place primarily at night. In this way, Poedeveloped the short story into a genre of fairy talesfor adults, touching on the mystical and supernatu-ral in stories which reach into the darkest corners ofhuman psychology. Posthumously, Poe's work wasalso extremely influential on French and Russianliterature.

One night in the fall of 1849, Edgar Allan Poewas found lying unconscious on a street in Balti-

more. He was taken to a hospital, where he re-mained in a semi-coma for three days, after whichhe died. Although a life of heavy drinking certainlydid not contribute to Poe's health, it is thought thathis death was directly due to a brain lesion, compli-cated by other long-term illnesses. Obituaries ap-pearing immediately after his death painted Poe'scharacter in a rather unflattering light, a posthumousreputation that proved hard to remedy.

Plot Summary

Poe's story ' The Masque of the Red Death'' beginswith a description of a plague, the ' 'Red Death." Itis the most deadly plague ever, as "no pestilencehad ever been so fatal, or so hideous." The symp-toms of the plague include "sharp pains, and sud-den dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at thepores." The "scarlet stains" on the body, andespecially the face, of its victims are the ' 'pest ban''or first visible signs of the disease. Once the stainsappear, the victim has only thirty minutes be-fore death.

In order to escape the spread of the plague,Prince Prospero invites "a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and damesof his court" to seal themselves "in deep seclu-sion" in an abbey of his castle, allowing no one toenter or leave. With adequate provisions, Prosperoand his privileged guests attempt to ' 'bid defiance tocontagion," by sealing themselves off from thesuffering and disease spreading throughout the restof their country. The Prince provides for his guests' 'all the appliances of pleasure'' to help them not to' 'grieve'' or to ' 'think'' about the Red Death ragingoutside the walls of the abbey.

Toward the end of the fifth or sixth month, thePrince holds a masquerade ball for his guests,"while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad."The Prince takes elaborate measures in his decora-tions for the ball, which is to take place in "animperial suite" of seven rooms, each decorated inits own color scheme. The only lighting in eachroom comes from a brazier of fire, mounted on atripod, which is set outside the stained glass win-dows of each room, causing the color of the glass toinfuse the entire room. The progression of rooms isfrom blue to purple to green to orange to white toviolet to black. The seventh room, decorated inblack velvet, is lit by the fire burning behind a red-stained glass window. But the effect of the red light

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The Masque of t h e Red Death

Edgar Allen Poe

is ' 'ghastly in the extreme,'' and the seventh room isavoided by most of the guests.

In the seventh room is a "gigantic clock ofebony'' which strikes at each hour. The sound of theclock striking is ' 'of so peculiar a note and empha-sis" that all of the guests, as well as the orchestraand the dancers, pause at each hour to listen, andthere is "a brief disconcert in the whole company."But the revelers remain "stiff frozen" only for amoment before returning to their music and dancing.

At the stroke of midnight the guests, pausing atthe sound of the clock, notice a mysterious "maskedfigure" in their midst. The figure wears "thehabiliments of the grave'' and the mask on its faceresembles ' 'the countenance of a stiffened corpse.''The costume of the mysterious figure has eventaken on ' 'the type of the Red Death." Its clothing is"dabbled in blood" and its face is "besprinkledwith the scarlet horror."

When Prince Prospero sees this mysteriousfigure, he orders his guests to seize and unmask it,so that he may hang the intruder at dawn. But theguests, cowering in fear, shrink from the figure. In arage, Prospero, bearing a dagger, pursues the maskedfigure through each of the rooms—from blue topurple to green to orange to white to violet. The

figure enters the seventh room, decorated in aghastly black and red, and turns to face Prospero.The Prince falls dead to the floor. But when theguests seize the figure, they find that, underneath itsshroud and mask there is "no tangible form."

The guests realize that the Red Death hasslipped into their abbey ' 'like a thief in the night'' toclaim their lives, "and one by one dropped therevelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel."The last line of the story describes the completevictory of the Red Death over life: ' 'And Darknessand Decay and the Red Death held illimitabledominion over all."

Characters

The Masked FigureThe "masked figure" that appears at Prince

Prospero's costume ball is the most illusive "char-acter' ' in the story. Upon the stroke of midnight, theguests first notice this "masked figure," who is"tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot inthe habiliments of the grave,'' and looks like thecorpse of a body afflicted by the Red Death, its face"besprinkled with the scarlet horror." PrinceProspero orders that the figure be unmasked andhanged at dawn, but his guests refuse to unmaskhim. The figure then retreats through all sevenrooms of the abbey, pursued by Prince Prospero.When the figure reaches the seventh room, it turnsto face the Prince, who falls instantly to his death.When the guests rush to seize the figure, they findthat, beneath the corpselike costume, there is no' 'tangible form." The masked figure turns out to beThe Red Death itself. It had crept into the sealedabbey "like a thief in the night." The last line of thestory indicates that the Red Death has triumphedover life: ' 'And Darkness and Decay and the RedDeath held illimitable dominion over all."

Prince ProsperoPrince Prospero is the central character of' 'The

Masque of the Red Death." Despite the plague ofthe Red Death which rages throughout his country,the Prince ignores the suffering of others and invites"a thousand friends" from his court to seal them-selves in an abbey of his castle in order to protectthemselves from the pestilence. In order to distractthem from the death and suffering outside theirwalls, the prince provides his guests with "all theappliances of pleasure," and holds a masquerade



ball after the fifth or sixth month. In all of hisarrangements, Prince Prospero's taste is extrava-gant and "bizarre." When the mysterious figurebearing the masque of the Red Death appears at hismasquerade ball, the Prince demands that he beunmasked and hanged "at sunrise." Yet, while hisguests shrink in horror from the figure, the Prince,carrying a dagger, pursues it through the first sixrooms to the seventh. When he confronts the figure,the dagger drops from his hand and he falls to thefloor, dead.

There is some indication that Prince Prosperomay be a mad man, and that the entire story is hisdream or delusional vision, and all its charactersfigments of his imagination.

The Thousand FriendsWhile a deadly plague devastates his country,

Prince Prospero invites "a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and damesof his court'' to escape the plague by hiding in theabbey with him. While there are no individualcharacters among the Prince's guests, the "thou-sand friends'' share a collective role as characters inthe story. The prince holds a masquerade ball, atwhich his guests appear in outlandish costumes. Asnone of the guests, also described as ' 'a multitude ofdreams," are given any specific character traits,they could be interpreted as mere ' 'fantasms'' of thePrince's imagination, or imaginary projections ofthe Prince's psyche. When the mysterious maskedfigure appears at the ball, and Prince Prosperoorders his guests to seize the intruder, they collec-tively shrink back in fear and, when the figuremoves past the Prince, "the vast assembly, as ifwith one impulse" cowers in fear, allowing it topass them without impediment. Yet they cannotescape the Red Death: "And one by one droppedthe revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of theirrevel, and died each in the despairing posture of hisfall." Like the Prince, his "thousand friends" can-not escape the inevitability of their own deaths.

Themes

DeathWhile this story is literally about a pestilence

called the Red Death, it can be read at an allegoricallevel as a tale about man's fear of his own mortality.In the story, Prince Prospero and his "thousandfriends" seal themselves into an abbey of his castle

MediaAdaptations

Poe's short stories "The Tell-Tale heart, AndOther Terrifying Tales" were recorded onaudiocassette by August House in 1995. Thestories are read by Syd Liberman.

"Poe Masterpieces" is a collection of Poe'sshort stories recorded on audiocassette by theListening Library in 1987.

Poe's detective stories are recorded on anaudiocassette entitled "The Murders in the RueMorgue" by Books on Tape in 1992.

' The Best of Edgar Allan Poe'' is a selection ofPoe's short stories recorded on audiocassette bythe Listening Library in 1987.

in an attempt to "defy contagion" and escape theclutches of the Red Death. The Prince employs ' 'allthe appliances of pleasure'' in order to distract hisguests both from the suffering and death outsidetheir walls and from thoughts of their own vulnera-bility to the Red Death. The Prince's actions sym-bolize the ways in which all humans tend to focus onmaterial pleasures in order to distract themselvesfrom the knowledge that everyone, including them-selves, eventually must die.

The fact that the Red Death slips in ' 'like a thiefin the night'' to claim the lives of everyone presentsymbolizes the fact that no one, not even the power-ful and wealthy, can escape death, which eventuallyclaims all mortals. Just as everyone must eventually"face" the fact of their own mortality, the Princedies the moment he literally "faces" his own Death,and can no longer deny its presence in his castle.

TimeThe theme of time in this story is closely linked

to the theme of death. Of course, the passage of timesignals the approach of death; as the saying goes,each minute that passes brings us one minute closerto our death. Poe at one point capitalizes the wordTime, as if it were a proper name, thereby personify-

V o l u m e 8 235


Topics forFurther

StudyNathaniel Hawthorne was an American writerand a contemporary of Edgar Allan Poe. Haw-thorne's short story collection Twice-Told Talesis considered to share similar elements of Gothichorror with the short stories of Poe. Read at leastone of Hawthorne's stories from this collectionfor comparison with ' "The Masque of the RedDeath." Discuss the similarities and differences.

Discuss Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death"in terms of how it portrays a societal or groupresponse to illness and plague. What is the atti-tude of the privileged guests of Prospero's castletoward those outside the castle who are morevulnerable to and afflicted by the Red Death? Inwhat ways can this story function as a parable, orstory with a moral, for understanding contempo-rary societal responses to the disease of AIDSand those infected with HIV?

Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" is, insome ways, a story about human and societalresponses to the inevitability of death. In whatways do Prospero and his guests attempt to dealwith, or not deal with, their own impendingdeaths? Research the psychology of death tolearn more about how people in contemporary

times attempt to deal with the deaths of others,and with their own mortality.

During Poe's lifetime, tuberculosis was a verycommon disease, characterized most notably bythe symptom of the coughing up of blood. Asthree of the most important women in Poe's lifedied of tuberculosis (his mother, stepmother, andwife), one could speculate that the ' 'Red Death''in the story was inspired by his own experienceof loved ones suffering from tuberculosis. Findout more about the disease of tuberculosis duringthe nineteenth century and today.

After his death, Poe came to be a strong influ-ence on the French poet Baudelaire and theRussian novelist Theodore Dostoyevski. Exam-ine the work of one of these writers. In what waysis the influence of Poe apparent in their writing?

The Black Plague (also known as the BubonicPlague) was one of the worst plagues in humanhistory. Learn more about the Black Plague, suchas how societies responded to the problems causedby the plague, what "cures" were attempted.What was its historical impact?

ing it, which suggests that he is referring to time in abroader allegorical sense, rather than simply in aliteral sense.

The connection of time with death is indicatedby the placement of the "great ebony clock" in theseventh room of the abbey, which is the roomassociated with images of death. The passage oftime marked by the chiming of the clock each hoursymbolizes the limited time each person has to live.The guests at the ball are so disturbed by the soundof the clock's chime because it is a reminder to eachperson of their own encroaching deaths. With thepassing of each hour, the guests at the ball are forcedto think about their own mortality, despite all thedistractions provided by their elaborate festivities,

for "more of thought crept, with more of time, intothe meditations of the thoughtful among those whoreveled."

The hour of midnight, marking the end of theday, thus symbolizes the end of life. Indeed, the RedDeath is first noticed among the guests at the ballshortly after the stroke of midnight, signaling thearrival of death for each party goer. The death of theguests and breakdown of the clock are likewisesimultaneous, for ' 'the clock went out with the lastof the gay."

Madness' "The Masque of the Red Death'' can be inter-

preted as the interior monologue of a madman, and



all its characters figments of his insane imagination.As G. R. Thompson maintains, Poe was ' 'the masterof the interior monologue of a profoundly disturbedmind." If this story represents the "interior mono-logue" of a mad Prince Prospero, the narrator mustbe Prince Prospero himself. The narrator first men-tions the possibility that the Prince may be insane byattributing it to the opinion of others, stating that"there are some who would have thought himmad." But the narrator distances himself from thisopinion by then stating that' 'his followers felt thathe was not" mad.

If the entire story represents the figment of oneman's mad imagination, then the guests are not realpeople, but merely characters in his own internalpsycho-drama. Indeed, the guests at the masqueradeball are described as "a multitude of dreams" andeven as "fantasms." In this sense the "masquerad-ers'' at the ball are merely extensions of the narratorhimself, just as the characters in dreams are exten-sions of the dreamer. It is the Prince himself whodresses his guests, for ' 'it was his own guiding tastewhich had given character to the masqueraders."And the particular costumes are described as "de-lirious fancies such as a madman fashions." Inother words, the mad Prince designed the costumesof his guests in accordance with his own "deliriousfancies," or delusions. If the guests of the Prince arereflections of his own mad imagination, it alsomakes sense that even they are eventually referredto as "mad," in the phrase "mad revelers." Andeven the masked figure of the Red Death is de-scribed as taking on "mad assumptions."

ApocalypseThe use of language in ' "The Masque of the

Red Death," as well as the nature of the tale, bringsto mind a biblical story with apocalyptic implica-tions. The story evokes images familiar from theBible; the "pestilence" that has devastated an un-named country described in the opening paragraphrecalls images of God having sent a pestilence uponthe land as a form of punishment to humans for theirsins. Prince Prospero and his "thousand guests"seem like likely candidates for divine wrath, as theyexhibit no sympathy for the suffering of their fellowcountrymen, instead indulging in "all the appli-ances of pleasure."

As critic Patrick Cheney has pointed out in hisarticle "Poe's Use of The Tempest and the Bible inThe Masque of the Red Death,'" the final para-graph of the story take on a biblical tone, as ' 'thelanguage, rhythm and allusion are unmistakably

Biblical." Most notably, the closing sentence evokesapocalyptic images of complete devastation: "AndDarkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimit-able dominion over all." Cheney, however, arguesthat, unlike the Bible, where God always ultimatelytriumphs, in Poe's story it is the forces of evil,"Darkness and Decay and the Red Death," whichsuggest an unholy trinity winning out over light andgoodness and life.

Style

Allegory and Parable"The Masque of the Red Death" is considered

an allegorical tale; this means that the literal ele-ments of the story are meant to be understood assymbolic of some greater meaning. Britannica On-line explains that an allegory "uses symbolic fic-tional figures and actions to convey truths or gener-alizations about human conduct or experience."More specifically, this story may be read as aparable, a sub-category of allegory in which, ac-cording to Britannica Online, "moral or spiritualrelations are set forth."

As a parable, "Masque of the Red Death" issymbolic of how humans respond to the knowledgeof their own mortality. The reaction of PrinceProspero and his "thousand friends" to the pres-ence of the Red Death is an attempt to use theirmaterial privileges in order to escape the inevitabili-ty of their own deaths. But the fact that the ' 'maskedfigure'' slips into their midst ' 'like a thief in thenight" is symbolic of the fact that no amount orwealth or privilege can exempt a person from death,no amount of entertainment or distraction can com-pletely eliminate the fear of death, and no amount ofsecurity can keep death from arriving at one'sdoorstep. ' 'The Masque of the Red Death'' affirmsthe futility of man in his elaborate attempts to denyand defy his own mortality.

Imagery and SymbolismThe seven chambers of the abbey, according to

critic H. H. Bell, Jr., in his article '"The Masque ofthe Red Death': An Interpretation," represent theseven decades of a man's life, so that the finalchamber, decorated in red and black, representsdeath. Bell interprets the seven chambers as "anallegorical representation of Prince Prospero's lifespan." This view is supported by the fact that thefirst room is located in the East, which symbolizes

V o l u m e 8 237


birth, because it is the direction from which the sunrises, and that the last chamber is located in theWest, which symbolizes death, as the sun sets in theWest. Bell interprets each of the colors of the sevenrooms—blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet—as symbolic of "Prospero's physical and mentalcondition in that decade of his life." The seventhroom is the location of death, as it is eerily decoratedin black and red—black being a color associatedwith death and night, and red being a color stronglyassociated with blood, and, in this story, the RedDeath. Meanwhile, in the first six rooms "beatfeverishly 'the heart of life."

Located in the seventh room, the clock can beread as a symbol of the limited time each person hasto live. Thus, the stroking of the clock each hour is areminder to the guests of the limited time left in theirown lives. Midnight represents the hour of death,because it is at midnight that the' 'masked figure'' isnoticed by the guests. These allegorical detailsculminate in the death of the Prince, in the seventhroom, shortly after the stroke of midnight, at theprecise moment when he literally "faces" his owndeath. The clock as a symbolic representation ofhuman life is also indicated in the closing lines, as' 'the life of the ebony clock went out with that of thelast of the gay."

tilence." The ambiguity of the exact setting lendsthe story a "once upon a time" element, and placesit in the realm of a parable or fable.

PersonificationPersonification is the use of metaphorical lan-

guage that assigns a non- human object or animalhuman traits. Poe indicates the personification ofcertain concepts by capitalizing them, as one woulda proper name. He thus personifies The Red Death,Time, Beauty, Darkness, and Decay. This lends thestory an element of myth or fairy tale, as each termseems to be symbolic of broader concepts that referto the human condition in general.

Gothic horrorPoe is considered one of the early masters of

Gothic horror fiction. The genre was developed inthe nineteenth century, originally in the literature ofGreat Britain, and is characterized by elements ofthe supernatural, gruesome scenes of horror, darksettings, and a preoccupation with death and mad-ness. "The Masque of the Red Death" contains allof these elements.

NarrationAt the most literal level, this story is told in the

"third person," meaning that the narrator is not acharacter in the story. However, as critic LeonardCassuto has speculated, the narrator of the storymay be the Red Death itself, since all of the peoplein the story are dead by the end, and the Red Death isthe only one left to tell the tale. On the other hand, ifthe entire story is interpreted as the dream of amadman (the Prince Prospero), all its charactersfigments of his imagination ("dreams"), and hisdeath not literal but psychological, then the narratorcould be the Prince himself. Finally, because thestory is told in the manner of a biblical morality tale,in which God punishes the evil by sending down a"pestilence" upon the land, it could be argued thatthe narrator is in fact a divine being.

SettingThe story takes place in an unnamed "coun-

try," in no specific time period or geographicallocation, which has been ravaged by a deadly "pes-

Historical Context

TuberculosisThree of the most important women in Poe's

life died of tuberculosis. Although the ' 'pestilence"in the story "Masque of the Red Death" is notdefined, it seems reasonable to assume that it isinspired in some ways by Poe's experience withtuberculosis. The distinguishing mark of the "RedDeath" is profuse bleeding, just as the distinguish-ing sign of tuberculosis is the coughing up of blood.According to Britannica Online, tuberculosis, oftenreferred to in literature as "consumption," is "oneof the great scourges of mankind." The disease"reached near-epic proportions" in industrializingurban areas in the eighteenth and nineteenth centu-ries. During this time, it was ' 'the leading cause ofdeath for all age groups in the Western world."

ImpressionismMuch of Poe's writing can be referred to as

"impressionist," depicting the subtle details of a



Compare

ContrastNineteenth Century: In the nineteenth and ear-ly twentieth centuries, tuberculosis (also com-monly referred to as "consumption") reachedepidemic proportions, particularly in developingurban and industrial areas. During this time, itwas the leading cause of death in the West.

Twentieth Century: Thanks to developments insanitation and hygiene, the spread of tuberculo-sis was significantly curbed for most of thetwentieth century. In the 1980s, however, thedisease began to make a comeback in the West,and is still a threat in developing nations.

Nineteenth Century: Gothic fiction, or Gothichorror, was developed as a literary genre in thenineteenth century. In England, Mary Shelley'sFrankenstein (1818) was one of the first Gothicnovels of note, followed by others, such asRobert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) and Bram Stoker'sDracula (1895). In America, Edgar Allan Poeand Nathaniel Hawthorne were notable authorsof Gothic fiction.

Twentieth Century: Gothic fiction in the latetwentieth century has developed into two distinctgenres. On one hand, the modern horror storyflourishes, in both the novel form, with suchprolific writers as Stephen King, and in cinema,with such films as Psycho, Night of the Living

Dead, Friday the 13th, Halloween, and A Night-mare on Elm Street. On the other hand, themodern, mass-market paperback romance novel,often referred to as Gothic romance, is alsodescended from the Gothic novel.

Nineteenth Century: On the stage, tales ofGothic horror were depicted most notably in thestyle of the Grand Guignol, known for perform-ances which emphasized graphic depictions ofgory violence. Grand Guignol theater was per-formed primarily in France, although it enjoyed abrief popularity in England.

Twentieth Century: The genre of Gothic horrorhas met with the greatest success in the twenti-eth Century in the cinema. Beginning in the1960s, horror films showed increasingly graphicportrayals of blood, gore, and violence.

Nineteenth Century: The HIV virus did not exist.

1990s: Since the epidemic of the disease knownas AIDS exploded in the early 1980s, the HIVvirus that is believed to cause AIDS has spreadthroughout the world, reaching epidemic propor-tions. The spread of AIDS is thought to be theprimary cause of the increased prevalence oftuberculosis in the West, as those suffering fromAIDS are more vulnerable to infection withtuberculosis.

sensitive mind from a highly subjective perspective.Britannica Online describes an impressionist storyas "a tale shaped and given meaning by the con-sciousness and psychological attitudes of the narra-tor." Impressionism—a school of thought in theworld of painting—emerged primarily in France inthe mid-1860s. The most notable impressionist paint-ers were Claude Monet and Pierre August Renoir.Impressionist painters rebelled against the domi-nant values of painting at the time, which empha-sized subjects taken from mythology. Instead, im-pressionism was, according to Britannica Online,

"an attempt to accurately and objectively recordvisual reality in terms of transient effects of lightand colour."

Gothic Fiction in EnglandPoe is considered one of the early masters of

Gothic fiction. The term gothic was originally bor-rowed from architecture, but refers to a style ofliterature that developed in the late eighteenth cen-tury and throughout the nineteenth century, particu-larly in England. Gothic fiction is characterized by adark, macabre atmosphere, focusing on themes of

V o l u m e 8 239

&


death, horror, madness and the supernatural. Land-mark works of Gothic fiction in England includeMary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), Robert LouisStevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde (1886) and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1895).

The Short Story in Russia and FranceIt wasn't until the nineteenth century that the

short story was developed into an art form and arespectable genre of literature. Poe was an earlymaster of the short story, and a considerable influ-ence in formulating a set of aesthetics for its uniqueform. The form of the short story was also devel-oped around the same time in Germany, Russia andFrance. Great French short story writers includedAlphonse Daudet and Guy du Masupassant, whilemany other writers, primarily known for their nov-els, also experimented with the form. In Russia,Nikolay Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, and Anton Chekovdistinguished themselves as masters of the shortstory. Gogol, in particular, wrote impressionist sto-ries on a par with Poe's. His 1842 story ' 'Overcoat''was one of the most influential Russian short storiesof the period.

The Grand GuignolPoe's stories of Gothic horror contain the roots

of modern horror fiction and the modern horrorfilm. However, before the invention of cinema(about 1895), Gothic horror was enacted on thetheater stage in a style referred to as Grand Guignol.Originally staged in England, but primarily success-ful in France, Grand Guignol performances depict-ed scenes of graphic horror, such as re-enactmentsof true-crime murders, with an emphasis on thespecial effects of blood, dismemberment and gore.

Critical Overview

By the time of his early death, Edgar Allan Poe(1809-1849) had written about 50 poems, 70 shortstories, a short novel and over 50 essays. While hisliterary and personal reputation both during hislifetime and after death was controversial, todayPoe is considered to be one of the most influentialwriters of the nineteenth century. He was a pioneerin the development of several literary genres andstyles, including the short story, Gothic fiction, and

the detective/mystery story. In addition, critics as-sert that he mastered the art of the short story, still arelatively new form during his lifetime, and ele-vated it to the level of a high art.

Poe developed a theory for the art of the shortstory, asserting that a short story must be tightlyfocused on one event or duration of time (such as asingle day), and that each element of a story must besymbolically and thematically central to its overalleffect. According to G. R. Thompson, Poe's idealfor the short story "aimed at an almost subliminaleffect through a carefully predesigned and unifiedpattern." Poe's own stories certainly achieved thisideal in that, as Thompson explains, they "exhibitan architectural symmetry and proportion and care-ful integration of details of setting, plot, and charac-ter into an indivisible whole."

In the realm of the newly developing genre ofGothic fiction, Poe was the American master, viewedas the counterpart to British writers such as MaryShelley, whose Frankenstein signals the early suc-cess of the genre. Nineteenth-century Gothic fic-tion, or Gothic horror, was characterized by a preoc-cupation with death, madness, and the supernatural.Poe's literary sensibilities were well suited to thedevelopment of a Gothic style, as his stories arecharacterized by the morbid, the macabre, and theeerie. With his adept ability to create a dark, disturb-ing atmosphere, Poe effectively wrote from theperspective of a delusional narrator overcome withmadness. According to Thompson, Poe was "themaster of the interior monologue of a profoundlydisturbed mind." In addition to "The Masque of theRed Death," "The Fall of the House of Usher" isone of his most famous stories in the Gothic style.

Poe's literary career was prolific but chaotic.He was periodically editor, co-editor and contribu-tor to various literary magazines, controversial forhis scathing literary reviews and tendency to feudwith his editors or co-editors. Nevertheless, his1844 poem ' "The Raven'' won him instant nationalfame and recognition, with international notorietysoon to follow.

Poe, however, a notorious alcoholic and debtorduring his lifetime, died in a certain degree ofdisgrace; his initial biographer, Rufus WilmotGriswold, contributed to this public perception withhis portrayal of Poe as an immoral drunk. Whileother authors attempted to counteract this image andredeem his reputation, their efforts were unsuccess-ful. Griswold, on the other hand, was at least tempo-



Death, standing and looking down upon suffering souls.

rarily successful in portraying Poe in the worstpossible light.

One hundred and fifty years after his death,however, Poe's international influence on the litera-ture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries canhardly be underestimated. In Russia, he greatlyinfluenced the novelist Fyodor Dostoyevski. Hiswork was particularly influential in France, wherethe poets Baudelaire and Mallarme were stronglyinfluenced by Poe in formulating the Symbolist andSurrealist movements. According to Thompson,' The vogue of Poe in France continues today withPoe's works holding special fascination for the

structuralist, post-structuralist, and deconstructionistcliques of avant-garde criticism." Interestingly, how-ever, Poe, although a favorite among readers, is notnecessarily considered to be a central figure in thetradition of English and American writers.

Criticism


specialization in cinema studies, from the Universi-

V o l u m e 8 241


WhatDo I Read

Next?"The Raven," one of Poe's most famous works,is written from the perspective of a man remem-bering his love who has died.

Twice-Told Tales, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is acollection of short stories by a contemporary ofPoe. These stories have elements of Gothic fic-tion, and are often compared to Poe's Goth-ic style.

' 'The Fall of the House of Usher'' is another ofPoe's famous short stories, and is written in theGothic style.

Edgar Allan Poe: Chelsea House Library of

Biography (1992), by Suzanne Levert, presents astandard biography of Poe.

Twentieth Century Interpretations of Poe's Tales:A Collection of Critical Essays (1971), by Wil-liam L. Howarth, presents several diverse criticalinterpretations of Poe's work.

An Edgar Allan Poe Companion: A Guide to theShort Stories, Romances and Essays (1981), byJ. R. Hammond, offers an introduction to Poe'sfiction and essays.

ty of Michigan. She is a freelance writer and teachescourses in American cinema. In the following essay,she discusses three possible interpretations of Poe's' 'The Masque of the Red Death'' in terms of identi-

fying the narrative voice of the story.

Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Masque of theRed Death" may be interpreted variously as aparable for man's fear of death, a moral tale withbiblical implications, or the delusional vision of amadman waging an internal battle for his ownsanity. Depending on each of these interpretations,the narrator may be identified as a personification ofDeath, a divine being or an insane individual.

Death and Time"The Masque of the Red Death" can be inter-

preted as an allegorical tale about the folly of humanbeings in the face of their own inevitable deaths. Ifthe Red Death symbolizes death in general, then thePrince's attempt to escape the pestilence, in "defi-ance of contagion," is symbolic of the human desireto defy death. Prince Prospero attempts to create afortress that will be impervious to the Red Death,providing his guests "all the appliances of pleas-ure" as a means of distracting them from thecontemplation of death. The entire masquerade ballcan be read as an allegory for the ways in which

humans attempt to distract themselves from thoughtsof their own mortality by indulging in earthly pleas-ures. Yet, the "masked figure" who appears at themasquerade ball is the Red Death itself, which,despite all precautions, slips in "like a thief in thenight" to claim the lives of everyone within, just asdeath eventually claims all mortals. As Joseph Pat-rick Roppolo has pointed out in his article ' 'Mean-ing and "The Masque of the Red Death,'" the RedDeath symbolizes ' 'life itself. The one 'affliction'shared by all mankind. Furthermore, because all ofthe people are dead by the end, and Death is the onlyone who survives to tell the tale, Leonard Cassuto,in his article ' 'The Coy Reaper: Unmasking the RedDeath," has argued that the narrator of the storymust be Death itself.

Thus, the masquerade ball may be interpretedas symbolic of human life, the hours during whichthe ball takes place as symbolic of the limited timeeach person must live, and the seven rooms of theabbey in which the ball is held as symbolic of thestages in a man's life, from birth to death. In hispursuit of the masked figure through the sevenrooms of the abbey, Prospero metaphorically passesthrough all the stages of life. H. H. Bell, Jr. haspointed out in his article "'The Masque of the RedDeath'—An Interpretation" that Poe seems to rep-



resent these rooms as "an allegorical representationof Prince Prospero's life span." This is partlyindicated by the fact that the first room is located inthe Eastern end of the abbey and the last room in theWestern end. Because the sun rises in the East andsets in the West, this arrangement is suggestive ofthe dawn and dusk of life. Bell explains that "thesedirections are time-honored terms which have beenused to refer to the beginning and end of things—even of life itself." Furthermore, the seventh roomis decorated in black, which is associated with nightand death, and red, which the story strongly associ-ates with the bloodiness caused by the pestilence ofthe Red Death. Out of fear, the guests avoid theseventh room, just as the living tend to avoidreminders of death. In the other six rooms, mean-while, "beat feverishly the heart of life."

The placement of the great ebony clock in theseventh room connects the passage of time with theprogression of the rooms from birth to death. Theclock signifies the story's pre-occupation with Timeas an instrument of death. That Poe chose to capital-ize the word Time, personifying it by giving it aproper name, further suggests that he is referring to' 'time'' not in a literal sense, but as in an allegoricalsense. Extending the metaphor of a single day for alife span, as implied by the location of the sevenrooms from East to West, the clock marks out thetime remaining in the lives of the guests, ending atmidnight.

While Prospero's guests dance and the orches-tra plays, the striking of the clock each hour is aforeboding reminder that the passing of time bringsthem all closer and closer to the moment of theirown deaths. Each time the clock strikes, and themusic and dancing stops, everyone is reminded oftheir own impending death, the old more acutelythan the young, for "it was observed that thegiddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedatepassed their hands over their brows as if in confusedreverie or meditation." Bell has suggested that' 'Poe meant for the clock to count off periods oflife—not mere hours." So that when the revelerspause at the striking of the clock ' 'they think not interms of an hour having passed but rather in terms ofjust so much of their lives as having passed." Whilethe ball is meant to distract them from thinkingabout death, the chiming of the clock inspires in theguests "meditation" on the limited time left intheir lives.

The clock's chiming midnight signifies the end oflife, as it coincides with the guests becoming' 'aware''

That these 'dream' guests

may be mere reflections of

the Prince's mind is further

suggested by the description

that 'these—the dreams-

writhed about, taking hue

from the rooms,'"

of the presence of death amongst them. At the sightof the "masked figure," these thoughts becomemore persistent:' 'and thus it happened, perhaps thatmore of thought crept, with more of time, into themeditations of the thoughtful among those whoreveled." The closing lines of the story again sug-gest that the clock measures the time limit placed oneveryone's life, so that "the life of the ebony clockwent out with the last of the gay."

Apocalypse' The Masque of the Red Death'' in told in such

a way that its story takes on an almost Biblical tone,recounting a tale of sin, punishment by God andApocalypse. The story opens with a description of a"pestilence," which, by the end, has wiped out allhuman life. Such a devastating "pestilence" evokesbiblical implications, as plague or pestilence in theBible is sent down by God to punish humans fortheir sins. As a parable reminiscent of a Biblicalstory,' "The Masque of the Red Death" is a tale of adivine punishment of those who are oblivious to thesuffering of others less fortunate than themselves.

The response of Prince Prospero to the pesti-lence of the Red Death which has "devastated" hiscountry is one of decadence. In other words, heresponds to the massive suffering of people lessprivileged and powerful than he by turning a blindeye to their plight and surrounding himself and hisfriends with extravagant distractions. While a dead-ly pestilence ravages his country, the Prince re-mains "happy and dauntless and sagacious," ob-livious to the suffering of others. When "hisdominions were half depopulated," his response isto retreat with his friends and distract them from"grieving" or "thinking" about the plight of theirfellow countrymen by indulging them in lavish

V o l u m e 8 243


entertainment. The response of the general popula-tion to those afflicted by the Red Death is alsoportrayed as selfish and unsympathetic, for the"scarlet stains" which mark the bodies of thoseafflicted "were the pest ban which shut him outfrom the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men." Yet the Prince, with all his power, goes a stepfurther in this response, as he contrives to "shutout" all those vulnerable to the plague, denyingthen any "aid" or "sympathy" in the process. Theresponse of the Prince and his privileged friends tothis massive suffering is harsh and unfeeling, theirattitude being that "the external world could takecare of itself."

The final line of the story is Apocalyptic intone, written in a style reminiscent of the type ofstatements made in the Bible. As Patrick Cheneyhas pointed out in his article "Poe's Use of TheTempest and The Bible in 'The Masque of the RedDeath,'" in the final paragraph, "the language,rhythm, and allusion are unmistakably Biblical."This is particularly so of the closing line: "AndDarkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimit-able dominion over all." As with the word Time,the fact that Poe chose to capitalize the words"Darkness" and "Decay" personifies these ele-ments, thereby elevating them to a level of myth orparable. The personification of Darkness, particu-larly, calls to mind the Prince of Darkness, a namefor the Devil. Cheney in fact refers to the Red Deathas an "anti-Christ." Given this ending, it would bepossible to conclude that, since evil has triumphedover the land, the narrator of the story may be thepersonification of evil. On the other hand, however,if this is to be interpreted as a morality tale ofBiblical proportions, it could be argued that thenarrator is in fact a divine presence, who has pun-ished humanity for its sins.

MadnessG. R. Thompson, in The Dictionary of Literary

Biography, has pointed out that Poe was "themaster of interior monologue of a profoundly dis-turbed mind." "The Masque of the Red Death"may certainly be read on a psychological level asjust such an "interior monologue," the delusionalnightmare of a madman. The narrator suggestsseveral times that there may be reason to believePrince Prospero is insane, and that the entire story ishis crazy dream. If this is the case, then the narratorof the story may be Prospero himself, describing hisown mad vision. This would explain why the narra-tor distances himself from the statement that Prospero

may be "mad" by suggesting that it is only theopinion of "some" people, for he mentions that"there are some who would have thought himmad." However, the narrator just as quickly deniesthis assessment by calling forth the opinion of his"followers," who "felt that he was not."

Furthermore, the narrator specifically refers tothe Prince's "friends" or "followers" as literally"dreams," as "To and fro in the seven chambersthere stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams." Theguests are later referred to as "an assembly offantasms." In other words, the "bizarre" figureswhich populate the Prince's masquerade ball maymerely be figments of his mad imagination. Thatthese "dream" guests may be mere reflections ofthe Prince's mind is further suggested by the de-scription that "these—the dreams—writhed about,taking hue from the rooms." That is, the guests atthe masquerade ball, referred to as "dreams" taketheir "hue" or color from the reflections of theglass in each room. This could serve as a metaphorfor the way in which dreams take their form, or' 'hue'' from their status as reflections of the dream-er's mind. In this case, the chiming of the clock is areminder not so much of death in particular, but ofreality intruding momentarily into the insane dream-world of the mad man, for, each time the clockchimes, the "dreams are stiff-frozen." At a literallevel, the chiming of a clock is generally a soundwhich awakens people from a dream state. But,once the sound of the clock has died down, "thedreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrilythan ever."

Eventually, the madness of the Prince is pro-jected onto the "fantasms" which populate hismind; the "dream" guests are referred to as "madrevelers," indicating that they may be projectionsof the Prince's own mad mind. The masked figureof Death which appears at the ball even takes on thecharacteristic of madness, as his "mad assump-tions" have the effect of evoking "awe" in theother guests. The madness of the Prince himselfagain emerges in response to the audacity of themasked figure, as the Prince "maddening withrage," pursues it to the seventh room.

In a psychological reading, the struggle be-tween the masked figure and the Prince Prosperocould be interpreted as the internal mental strugglebetween a man's sense of reality and his insanedelusions. Thus, when the masked figure is revealedto have no bodily form, it is because it exists only asan imaginary "fantasm" with no physical existence



in reality. In this case, the triumph of the maskedfigure over the Prince represents a triumph of in-sanity over sanity; the "death" of Prospero and his"dreams" could represent the death of the selfwhen it is taken over by its own insanity.


Leonard CassutoIn the following essay, Cassuto reasons that the

narrator of the tale must be Death because he is theonly one present at the festivity to survive to tell ofthe effects of the Red Death.''

Much has been written about Poe's narrators, andwith good reason. Nearly always unnamed—andtherefore seen as somehow unreliable—they alsohave disturbing tendencies that range from theunstable and the obsessed all the way to the insane.In The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and severalother tales, Poe himself even enters into the fiction,commencing the atmosphere of confusion that per-vades throughout. All of this indicates that Poewants us to pay attention to his narrators. If thatis his goal, he has succeeded handsomely, butnot completely. ' The Masque of the Red Death''is a notable exception. The story has a narratorunique in the Poe canon. The teller of the tale isDeath himself.

Substantiating such a claim must begin withlocating a first-person narrator in the story. At firstthere does not appear to be one, but closer studyreveals that an "I" is in fact relating the action.Perhaps no one has remarked upon his presencebefore because, unlike many of Poe's more overtlybizarre narrators, this one never steps up and intro-duces himself. For all of this seeming reticence,though, the raconteur of "The Masque of the RedDeath" makes his presence known on three sepa-rate occasions.

The first of these comes after the description ofthe isolation of Prospero and his followers. Afterfive or six months in the abbey that he has turnedinto a vault, Prospero has announced the maskedball, and all is being prepared. Here, the narratorsteps forward for the first time:

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But firstlet me tell of the rooms in which it was held.

Who is this "me"? He must be someone whohas seen the inside of Prospero's self-imposed pris-on, but it has been sealed ' 'to leave means of neitheringress nor egress." This fact points to the narra-

Death is describing his

own actions, but without

telling us exactly what

happens. His tone as a

narrator is consistent with

his character in the story:

matter-of-fact, final, and

anonymous."

tor's presence in the group inside the walls. Onecould argue that Poe is simply employing a casualreference, that "me" is simply a figure of speech,but the frequency of the narrator's direct interven-tion (three times in a seven-page story) precludesthis assumption.

The story has a narrator, then, but this narratormay not be a character in the story. Perhaps Poe hasadopted a familiarly omniscient first person narratorwhich would allow him to achieve a compromisebetween first-person involvement and third-personomniscience. This is not a new device, to be sure—Hawthorne, for one, employs it in many of hisstories and romances. Maybe Poe does mean tohave an "I" telling the story from without. Thepossibility certainly exists, but not to the exclusionof all others. Furthermore, such a narrator would beunique among Poe's tales of horror. On the fewoccasions when he does employ omniscient narra-tion, it is always in the third person. All of his otherfirst-person narrators live and breathe within theirown fictional worlds; I submit that the teller of"The Masque of the Red Death" does so as well.

Given the presence of a narrator, it is clear thathe can be nowhere else but present at the festivity.There would be no other way for him to describe apause in the activity at midnight: "And then themusic ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions ofthe waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasycessation of all things as before."

The narrator's comparison proves that he hasbeen there since the beginning of the party. Hisreference to what he has already told hearkens backto a previous description of how the striking of theclock would stop the orchestra. The third and final

V o l u m e 8 245


time he refers to himself further confirms his pres-ence amidst the merriment. He compares the RedDeath figure to the other masqueraders at the party:"In an assembly of phantasms such as I havepainted, it may be supposed that no ordinary appear-ance could have excited such sensation."

The Red Death is indeed extraordinary, but somust be the narrator, for he has somehow lived totell us about it.

The narrator's survival thus presents a contra-diction which allows for an alternate reading of thestory, one that adds a new dimension to the gro-tesque scene which Poe describes. According to thenarrator's own account, no one survives the RedDeath's "illimitable dominion." How could thenarrator be present at the ball and then be able to tellabout it afterwards? The only one who "lives" isDeath. The narrator must be Death himself.

This discovery adds a gruesomely ironic aspectto the entire tale. Death's storytelling is marked by asmooth, deliberate, almost deadpan calm. There is asense of inevitability to the scene which precludestension because the narrator already knows whatwill happen. The outcome is as dependable as thepassing time, symbolized by the striking clockwhich governs the action in the story. No oneescapes Death, so it is natural that Death should notperceive any suspense. Nor has Death any need forself-aggrandizement. We see the final confrontationbetween Death and the pursuing prince from Death'sperspective, but description of the moment of truthis carefully avoided: ' 'There was a sharp cry—andthe dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet,upon which, instantly afterward, fell prostrate indeath the Prince Prospero." Only Death could haveseen all of this; Prospero has run through six roomswhile the other partygoers remain shrunk againstthe walls in fear. Death is describing his ownactions, but without telling us exactly what happens.His tone as a narrator is consistent with his characterin the story: matter-of-fact, final, and anonymous.

As Death remains masked to Prospero, so Deathremains masked to us. The mockingly self-depreca-tory way that he hides himself in both the action andthe narration furnishes a humorous tinge to themacabre that is already present in the story, giving auniquely grotesque turn to an already grotesquecreation. Harpham has elsewhere pointed out vari-ous puns in the story's structure (e.g., the guests are"dis-concerted" when the clock stops). Anothercan now be added to the list: Death is the author ofProspero's fate in more ways than one.

Source: Leonard Cassuto, "The Coy Reaper: Un-masque-ing the Red Death," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 25, No.3, 1988, pp. 317-20.

Patrick CheneyIn the following essay, Cheney argues that

Poe's use of allusions to The Tempest an d the Biblereverse their theme of victory over sin, death, andtime with the victory of Darkness, Decay, and theRed Death over humankind.

In "The Masque of the Red Death" Poe's allusionsto both The Tempest and the Bible have been widelyrecognized. Briefly, the allusions to The Tempestinclude Poe's use of "Prospero" for his hero'sname; his use of the romance "masque" for hisstory's central event; and his borrowing of Caliban'scurse of the ' 'red plague'' on Miranda for his story'scentral idea. Poe's allusions to the Bible include hisremarks about the Red Death itself: that the RedDeath ' 'out-Heroded Herod''; that he ' 'came like athief in the night"; and that in the end he has"dominion" over all. As yet, though, no one hasexamined the relation between these two sets ofallusions, as they contribute to the narrative andmeaning of the story.

In this essay I suggest that Poe in ' 'The Masqueof the Red Death" uses Shakespearean and Biblicalallusions to reveal a tragic and ironic reversal of amythic pattern which The Tempest and the Biblehave in common. Where the mythic pattern of bothThe Tempest and the Bible depicts man's victoryover sin, death, and time, Poe's mythic patterndepicts the triumph of these agents of destructionover man. In Poe's "mythic parable" of man's rolein the universe, Prince Prospero becomes an anti-hero, an image of man misusing his will as heattempts to shape reality; and the Red Death be-comes an "anti-christ," an image of the cosmicforce conspiring man's failure.

While admitting to the obvious differencesbetween The Tempest and the Bible, we can also seethat they have much in common. In the Bible, Adamis born into the Garden of Eden; he falls from thisparadise when, tempted by Satan, he misuses hiswill; and finally, through the miraculous powers ofthe "second Adam" or Christ, he returns to a newEden. The key to recovering Eden becomes Christ,who uses the miraculous powers of love to triumphover the old law of death, figured in his resurrection.Similarly, in The Tempest Prospero was originallythe ' 'right Duke of Milan''; but he lost his dukedomwhen he retreated into the private world of his



study, to become the victim of Antonio, Alonso, andSebastian; eventually, though, exiled on an island inthe Mediterranean sea with his daughter, Miranda,he uses his magical powers to triumph over the' 'three men of sin." In his wedding masque, Prosperouses the spirit Ariel to present a vision of the worldhe is trying to create: a peaceful world of heavenon earth. Prospero interrupts his masque when heremembers the plot of his slave, Caliban, thusoccasioning his famous speech, "Our revels noware ended," in which the "cloud-capped towers"vanish from the world ' 'like the baseless fabric ofthis vision" (IV.i. 151-152). Despite this apostro-phe to man's futile use of his will, Prospero goes onto regain for Miranda her lost inheritance, much asChrist regains for Adam his lost inheritance in theBible. The mythic pattern of The Tempest, then,corresponds to that of the Bible by presenting a viewof reality in which man uses his loving will torecreate a "brave new world," invulnerable to timeand death.

In "The Masque of the Red Death" Poe'sallusions to The Tempest and the Bible may suggestthat he is responding to this mythic pattern. LikeShakespeare's Duke Prospero, Poe's Prince Prosperouses his will to confront the harsh reality of death,figured in the ghostly apparition of the Red Deathitself. But Poe recasts the story so that PrinceProspero's primary action consists of retreatingfrom the reality of the Red Death—the action ofretreat being precisely what Shakespeare takes careto emend. Poe also takes away Prospero's magicpowers, leaving his hero with an art that mostclosely resembles interior decoration—a mere "phi-losophy of furniture." As a consequence, PrinceProspero lacks the supernatural power that enablesShakespeare's Prospero to succeed. Taking refugein a "castellated abbey," Prince Prospero uses hiswill to create an earthly paradise that parodies the"brave new world" of The Tempest—a world which,rather than transcending time, embodies the veryinstrument of time, the sinister "clock of ebony":Poe's Prospero, by building time into his abbey,ensures his own destruction. In the world of PrinceProspero, the governing force becomes not that ofcosmic harmony and love but that of cosmic ' 'dis-concert," the musical instrument for which be-comes the clock itself, that grim "sound" whichhourly interrupts the dance. In hiding from death inthe bosom of earthly pleasure, Poe's Prospero is likeShakespeare's Prospero if he had given up Ariel forCaliban; in a sense, Poe's story embodies Caliban'swish-fulfillment:' 'the red plague rid you," Caliban

Essentially, then, Poe

in 'The Masque of the Red

Death1 reads Shakespeare and

the Bible much as Marlowe's

Dr. Faustus reads the Bible

and Aristotle—out of

context."

says to Miranda,' 'For learning me your language''(I.ii.364-365). The story's subtitle appropriatelybecomes ' 'Our revels now are ended''—a powerfuloverture to the vanity of human wishes. PrinceProspero's artistically inspired masque does notmarry earth to heaven, but earth to death, so that theworld of the abbey becomes, not a new Eden, but a"valley of the shadow of death."

Poe's use of Biblical symbolism does not be-come particularly noteworthy until the last para-graph, where the language, rhythm, and allusion areunmistakably Biblical:

And now was acknowledge the presence of the RedDeath. He had come like a thief in the night. And oneby one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewedhalls of their revel, and died each in the despairingposture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clockwent out with that of the last of the gay. And theflames of the tripods expired. And Darkness andDecay and the Red Death held illimitable domin-ion over all.

The sentence structure, with its repetition of theword "And," is like that in the Bible. The RedDeath, Poe says, comes "like a thief in the night."The phrase is a direct quotation from 1 Thessalonians5:2 and 2 Peter 3:10, which both refer to Christ. InPoe's mythology, the Red Death replaces Christ asthe reigning force in the universe. Hence, the RedDeath is said to have "dominion over all"—areversal of Paul's statement in Romans 6:9, inwhich "death hath no more dominion" because ofChrist's resurrection. Moreover, the halls of Poe'searthly paradise become ' 'blood-bedewed''—sug-gesting a conflation of two familiar Biblical images,blood and dew: the blood of Christ's resurrectionthat redeems man, and the drops of dew that fallfrom heaven to save man from the harshness of

V o l u m e 8 247


nature. In Poe, the blood and dew of the Red Deathreplace the blood of Christ and the dew of heaven.

Poe may have in mind here the Pauline concep-tion of baptism, in which man is baptized into Christthrough being baptized into Christ's death—a con-ception that concludes, significantly, with Paul'sremark that death will have no more "dominion"because of Christ's resurrection:

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism intodeath: that like as Christ was raised up from the deadby the glory of the Father, even so we also shouldwalk in the newness of life. For if we have beenplanted together in the likeness of his death, we shallbe also in the likeness of his resurrection For hethat is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead withChrist, we believe that we shall also live with him:Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead diethno more; death hath no more dominion over him.

Poe inverts the Pauline conception of baptismby presenting his characters being "bedewed" inthe unholy baptismal "blood" of the Red Death:"For he that is dead is freed from sin." Deathbecomes the grim "saviour" of this world; appro-priately, the Red Death wears a ' 'vesture dabbled inblood''—a grim inversion of Christ in the Book ofRevelation:

And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood:and his name is called The Word of God.

The Red Death joins Herod in denying Christ asthe Messiah; but the Red Death "out-Herod[s]Herod" by spilling the blood, not merely of theinnocent first born, but of everyone. The threefigures presiding over the "blood-bedewed" halls—Darkness, Decay, and the Red Death—become aninfernal triumvirate replacing the divine trinity asthe ruling force of the world.

The Biblical counterpart to the romance"masque" or "mask" is the "veil." In the OldTestament, Moses wears a veil when he speaks inthe name of Yaweh. In 2 Corinthians 3 Paul saysthat Moses' veil symbolizes the obscurity of man'sknowledge of God given through the old law, whichbecomes for Paul the law of death. Hence, inwearing the veil, Moses is wearing the veil of deathand blinding himself to the truth about man's rela-tion to God. Paul goes on to say that the "vail isdone away in Christ", that is, that Christ triumphsover the law of death through his resurrection. InJohn 20:6-7, the beloved disciple and Simon Petergo ' 'into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes,but wrapped together in a place by itself." Thedetails draw attention to the success of Christ'sresurrection: he has taken the veil of death away.

The prefigurement for this becomes Christ's raisingof Lazarus from the grave: "And he that was deadcame forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes,and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesussaith unto them, Loose him, and let him go."

Poe echoes the Lazarus passage when he makeshis Red Death

shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of thegrave. The mask which concealed the visage wasmade . . . to resemble the countenance of a stiff-ened corpse.

But Poe rejects the notion that Christ takes theveil of death away by having his masquer, the RedDeath, wear a veil that cannot be taken away:

a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves intothe black apartment, and, seizing the mummergasped in unutterable horror at finding the gravecerements and corpse-like mask which they handledwith so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangi-ble form.

In presenting an image of man helpless againstthe apparition of death, Poe suggests the inefficacyof Christ's triumph over death, thus delivering maninto the world of the old law: the Red Death deniesChrist his power of resurrection.

As such, the Red Death qualifies for what Johncalls an ' 'antichrist'': he who ' 'denieth that Jesus isthe Christ... is antichrist." John admonishes:

Love not the world, neither the things that are in theworld. . . . For all that is in the world, the lust of theflesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, isnot of the Father, but is of the world. And the worldpasseth away, and the lust thereof.... Little children,it is the last time: and as ye have heard ... antichristshall come.

Prince Prospero, who is "of the world" andsuffers from ' 'the lust of the flesh, and the lust of theeyes, and the pride of life," appropriately becomesthe victim of an "antichrist," that figure who in theBible temporarily replaces Christ as the ruling forceof the world. That Poe is responding to Scripturehere is further indicated if, as Thomas O. Mabbottsays, the story has as one of its bases the clock atStrasbourg Cathedral,

where, shortly before the stroke of the clock, a figurerepresenting Death emerged from the center andsounded the full hour, while at the quarter and halfhours the statue of Christ came out, repelling thedestroyer.

Not surprisingly, Poe places his grim reversalof the Christian drama in an "abbey"—the Catho-lic bride of Christ, a holy sanctuary in which manuses religious ritual to commune with God. The



abbey has seven rooms, each decked in a differentcolor and having a "heavy tripod, bearing a brazierof fire" opposite a window of "stained glass."Critics have associated the seven rooms with thecycle of nature and the seven ages of man inShakespeare. In the Bible, though, seven symbol-izes fullness, completeness—man's oneness withGod. The seven colors also correspond to colors ofvestments worn in Catholic liturgy, as well as to theseven colors of the rainbow (Biblical symbol ofhope and the new covenant between man and God).And the braziers, which use coals of fire, recall the' 'censer full of burning coals of fire from off thealtar before the Lord'' that is brought ' 'within thevail" of the Old Testament temple in Leviticus16:12, and the "seven lamps of fire burning beforethe throne" of God in Revelation 4:5. Hence, in theRed Death's destruction of the abbey, Poe seems tosuggest the inefficacy of man's use of religiousritual to commune with God, as a means of tran-scending time and of triumphing over the law ofdeath. Poe's story can be seen to have a basis inEcclesiastes 6:2: "this is vanity, and it is an evildisease." The "Avatar" and "seal" of Prospero'sworld are not Christ, as in the Bible, but the "blood"of the Red Death. The shaping force of Poe's worldbecomes, not the Lamb of God, as in the Book ofRevelation, but that type of antichrist in the fourthseal of God riding the ' 'pale horse": ' 'and his name.. . was Death."

Poe's use of The Tempest and the Bible to shapethe mythic pattern of "The Masque of the RedDeath'' is not so much the product of a wild fancy asit is of an astute reading of western literature. For, asJ. L. Borges has suggested in his story ' 'The GospelAccording to Mark,''

generations of men, throughout recorded time, havealways told and retold two stories, that of a lost shipwhich searches the Mediterranean seas for a dearlyloved island, and that of a god who is crucifiedon Golgotha.

According to Northrop Frye, "Borges is clearlysuggesting that romance, as a whole, provides aparallel epic'' to the Bible; that, in fact, romance canbe seen as a "secular scripture" whose mythicpattern mirrors that of the Bible. Hence, the allu-sions to The Tempest and the Bible in ' The Masqueof the Red Death'' may suggest that Poe responds tothe mythic pattern of the two kinds of stories whichBorges and Frye suggest form the basis of westernliterature.

Essentially, then, Poe in ' 'The Masque of theRed Death'' reads Shakespeare and the Bible much

as Marlowe's Dr. Faustus reads the Bible and Aris-totle—out of context. He is attracted to the ideas intwo speeches that are secular and sacred correlatesof each other: Prospero's "Our revels now areended" speech and the passage in the Bible aboutthe victory of "antichrist" over man. Specifically,Poe inverts the romantic conventions of The Tem-pest and the religious tenets of the Bible. Prosperobecomes, not the unifying force of love in the world,but the mere victim of a demonic opposite, the RedDeath. And the Red Death replaces Christ as theshaping force of reality. In Poe's revision of themythic pattern set forth in the secular and sacredmythologies, man is imprisoned in a world gov-erned by the "law" of death. Hence, man's use ofhis will to link himself with heaven, as a means oftriumphing over sin, death, and time, becomes a' 'masquerade''—a futile display of self-deceptionthat culminates only in death. Man's final marriageis not with Milan or the Church, with home orheaven—but with the mere "shadow" of these: theRed Death.

Source: Patrick Cheney, "Poe's Use of The Tempest and theBible in 'The Masque of the Red Death,'" in EnglishLanguage Notes, Vol. 20, No. 1-4, May-June, 1983, pp. 31-39.

Patricia H. WheatIn the following essay, Wheat argues that the

prince attempts to prepare to meet death by assum-ing a mask of indifference to the effects of the RedDeath and to death itself, but he fails to maintainthis indifference in the ultimate meeting with death.

When Prince Prospero and his thousand carefreefriends shut themselves up in a fortified abbey toescape the fearful Red Death and make merry, theyalso shut themselves off from the sympathies ofcritical opinion. Thomas Mabbot believes "onecannot run away from responsibility." Stuart Levineagrees, noting that "The nobles are fiddling whileRome burns; worse, they are fiddling in great style."David Halliburton suggests that Prince Prosperosins by trying "to supplant God's creation with acreation of his own." The Prince is viewed byEdward Pitcher as "arrogantly calculating," withcharacter traits of ' 'egotism, . . . pride, coldness,manic superiority and tyranny." H. H. Bell callsProspero a "feelingless ruling prince." While it isdifficult to entertain feelings of goodwill toward amonarch who deserts his people and stages a festivemasked ball in the midst of their exposure to peril,negative attitudes toward Prince Prospero are to befound only in the writings of his modern critics and

V o l u m e 8 249


not in his story or in Poe's attitude toward him.Joseph Roppolo comes closest to Poe's meaning in' The Masque of the Red Death'' when he discussesthe isolation of man: "In the trap of life and in hisdeath, every man is an island. If there is a mutualbond, it is the shared horror of death." The Princeand his friends have no desire to share death'shorror. Poe, however, expresses no disapproval ofhis character's actions or of his apparent attitudes.Prince Prospero's supposed pride is best seen as aprotective mask, a mask of indifference with whichhe tries to shield himself from death.

Commentaries on "The Masque of the RedDeath" often, rightly, describe the story's action interms of a battle. Walter Blair views it as a battlebetween death and life, between time and the ' 'gaie-ty which seeks to kill time by forgetting it." In hiscomparison of Poe's story to several Hawthornestories, Robert Regan comments that "the gaietywithin is a psychological defense against a menac-ing antagonist...." The battle is inevitable for allwho live. However, from the introduction of thePrince in paragraph two, his defense is not anattempt to win the battle but an attempt to avoid it.He and the courtiers begin by retiring (literally,drawing back) into the "deep seclusion" of theabbey. A strong wall with iron gates surrounds the"amply provisioned" building, suggesting prepa-rations for a siege.

Not only do the inhabitants make physicalpreparations as they take their stand against thecoming onslaught, they must also be as mentallyready as possible. Mentally, as well as physically,the only defense is retreat. The retreat of the mindgoes beyond mere forgetfulness or simple escapeinto "reality-denying fantasies." The Prince andhis courtiers, in an unconscious defense mecha-nism, construct and maintain a pose of indifferenceto death. Gaiety, merry making, and all the joys ofsuperficial pleasure are allowable under this pose;concern for self or others, serious thought, andstrong emotion are forbidden, for they rankle themind with the agonizing realization that when thebattle comes it will certainly be lost. The only wayto approximate success is to not let losing matter.The situation is something like that of the laboratoryrat trained to run a maze for a food pellet. When anessential corridor is closed off, the rat will eventual-ly stop trying to run the maze and will sit down in hishopelessness to starve. Prince Prospero differs onlyin that, as a human, he is able to use his inventive-ness to make the best of his hopeless situation.

The weapon of indifference and its associationwith tightly controlled emotions are seen through-out the story. The victim of the disease is shut out"from the sympathy of his fellowmen." The boltsinside the abbey are welded shut not to keep the RedDeath out, but to serve as a precaution against thecourtiers' own "sudden impulses of despair or offrenzy." They let' 'The external world... take careof itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or tothink." Some critics have detected a note of authorialdisapproval of the Prince in the first of these last twosentences. But the second invites a more sympathet-ic interpretation. Grief and thought are not onlyuseless but are destructive, unwise, certainly notconsistent with the character of the "sagacious"Prince. The external world here has the dual mean-ing of the worlds outside the abbey and outsidethe mind.

The movements of the masked ball, beginningin paragraph three, are dominated by the striking ofthe ebony clock in the ominous seventh apartmentwhere' 'few of the company [are] bold enough to setfoot." The dancers and musicians alternate betweenmaintaining their pose of light laughter and gaietyand, when the doleful, deep-voiced clock chimes,becoming pale, uneasy, and thoughtful. The clock isthe reminder of death, the enemy, and time, hiscompanion. The musicians smile when the strikingstops. They repent of their "nervousness and folly"and promise each other to let' 'no similar emotion''be evinced at the next sounding of the hour. It isfoolish to be nervous or to give in to a despairingemotion.

One may ask, if the Prince and his friends trulyhave a need to feign indifference to an inevitabledeath, why do they bother to retreat to an abbey?Also, if the Prince wishes to forget the presence ofdeath why has he surrounded himself and his courti-ers with reminders of death and the grotesque—rooms strangely situated and lighted only by fierytorches glowing through tinted windows, bizzaremasquerade costumes, and the coffin-like blackroom with its "blood-colored panes"? The answerto both questions lies in Prince Prospero's grandattempts to control his environment. A poor manwho has just eaten can tell himself he is not con-cerned about food. In like manner, only within therelative security of the stone walls can the Princeand his friends act as though they are unconcernedabout death. A control over their more hystericalemotions is possible only in the extremely artificialworld designed and executed by the Prince. Pitcherbelieves Prince Prospero deliberately tries to fright-



en and disturb his guests with reminders of death' 'to test the courage of his friends and to reveal theirrelative inferiority" to himself. A more plausibleexplanation, I believe, is that he is trying to dupli-cate the outside world on a small scale and in a non-theatening manner. His seven rooms have beenoften compared to the seven stages of man's life. Inan imitation of life's rooms, the apartments aresituated so that "the vision embraced but little morethan one at a time." However, the rooms are muchmore fluid and accessible than are the stages of life,which cannot be retraced or explored in advance.Actual death is too horrible to be greeted withapathy, but a man-made black room, designed andfurnished by the Prince himself, can be endured.Glass, even colored blood-red, can be tolerated. Theclock is a constant mournful messenger of "theTime that flies," but it is also a man-made device,and within man's control. Prince Prospero, likeMithridates, seems to be taking his poison a bit at atime. Ironically, he is so obsessed with death that allhis efforts are aimed at showing how little deathmatters to him.

There are hints throughout the story that PrinceProspero is insane. Poe says, "his conceptionsglowed with barbaric lustre. There are some whowould have thought him mad." The masqueradecostumes ' 'were delirious fancies such as the mad-man fashions...." These and similar passages areoften offered as additional evidence that Poe disap-proves of the Prince. But these lines can also beinterpreted as comments on society's view of him,as well as a reminder of the limitations of his power.To those outside the abbey, Prospero would seemmad because his actions and attitudes seem inappro-priate for the situation at hand. On another level, his"conceptions," or inventive ordering of the ele-ments of the masquerade, are "barbaric" in thatthey are crude and simplistic. Prince Prospero hasgained temporary control over his limited environ-ment. But his power stops with the natural laws ofthe world, which are able to invade any man's plansand creations. It is necessary for the Prince to retreatto the abbey and feign indifference to the outsideworld—he becomes a madman with "deliriousfancies" if he deludes himself that he has won thebattle with death rather than avoided it.

Avoidance of death can only be temporary, astransitory as the parts of a play. The courtiersbecome not only guests at a masquerade, but alsoliterally masquers, players in death's court. Beforethe masque and the assertion of the final royalauthority belonging to the Red Death, the guests are

criticized for his apparent

frivolity and lack of feeling.

But it is evident that this

frivolity, this pretended

refusal to take death

seriously, is all that

separates the Prince from the

horror of death,"

acting out a grimly comic anti-masque in a portrayalof ' 'the unruly, of the forces and elements royaltysubdues."

The real test—and the final failure—of themask of indifference comes with the entrance of themysterious masked figure dressed exactly like thecorpse of a Red Death victim. The stranger becomesvisible to the masquers just after midnight. Theclock, the most powerful reminder of death in thePrince's world, is at its most powerful moment ofthe night, since it has twelve long, suggestive strokesto sound. The guests have too much time forthought—they slip irretrievably into meditation andbecome aware of the presence of the stranger whohas haunted the abbey from the beginning. Death isno longer avoidable, and in its actual visitation theunfeeling gaiety must give way to feelings "ofterror, of horror, and of disgust."

As the company becomes aware of the deathlyfigure, emotion quickly takes over. The mummer is"beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinitedecorum," and the mask of indifference can nolonger be retained. The challenge, the call to battle,is given in this central passage:' There are chords inthe hearts of the most reckless which cannot betouched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost,to whom life and death are equally jests, there arematters of which no jest can be made." The roomsand the costumes can be carelessly lived with. Thechiming of the clock can almost be dealt with. Butthe appearance of a representation of the specifictype of fatal illness from which Prince Prospero andhis friends are physically and mentally trying toescape is too much. Even the Prince has not been

V o l u m e 8 251

The prince has been


hardened enough by his artificial surroundings toendure without emotion the taunting apparition. Hehas been heretofore "reckless" (literally, withoutconcern). Life and death have been "equally jests"to him as he has convinced himself that he favorsneither in his lack of interest. But the one matterwhich is not laughable has been introduced. ThePrince's reaction is that of a man who prepareshimself mentally for battle, as awakening emotionscan no longer be restrained.

When Prince Prospero sees the intruder hisinitial reaction is that of the untried soldier going, atlast, into a deadly serious battle after a long wait inthe camp. He is "convulsed . . . with a strongshudder either of terror or distaste." Like the untriedsoldier first meeting the enemy, he feels an over-whelming fear which no amount of preparationcould forestall. The battle is already on its way tobeing lost as the Prince next grows red with anger.He is now moving to fight death on its home ground,but he makes several last vain attempts to avoidconflict. His statement, "Who dares?" is at once anacknowledgement of a challenge and impendingfight, and an attempt to treat the stranger as merelyanother courtier, a foolish courtier who has over-stepped the bounds of safety for all those in theabbey. He orders the guests to "seize him andunmask him—that we may know whom we have tohang at sunrise, from the battlements!" It is obvi-ously fruitless to try to seize, unmask, and hang apersonification of death. But if only this figure canbe proven merely human, if only the court can"know whom" the tasteless mocker is, then itcannot be death. Prince Prospero's reluctance forconflict is reflected in his delegation of the seizureto his friends, and in the words "whom we have tohang at sunrise." The hanging is unwanted butnecessary. For the mask of indifference to bereassumed the impediment to indifference must beremoved.

The Prince's attack upon the mummer is filledwith references to intense emotions and hurriedactions. He has lost his carefully nurtured self-control and foolishly attacked the unbeatable foe.He maddens "with rage and the shame of his ownmomentary cowardice." He "rushed hurriedly" tothe stranger, approaching him "in rapid impetuosi-ty." The stranger is, throughout, the challenger whoneed not fight. He approaches the Prince with"deliberate" step and later, when the Prince pur-sues, he simply turns and confronts him. PrinceProspero is dead before the Red Death can do itswork. He is defeated in the quite literal face of death

by giving in to his emotions of terror and hysteria.The fear of death has become his master. Thecourtiers, who summon ' 'the wild courage of de-spair" and attack the stranger's mask with "soviolent a rudeness," meet the fate of their leaderimmediately thereafter, submitting to the same lackof control over their emotions. Death's victory iscomplete—a victory over both the minds and bodiesof the noblemen.

The Prince has been criticized for his apparentfrivolity and lack of feeling. But it is evident thatthis frivolity, this pretended refusal to take deathseriously, is all that separates the Prince from thehorror of death. His personality and creations in theabbey provide an excellent illustration of EdwardDavidson's description of horror as "the total free-dom of the will to function, at the same time thatthere is nothing to will 'for' or will 'against.' Itsjudgments are in a vacuum because it pretends to actin a world where no discoverable controls areoperative." Prince Prospero can exercise his willfreely within the vacuum of the abbey as long as hecan deceive himself that his emotions, the world,life, and death can be controlled. When he allowshis emotions to take control, the' 'nameless awe'' ofthe unknown foe destroys him.

It is natural that Poe should have written a storysuch as "The Masque of the Red Death" in 1842.By this time he had lost his mother (1811); JaneStanard, the inspiration of "To Helen" (1824); andhis foster mother, Frances Allan (1829). He hadexperienced what David Sinclair in his biography ofPoe calls a "crippling sense of powerlessness in theface of death."

Most critics of' 'The Masque'' interpret it as anallegory and assume that, as such, it must point to amoral truth. But the truth in the story is existential,not moral. Poe as narrator presents characters whoarm themselves against death through whatevermeans possible. Through his art, the author is amore formidable opponent to death than is Prospero.The Prince loses control and faces defeat, but Poeremains far removed. He voices no disapproval ofthe characters, but neither does he show sympathyfor their fate. He maintains in his tone the superiori-ty of what he portrays as the only, although fee-ble, defense against death—a perfect mask ofindifference.

Source: Patricia H. Wheat, "The Mask of Indifference in'The Masque of the Red Death,"' in Studies in Short Fiction,Vol. 19, No. 1, Winter, 1982, pp. 51-56.



H. H. Bell, Jr.In the following essay, Bell interprets time and

the seven rooms in Prince Prospero 's imperial suiteallegorically as periods of a person's life.

If after reading it, one concludes that "The Masqueof the Red Death" is nothing more than another ofPoe's rather numerous explorations of the generaltheme of death, then there is little that may be saidabout its meaning other than that it is a rather goodexample of grim and ironic humor. However, to thestudent who inclines his attention toward the alle-gorical overtones of the work, other possibilities asto its meaning present themselves. It is the writer'sbelief that the story becomes more interesting, aswell as broader in scope, when one concentrates onthese allegorical elements.

Examining the text of the work, we discoverthat Prospero is a feelingless ruling prince. To thediscerning reader there is also implicit within thetext a strong suspicion that this man is probablyinsane, for we are told that "Prince Prospero washappy and dauntless and sagacious" even thoughhalf the people in his kingdom had been killed bythe Red Death. This would hardly be the reaction ofa ruler who is in contact with his environment. Thissame man, motivated by a morbid fear of death,selfishly decides to commit the Hawthorne-like sinof alienation by isolating himself from most of hissubjects by retreating with a thousand light-heartedfriends into a castellated abbey to escape the RedDeath. Assuming that death, even the one thatProspero is trying to escape, is the wage of sin, therewould be little allegorical objection to havingProspero seek refuge in an abbey—a monastery.

While in this stage of isolation, as it were, fromthe majority of his subjects, he entertains his care-fully selected guests at a masked ball in the sevenrooms of his imperial suite; and from the way thatPoe treats these seven rooms, it may be gatheredthat he views them as the allegorical representationof Prince Prospero's life span. The fact that he doesview them thus is further enhanced by his placingthe first room in the eastern extremity of the apart-ment and the last room in the western extremity.These directions are time-honored terms whichhave been used to refer to the beginning and the endof things—even of life itself.

Since Poe appears to attach so much impor-tance to these rooms, since he devotes so much timeto describing them in general, and, furthermore,since he dwells in particular and at great length upon

possibility of considering

Prospero insane, Poe indicates

that the rooms were filled

with dreams such as those a

man with a tortured mind

might have."

their color and their lay-out within the abbey, adiagram of them as the writer imagines they mightbe situated is appended to this article with the hopethat it may prove helpful to the reader.

As was noted above, the imperial suite consistsof seven rooms, and if it is assumed that the entiresuite allegorically represents Prospero's life span,then it is logical to assume that the seven roomsallegorically represent the seven decades of his life,which according to the Bible is the normal life spanof man—three score and ten. It has also been notedabove that there is a possibility that Prospero isinsane, and some weight is given to this suspicionwhen one learns that this personage's life had beenconditioned by his love of the bizarre, and when onelearns that the seven rooms which represent his lifepresent a different aspect from that of those roomswhich would allegorically represent the life span ofanother—and perhaps normal—person.

Prospero's apartments were "irregularly dis-posed" and full of turns which prevented one'sseeing from one end to the other. Despite the turns,however, one may infer from Poe's words that theywere arranged more or less in a line. That they had aclosed corridor on either side of them is definitelyknown. Likewise it is known that these closedcorridors extended the full length of the apartments.In other words, the imperial suite or life span ofProspero is enclosed or embraced by two closedcorridors or, if you will, by two unknowns. Thesetwo unknowns could very well be thought of as theunknowns of birth and death which in effect encloseor embrace the life of any man.

Poe is careful to point out that in many suchpalaces ' 'such suites form a long and straight vista''with nothing to hinder one's view from one end to

V o l u m e 8 253

Enchancing the


the other; and he is equally careful to point out thatthis is not true of Prospero's apartments. These hesays are crooked and winding with a sharp turnevery twenty or thirty yards that prevented one'sseeing very far into or through them. By emphasiz-ing the fact that Prospero's apartments differ fromsimilar apartments owned by other people, Poe maywell be trying to indicate that Prospero's life dif-fered from that of most people—that it is morecrooked and winding, more tortured and stressridden than the lives of others which are straighterand perhaps calmer.

Each of the seven rooms, with the exception ofthe last one, has two Gothic windows and two doors.It does not appear that the seventh room—the roomof death—would need two doors. An entrance wayalone would be sufficient for this one. As for theGothic windows, each of them has a fire brazierbehind it in the closed corridor, and the effect of thefire shining through the colored glass of the win-dows was productive of ' 'a multitude of gaudy andfantastic appearances." Since the only light in anyof the rooms was that of the fires sifted through thestained glass windows, the effect would very likelybe an eerie one indeed, productive of "deliriousfancies such as the madman fashions." Prosperothen perhaps comprehends his life only in terms ofthe glimmerings of light (knowledge) that emanatefrom the unknowns of birth and death, and he seeshis life as something of a mad drama. At least thisline of reasoning provides a raison d'etre for theclosed corridors and the fire braziers. Otherwisethey may just seem to be there as extraneous andmore or less irrelevant items.

Poe has so much to say about the colors foundin the seven rooms that it is difficult, if indeed notimpossible, to think that he meant nothing by them.It has been suggested above that the seven roomsprobably represent the seven decades of Prospero'slife, and proceeding on this assumption, it is logicalto conclude that the color in any given room may berelated to Prospero's physical and mental conditionin that decade of his life.

Admitting that color symbolism can be rathervague at best, there nevertheless appears to beenough evidence in the text of the story to warrantcertain pertinent conclusions concerning Poe's useof such symbolism here. The first room, for exam-ple, is located in the eastern end of the apartments,and it is colored blue. The symbolism regardingPoe's use of the direction east here is rather obvious,and the color blue may be related to the same

beginnings and origins that "East" stands for bythinking of it in the sense that it is the residence ofthe unknown or the unexpected—i.e., such as whenwe speak of something coming as a bolt out of theblue. Since blue may thus be associated with theunknown, by extension of meaning it may reason-ably be associated in this instance with the begin-ning of life, which is unknown also.

The second room, says Poe, was purple—acolor worn by those who have achieved somethingin the world or in society. Again, by extension ofmeaning, one may think of this color as beingrepresentative of that period in Prospero's life whenhe has accomplished a little something in life—perhaps moving into maturity.

The third room is colored green, and the writerdoesn't think that it requires too much imaginationto associate this color with that which is verdant,with that which is full of life and vigor—indeedwith a man who is in the prime of his years.

The fourth room is orange and quite easilysuggests, at least to the reader focusing on colorsymbolism, the autumn of life. Prospero could wellbe considered here to be beyond his prime, but by nomeans old yet.

The fifth room is white, and if we follow thesame train of thought it would suggest the silver orhoary haired period of old age.

The sixth room is violet, a color that is emblem-atic of gravity and chastity. It appears that it wouldnot be too much to assume that this room thenrepresents the gravity and the soberness of extremeold age as well as the more or less enforced chastitythat goes along with it.

Poe tells us that the seventh room is black, acolor easily and most often associated with death;but, as if this were not enough, he tells us that thisroom is the most westerly of all, and the associationof conclusions, ends, and death itself with ' 'West''are too numerous to mention.

Most of the dancing and gaiety in the apartmenttook place in the first six rooms, for as Poe says ' 'inthem beat feverishly the heart of life." We are alsotold that "there were few of the company boldenough to set foot within" the seventh room—theroom of death. Also it is to be noted that in theseventh room was to be found the great black clock,which seemed indeed to be more than a clock and todo more than a clock does. It would appear from theway he writes that Poe meant for the clock to count



off periods of life—not mere hours. It is perhaps forthis reason that he capitalizes the word ' 'Time'' atthis point in the story and thus personifies it. This isalso very likely why all the maskers stop when theclock strikes off the hour. They think not in terms ofan hour having passed but rather in terms of just somuch of their lives as having passed. Lastly, let it benoted that the clock of death, though it is heard in allthe rooms, is heard best in the seventh or roomof death.

Enhancing the possibility of consideringProspero insane, Poe indicates that the rooms werefilled with dreams such as those a man with atortured mind might have. He says that in the rooms"there was much of the beautiful, much of thewanton, much of the bizarre, something of theterrible, and not a little of that which might haveexcited disgust." Amid these revelers and amidthese fantastic dreams there appears at the stroke ofmidnight a masked figure representing death. Thatthere may be no mistaking its identity, Poe clothes itin the "habiliments of the grave" and causes it towear a mask which resembles the face of a corpse.

Prospero is very angry at the intrusion and asks,' 'Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mock-ery?" He also commands his guests to "seize him[the figure] and unmask him—that we may knowwhom we have to hang at sunrise from the battle-ments !" It should be noted that Prospero was stand-ing in the blue room when he uttered these words—in that youthful period of life when a man is bravertoward death than he is later on, when it is closerupon him.

In his anger Prospero rushes toward the figureof death with the intention of stabbing him todeath—irony of ironies! In doing so he runs throughevery room in the apartment—through every periodof life—only to be stricken dead in the seventh roomwhen he catches up with his intended victim. SinceProspero is standing in the blue room when he seesthe figure representing death, and since one knowsthat it is impossible to see very far into this apart-ment because of its windings, one may concludethat the figure of death is in either the first or secondroom. Allegorically this could very well mean thatone becomes aware of death at a very early age.

Lastly, it might be pointed out that Prospero inhis last fateful, headlong rush at death is probablyacting from a self-destructive urge—attracted tothat which he at the same time mortally fears. In anyevent, with Prospero's death comes the death of all

in the apartment and the tale ends with the morbiditythat is so typical of Poe—the victory of death over all.

Source: H. H. Bell, Jr. '"The Masque of the Red Death'—An Interpretation," in South Atlantic Bulletin, Vol. 38, No. 4,1973, pp. 101-5.

Joseph Patrick RoppoloIn the following essay, Roppolo both reviews

many previous interpretations of Poe's tale andoffers his own interpretation of the Red Death figureas an allegory of life itself.

Those who seek guidance in interpreting EdgarAllan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" aredoomed to enter a strange world, as confused andconfusing as a Gothic Wonderland and in somerespects as eerie as the blighted house of RoderickUsher. Their guides will be old critics, New Critics,scholars, biographers, enthusiasts, dilettantes, jour-nalists, hobbyists, anthologists, medical men, psy-chologists, and psychoanalysts. From these the seek-ers will learn that Prince Prospero is Poe himselfand that' "The Masque'' is therefore autobiography;that Poe never presents a moral; that "The Masque"is an allegory and must therefore teach a lesson; thatthere is indeed a moral; that there are unnumberedmorals; that there is no message or meaning; thatthere is a message; that the message is quite obviousand understandable; and that the meaning of themessage transcends human understanding. In thepages that follow I should like to tour, briefly, thetangled world of the critics of ' 'The Masque of theRed Death" and then to explore "The Masque"with the best of all possible guides—Poe himself.

/A representative of the psychological guide and

of the group which sees no meaning in "TheMasque of the Red Death" is Albert Mordell,whose book, The Erotic Motive in Literature, wide-ly read since 1919, was reissued in 1962 with a newsection on Poe. Mordell writes blithely of Poe's' 'Loss of Breadth'' and of a character named RogerUsher who, "like Poe, had been disappointed inlove, and probably also drank." To Mordell, Poewas not only a frustrated lover and a drunkard; hewas also a sadist and a masochist, a man whosuffered from "a damming of the libido" andwho was "so absorbed in his dreams that he nev-er tried to take an interest in reality. Hence,"Mordell concludes, "we will find no moral note inPoe's work"—with the single exception of "Wil-liam Wilson."

V o l u m e 8 255


'Let there be light' was

one of the principles of

Creation; darkness, then, is

a principle of Chaos. And to

Poe Chaos is synonymous with

Nothingness, 'which, to all

finite perception, Unity

must be.'"

In sharp contrast, Vincent Buranelli argues thatPoe "was no sadist, no masochist, no pervert, norake," but was instead "the sanest of our writ-ers"—that he was, in fact, "America's greatestwriter, and the American writer of greatest signifi-cance in world literature." Yet, oddly, Buranellifinds himself aligned with Mordell when he, too,asserts sweepingly that' 'Poe does not touch morali-ty"; and he finds himself involved in something of acontradiction when he describes "The Masque ofthe Red Death" as "an allegory representing Deathitself as one of the dramatis personae." Allegory,typically, is meaningful and moral, but Buranellidoes not elaborate upon his statement; nor does hereconcile Poe's well-known detestation of allegorywith Poe's use of it in one of his acknowledgedmasterpieces.

Joseph Wood, Krutch, who saw Poe as incom-petent, sexless, and mad, but nevertheless markedby genius, dismissed "The Masque of the RedDeath" as "merely the most perfect [sic] descrip-tion of that fantastic decor which [Poe] had againand again imagined." Edward H. Davidson remarkson the paucity of "fact and information" in thepiece and reveals that "tone and movement areall." Commenting at greater length, David M. Reinsummarizes the narrative and adds that

The prince, of course, represents Poe, once again as ayoung man of wealthy and distinguished family. HerePoe dreamed of escape from the harsh world, wheresuch evils as the plague were dominant—escape into asecluded place of pleasure he himself designed. Butlike so many of Poe's fantasies, this dream worldwould not remain intact; the imaginary refuge, in spiteof all precautions, was invaded by Death, whosemerest look destroyed him. It may be significant, too,that all in this company fell back to avoid encounter-

ing the gruesome figure. The prince alone, unwillingto await the stranger's pleasure, went forth to pursuehim. Does not Poe here once again, in fantasy, impa-tiently seek a danger that seems inescapable?

Avoiding the pitfall of imagining Poe'sratiocinative mind losing control of a carefullyimagined dream world, Killis Campbell, amongothers, contented himself with seeking sources andwith attempting to ground the fantasy of "TheMasque of the Red Death" in fact. In The Mind ofPoe and Other Studies, Campbell points out thatPoe was ' 'pretty clearly indebted to William Harri-son Ainsworth's Old Saint Paul's" and then citesan account by N. P. Willis in the New York Mirror ofJune 2, 1832, in which Willis describes a Parisianball featuring ' 'The Cholera Waltz,'' ' 'The CholeraGalopade," and, most pertinently, a masked figurerepresenting the cholera itself. Willard Thorp, in ASouthern Reader, makes the identity of Poe's RedDeath positive: it is, Thorpe says, "undoubtedly thecholera, newly arrived in America"; Poe colors itred to distinguish it from the Black Death—thebubonic plague. In a more literary vein, numerousscholars have pointed out the use of the words ' 'redplague" by Shakespeare in The Tempest (I.ii.364),without, however, making useful applications toPoe's "Masque."

Arthur Hobson Quinn is among those whobelieve that "The Masque of the Red Death"contains a moral or a message (he uses the termsinterchangeably).' 'With a restraint that is one of thesurest marks of genius," Quinn says, "Poe gives nohint of the great moral the tale tells to those who canthink. For the others, he had no message." Where-upon Quinn leaves his reader to place himselfamong the thinkers or, unhappily, among the non-thinkers, disdaining to make explicit or even tosuggest the "great moral" which Poe shields be-hind his "Masque."

Patrick F. Quinn agrees that "The Masque ofthe Red Death" is "one of the few serious moraltales that Poe ever wrote," but he, too, spares thereader the embarrassment of having the moral ormorals pointed out to him. Others are less reticent,and their interpretations tend to fall into the familiarpattern of the memento mori. Typical are FrancesWinwar and Norman Foerster.

To Frances Winwar, ' "The Masque of the RedDeath" is "a compelling fantasy in scarlet andblack where every effect stresses the inevitability offinal dissolution...." Foerster notes that red is"Poe's most frequent color" and sees in it "thehorror of blood." To Foerster "The Masque of the



Red Death" is a richly vivid contrast between lifeand death. Setting dominates, and "magnificenceand voluptuousness heighten the sense of worldlypleasure till the heart of life beats feverishly—andstops." The clock symbolizes the processes oftime—both life and death.

Three critics, Walter Blair, Harry Levin, andMarie Bonaparte, go far beyond the routine. ToBlair, as to many others, there is "allegorical signi-fication" in the seven rooms, which, "progressingfrom east to west—from blue to black—connote theseven ages of man from the blue of the dawn of lifeto the black of its night." The clock is, of course,Time; the masked figure is the Red Death; and therevelers are the living, "who seek to bar out andforget death by being gay and carefree," only todiscover that death must inevitably conquer allhumanity. So far, the critic is in the mainstream ofinterpretation. But Blair, more perceptive than most,refuses to confine ' 'The Masque of the Red Death"to this moral. The closing note of the last paragraphis "inconsistent with such a meaning"; and Poe, alover of ambiguity, would probably argue, Blairsays, that "The Masque" is "suggestive of impli-cations which cannot be made explicit this side ofeternity." Harry Levin makes the venture. "Theclosing note, echoed from the pseudo-Miltonic lastline of Pope's Dunciad," Levin says, "predicates areduction of cosmos to chaos''—a challenging and,I hope to show, a fruitful bit of speculation.

It is left to Princess Bonaparte to lift "TheMasque of the Red Death'' from the limited realmof allegory to the expansive kingdom of myth. But,having placed "The Masque" among "typical"Oedipus stories, along with "The Cask of Amontil-lado," the Princess bogs down in a morass ofconflicting Freudian symbols. The Prince, of course,is Oedipus, the son. The masked figure is the father.The castle of seven rooms is the body of the mother.The uplifted dagger is a phallus. The dropped dag-ger is the castrated phallus. And the Red Death—whether father-figure or something beyond that—isboth death and castration. We are back in the weirdand wonderful world of Albert Mordell, who, notsurprisingly, admits owing a great debt to PrincessBonaparte.

Of all the critics mentioned, Blair is the mostdetailed and in many ways the most convincing.Foerster's brief statement, too, almost compels be-lief. But I should like to suggest that neither goes farenough. Foerster evades consideration of Poe'sfinal paragraph. Blair acknowledges that paragraph—

vitally important because of its position — but leavesall attempts at its clarification to the other side ofeternity. If Foerster's evasion is justified (and Lev-in' remark indicates that it is not), then Poe hasfailed to follow one of his own precepts, that "In thewhole composition there should be no word written,of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to bethe one pre-established design." And if Blair iscorrect, then Poe must have sprinkled his page withmore than a grain of salt when he wrote that ' 'Everywork of art should contain within itself all that isrequisite for its own comprehension." I do notbelieve that Poe was less than a remarkably skilledcraftsman, nor do I believe that his critical dictawere deliberate jests. I should like to take Poe at hisword in both quoted statements and, with bothsteadily in mind, study "The Masque of the RedDeath' ' to see what it yields.

In Poe's imaginative prose, beginnings unfail-ingly are important. ' 'The Masque of the Red Death' 'begins with these three short sentences:

The "Red Death" had long devastated the country.No pestilence had even been so fatal or so hideous.Blood was its Avatar and its seal — the redness andhorror of blood.

On one level, the reader is introduced to adisease, a plague, with hideous and terrifying symp-toms, a remarkably rapid course, and inevitabletermination in death. But Poe's heaviest emphasis ison blood, not as sign or symptom, but as avatar andseal. A seal is something that confirms or assures orratifies. The appearance — the presence — of bloodis confirmation or assurance of the existence of theRed Death or, more broadly, of Death itself. Asavatar, blood is the incarnation, the bodily represen-tation, of the Red Death. It is, further, somethinggod-like, an eternal principle, for in Hindu myth, theword "avatar" referred to the descent of a god, inhuman form, to earth. Further, "avatar" can bedefined as "a variant phase or version of a continu-ing entity." A second level thus emerges: bloodrepresents something invisible and eternal, a rulingprinciple of the universe. That principle, Poe seemsto suggest, is death.

But is it? The Red Death, Poe tells us, "hadlong devastated the country." And then: ' 'No pesti-lence had ever been so fatal" — surely a remarkablesecond sentence for a man so careful of grammarand logic as Poe. Is or is not the Red Death apestilence? And does the word "fatal" permit ofcomparison? I should like to suggest that here Poe is

V o l u m e 8 257

II

The M a s q u e of the Red Death

being neither ungrammatical nor even carefullyambiguous, but daringly clear. The Red Death is nota pestilence, in the usual sense; it is unfailingly anduniversally fatal, as no mere disease or plague canbe; and blood is its guarantee, its avatar and seal.Life itself, then, is the Red Death, the one "afflic-tion" shared by all mankind.

For purposes of commenting on life and ofachieving his single effect, Poe chooses to empha-size death. He is aware not only of the brevity of alllife and of its inevitable termination but also ofmen's isolation: blood, the visible sign of life, is,Poe says, "the pest ban which shuts him out fromthe aid and sympathy of his fellow man." In the trapof life and in his death, every man is an island. Ifthere is a mutual bond, it is the shared horrorof death.

Out of the chaos that has ' 'long devastated'' hisdominions, Prince Prospero creates a new and smallerworld for the preservation of life. A kind of demi-god, Prospero can "create" his world, and he canpeople it; but time (the ebony clock) exists in hisnew world, and he is, of course, deluded in his beliefthat he can let in life and shut out death. Prospero'sworld of seven rooms, without ' 'means [either] ofingress or egress," is a microcosm, as the parallelwith the seven ages of man indicates, and its peopleare eminently human, with their predilection forpleasure and their susceptibility to "sudden im-pulses of despair or frenzy." In their masqueradecostumes, the people are "in fact, a multitude ofdreams," but they are fashioned like the inhabitantsof the macrocosmic world. Many are beautiful, butmany also are bizarre or grotesque. Some are wan-ton; some are "arabesque figures with unsuitedlimbs and appointments"; some are terrible, someare disgusting, and some are ' 'delirious fancies suchas the madman fashions'' (and Prospero, the demi-god, for all his "fine eye for colors and effects,"may indeed be mad). But all of them are life, and insix of the seven apartments ' 'the heart of life'' beats"feverishly". And even here, by deliberate use ofthe word "feverishly", Poe links life with diseaseand death.

The seventh apartment is not the room of death;death occurs in fact in each of the rooms. It is,however, the room in which the reminders of deathare strongest, and it is the room to which all mustcome who traverse the preceding six. Death's col-ors, red and black, are there; and there the ebonyclock mercilessly measures Time, reminding the

revelers hour after hour that life, like the course ofthe Red Death, is short.

When the clock strikes the dreaded hour oftwelve, the revelers become aware suddenly of thepresence of a masked figure which none has not-ed before:

The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from headto foot in the habiliments of the grave. The maskwhich concealed the visage was made so nearly toresemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse thatthe closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detect-ing the cheat. And yet all this might have beenendured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around.But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the typeof the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood—and his broad brow, with all the features of the face,was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

Poe does not indicate in which room the aware-ness of the masked figure occurred first, but PrinceProspero sees this blood-sprinkled horror in theblue, or easternmost, room, which is usually associ-ated with birth, rather than with death The figuremoves then through each of the apartments, andProspero follows, to meet his own death in the roomof black and red.

Not once does Poe say that the figure is the RedDeath. Instead, "this new presence" is called "themasked figure," "the stranger," "the mummer,""this spectral image," and "the intruder." He is"shrouded" in "the habiliments of the grave," thedress provided by the living for their dead andendowed by the living with all the horror and terrorwhich they associate with death. The mask, fash-ioned to resemble ' 'the countenance of a stiffenedcorpse," is but a mask, a "cheat." And all this, weare told, "might have been borne" had it not beenfor the blood, that inescapable reminder to life of theinevitability of death. The intruder is, literally," The Mask of the Red Death, "not the plague itself,nor even—as many would have it—the all-inclusiverepresentation of Death.

There is horror in the discovery that "thegrave-cerements and corpse-like mask" are"untenanted by any tangible form," but the horrorruns more deeply than the supernatural interpreta-tion allows, so deeply in fact that it washes itselfclean to emerge as Truth. Blood, Poe has beensaying, is (or is symbolic of) the life force; but evenas it suggests life, blood serves as a reminder ofdeath. Man himself invests death with elements ofterror, and he clothes not death but the terror ofdeath in garb of his own making—"the habilimentsof the grave"—and then runs, foolishly, to escape it

2 5 S S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s


or, madly, to kill it, mistaking the mummer, thecheat, for death itself. The fear of death can kill:Prospero attempts to attack the masked figure andfalls; but when man's image of death is confronteddirectly, it is found to be nothing. The vestments areempty. The intruder in "The Masque of the RedDeath'' is, then, not the plague, not death itself, butman's creation, his self-aroused and self-developedfear of his own mistaken concept of death.

Death is nevertheless present, as pervasive andas invisible as eternal law. He is nowhere andeverywhere, not only near, about, and around man,but in him. And so it is, at last, that, having un-masked their unreasoning fear, the revelers ac-knowledge the presence of the Red Death. One byone, the revelers die—as everything endowed withlife must; and, with the last of them, time, which ismeasured and feared only by man, dies, too.

Poe might have stopped there, just as he mighthave ended "The Raven" with the sixteenth stan-za. The narrative is complete, and there are even"morals" or "lessons" for those who demandthem. But, as Poe says in "The Philosophy ofComposition,"

in subjects so handled, however skilfully, or withhowever vivid an array of incident, there is always acertain hardness or nakedness, which repels the artis-tical eye. Two things are invariably required—first,some amount of complexity, or more properly, adapa-tion; and, secondly, some amount of suggestiveness—some undercurrent, however indefinite, of meaning.

To achieve complexity and suggestiveness, Poeadded two stanzas to "The Raven." To "TheMasque of the Red Death'' he added two sentences:' 'And the flames of the tripods expired. And Dark-ness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitabledominion over all."

"Let there be light" was one of the principlesof Creation; darkness, then, is a principle of Chaos.And to Poe Chaos is synonymous with Nothing-ness, "which, to all finite perception, Unity mustbe." Decay occurs as matter "expels the ether" toreturn to or to sink into Unity. Prince Prospero'sworld, created out of a chaos ruled by the RedDeath, returns to chaos, ruled by the trinity ofDarkness and Decay and the Red Death. But, it willbe remembered, Prince Prospero's world came intobeing because of the Red Death, which, although itincludes death, is the principle of life. In Chaos,then, is the promise of new lives and of new worldswhich will swell into existence and then, in theirturn, subside into nothingness in the eternal process

of contraction and expansion which Poe describesin "Eureka."

There are ' 'morals'' implicit and explicit in thisinterpretation of "The Masque of the Red Death,"but they need not be underlined here. Poe, who hadmaintained in his "Review of Nathaniel Hawthorne'sTwice-Told Tales'' that' Truth is often, and in verygreat degree, the aim of the tale,'' was working witha larger, but surely not entirely inexpressible, truththan can be conveyed in a simple ' 'Poor Richard''maxim; and in that task, it seems to me, he tran-scends the tale (into which classification most crit-ics put ' 'The Masque of the Red Death'') to create aprose which, in its free rhythms, its diction, itscompression, and its suggestion, approaches poetry.

The ideas that were haunting Poe when hepublished "Eureka" were already haunting him in1842, when he published ' 'The Masque of the RedDeath," and what emerged was not, certainly, ashort story; nor was it, except by the freest defini-tion, a tale. For either category, it is deficient in plotand in characterization. Instead, "The Masque ofthe Red Death" combines elements of the parableand of the myth. Not as explicit or as pointedlyallegorical always as the parable, ' 'The Masque ofthe Red Death'' nevertheless can be (and has been)read as a parable of the inevitability and the univer-sality of death; but it deals also with the feats of ahero or demigod—Prospero—and with Poe's con-cepts of universal principles, and it has the mysteryand the remoteness of myth. What Poe has created,then, is a kind of mythic parable, brief and poetic, ofthe human condition, of man's fate, and of the fateof the universe.

Source: Joseph Patrick Roppolo, "Meaning and The Masqueof the Red Death,'" in TSE: Tulane Studies in English, Vol.13, 1963, pp. 59-69.

Sources

Bell, H. H., Jr. '"The Masque of the Red Death'—AnInterpretation," in South Atlantic Bulletin, Vol. 38, No. 4,1973, pp. 101, 104.

Britannica Online [database online], Chicago, 111.:Encyclopaedia Britiannica, Inc., 1999- [cited August 1999],available from Encyclopaedia Britiannica, Inc., Chicago, 111.,s.v. "Allegory," "Impressionism," "Infection," "Parable,""Short Story," and "Tuberculosis."

Cassuto, Leonard. "The Coy Reaper: Un-masque-ing theRed Death," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 25, No. 3,1988,pp. 317-20.

V o l u m e 8 259


Cheney, Patrick,' 'Poe's Use of The Tempest and the Bible in'The Masque of the Red Death,'" in English LanguageNotes, Vol. 20, No. 3-4, March-June, 1983, p. 34.

Roppolo, Joseph Patrick. "Meaning and 'The Masque of theRed Death,'" in TSE: Tulane Studies in English, Vol. 13,1963, pp. 59-69.

Thompson, G. R., Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 3:Antebellum Writers in New York and the South, edited by JoelMyerson, Gale Research, 1979, pp. 249-97.

Further Reading

De Shell, Jeffrey. The Peculiarity of Literature: An Allegori-cal Approach to Poe's Fiction, Madison, New Jersey: FairleighDickenson Presses, 1997.

Discusses both Poe's detective stories and his horrorstories in terms of their allegorical meaning.

Deas, Michael. The Portraits and Daguerreotypes of EdgarAllan Poe, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1989.

A picture book of daguerreotype portraits taken ofPoe.

Sil verman, Kenneth. New Essays on Poe's Major Tales, NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Diverse critical interpretations on the short fic-tion of Poe.

Smith, Don. The Poe Cinema: A Critical Filmography ofTheatrical Releases Based on the Works of Edgar AllanPoe, 1999.

Lists film and videos based on Poe's works. Includesplot descriptions and themes, mostly in the hor-ror genre.


Mateo FalconeProsper Merimee's "Mateo Falcone" (1829), origi-nally subtitled "Les moeurs de Corse" ("The Waysof Corsica"), chronicles the killing of a ten-year-old boy by his father. The story, Merimee's first, isprovocative in spite of the detached narrative voiceof his unnamed narrator. This laconic, disconnectedvoice heightens the shock value of the event and atthe same time demands the reader to interpret thestory objectively. Such contemporaries as Stendhal(Henri Beyle), Henry James, and Walter Pater ad-mired Merimee and praised him for his craft. Patercalled "Mateo Falcone" "the cruellest story inthe world."

' 'Mateo Falcone'' is a brief, but complex story.It features at least five points of view and at leastfour "ways of life" (the "moeurs" of the originalsubtitle). Merimee's themes include betrayal andhonor, savagery and civilization, vendetta and law,and custom and morality. Most importantly, "MateoFalcone" exemplifies the art of storytelling at itsmost concentrated and allusive. Most critics consid-er the story disturbing and unforgettable.

Prosper Merimee

1829

Author Biography

Prosper Merimee was born in Paris in 1803 to amoderately successful painter, Leonor Merimee,and his wife, Anne. Merimee's mother was a painteras well as the granddaughter of Madame Leprince

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M a t e o F a l c o n e

de Beaumont, who had written and published aversion of the popular children's story "Beauty andthe Beast."

Merimee began attending the Lycee Napoleonat the age of eight. He showed promise in Latin anda few other subjects, but was generally consideredan average student. He developed a strong interestin art and archeology, however, and from an earlyage became infatuated with members of the oppo-site sex. Although Merimee did not become a paint-er, he valued the skills of drawing and sketching andmade much use of them in later life. He taughthimself Serbian, Russian, and Greek, and he hadlearned English at home from his parents.

After graduation from the Lycee, Merimeeentered law school; after receiving his degree, heembarked on a lifelong career as a civil servant.Most significantly, he became Minister of Histori-cal Monuments in 1834. With his position he iscredited with salvaging much of the French Gothicarchitectural legacy. He had a strong sense of histo-ry, and he strove not only to preserve important sitesand buildings but to instill a popular apprecia-tion of them.

Merimee began writing as a young man. Heknew Stendhal and other writers of the day andreceived valuable advice from them. His earliestpublished works were two "hoaxes:" a collectionof supposedly Spanish plays and a volume of"Illyrian" (Albanian) ballads. Merimee also wrotetravel books and journalism, and he translated theRussian poet Pushkin into French for the first time.While not prolific as a fiction writer, Merimeeproduced a respectable body of work. In 1870, theyear that Merimee died, composer Georges Bizetadapted a Merimee story with a Spanish setting asan opera. Probably because of the enormous successof that opera, ' 'Carmen'' (1845) is Merimee's best-known work.

Plot Summary

"Mateo Falcone" is set in Corsica in the seven-teenth century in the region of Porto-Vecchio, whichis midway between the town of Corte and themaquis, the wild country of the Corsican highlandswhere outlaws and misfits find refuge from law andauthority. Mateo Falcone, a forty-eight-year-oldfather of three married daughters and one ten-year-old son, is a successful sheep rancher. He sets

off to gather his flock one afternoon. His wife,Guiseppa, accompanies him, and they leave theirson, Fortunate alone.

Fortunate daydreams in the autumn sun. Heanticipates going into town in a few days to havedinner with his uncle, a local notable, or ' 'corpo-ral." Suddenly, gunshots echo from nearby. Onnearby path, a wounded man appears. He has beenshot in his thigh. Seeing Fortunate, he asks whetherthe boy is the son of Mateo Falcone. He introduceshimself as Gianetto Sanpiero, the implication beingthat he has a tie to Falcone and thus a right to expectasylum. Fortunato at first declines to hide Gianetto,but when the bandit offers a piece of silver, the boyconceals him beneath the hay.

Six soldiers arrive, led by adjutant TiodoroGamba, who addresses Fortunato as "cousin,"once again implying a tie to the Falcones. Tiodorowants to know whether Fortunato has seen a man onthe trail. Fortunato evades Tiodoro's questions, andTiodoro suspects that the boy is in complicity withGianetto. He threatens to beat Fortunato, but the boyonly replies that he is Mateo Falcone's son, andthe lieutenant understands that he dare not harmFortunato for fear of angering the father. The sol-diers search the property but find nothing. Finally,Tiodoro attempts to bribe Fortunato with a shinynew watch:

As he spoke he brought the watch closer and closeruntil it was almost touching Fortunato's pale cheek.The child's face clearly showed the struggle betweencupidity and the claims of hospitality that was ragingwithin him. His bare chest was heaving, and heseemed to be fighting for breath. And still the watchswung, twisted, and occasionally bumped against thetip of his nose. At last his right hand slowly rosetowards the watch; his fingertips touched it; and hefelt its full weight in his palm, though the adjutantstill held the end of the chain. The dial was paleblue, the case newly furbished; in the sunshine itseemed ablaze. . . . The temptation was too great.(Excerpt from ' 'Mateo Falcone'' translated by Nicho-las Jotcham)

Fortunato accepts the bribe and silently nods inthe direction of the haystack. The soldiers discoverGianetto, who curses the boy. Fortunato throws thesilver back at Gianetto. The prisoner accepts hiscapture; the soldiers treat him with respect, eventhough he has killed one of them and woundedanother.

Mateo and Guiseppa return from the pastures.Tiodoro advances cautiously and explains to Mateowhat has happened. The soldiers leave with theirprisoner. When Mateo ascertains the facts, he terse-



ly asks his wife whether the boy is really his child.Fortunate collapses in tears, sobbing and crying,and the wife becomes hysterical. Mateo commandsFortunate to leave with him into the high country.

As Mateo and Fortunate climb into the moun-tains, Guiseppa prays inside the house to an icon ofthe Virgin Mary. In a ravine, Mateo commandsFortunate to kneel and say his prayers. When hefinishes praying, Fortunate begs for mercy, butMateo gives none. He raises his rifle and shoots.

Characters

Fortunate FalconeFortunate Falcone is Mateo's ten-year-old son.

His father regards him as "the hope of the family."The name Fortunate, meaning ' 'the fortunate one,''reflects his father's pride. Before the woundedGianetto appears at the family home, Fortunate hadbeen daydreaming about the meal that he is to eatwith his wealthy uncle in Corte in a few days.Fortunate shows little human feeling towards thehunted Gianetto and agrees to hide him only whenbribed with a piece of silver. When Tiodoro offershim a watch in exchange for information aboutGianneto, Fortunate eyes i t ' 'just as a cat does whena whole chicken is offered to it'' and gives away thebandit's hiding place. On the other hand, once hehas divulged Gianetto's hiding place, Fortunatereturns the silver.

Giuseppa FalconeGiuseppa is the wife of Mateo Falcone and the

mother of Fortunate. Merimee discloses few detailsabout her. She has borne four children to Mateo,whom she married after a rival had been shot dead,presumably by Mateo himself. She is thus implicat-ed in the Corsican cycle of violence. She begs formercy for Fortunate when Mateo takes the boy tothe mountains to kill him and prays to the VirginMary when her husband refuses.

Mateo FalconeMateo Falcone, aged fifty when the narrator

knew him, was ' 'a comparatively rich man for thatcountry—Corsica—where he lived." Falcone ownsa large, one-room house of the peasant type halfwaybetween the nearest town (Corte) and the wildmaquis, or cane-fields, where outlaws take refugefrom the law. He excels in the Corsican art of

Prosper Merimee

shooting; his acquaintances consider him an excel-lent marksman. The narrator implies that Falconemarried his wife, Giuseppa, after dispatching hisrival with a single rifle shot from long distance. Thethree daughters that Giuseppa bore ' 'enraged him.''At last she bears a son, which pleases him.

Those in the region of Porto-Vecchio, in whichFalcone lives, consider him either a "a good friend"or ' 'a dangerous enemy.'' Admired and feared,' 'helived at peace in the district." Readers understandFalcone as a man entirely devoted to the Corsicancode of vendetta, or blood-feud. Protecting familyand friends is a priority; the family bond transcendsany abstract idea of law. Falcone, having marriedoff his girls, knows that he ' 'could count in case ofneed on the daggers and rifles of his sons-in-law."The wounded bandit who seeks asylum in Falcone'shouse when he is absent tells Falcone's reluctantson, Fortunate, that his father will say that the son"did right" in hiding him from the pursuing soldiers.

Falcone adheres to the concept of machismo.His wife and children are hardly more than chattel.His wife, for example, must carry burdens from thefield, "for it is considered undignified for a man tocarry any other burden but his weapon." AfterFalcone kills his son, he goes looking for a spade' 'without throwing a single glance back at the body."

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M a t e o Falcone

Tiodoro GambaTiodoro Gamba is an adjutant (an officer) of the

local militia and, as such, a representative of thelaw. He regards himself as a relation of Mateo, asindicated by his use of the term "cousin" in ad-dressing Fortunate. Tiodoro is wary of Mateo and,out of fear of angering him, does not beat Fortunateto get information, as he contemplates doing at onepoint during the interrogation. Tiodoro demonstratespsychological acuity when he determines to briberather than coerce Fortunate; he can understandFortunato better than Fortunato can understandTiodoro. He also approaches Mateo with calculatedcircumspection because he knows Mateo to bevolatile and violent. Tiodoro differs from Mateoand all the other characters in that he no longerbelongs to the vendetta world of the mountains.Like Gianetto Sanpiero, however, Gamba carriesout his duty without letting personal feelings enterinto it. He metes out decent treatment to the wound-ed captive. He also seems remarkably unconcernedover the death of one of his men in the pursuit:' 'That is not of great consequence, for the dead manwas only a Frenchman."

Gianetto SanpieroGianetto Sanpiero is a fugitive from the law.

One of his crimes is that he stole a milch-goat fromthe Falcones. Gianetto has apparently been in townto buy powder for his rifle so that he could protecthimself and hunt game where he has been hiding.Merimee gives him dignity; he shows no personalanimosity towards the soldiers who pursue andcapture him. He shows understandable spite to-wards Fortunato after the boy reveals his hidingplace to the soldiers.

Themes

Culture Clash"Mateo Falcone" concerns the cultural clash

between savagery and civilization. The French, inparticular, developed these themes, beginning withthe work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose Essayon the Origin of Inequality Among Men (1854)presented the notion that primitive people wereuniquely free and true to themselves in their exist-ence, while civilized people, on the contrary, ledcorrupt, hypocritical lives. Health and simplicitywere associated with the savage, according to Rous-seau, and neurosis and complexity to the "civi-lized' ' human being.

Merimee was not a follower of Rousseau, how-ever, even though he was interested in Rousseau'sphilosophy. Merimee's idea of savagery was actual-ly grounded in classical literature. Thus the Corsicanways described in the tale resemble those of theCyclopes in Homer's Odyssey. The Cyclopes, likeMerimee's Corsicans, are island-bound pastoralists;the Cyclopes understand a basic and brutal code ofvengeance.

Law and OrderIn "Mateo Falcone," vendetta assumes the role

of law and authority instead of the traditional legalsystem. With vendetta, the response to acts ofviolence is always another act of violence. Forexample, if one man kills another's brother, thedeceased's brother then kills the killer, and then thekin of the second dead man seek to kill his killer,and so on. Violence breeds more violence, and thefounding principle of the system is not justice butrevenge. Under an established legal system, thoseaccused of a crime—say, of a killing—come underthe jurisdiction of established authorities, whoseloyalty is to an abstract system rather than to clansor to individual persons. The accused receives a trialin a court where evidence influences the discussion.Vendetta belongs to the countryside, law to thetown. (Corte, the name of the town in Merimee'sstory, means "law-court.")

Vendetta is a custom, an unwritten rule acted onout of ancient habit and the pressure of conformity.A custom is a "lifeway," in the language of anthro-pology, and the original subtitle of "Mateo Falcone"was "The Ways of Corsica."

Honor and BetrayalHonor, in the Corsican context, is the local

custom of cultivating and appreciating loyalty amongfamily and friends. Betrayal is the failure to recog-nize the bonds of loyalty, as when Fortunato givesup Gianetto for the sake of a shiny watch. Yet it isnot a betrayal, according to the rules of vendetta, forMateo to kill Fortunato for having revealed Gianettofor a price.

Natural LawIn this story, the sacrifice of Fortunato is con-

sidered obedience to the natural law. Fortunatomust die in order to avenge the betrayal of someonein the community; the boy's death will guaranteethe tenuous peace in the region. Otherwise, Gianetto'spartisans might have come after someone in Mateo'sfamily, whereupon Mateo would have been obliged

264 S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r Students


Topics forFurther

StudyRead Part I of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Essay onthe Origin of Inequality, paying particular atten-tion to the theory of "the noble savage." Com-pare Rousseau's idea of the primitive and thepre- or non-civilized with the depiction of Corsicanmontagnard life presented by Merimee in ' 'MateoFalcone."

Discuss the concept of justice both in the abstractand as it relates to Merimee's ' 'Mateo Falcone."Pay particular attention to Mateo's killing ofFortunate. If the killing strikes you as intuitivelyunjust, what then is the precise definition ofjustice? What is the just punishment in this case?

Research the history and ethnology of Corsica.Use an encyclopedia and other sources, if theyare available. Does Merimee give a generally

accurate picture of Corsican life? If not, wheredoes his depiction diverge from reality?

Read the "Exordium" and the "Eulogy on Abra-ham" in Soren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trem-bling (1843), in which Kierkegaard discusses thetest of Abraham and Isaac that is related in theOld Testament. Compare the story of Abrahamand Isaac and Kierkegaard's commentary withMerimee's story of Mateo and Fortunato Falcone.

From the Chicago mobsters of the 1920s totoday's drug cartels and street gangs, the ideas of"honor" and "treachery" have been used tojustify brutal acts. Compare the code of themobsters and drug cartels to the code of theCorsican montagnards as depicted by Merimee.

to retaliate, and so on. It ought to be noted thatMateo's killing of Fortunato resembles Abraham'saborted sacrifice of Isaac in the Old Testament.There, however, God intervenes to substitute a lambfor the child.

Violence and CrueltyViolence is the eternal human problem. Cain

killed Abel; the Egyptians oppressed the Hebrews;the Romans permitted the execution of Jesus. Warsare waged over boundaries and devastate vast civil-ian populations. Revenge leads to new wars. Civili-zation and religion address the problem of humanviolence and to this day try to find solutions toeliminate or lessen the violent impulses of man.

Style

Romanticism and Realism"Mateo Falcone" (1829) illustrates the cruel

toll exacted on a Corsican family by the code ofvendetta, or feud. Falcone kills his own son,

Fortunato, because the son has betrayed a man to theauthorities. Two concerns govern Merimee's stylein "Mateo Falcone." The first is geographical andethnological verisimilitude; the second is narrativeminimalism, so that, for most of the story, Merimee'sstyle can be described as spare and laconic.

It is useful to know that before he wrote thesequence of short stories that make up the collec-tion Mosaic, in which "Mateo Falcone" appears,Merimee had written two literary hoaxes, the sec-ond of which, La Guzla (1827), exploits stylisticconventions associated with romanticism. Briefly,La Guzla (the word refers to the national instrumentof the Albanian "bards," or poets) pretends to be atranslation of native ballads of the mountagnards of"Illyria" (Albania), collected and translated intoFrench by an Italian traveler familiar with the re-gion. La Guzla, comes complete with scholarlynotes on the sources of the poems and the characterof the montagnards. In his mid-teens, Merimee hadbeen deeply impressed by James MacPherson'sOssian, offered as translations into English of actual(but in truth fictitious) Celtic originals from theMiddle Ages. Merimee also admired Byron's Don

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Juan, which includes many vignettes in exotic set-tings. The three opening paragraphs of "MateoFalcone" reflect—perhaps ironically—features ofromanticism.

Romantic and Realistic SyntaxThe long opening paragraph of the story stretches

out its sentences. It guides us from Porto-Vecchio, acoastal town of Corsica, "northwest towards thecenter of the island," where the ground becomeshilly and is "strewn with large boulders and some-times cut by ravines." The maquis itself is a type ofunderbrush ' 'composed of different types of treesand shrubs mixed up and entangled thickly enoughto please God." Merimee explains that "ifyouhavekilled a man, go into the maquis of Porto-Vecchio,with a good gun and powder and shot, and you willlive there in safety. . . . The shepherds will give youmilk, cheese, and chestnuts, and you will havenothing to fear from the law...."

Such a wild place, outside the long arm of thelaw, is a romantic convention. In fact, the effect ofthe first three paragraphs of the story is to lullreaders into romantic expectations.

By the fifth paragraph, Merimee omits thestandard long periods of the scene-setting introduc-tion. Much of the action is expressed in concisedialogue. Consider the killing:

"Oh, father, have mercy on me. Forgive me! I willnever do it again. I will beg my cousin the corporal topardon Gianetto."

He went on talking. Mateo cocked his rifle and took aim.

"May God forgive you!" he said.

The boy made a frantic effort to get up and clasphis father's knees, but he had no time. Mateo fired,and Fortunato fell stone dead. (Excerpt from"Mateo Falcone")

Merimee reduces everything to the minimum.In French, "Mateo fired" reads "Mateo fit feu."The tri-syllable followed by the two monosyllableshas tremendous finality. Merimee also deploys am-biguity in the tale. Who is the "he" who says ' 'MayGod forgive you!"? Is it Fortunato or Mateo? Ordoes it matter?

Merimee's two styles in "Mateo Falcone" donot contradict each other or disrupt the unity of thetext. On the contrary, they work together to forceupon the reader the difficult ethical questions posedby the tale.

Historical Context

Napoleonic FranceBy the time of Merimee's birth in 1803, Napo-

leon, a Corsican who had made himself Emperor ofFrance, was at the height of his power. By 1814,when Merimee was eleven years old, Napoleon'swars had devastated Europe. Napoleon finally wasbeaten at the hands of an allied force led by the Dukeof Wellington at Waterloo in Belgium. The island ofCorsica became part of France in the eighteenthcentury and was retained by the French nation evenafter Napoleon's defeat.

France after NapoleonAfter Napoleon, Louis XVIII became king. His

supporters began to persecute anyone that had beenassociated with the Napoleonic regime. Louis at-tempted to assuage the extremists, but he was un-able to control his supporters. In 1830, the year of"Mateo Falcone," political discontent among theincreasingly powerful middle classes (the bourgeoi-sie) erupted in revolution.

The vendetta, portrayed so shockingly in ' 'MateoFalcone," was a significant part of French politicsin the first three decades of the nineteenth century.

RomanticismDuring these tumultuous years, romanticism

gained prominence as a literary and artistic move-ment. Romanticism appeared, almost simultaneous-ly, in England and in the German-speaking states ofCentral Europe (there was no united Germany until1870). It was the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rous-seau (1712-1778), a Frenchman whose Essay onthe Origin of Inequality Among Men (1754), TheSocial Contract (1762), Emile (1762), and Reveriesof the Solitary Walker (1778) signaled a return toemotionalism and primitivism in Europe and theUnited States. "Man is born free," Rousseau claimedin The Social Contract, "and everywhere he is inchains." Savages led noble lives; civilized men andwomen suffered from the repression of their naturalimpulses.

Influenced by Rousseau's ideas, young art-ists in Great Britain and Germany took up thecause of spiritual liberation. For example, WilliamWordsworth preached the innocence of childhood,the salvation offered by wild nature, and the corrup-



Comparea.oC

ContrastNineteenth Century: The vendetta is perceivedas a viable and ancient method of justice in manycommunities. The interest in Rosseau's theory ofprimitivism, with its implied rejection of theestablished legal system, somewhat legitimizedtraditional methods of justice and punishment.

Twentieth Century: The vendetta still exists indifferent forms throughout the world. In theUnited States, revenge killings and drive-by shoot-ings take thousands of lives every year. Theperceived failure of the established legal systemhas led to vigilantism, as frustrated citizens takematters into their own hands to settle their ownalleged vendettas.

Nineteenth Century: France is a world power,

despite its often turbulent domestic and foreignpolitics. After the overthrow of the monarchy in1789, the country is a republic for many yearsbefore the ascension of Napoleon. France thenwaged war against the rest of Europe (1796-1815) until Napoleon was finally defeated in thebattle of Waterloo. With Napoleon exiled, themonarchy was restored, but eventually over-thrown in a violent revolution in 1848.

1990s: France has enjoyed a relatively stablepolitical and social situation for several decades.The country is considered an important part ofthe European community and an important trad-ing and political friend to the United States.

tion of great cities, in his poems. Mozart celebrated"natural man" in the person of Papageno, the bird-catcher, in the opera The Magic Flute (1783). Jo-hann Wolfgang von Goethe gave the world, in hisFaust, Parts I and II, the archetypal Man of Willwho yearns for the infinite and cannot be satisfiedby the narrow confines of logic or propriety. InFrance, Goethe enjoyed great popularity, as didGeorge Gordon, Lord Byron, another British poet,whose Don Juan and Childe Harold influenced ayoung Merimee. The great poet of French romanti-cism was Victor Hugo, also an advocate of will andimagination.

Realism and NaturalismBy 1830, the fascination with romanticism be-

gan to fade. Artists and writers turned from theprimitive began studying the psychological andsocial customs of people in natural settings. Theystarted to show things as they really were, not aromanticized version of it.

"Mateo Falcone" certainly has romantic ele-ments, particularly in its description of settings. Yetit also reflects the blossoming interest in realism, as

it describes the action in the story in concise terms.' 'Mateo Falcone'' represents, in this sense, a crucialmoment not only in the development of Merimeebut in the larger development of nineteenth-centuryFrench and European thought.

Critical Overview

Merimee had the good fortune to be appreciated bycritics and readers. Many commentators through-out the years have praised the great economy ofMerimee's narrative style, his intense evocation oflocale through few words, and his ability to createstark and powerful action. These traits appear in"Mateo Falcone" and endear the story to its ear-liest critics.

Walter Pater, an English critic writing around1880, called Merimee's fiction "intense, unrelieved,an art of fierce colours." "Mateo Falcone" has, inparticular, provoked admiration. Pater, for example,thought it quite possibly ' 'the cruellest story in theworld," intending the description as a compliment.

V o l u m e 8 267


Map of Italy and surrounding countries, including the islands of Corsica andSardinia.

Critics have cited the classical qualities of"Mateo Falcone," as in A. W. Raitt's 1970 com-ment that the story ' 'obeys the unities as strictly asany classical tragedy." For Maxwell H. Smith(1972), the story represents Merimee's "first daz-zling success" and constitutes a "brief tale con-densed into a dozen pages . . . sufficient to confirmthe literary reputation'' of its creator.

Smith's reading of the tale exemplifies thetypical interpretation, for Smith refers to ' 'the tragicloneliness of Mateo after the sacrifice of his belovedson," a remark which subtly justifies the killing, atleast, so to speak, in its context. The typical readingis thus one that discusses the social code depicted inthe story, particularly the role of vendetta. Onemight call this recurrent reading the "ethnologicalreading" in that it takes the position of a non-involved and non-judgmental observer of a particu-lar ethnic "way of life." Merimee's original subti-tle, "Les moeurs de Corse," or "The Ways (orManners) of Corsica," perhaps influences critics totake this stance.

Some critics have examined the detached andalienated narrative voice of the narrator in the story.Raitt and Albert J. George, for example, both com-

ment on the narrator's detachment, a trait notedpreviously by Hippolyte Taine and Pater in thenineteenth century.

Criticism

Thomas BertonneauBertonneau is a Temporary Assistant Professor

of English and the humanities at Central MichiganUniversity, and Senior Policy Analyst at the Macki-nac Center for Public Policy. In the following essay,he examines the roles of treachery and vendetta in' 'Mateo Falcone'' and contrasts them with rational

justice that prevails in civilized urban communities.

Prosper Merimee's short story "Mateo Falcone"(1829) culminates in the killing of a ten-year-oldboy by his father; the killing—the question needs tobe posed whether it is a murder—takes place in aravine in the rugged hills of Corsica, and its victimbears the ironic name of Fortunate. The father andkiller, Mateo Falcone, bears a surname which, in theItaliote dialect of Corsica, means "falcon," a bird



WhatDo I Read

Next?Merimee's story "Colomba," like "MateoFalcone," features a Corsican setting; it can alsobe found in Merimee's collection Mosaique.

Merimee's story "The Taking of the Redoubt,"also in Mosaique, is a study of the violence ofwar, which Merimee considers different from theviolence associated with feuds or criminality.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Essay on the Origin ofInequality among Men (1754) maintains thatcivilization is corrupt and full of injustice, whereasprimitive culture is "naturally just." Since"Mateo Falcone" can be read as a riposte to

Rousseau's popular theory of savage nobility,Part I of the Essay makes good comparativereading.

Jorge Luis Borges's story "The South" con-cerns the fate of a civilized, sophisticated librari-an from Buenos Aires who journeys into thesouthern provinces of Argentina hoping to ex-plore what seems to him to be the romantic life ofgauchos and other colorful characters. What hefinds is a world of machismo and brutality. Thisis an excellent contrast between the civilized anduncivilized, between law and vendetta.

of prey; in addition, just before the climax, Merimeeendows Falcone with "lynx eyes," yet anotherindication of his predatory nature. Mateo believeshimself justified in the terrible act of killing his ownson and does not even glance backward as he turnsfrom the bloody scene to fetch a spade for the burial.

Fortunato's crime, in the eyes of his father, isthat he has betrayed Gianetto Sanpiero, a thief andoutlaw who has ties to Mateo and the right to seekasylum with him if pursued; he had come to Mateo'shouse, chased by the militia, only to find Mateoabsent and the house under the charge of Fortunato,who hid him for a price and then revealed him to themilitiamen for a higher price. "Is this my child?"Mateo asks his wife, Giuseppa, when he learns ofthe facts. The dissolution of the filial tie comesabruptly and completely: "All I know is that thischild is the first member of his family to commitan act of treachery." And under the code of ven-detta, which is the prevailing custom in Corsica,treachery summarily incurs a capital sentence.Fortunato must die.

It would seem that this is the prevailing custom.The original subtitle of "Mateo Falcone" "Lesmoeurs de Corse" ("The Ways of Corsica"), indi-cates that, cruel as the unwritten law might be, this ishow things are done in Corsica, whose people

cannot be judged by imported standards or dogmat-ic notions of moral rectitude. The lack of commen-tary by the author bolsters this supposition. Giventhe prevailing Romanticism of the early nineteenthcentury, with its celebration of primitive and non-European peoples and its Rousseau-derived assump-tions that civilization is inherently corrupt and cor-rupting, one might guess that' 'Mateo Falcone'' issimply one more vote for the uncomplicated authen-ticity of cultural taboos and ethnic traditions. But isMerimee really suspending judgment? Are his read-ers really intended to suspend judgment along withhim? Consider not the end but the beginningof the tale.

The first two paragraphs of ' 'Mateo Falcone''present a picture postcard of Corsica. According toMerimee (who would not in fact visit the island untilseven years after writing about it), Corsica is civi-lized along its coast, where the cities lie, and in-creasingly uncivilized as one penetrates towards theinterior:

Coming out of Porto-Vecchio, and turning north-west towards the center of the island, the traveller inCorsica sees the ground rise fairly rapidly, and afterthree hours' walk along tortuous paths, strewn withlarge boulders and sometimes cut by ravines, hefinds himself on the edge of a very extensive maquis.

V o l u m e S 269


That vendetta is a lower

order of existence than mercy

is suggested by the animal

qualities with which Merimee

endows Mateo. He is an ignoble

savage; compared with mercy,

vendetta is sub-human,"

or open heath. This heath is the home of the Corsicanshepherds, and the resort of all those who come inconflict with the law. . . .

If you have killed a man, go into the maquis ofPorto-Vecchio, with a good gun and powder andshot, and you will live there in safety... . Theshepherds will give you milk, cheese, and chestnuts,and you will have nothing to fear from the hand ofthe law, nor from the relatives of the dead man,except when you go down into the town to renewyour stock of ammunition.

Corsica lies divided into two major regionsmediated by a transitional region. There is the ringof cities and towns along the coastline, where peo-ple feel' 'the hand of the law," and there is the thickchaparral of the maquis, home to pastoralists livingin a type of prehistoric world and to men of violenceflying from the law. Finally, between them there isthe no-man's land where, not coincidentally, MateoFalcone lives.

In an economic sense, Mateo has ties withcivilization, since his wealth derives from his flocks,the produce of which is sold in Porto-Vecchio orCorte; sociologically, he belongs to the pre-urbanworld of the montagnards, a world governed not bylaw (and by all that implies) but by vendetta, aconcept which contains the sub-concepts of honorand treachery. In the world of vendetta, peace isestablished not through the endorsement of imper-sonal justice decided rationally in courts by judicialofficials but by the threat, and sometimes by the act,of violence. Mateo, for example, "lived on goodterms with everybody in the district of Porto-Vecchio," but this is partly because he is known as"a dangerous enemy." Mateo gained his wife,Giuseppa, by eliminating a rival for her affections.

' 'He was a Corsican and a man of the mountains,and there are few mountain-bred Corsicans who, ifthey delve into their memories, cannot find somelittle peccadillo, a gunshot, a knifing, or some suchtrifling matter." The illusory peace of the moun-tains is thus purchased at the price of those shots ordagger-thrusts, the victims of which serve as re-minders that trespass will incur personal vengeancefrom parties who consider themselves injured.

Once dead, the exemplary victims of this un-written law are reduced in a rhetoric of memory to"trifling matters." One remembers the victims andwhat their death portends for anyone who breaks theunwritten law, but one also reduces them by think-ing of them as of no importance. The mental gestureis in complicity with the practical and lethal act. Insuch a world, immediate familial and personal ties,governed by the ideas of honor and treachery,overwhelm any larger or more abstract obligations,including those embodied in the word "law." Thesesame ties can disrupt family from within, as they doin the case of the Falcones, resulting in Fortunate'sdeath. It is in flight from the law that GianettoSanpiero stumbles, wounded, into the Falcone prop-erty, where young Fortunate has been daydreamingabout a forthcoming dinner at his uncle's in Corte.To which world does Fortunate belong? The answeris: to none. Although he is probably destined toinherit the vendetta world of his father, at presentFortunate is simply an immature creature motivatedby childish greed. At first he refuses asylum toGianetto and hides him only when offered a bribe—one piece of silver.

When his "cousin," Tiodoro Gamba, an adju-tant of the militia, arrives with a posse, Fortunatereveals Gianetto for the price of a shiny new watch,which Tiodoro promises him. This is the crime, the"treachery," that infuriates Mateo and leads toFortunato's killing. In geographical terms, the kill-ing is outside the law, for according to custom ornot, it takes place beyond the Falcone property, inthe hills, towards the no-man's-land of the maquis.Also, when Giuseppa divines Mateo's intentions,she pleads mercy (not given) and then prays beforean icon of the Virgin. The killing is not only outsidethe law, it violates the Judaeo-Christian notion ofmercy. It is an impious deed.

At this point, one begins to notice certaintangential but important allusions in Merimee'stext. Instantly determined to exercise maximumpunishment for the act, Mateo "struck the groundwith the butt of his gun, then shouldered it, and set



off again on the path leading to the maquis, callingon Fortunate to follow him. The child obeyed." Theimage of the father leading his only son into themountains with the purpose of killing him brings tomind the story of Abraham and Isaac in the OldTestament. Merimee tells us that Giuseppa, toMateo's fury, had first borne three daughters but atlast bore a son, "the hope of the family." Hereagain, Mateo and Fortunate resemble Abraham andIsaac, for Isaac was the only son of elderly parentsand Fortunate is the only son of Mateo. Abraham iswilling to sacrifice Isaac at the behest of God. In theBiblical story, however, God stays the sacrifice atthe last second by substituting a lamb for Isaac.From then on, human sacrifice is forbidden, and anew moral dispensation appears.

Giuseppa's devotion to the Virgin links her tothat new moral dispensation, and her inclination tomercy, contrasted with Mateo's brutality, showsthat there is an alternative to the unwritten rule ofage-old custom. Indeed, in his description of themaquis, Merimee wrote that it was ' 'thick enough toplease God." Merimee was perhaps not a believerin any orthodox sense (it is known that his parentswere agnostic), but neither was he a partisan ofviolence. Although the phrase ' 'to please God'' is afigural commonplace, it nevertheless suggests apresence, a concept, which Giuseppa recognizesand Mateo does not. And while not identical withthe law, as represented by Tiodoro Gamba and themilitia, this principle, like the law, stands in explicitopposition to vendetta.

The principle is mercy, which demands thatmen acknowledge the humanity of other men so asnot to sacrifice them to idols and false causes—forexample, the illusory honor of the Corsican '' way.''"Father, father, don't kill me!" shouts Fortunato,kneeling in prayer. But Mateo merely instructs himto say his prayers; "the child recited the Lord'sPrayer and the Creed, stammering and sobbing."(The Lord's Prayer asks God to "forgive us ourtrespasses as we forgive those who trespass againstus"—an injunction which Mateo does not heed.)Mateo intones an "amen" each time Fortunatoconcludes, but the act seems empty given the cir-cumstance. Fortunato then says the Ave Maria,reminding us that his mother is at that very momentpraying to the Virgin. Then someone—Merimee'scalculatedly ambiguous syntax makes it uncertainwho—says, "May God forgive you!" (Englishtranslations that attribute these words to Mateoresolve an ambiguity without warrant to do so.)Mateo fires. Fortunato dies. In the very last line of

the story, Mateo tells his wife to ' 'send word to myson-in-law Tiodoro Bianchi to come and live withus," making the dead Fortunato merely a replace-able commodity—something already reduced toa trifle.

Yet how does one justify this interpretationgiven the lack of any narrative judgment in Merimee'stext? One starts by acknowledging the vast differ-ence between the mentality that permits Mateo tokill his own son over a matter of ' 'honor'' and thementality that regards that act as inexcusable. Ifreaders of Merimee's time and our own instinctive-ly rebel over Mateo's deed and immediately findapologies for Fortunato (his youth, his parents'failure to instill in him a moral sense, the manipula-tive cleverness of Tiodoro Gamba), this in itself issignificant. Readers rebel because they belong to anorder conditioned by notions of impersonal law andJudeo-Christian mercy, an order which can onlycome into being through explicit rejection of anearlier order based on the endless sacrificial vio-lence of the vendetta. That vendetta is a lower orderof existence than mercy is suggested by the animalqualities with which Merimee endows Mateo. He isan ignoble savage; compared with mercy, vendettais sub-human.

If modern readers thus instinctively believe thatthe killing of Fortunato is a murder and not an act of"justice," as Mateo claims, this is because theyhave a more refined notion of justice, tempered bymercy, than the implacable montagnard. Not fornothing does Merimee stress the unchanging antiq-uity of the Corsican interior, which reflects classicalconcepts of barbarism, as in the depiction of theCyclopes by Homer in the Odyssey . The Cyclopes,like the Corsican montagnards, are an island peoplewithout written laws and with no permanent institu-tions; they live by herding, and their only principleof organization is family solidarity and a code ofvengeance. Merimee's observation that the maquisis a region where obliging pastoralists provide onewith milk, cheese, and chestnuts needs to be bal-anced against the acknowledgment of what it coststo sustain that idyllic condition. The cost is that onegives up the protection of the law and submits toviolence without mercy. A man is safe only as longas he has weapons and ammunition. Fortunato hasnone; all he has is a shiny new watch. So Fortunatodies, an Isaac whom God cannot rescue.

Source: Thomas Bertonneau, "Overview of 'MateoFalcone,'" for Short Stories for Student!:, The GaleGroup, 2000.

V o l u m e 8 2 7 1


A. W. RaittIn the following excerpt, Raitt examines the

narrative style of Merimee 's ' 'Mateo Falcone,''maintaining that the lack of moral judgment by thenarrator contributes to the impact of the story.

Which of the tales is most effective is ultimately amatter of personal choice. Certainly none makes amore powerful impact than "Mateo Falcone." Thestory itself is not new; a good half-dozen versionswere already in print. Nor can Merimee be givenmuch credit for the details of local colour, since hehad culled them all from various guide-books andhistorical works about Corsica (after he had himselfvisited the island in 1839, he corrected some of themore glaring inaccuracies and removed the subtitleof Moeurs de la Corse (Corsiscan Manners) whichin the meantime had become sadly dated). But ifMerimee's imagination invents little it excels at theselection and rearrangement of given materials andthe vivid immediacy of' 'Mateo Falcone'' is utterlyconvincing. Hastening through a series of linkedcrises—the arrival of the hunted bandit, the vainsearch by the troops, the bribe and its acceptance,the return of Mateo, the shooting of the boy—itmaintains an almost unbearable tension. Few linesin French literature deliver a more stunning blowwith simple means than the famous sentence relat-ing the boy's death: 'Mateo fired and Fortunato fellstone dead.' The total absence of moral comment orinner psychological analysis concentrates attentionexclusively on the action itself, but that is so care-fully prepared and so full of emotive force thatfurther explanations could only seem superfluous.The exact adjustment of outward deed or gesture toinward states of mind is always one of the greatstrengths of Merimee's art. Here the contrast be-tween the awfulness of the killing and the author'srigid refusal to capitalise on it conveys a sense of icysobriety which fully justifies Walter Pater's de-scription of "Mateo Falcone" as 'perhaps thecruellest story in the world' [Prosper Merimee, inStudies in Modern European Literature, 1900].

Source: A. W. Raitt, "Story-Teller," in Prosper Merimee,London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970, pp. 120-36.

Albert J. GeorgeIn the following excerpt, George asserts that

the bare narrative style of Merimee's ' 'MateoFalcone'' underscores the theme of family honor.

To be sure,' 'Mateo Falcone'' (1829) came primari-ly from an article in the Revue trimestrielle of July,

1828, which contained the story of a Corsican shotby his relatives for betraying two deserters. Merimeealso turned to the abbe Gaudin for details on a landhe had not yet visited, but to this basic material hebrought the skill that would make him one ofFrance's greatest storytellers.

' 'Mateo Falcone'' is related like an anecdote, ina clean style, stripped to essentials, lacking even thecolorful adjectives so dear to the romantics. Theplot is handled with a sure sense of the dramatic, allelements united to produce a single effect. Merimeethus produced a narrative that fits perfectly Poe'slater definition of the formal short story.

Merimee introduced the reader to the maquiswith a fine sense of visual appeal, then fell back onthe direct approach: ' 'Si vous avez tue un homme..." To heighten the exoticism, he gave advice onhow to prepare for a stay in these wilds. Then,abruptly, he presented Mateo as though he hadknown him personally: "Quand j'etais en Corse en18—..." Mateo lived on the edge of the heath, agood friend and an implacable enemy, famed for hismarksmanship. He had three daughters, which infu-riated him, and a ten-year-old son, ironically namedFortunato, upon whom he doted.

Most of the story happened in Mateo's absence,although he dominates the action. One fall day heleft with his wife to inspect the flocks, leavingFortunato to mind the house. The subsequent plot isarticulated almost like a four-act play. Act I intro-duces an escaping bandit, Gianetto Sanpiero, wound-ed and hotly pursued by gendarmes, who boughtrefuge in a haystack from Fortunato for five francs.Act II revolves around Fortunato's betrayal for asilver watch offered by Sergeant Tiodoro Gamba. Ina scene forecast by Fortunato's bargaining withGianetto, the sergeant tempts the child, thrice sub-jecting him to bribery before the boy turns Judas.Act III brings Mateo back, and when he appears thestage is set for an explosion. Characteristically,he thinks the soldiers have come for him, thenfinds himself in a dilemma when Gamba revealsFortunato's treachery. Mateo faces his problem inAct IV. He smashes the watch the sergeant hadgiven Fortunato and marches the child into the glen.Patiently he hears the boy recite his prayers, thenshoots him. Without a glance at the corpse, Mateoorders his wife to send for a relative to replace his son.

Using the appeal of the exotic, Merimee con-structed the story around a point of honor, a subject



dear to the romantics. For the sake of plausibilityMerimee interjected himself into the introduction,but once the story began he let the characters shapetheir own tragedy. Events slip by rapidly, theirpassing noted in phrases which indicate that Merimeeorganized his material to keep psychological andreading time as close as possible to plot time. Theaction does not begin until Mateo has been absent afew hours, then Gianetto appears and is hidden in amatter of moments. ' 'Quelques minutes apres'' thepolice appear, Fortunate succumbs in about thesame time, and Mateo arrives as the bandit leaves ona stretcher. For ten minutes he ponders and, afterabout the same time, Fortunate dies.

The narrative ostensibly revolved around theCorsican code of honor. Fortunate occupied thestage most of the time but only to prepare thedilemma, as important to the plot as the woundedbandit. At this point Merimee's ironical mind cameinto full play. Mateo was created according to theaccepted recipe for the primitive but he failed toconform to the tradition of the "good" savage.Unlike the rational creature so dear to the eighteenthcentury, he never examined his own code. Family"honor" took precedence over all else and notransgression could be pardoned, even for a child.Mateo took all of ten minutes to decide on themurder of an only son who had informed on thekiller of a policeman. Far from being a naturaldemocrat, the good savage was an egotist who darednot challenge the local tabus.. ..

Source: Albert!. George, "Stendhal, Balzac, Merimee," inShort Fiction in France 1800-1850, Syracuse UniversityPress, 1964, pp. 65-134.

Sources

George, Albert J. "Introduction" and "Stendahl, Balzac,Merimee," in his Short Fiction in France: 1800-1850, NewYork: Syracuse University Press, 1964,, pp. 1-9, 106-09.

Jotcham, Nicholas. "Introduction" and "Mateo Falcone,"in his The World's Classics: Prosper Merimee: Carmen andOther Stories, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, pp.vii-xxxiii, 54-66.

Raitt, A. W. Prosper Merimee, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode,1970, pp. 9-10, 120-36.

according to the accepted

recipe for the primitive but

he failed to conform to the

tradition of the 'good1

savage."

Smith, Maxwell A. "Mosaique," in Prosper Merimee, NewYork: Twayne Publishers, 1972, pp. 98-116.

Further Reading

Bowman, F. P. Prosper Merimee: Heroism, Pessimism andIrony, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1962.

Considers Merimee's fiction as a running autobio-graphical account of his life and a continuous com-mentary on his times.

Garraty, John, and Peter Gay, eds. The Columbia History ofthe World, New York: Harper and Row, 1972.

Overviews developments in France during the periodof Merimee's life.

George, Albert J., "Stendhal, Balzac, Merimee," in ShortFiction in France 1800-1850, Syracuse: Syracuse UniversityPress, 1964, pp. 65-134.

Comments on the verbal economy of Merimee's storyand analyzes the themes of honor and betrayal.

Lyon, Sylvia. The Life and Times of Prosper Merimee, NewYork: Dial Press, 1948.

A detailed biography which establishes the vital con-text for Merimee's literary activity.

Taine, Hippolyte. Essais de critique et d'histoire, Hachette:Paris, 1874.

A valuable nineteenth-century critical reference onMerimee by a contemporary and acquaintance ofthe author.

Volume 8 273

Ma t e o w a s c r e a t e d

Mrs. BathurstRudyard Kipling

1904

"Mrs. Bathurst" is perhaps Rudyard Kipling' mostpopular short story. Although his career began as ajournalist, it is Kipling's prose sketches and versethat earned him widespread respect as an author atan early age. Henry James considered Kipling themost complete man of genius he had ever known.Authors such as T. S. Eliot and C. S. Lewis ac-knowledged his influence on their own work.

Kipling's reputation as an author, however, hasbeen under almost constant revision in the twentiethcentury. Lionel Trilling perceived him as a merecuriosity of the past, a man whose conservativepolitics eclipsed his literary status. George Orwellwas equally dismissive of Kipling. After receivingthe Nobel Prize in literature in 1907, critics agreethat Kipling's subsequent career suffered in com-parison with the achievement of such early novelsas Kim and the two volumes of The Jungle Book.

"Mrs. Bathurst" incorporates central aspectsof Kipling's fiction, including his use of dialect, hiscomplex structure of composition, and his fascina-tion with the sea. The critical reception of the storywas enthusiastically positive, though critics havebeen confused by certain elements. Nonetheless, thestory has fascinated readers and critics alike formore than ninety years, and has been at the center ofthe debate concerning Kipling's reputation asan author.

274

M r s . B a t h u r s t

Author Biography

The son of English parents, Rudyard Kipling wasborn in Bombay, India, on December 30, 1865. Heand his sister Alice ("Trix") were sent to Englandfor their schooling at an early age, residing with afoster family at Lome Lodge, a place later immor-talized by Kipling in the House of Desolation.Kipling's separation from his parents might accountfor his later interest in children's stories. He attend-ed the United Services College (boarding school)until 1882. He returned to India in 1882 and beganto write stories for two newspapers, the Civil andMilitary Gazette and the Pioneer. His initial successinspired him to return to England and launch aliterary career.

In London, Kipling met Wolcott Balestier, aliterary agent from America, and eventually mar-ried Balestier's sister Caroline (who was givenaway at the wedding by the author Henry James).Her estate in Vermont served as the couple's firsthome and as the site where Kipling wrote the twoJungle Books and the critically acclaimed Kim(which was finished in 1901). The couple returnedto England in 1896 and settled in Sussex. Kiplingvisited South Africa several times during the BoerWar (1899-1902). It was during these trips thatKipling became acquainted both with South Africanculture and nautical life, important features of ' 'Mrs.Bathurst," which was published in 1904.

On the basis of his successful career as anovelist and poet, Kipling was awarded the NobelPrize in 1907, becoming the first Englishman toreceive that honor. The advent of World War I aswell as the death of his only son, John, (who wasreported missing on his first day in action with theIrish Guards and never found) in 1915 adverselyaffected his writing. The stories "Mary Postgate"and "Sea Constables," among others, reflect thesetraumatic experiences.

Some critics contend that his literary interestswere secondary to his political beliefs, specificallyhis support of imperialism. When he was buried inWestminster Abbey in 1936, the pallbearers includ-ed politicians, but no writers. Nevertheless, Kiplingwas a prolific writer who produced a great numberof short stories, sketches, and poetry in addition tohis four novels. By the time of his death, he wasalready acknowledged as a major influence on thefiction and poetry of such literary masters as HenryJames, Thomas Hardy, T. S. Eliot, and W. H.Auden. Kipling's influence also stretches to later

Rudyard Kipling

authors like Albert Camus, Umberto Eco, and GabrielGarcia Marquez.

Plot Summary

"Mrs. Bathurst" takes place in Glengariff, SouthAfrica, in the years following the Boer War (1899-1902). The main story is told through a conversationbetween three men and the narrator; the four mendiscuss the tragic tale of Mrs. Bathurst, a hotelowner in New Zealand, and her lover, Mr. Vickery(also known as "Click"). The preface to the story isan excerpt from a mock-Jacobean tragedy writtenby Kipling entitled Lyden 's ' 'Irenius'' that narratesa dialogue between a prince and one of his subjects.The themes of the epigraph—disinterested fate andaccidental providence—carry over into the story.

The story begins with the narrator running intohis friend Mr. Hooper, who is an inspector for theCape Government Railways. The two men hitch aride down the tracks on a chalk-car that is beingrepaired. Mr. Hooper starts to take something out ofhis pocket to show the narrator, but is interrupted bythe shouts of Mr. Pyecroft, an old friend of thenarrator's. With Pyecroft is his bulky companion,

V o l u m e 8 2 7 5


Sergeant Pritchard. These two visitors climb intothe car and introduce themselves to Mr. Hooper.

The conversation turns to the legendary story of"Boy Niven," who lured seven or eight sailorsinto the woods of British Columbia from port inVancouver in 1887, promising to give them land.The group of sailors, which included Pritchard andPyecroft, was court-marshaled for desertion. Ser-geant Pritchard then mentions Spit-Kid Jones, asailor who was also a member of the group and wholater married a so-called "coconut-woman" andeventually deserted the ship Astrild.

The topic leads Pritchard to make reference toMr. Vickery, nicknamed "Click" because of hisnoisy false teeth. Mr. Hooper asks about Click'sinfamous tattoos. Wary, Pritchard suspects that Mr.Hooper is an agent for the law and begins to leave,remaining only on account of entreaties from allthree of the men. The narrator vouches for Mr.Hooper's honesty, and Pritchard apologizes for hissuspicion.

Settled once again, the narrator asks why Vickerydeserted the navy. Pyecroft replies, "She kep' alittle hotel at Hauraki—near Auckland [New Zea-land]," implying that the source of Click's depar-ture was a woman. Pyecroft describes the woman,Mrs. Bathurst, as a widow who kept a hotel andwore black silk. Pritchard interrupts to give a per-sonal account of Mrs. Bathurst's generosity of spir-it, telling how she often let the sailors rent rooms oncredit and how she once reserved four bottles ofbeer for him during a visit by cutting off a piece ofher own hair ribbon and wrapping it around thenecks of the bottles. To sum up her character,Pritchard proclaims, "She—she never scrupled tofeed a lame duck or set 'er foot on a scorpion at anytime of 'er life," indicating a mixture of charity andcourage in her personality.

Pyecroft and Pritchard agree that, of all thehundreds of women they have been "intimate"with in their lives, Mrs. Bathurst is one of the mostmemorable. Pyecroft explains, '"Tisn't beauty, soto speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just It. Somewomen'll stay in a man's memory if they once walkdown a street, but most of 'em you can live with amonth on end, an' next commission you'd be put toit to certify whether they talked in their sleep or not,as one might say."

The conversation returns to the subject of Mr.Vickery, and Pyecroft relates his most recent en-counter with him on the ship Hierophant, from

which he has just returned. While in port at CapeTown, Pyecroft recalls, Vickery had asked him togo to the cinema at Phyllis's Circus. On the way tothe theater, Pyecroft felt strange because of the lookon Vickery's face, which reminded him of "thosethings in bottles in those herbalistic shops at Ply-mouth. .. [w]hite and crumply things—previous tobirth you might say."

At the cinema, Vickery told Pyecroft to payspecial attention to the' 'Home an' Friends'' portionof the movie, which showed news footage fromEurope.

Then the Western Mail came in to Paddin'ton on thebig magic lantern sheet. First we saw the platformempty an" the porters standin' by. Then the enginecome in, head on, an' the women in the front rowjumped: she headed so straight. Then the doors openedand the passengers came out and the porters got theluggage—just like life. Only—only when any onecame down too far towards us that was watchin', theywalked right out o' the picture, so to speak. I was'ighly interested, I can tell you. So were all of us. Iwatched an old man with a rug 'oo'd drooped a bookan' was tryin' to pick it up, when quite slowly, frombe'ind two porters—carryin' a little reticule an' lookin'from side to side—comes out Mrs. Bathurst. Therewas no mistakin' the walk in a hundred thousand. Shecome forward—right forward—she looked out straightat us with that blindish look which Pritch alluded to.She walked on and on till she melted out of thepicture—like—like a shadow jumpin' over a candle,an' as she went I 'eard Dawson in the tickey seatsbe'ind sing out: 'Christ! There's Mrs. BP (Excerptfrom "Mrs. Bathurst")

Mesmerized by Bathurst's image, Vickery urgedPyecroft to return to the theater for five consecutivenights to watch the scene again. When Pyecroftpauses in his story, Mr. Hooper asks Pyecroft whathe thinks of the whole thing. Pyecroft replies that hehasn't quite finished thinking yet, but one thing heknows is that Vickery was a "dumb lunatic" sincehe was convinced that Mrs. Bathurst was in Englandlooking for him. But, Vickery remained very re-served about the whole affair, in Pyecroft's memo-ry. Pyecroft feared for his own safety, thinking thatVickery would turn violent when the cinema lefttown and he no longer had access to the "stimu-lant' ' of seeing Mrs. Bathurst on film.

Pyecroft concludes the tale: after an hour-longmeeting with the Captain, Vickery was sent on anerrand to take over naval ammunition left after thewar in Blemfontein Fort. The real reason forVickery's journey, however, was to see the movieimage of Mrs. Bathurst once more, since the cinema


M r s B a t h u r s t

moved away from Cape Town to Worcester. Pyecroftescorted Vickery to shore and as they parted for thelast time, Vickery said cryptically, "Remember,that I am not a murderer, because my lawful wifedied in childbed six weeks after I came out." Therest of Vickery's story is "silence," as Pyecroftsays, echoing Hamlet's dying words.

Vickery apparently reported to Bloemfontein,oversaw the loading of the ammunition, then disap-peared. After the men have thought in silence aboutPyecroft's story for a few minutes, Hooper speaksup to tell the group of a curious piece of railway lineon the way to Zambesi that runs through a solid teakforest for seventy-two miles without curving. Heexplains that a month ago he was relieving a sickinspector on that line when he discovered twotramps who had been living in the forest. There hadbeen a thunderstorm and they had been turned into"charcoal" by lightning. The man standing up hadfalse teeth and tattoos on his arms and chest, includ-ing one with a crown and an anchor, and the letters"M.V." above.

Pritchard is overcome at the horror of thedescription. Mr. Hooper brings his hand out of hispockets (perhaps to show his companions the falseteeth?), but it is empty. Pyecroft exclaims that, afterseeing Vickery's eerie face five nights in a row, heis thankful that the man is dead.

Characters

Mrs. BathurstMrs. Bathurst is one of the central characters in

the story. She is the subject of a story told by Mr.Pyecroft and Sergeant Pritchard to Mr. Hooper andthe narrator. Her name does not appear until almostmidway through the story. She is the manager of ahotel and restaurant in Auckland, New Zealand,where she earned a reputation for beneficence to-ward sailors like Pritchard and Pyecroft. She is themain subject of fascination, however, for Mr. Vickery("Click"), who (again, as told through the story ofPritchard and Pyecroft) has an affair with her anddeserts his ship when he sees her a fleeting image ofher in a movie.

ClickSee Mr. Vickery

Mr. HooperMr. Hooper is an inspector for the South Afri-

can railway who meets the narrator in Simon's. Mr.Hooper fingers an unknown object in his pocketthroughout the story; some readers have believed itto be the false teeth of Mr. Vickery, whose charredcorpse he discovered along the railway line.

NarratorLittle is known about the narrator except that he

is a friend of Mr. Hooper and Mr. Pyecroft. He actsas a peacemaker between Pritchard and Mr. Hooper.

PritchardPritchard is the immature friend of Mr. Pyecroft

who interjects small details into the story of Mrs.Bathurst, based on personal contact with her inAuckland. He is suspicious by nature.

Mr. PyecroftMr. Pyecroft tells the story about Mr. Vickery

and his relationship with Mrs. Bathurst. He and hiscompanion, Sergeant Pritchard, surprise Mr. Hoop-er and the narrator in Glengariff Bay. Mr. Pyecroftis a talkative man with much sailing experience whooften uses malapropisms in the telling of elaboratetales. He is the last one to have seen Mr. Vickery.

Mr. VickeryLike Mrs. Bathurst, Mr. Vickery is a character

who never appears in person; instead, he is thecentral character of the story told by Mr. Pyecroftand Sergeant Pritchard. Pyecroft describes Vickeryas a "superior man," reticent and a bit creepy. Mr.Vickery has earned the nickname ' 'Click'' becauseof four false teeth that rattle in his mouth. Vickery'sinfatuation with the movie image of Mrs. Bathurst,and his subsequent search for her, indicates anobsessive single-mindedness in his disposition.

Themes

Art and Experience"Mrs. Bathurst" explores, among other things,

the relationship between experience and its artisticrepresentation through language. The central storyof the tale is told second-hand, by Mr. Pyecroft,with help from Sergeant Pritchard. Readers mustevaluate the relative positions of all of the narratorsin the story in order to understand that each of their

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Topics forFurther

StudyResearch the history of film from its develop-ment in France and America to its popularitybefore World War I. How did movies affect thelives of the general public?

Identify as many missing details in the story aspossible and fill in these gaps, based on evidencefrom the text, historical context, and what youthink may have happened.

In the late nineteenth century, Britain was amajor empire, with colonies all over the world.Research the Boer War (1899-1902), using his-tory textbooks or historical books in your library.In what ways did that war affect the Brit-ish empire?

Research either the realism or modernism move-ments, using encyclopedias available in yourschool's library. Write down the major featuresof the movement you select. Which features areevident in "Mrs. Bathurst" ?

Appearances and RealityClosely related to the theme of art and experi-

ence in the story is that of appearance vs. reality.Early on in the story, for instance, a local girl throwsa Bass beer over a wall to Sergeant Pritchardbecause she mistakes him for someone else. Mr.Pyecroft jokes that, ' 'Its the uniform that fetches'em, an' they fetch it," emphasizing the importanceof Pritchard's appearance.

Perhaps the central image that expresses thistheme is the cinematic footage of Mrs. Bathurst.The cinema was a relatively new artistic medium atthe time when "Mrs. Bathurst" takes place (1904)and the power of the projected movie image wasregarded as, in some ways, uncanny and mysteri-ous. Vickery's fascination with the cinema and itsability to reproduce an image of Mrs. Bathurst leadshim to go to Phyllis's Circus, where the movie isshowing, and then to desert his ship in order to see itan additional time.

The story's conclusion also reinforces the themeof appearances and reality, as Mr. Hooper tells theother three men how he has recently discovered thecharred corpses of two tramps, and how one of thecorpses had false teeth. This same corpse had tat-toos on his arms and chest, which Mr. Pyecroftverifies were on the body of Mr. Vickery. Thoughthis would seem to confirm that the corpse was thatof Mr. Vickery, readers are by no means certainthat it is.

perspectives on the story is only one of many. Mr.Pyecroft addresses this issue when he says, ' 'I usedto think seein' and hearin' was the only regulationaids to ascertainin' facts, but as we get older, we getmore accomodatin.'" In other words, he realizesthat his narrative, like many, relies on lived experi-ence reconstructed through language, and that thereis always room for discrepancy between what actu-ally happened and how events are later remembered.

Moreover, since details of the central plot in"Mrs. Bathurst" are provided by three of the fourcharacters who are actually present in the story—Mr. Hooper, Mr. Pyecroft, and Sergeant Pritchard—the plot becomes the product of a collective effort,one which does not always come together seamlesslyto form a coherent whole. The identity of the twocorpses found by Mr. Hooper, for instance, is leftuncertain and ambiguous, as is the actual out-come of the story of Mr. Vickery's and Mrs.Bathurst's affair.

Love and PassionMr. Vickery's and Mrs. Bathurst's affair is the

central subject of the narrative. The love and pas-sion that they share is not conventional, however,since Mr. Vickery is already married. Mr. Vickerybelieves that Mrs. Bathurst has come to search himout in England when he sees her image on a moviescreen in Cape Town, South Africa.

Less is known about Mrs. Bathurst's behaviorand motivations since most of the story concernsMr. Pyecroft's knowledge of Mr. Vickery. Somecritics view Mr. Vickery's desertion of his ship, andhis search for Mrs. Bathurst (or at least her image),as a sign of his undying love for her. Others perceivehis actions as evidence of a guilty conscience ortormented soul, perhaps based on his cryptic admo-nition to Mr. Pyecroft that "I am not a murderer,because my lawful wife died in childbed six weeksafter I came out." Nevertheless, there is clearlymore to the relationship between Mr. Vickery and



Mrs. Bathurst than is revealed by Mr. Pyecroft'snarrative.

Fate and Chance"Mrs. Bathurst" raises many important ques-

tions about fate and chance. Accidents and coinci-dence pervade the story, from the chance encounterof the narrator and Mr. Hooper, to the random imageof Mrs. Bathurst that captures the fascination of Mr.Vickery. Other coincidences include the meeting ofthe narrator and Mr. Hooper by Mr. Pyecroft andSergeant Pritchard, who happen to be on the samedeserted bay in South Africa at the same time, aswell as Mr. Hooper's accidental discovery of thecharred corpse of Mr. Vickery. These episodesseem random and accidental, but become part of alarger order when combined together. The abundantmistakes and coincidences in the story make thereader question the role of fate in literature and life.

AlienationIt is possible to talk about the theme of aliena-

tion in relation to "Mrs. Bathurst" from a numberof perspectives. To begin with, the story takes placeon a single brake-car that is resting on an isolatedbeach in South Africa, making the physical settingof the story difficult to locate. Moreover, all four ofthe men who converse are in some way absent fromthe place they should be—Mr. Hooper must repair abroken railway car, the narrator has missed hisrendezvous with the ship he is supposed to visit, andMr. Pyecroft and Sergeant Pritchard are either de-serters from their ship or waiting for it to be repaired.

Furthermore, Mr. Vickery and Mrs. Bathurstare separated, yet engaged in the futile but passion-ate pursuit of one another. The cinematic image ofMrs. Bathurst, which Mr. Vickery watches in CapeTown, is an important symbol of this alienation,since the image itself must stand in for Mrs. Bathurst.In broader terms, Kipling's story points to thealienation not only of a society that is recoveringfrom war, but also to that of the modern world ingeneral, where larger urban populations and ad-vances in technology tend to alienate individualsfrom various social structures.

Style

Setting"Mrs. Bathurst" is set in an isolated railway

car on a beach in Glengariff Bay, South Africa,

where the narrator has gone after missing his ship. Itis somewhat surprising, then, that Mr. Pyecroft andSergeant Pritchard stumble onto the brake-car byaccident and proceed to tell the story of Mrs. Bathurstand Mr. Vickery to the narrator and Mr. Hooper. Itis relevant that the story takes place near the ocean,since it revolves around sailing and sailors. Moreo-ver, the story takes place immediately after the BoerWar (1899-1902) and the circumstances of this warprovide a constant subtext to the story (such as whenVickery goes to collect ammunition for the Navy).The Boer War was a conflict between the Dutchcolonists in South Africa and the countries of theBritish Commonwealth, including England andAustralia.

StructureThe story of "Mrs. Bathurst" is told by a first-

person narrator, but mostly contains dialogue be-tween the four principal characters. For this reason,there is little narrative description in the story that isnot part of a conversation. Moreover, the conversa-tion that the narrator (and, in turn, the reader)overhears is sometimes in dialect, particularly thoseportions spoken by Mr. Pyecroft and SergeantPritchard. The effect of this is to make their phrasesmore realistic when read aloud, and also moredifficult to understand.

The central structure of the narrative involves astory within the story, since the tale of Mrs. Bathurstand Mr. Vickery is told by two characters other thanthe narrator. There are two time frames in the storyas well—that of the present tense in which thenarrator meets up with three other characters inGlengariff Bay, South Africa, and that of the pasttense, in which the love affair between Mrs. Bathurstand Mr. Vickery takes place.

Point of ViewThe reader is told the story via the unnamed

narrator. Yet, the central or core story of the rela-tionship between Mr. Vickery and Mrs. Bathurst isrevealed through the narration of Mr. Pyecroft andSergeant Pritchard. Therefore, the reader's point ofview about the central narrative is filtered throughtwo other narratives—that of Mr. Pyecroft and thatof the narrator himself, who speaks in the firstperson. The various layers of narration in the storyaccount for its complexity and the story's indeter-minate, or fragmentary, style.

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SymbolismThere are few traditional symbols in the story,

since most of ' 'Mrs. Bathurst'' consists of dialogue.Moreover, the symbols that might be interpreted inthe story seem to be not fully formed. The object inMr. Hooper's pocket, for instance, which might bethe set of false teeth that he has taken from the burntcorpse of Mr. Vickery, never appear. The image ofMrs. Bathurst on the movie screen is another imagethat is not fully materialized, since a movie imagestands in for the real person, and because Mrs.Bathurst is possibly already dead at the time Mr.Vickery and Mr. Pyecroft observe her image at thecinema in Cape Town.

Historical Context

constant subtext of the story. The Dutch first settledthe land that later became known as South Africa,but their claims were challenged by (among others)the British Commonwealth, giving rise in part to theBoer War. The British Navy was the preeminentmaritime power in the nineteenth century. The masscolonization of Africa and other colonies could nothave been achieved without it. When Mr. Hoopersuspects the Malay boys of making noise around therailway car, the reader gets a glimpse of the nativesof the colony, but one of very few. In general, onemight argue that Kipling has successfully suppress-ed the colonial context of his story. Widely regardedas a supporter of British imperialism, Kipling'sdeliberate omission of colonial issues in "Mrs.Bathurst" must be balanced with such works asKim, where these issues are brought more clearlyinto focus.

Science and TechnologyThe end of the nineteenth century brought

many developments in science and technology thathad a direct impact on the everyday lives of millionsof people in Europe and America. The telegraph,photograph, and cinema were all products of thetime. These inventions and others changed in funda-mental ways how people communicated with eachanother, especially in urban centers. The rise ofphotography and cinema, in particular, producednew art forms that were capable of communicatingthe themes usually addressed by literature in lesstime and to a wider audience than ever before.

Novelists and painters reacted in varying waysto the development of these new media. Kipling's"Mrs. Bathurst" includes a scene in which theimage of Mrs. Bathurst is projected onto a moviescreen in Cape Town. The effect of this image onMr. Vickery is one of the central episodes of thestory, since it leads him to desert his ship in pursuitof the object of his desire. The effect of Kipling'sstory can be related to the movie itself, since bothare primarily composed of dialogue and because thereader of Kipling, like a cinema viewer, is thrustinto the midst of the scene, without abundant narra-tive background, and must make sense of the sto-ry largely by overhearing the dialogue of others.The story itself is constructed with the sameunconnectedness, among its parts, as a newsreel.

ColonialismThough you would be hard pressed to find

concrete evidence of the colonization of SouthAfrica in Kipling's South Africa, it is nevertheless a

ModernismRudyard Kipling's fiction has been associated

with the modernist movement in literature. Thoughthere is no single modernist creed that unites all ofthe authors associated with the movement, many ofthe writers were reacting both to social and literarychanges, in particular the urbanization and socialdecay of the time. Modernism was considered aradical break with the past, especially with whatauthors like T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound saw as alate nineteenth-century poetic style that needednew blood.

Critical Overview

By 1889, Rudyard Kipling was considered as one ofthe leading writers of his day. The publication of"Mrs. Bathurst" (1904) was an important event inhis career. Favorable critical response to the storyreinforced his reputation as a writer of the highestorder, a designation that was acknowledged by theEuropean intellectual community with the NobelPrize in 1907. Numerous critics deem "Mrs.Bathurst'' as one of the finest examples of Kipling'swork as a short-story writer. For example, WalterAllen selected the story as an example of the verybest literature, and placed Kipling near the top of thepantheon of short-story writers in English. T. S.Eliot praised Kipling's ' 'pagan vision'' in the intro-duction to a volume of Kipling's poetry, entitled theChoice of Kipling's Verse.



Compare

Contrast1904: South Africa, initially colonized by theDutch, is ruled by the British Commonwealth.The British Navy is the preeminent maritimepower, and the mass colonization of Africa andother colonies could not have been achievedwithout it. Native peoples are persecuted anddiscriminated against, and kept in poverty whilecolonizers exploited the land's natural resources.

Late 1990s: South Africa is now a republic, freefrom the colonial influence of England. Apart-heid, the legal discrimination against the Africanpeople, is now illegal and native groups areachieving opportunity and equal rights un-der the law.

1904: Realism is a popular literary style, reflect-ing changing American and European concernsin the twentieth century. Short stories gain wide-spread popularity as a literary genre.

1990s: Short stories remain popular, and Ameri-can and European literature are rich with fine

examples of the short fiction genre. With theadvent of the twenty-first century, realism alsoremains a viable literary style.

1904: Technological innovations change the waypeople communicate and live. The telegraph,photograph, and cinema were all products of thetime. Photography, radio, and cinema provide anew way for politicians and artists to conveythemes and images and offer a myriad of enter-tainment possibilities for citizens.

1990s: Technology continues to advance, pro-viding faster and more efficient ways to commu-nicate and relay information. The Internet offersaccess to information and images to anyone witha modem and other necessary equipment. TheVCR allows an individual to play movies in theprivacy of his or her home; the video camera is away for individuals to record their own movies.Science continues to refine and improve the waypeople communicate.

Not all of the reaction was favorable, however.Angus Wilson and Kingsley Amis regarded ' 'Mrs.Bathurst" as pretentious. In more recent years,Norman Page has noted the story's "obscure pow-er' ' over the reader.

"Mrs. Bathurst" was first published with tenother short stories in a collection entitled Trafficsand Discoveries. It shares with many of the storiesin the compilation (e.g. "Wireless" ) a reliance onpersonal experience. Kipling made many visits toSouth Africa during the Boer War, and drew fromthis experience when he wrote his stories.

"Mrs. Bathurst" features extensive use of dia-lect as well as a framing device and a series ofnarrators; these elements became trademarks of hisshort fiction. Kipling was known as an artist whoused the utmost economy in his writing and somecritics have observed that "Mrs. Bathurst" is al-most a parody of concision. So much is left out of

the story that what remains has to possess an enor-mous amount of narrative weight in order for thetale to succeed. It is a little ironic that Kiplingearned his reputation as a novelist for concealing asmuch as possible from his readers.

Criticism

Andrew MercyMercy is a freelance writer and a doctoral

candidate at the University of California-Berkeley.In the following essay, he suggests that the key tounderstanding Kipling's ' 'Mrs. Bathurst'' lies in itsstructure.

If you have come away from "Mrs. Bathurst" morethan a little confused and frustrated by its complexi-ty, then rest assured that you are neither the first nor

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Aerial view of a forest in South Africa, perhaps the setting for part of the action ofMrs. Bathurst."

the last to do so. Since its growing popularity as oneof Kipling's most complex stories, "Mrs. Bathurst"has received a barrage of critical response, most ofwhich takes for granted that the story is at once"obscure and puzzling," filled with "misinforma-tion," "uncrackable," and, as though Kipling werepleased by his audience's frustrations, "teasinglyambiguous."

In fact, even those most familiar with Kip-ling's art have chosen to summarize "Mrs. Bathurst"before venturing to interpret its meaning, as thoughdescribing "what happens" is, in itself, aninterpretive feat. Those who have refused to searchout some meaning in the story have done so onthe grounds that it is cryptic to the point ofincomprehensibility, or even downright pretentious.For one scholar, the problem of the story's meaning"will remain unanswered" because it "probablynever had much meaning."

One possible explanation for the difficulty wefind in "Mrs. Bathurst" may have to do withKipling's own preoccupation with questions of lit-erary construction. In the autobiography printedafter his death, Kipling writes of his fiction: "Imade my own experiments in the weights, colours,perfumes and attributes of words in relation to other

words, either as read aloud so that they may hold theear, or scattered over the page, drew the eye"(Something of Myself).

With Kipling, we have the image of one whocombines words the way a chemist combines chemi-cals, seeking some new reaction that might changethe manner in which we experience the worldthrough language. Elsewhere, in a letter to a youngreader, Kipling offers this interesting advice: "readand reread [books] until you pass from mere readingto criticism and begin to see how they are puttogether and what means the author uses to producecertain effects." It behooves the reader to return tothe story time and time again—not despite its com-plexities, but because of them.

Seeing how the story is "put together" is,perhaps, most central to understanding "Mrs.Bathurst." For it is precisely the story's construc-tion, its manner of unfolding, that so often bafflesreaders. Take, for instance the insertion of what

appears to be a series ofnon sequiturs into the story,ranging from the short tale of Boy Niven's circui-tous misguidance, to the anecdote of how Pritchardreceives a beer from a woman who apparently hasmistaken him for someone else.

s h o r t s t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s2 8 2


We might also note that the story begins with amistake, as the narrator tells us: "The day I chose tovisit HMS Peridot in Simon's Bay was the day thatthe Admiral had chosen to send her up the coast. Shewas just steaming out to sea as my train camein...." From the very start, the story is fraught withmistimings, misrecognitions, disruptions, and un-expected detail; it is constructed like a building withhidden hallways and unfinished staircases. Precise-ly because Kipling fills lines with so much detail,with vivid "weights, colours, perfumes and attrib-utes," we find ourselves confused, feeling moreignorant than informed. But only by acknowledgingthis as part of the story's strategy—this feeling ofdisorientation that we immediately get—can wereally understand Kipling's narrative method andthe "means the author uses to produce certaineffects."

It should come as no surprise that the ' 'produc-tion of effect" means a great deal to Kipling,especially if we consider the dominant subplot in"Mrs. Bathurst," namely the story of the cinema'seffect on Mr. Vickery, leading to his eventualinsanity and death. We may take for granted, aspostmodern viewers accustomed to sophisticatedvisual technologies, the experience of watchingfilm. However, we cannot pass too quickly over theimportance of Vickery's experience watching Mrs.Bathurst on the movie screen. Indeed, his experi-ence calls to our attention the difficulty of encoun-tering new forms of representation, new visual andaural productions, such as the cinema, at the turn ofthe twentieth century. "I'd never seen it before,"says Pyecroft about the new technology, "but thepictures were the real thing—alive an' movin'."Hooper, who is listening to this description and whoseems to understand the difference between animage on the screen and one that is actually "aliveand movin'," offers a correction: "I've seen 'em. . . Of course they are taken from the very thingitself—you see."

As a result of film's verisimilitude, it is easy forviewers, particularly those who have never con-fronted such technology, to confuse the "thingitself' with the representation of the picture on thescreen; and this seems to be Vickery's and Pyecroft'sconfusion. "Why, it's the woman herself," saysPyecroft to Vickery, when he sees Mrs. Bathurstexit the train.

Of course, it's not the woman herself at all. Tothink that, is to mistake representation for reality,

WhatDo I Read

Next?Rudyard Kipling's novel, Kim (1901), chroni-cles the story of a young Irish boy growing upin India during the waning years of Britishimperialism.

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899) is thestory of one man's journey to the interior ofAfrica in pursuit of a tyrannical madman namedKurtz. The story "Mrs. Bathurst" has beencompared to this novel.

and potentially to go mad in the process, much asVickery does. He cannot sort through the spatialtricks that appear on the ' 'big magic lantern sheet''of the cinema; for example, that the representationof Mrs. Bathurst appears on a screen in Cape Towndespite the fact that she is getting off a train inLondon's Paddington station. This confuses Vickeryenough to make him look into bars every threeminutes, expecting to see her. To the two men, whenthe image of Mrs. Bathurst passes the camera itappears as though she "melt[s] out of the picture"and phantasmically disappears, "like a shadowjumpin' over a candle." There is something haunt-ing about the image on the screen. Nor can Vickeryunderstand the temporal tricks played by film. Somecritics have suggested that, at the time when Vickeryand Pyecroft are watching Mrs. Bathurst on thescreen, she is dead. Such an argument helps toexplain why Vickery is so disturbed by her repeated"arrival" in London. "She's lookin' for me," hesays, "stopping dead under a lamp."

At this point, we might suggest that the experi-ence of reading ' 'Mrs. Bathurst'' is confusing to usin similar ways, and that our inability to piecetogether all of the details is a kind of interpretativemadness. As readers, we are given no explanation ofthe narrator's business with the ship at the begin-ning of the story; we only know that, like Vickery,he wants to be where he is not. We never even learnthe narrator's name or history. Likewise, Mr. Pyecroftand Sergeant Pritchard appear in the story as if out

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In one sense, Kipling

anticipates modernist writers

who defamiliarize their

narrative styles—make them

obscure and cryptic—in order

to emphasize the distance

between narrative and

reality."

of nowhere, phantasmically to the narrator who hasdrifted off into a beer-induced sleep. Moreover, theabundance of unfinished sentences and, as I havealready mentioned, non sequiturs make the storytough to visualize. In regard to many of the story'sepisodes, we as readers might say with Mr. Hooper,' 'I don't see... somehow." The information on thepage does not conform easily to a mental picture inour imaginations.

Finally, we might ask why Kipling would con-struct a story that mimics, by its temporal andspatial shifts and its confusing narrative, the effectsof the cinema. What is there for Kipling to gain bymaking his readers into disorientated viewers, whoresemble Vickery in this regard and who mustreturn again and again to the story, obsessed to findanswers to many questions? In one sense, Kiplinganticipates modernist writers who defamiliarize theirnarrative styles—make them obscure and cryptic—in order to emphasize the distance between narra-tive and reality.

One problem that faced many modernists wasthe public's willingness to collapse the boundariesseparating artistic representation from reality. Thefilm, the most "realistic" of new modes of repre-sentation, amplified this problem by glorifying itsability to mimic reality and to make representationsappear, as Pyecroft says, "alive an' movin'." Somecritics have even suggested that "Mrs. Bathurst"exemplifies literary realism, that the dialogue andthe anecdotes in the story are strange preciselybecause they so closely resemble reality. Certainly,when four men sit in a circle and reminisce overbeer, the conversation often takes strange, incom-prehensible turns.

But this should not rule out the opposite assess-ment, namely that Kipling is reacting against liter-ary realism by showing the dangers of assuming thatrepresentations are reality. "Mrs. Bathurst" movesaway from clearly visible reality. We never knowwhat happens to Vickery, because Hooper neverpulls from his pocket the missing clue, which weassume he has. And we never see the title characterof the story with clear eyes. What does she reallylook like? Where has she gone? In the end, it is leftfor our imaginations, not for our eyes to discern."Yes," we remember Pyecroft saying, "I used tothink seein' and hearin' was the only regulation aidsto ascertainin' facts, but as we get older we getmore accommodatin'."

Source: Andrew Mercy, "The Effect of 'Mrs. Bathurst' onthe Reader," for Short Stories for Students, The GaleGroup, 2000.

David LodgeIn the following excerpt, Lodge discusses the

themes of love, death, and guilt in Kipling's' 'Mrs. Bathurst.''

That is what Mrs Bathurst does when she appears onthe screen: 'She walked on and on till she melted outof the picture.' And it is, metaphorically speaking,what Vickery does: he steps out of the frame ofPyecroft's perception at Simonstown station.

In this remarkable passage Kipling managesvividly to convey the disconcerting effect of thecinematic image—at once lifelike and insubstan-tial—when it was still a novelty, and to turn thisexperience into a poignant symbol of both the painof disappointed desire and the mystery of humanmotivation. To Vickery, watching the newsreel,Mrs Bathurst is both present and absent, near andfar. He can see her, but she, peering out of the screenwith her 'blindish look,' cannot see him. From herexpression, Pyecroft infers that she is looking forsomeone, and Vickery affirms that she is lookingfor him. This motif of interpreting someone's inten-tions from their countenance is repeated whenPyecroft and the cox, Lamson, scrutinise the cap-tain's expressions after the latter's interview withVickery. 'Mrs Bathurst' is, indeed, in one sense astory about the difficulty of interpretation, andPyecroft challenges us as well as the other charac-ters in the brake-van when he concludes his accountof Vickery's strange behaviour with the question,'How do you read it off?'.



How do we read it off? There is no difficulty insaying what 'Mrs Bathurst,' in a general sense, isabout: it is about the tragic and destructive conse-quences that may ensue when a man becomesinfatuated with a woman who, though morally blame-less, is so powerfully attractive to the man that hewill abandon all scruples, honour and material secu-rity on her account. Like other tales of Kipling, thisone suggests that very ordinary humble people mayenact tragedy. That Vickery's last recorded wordsare Hamlet's, 'The rest is silence,' makes this point.So does Vickery's remark to Pyecroft, 'What'aveyou to complain of?—you've only 'ad to watch.I'nuV irresistibly recalling Faustus's words, 'Whythis is hell, nor am I out of it.' So does the denselyobscure epigraph to the story—a fragment of an oldplay, in actuality written by Kipling himself, de-scribing the death of a groom or clown which, it issaid, would have excited more attention if it hadbeen suffered by a prince.

'Mrs Bathurst' is a tragedy of love and death,but its details are obscure and ambiguous. It seemssafe to infer that Mrs. Bathurst and Vickery werelovers, that he deceived her about the fact that hewas married, that she came to England with theintention of meeting him. What we cannot ascertainis whether Vickery discovered that she came toEngland only when he saw the newsreel, or wheth-er, after the moment recorded on the newsreel, theyactually did meet in England. If the latter is the case,she would, presumably, have discovered that he wasmarried, and, given her character, have broken offtheir relationship—perhaps, it has even been sug-gested, have died as a result of the shock, so that herapparition on the screen affects Vickery as a kind ofghost, 'looking for him' in an accusing, hauntingfashion. If the former is the case, then Vickery ispresuming that she will have found out that he wasmarried, either before or after his wife died inchildbirth. (Could the shock of the revelation havebrought on the wife's death?)

The indeterminacy of the story is partly due tothe indeterminacy of its chronology. It would seemthat Vickery and Pyecroft saw the newsreel inDecember 1902, since we are told that it was justbefore Christmas, and shortly afterwards Vickery issent to recover some ammunition 'left after the warin Bloemfontein Fort.' The Boer War ended in May1902. The newsreel, however, seems to have beenfilmed while the war was still going on, since itincludes a shot of a troopship 'goin' to the war.' Wedon't know when Vickery left England—whether itwas before or after Mrs Bathurst discovered he was

'Mrs Bathurst' is a

tragedy of love and death, but

its details are obscure and

ambiguous."

married. Perhaps his ship was steaming out to sea asher train was coming into Paddington station. Butwhen he sees her on the screen, he must know, orhave inferred, that there is no possibility of theirunion, either because she is dead or because of anirreparable breach between them. Otherwise, whyshould he desert, within a few months of hispensioned retirement, when he is free to marry herbecause of the death of his wife? Evidently Vickeryis harrowed by guilt in relation to Mrs Bathurst, andfeels he is on the verge of going mad and murderingsomeone, and persuades his captain to connive athis desertion by sending him up country, alone. Hemay, of course, be quite mistaken about MrsBathurst's reaction. The epigraph hints at this: 'Shethat damned him to death knew not that she did it, orwould have died ere she had done it. For sheloved him.'

It has been suggested by some readers thatVickery and Mrs Bathurst were united—that themysterious figure found dead beside Vickery byHooper is Mrs Bathurst. It is true that Pritchardseems to leap to this conclusion, covering 'his facewith his hands for a moment, like a child shuttingout an ugliness. "And to think of her at Hauraki!"he murmured,' and Hooper's description of thesecond figure as Vickery's 'mate' is nicely ambigu-ous as to sex. But this must be one last false clue putin by the implied author to tease the reader. There isno logical reason why Vickery and Mrs Bathurstshould have met in this way and lived like tramps. Itis in character for Vickery to have picked up somecompanion in his wanderings, as he picked upPyecroft in Cape Town; and I am inclined to agreewith Elliott L. Gilbert that this second corpse isintroduced to indicate by its crouching posture thatVickery invited the fatal lightning stroke by stand-ing upright beside the rail in the storm [Elliot L.Gilbert, The Good Kipling: Studies in the ShortStory, 1972]. Thus his death is a kind of liebestod,comparable to Hamlet's leap in Ophelia's grave andsubsequent expiatory death. The rest is silence.

V o l u m e 8 285


I suggested earlier that there is in 'Mrs Bathurst,'as well as a discourse about the story, a story of thediscourse—a suspense story in which the mostobvious narrative question raised is, What will Hooperproduce from his waistcoat pocketl In the classicdetective story we should expect the answer to thisquestion to coincide with the mystery in the corestory. In 'Mrs Bathurst' this coincidence both doesand does not occur. We have every reason to believethat Hooper has in his pocket the false teeth whichconstitute incontrovertible evidence that the corpsein the teak forest was in fact Vickery's, and it isentirely natural that he should refrain from produc-ing the gruesome relic out of respect for the feelingsof Vickery's friends. There is no logical ground todoubt this testimony—Pyecroft has already con-firmed the complementary evidence of the tattoo.Yet on the symbolic level the long-delayed gestureof Hooper's bringing his hand away from his waist-coat pocket—empty, can only have the effect ofgenerating doubt and uncertainty in the reader'smind, and emphasising the indeterminacy of the text.

Source: David Lodge, '"Mrs. Bathurst': Indeterminacy inMotion," in Kipling Considered, edited by Phillip Mallett,The Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1989, pp. 71-84.

Elliot L. GilbertIn the following excerpt, Gilbert examines sty-

listic aspects of Kipling's ' 'Mrs. Bathurst,'' assert-ing that the story's unorthodox narrative structureunderscores the themes of chance and accident.

It would be useful for us, at this point, to considerwhat it is that happens in "Mrs. Bathurst." Awarrant officer named Vickery, within eighteenmonths of his pension, has deserted his duty underpeculiar circumstances in the back country of SouthAfrica. Four men gather by chance in a railroad carand after some rambling discussion undertake topiece together Vickery's story from the fragmentsthat each of them has. It seems that Vickery was adevoted family man until the day he met and fell inlove with the fascinating Mrs. Bathurst, a widowwho ran a small hotel for sailors in New Zealand.Many sailors, among them married ones, have casu-al affairs with women—Pyecroft and Pritchard havehad more than they can remember—but Vickery,described somewhat ironically as a superior man,has apparently fallen deeply under Mrs. Bathurst'sirresistible spell. And if the epigraph is to be takenas shedding any light on the story, the phrase "forshe loved him" suggests that Mrs. Bathurst wasequally serious. At any rate, Pyecroft says, "There

must 'ave been a good deal between 'em, to my wayo' thinkin'." The epigraph also suggests, in astro-logical terms, the passionate nature of the relation-ship, speaking as it does of ' 'Venus, when Vulcancaught her with Mars in the house of stinkingCapricorn." (Vulcan is, of course, the classicalartificer of lightning bolts.)

What the exact nature of that ' 'good deal be-tween 'em" was we are never certain, and there arethose who feel that Kipling was wrong to apply histechnique of calculated obscurity, which we shallsee was quite valid elsewhere, to the story's centralrelationship. Information about Vickery and Mrs.Bathurst, the argument runs, is no substitute for apicture of the two of them together, for a confronta-tion that might have drawn the reader more person-ally into the story, engaged his sympathy, illuminat-ed Vickery's fate and made it more poignant. It isdifficult to defend Kipling and his reticence on thispoint, but mistaken or not he chose to keep thegerminal experience of his story on the very edgesof the narrative and to make us struggle to discovereven the few facts he thought it necessary for us tohave: that Vickery met Mrs. Bathurst, that his lifebecame deeply entangled with hers so that to put hisaffairs in order would have taken more courage andstrength than he had in the world, and that in the endhe deserted her.

From that time, apparently, from that failure,dates the beginning of the madness which Pyecroftsays must have been going on for years and whichcharacterizes Vickery's last months. But the mad-ness does not reach a crisis until Vickery attends amoving picture show one night in Cape Town andsees Mrs. Bathurst walking out of the screen towardhim. We can imagine how he must have felt at thesight. The pictures, we are told, were extremelylifelike—"just like life"—and so realistic that whenan engine headed straight at the audience, the ladiesin the first row of the theatre jumped. To Vickery,burdened with his guilt, that enormous figure ofMrs. Bathurst bearing "blindishly" down on himmust have been terrifying. Perhaps it made himthink of a grim and now far-off domestic scene, thelong-feared confrontation of husband, wife andlover to which that detraining had led. Perhaps, onthe other hand, there had been no confrontation atall. Kipling does not offer enough information forus to be certain about what happened in London,and we can only conclude that he did not think itimportant for his readers to know the details; themerest suggestion of disaster was enough. Thedetails he did want his readers to have however, he



made extraordinarily graphic: the looming figureson the cinema screen, Vickery's guilty terror, andthe chance fact that Mrs. Bathurst, hurrying one dayfrom a railroad car, blundered blindly and unwit-tingly into range of a camera and thus was made theaccidental tool of fortune, damning Vickery todeath from thousands of miles away and neverknowing she had done it. Hence the irony inPritchard's repeated, almost panicky requests forassurance, "Say what you please, Pye, but youdon't make me believe it was any of 'er fault."

The effect of the motion picture—ironicallytitled "Home and Friends"—on Vickery is over-whelming and complex. On the one hand it awakensagain all of his passionate infatuation for Mrs.Bathurst, drawing him back to the show night afternight and leaving him, at the end of each perform-ance, counting the minutes till the next. On the otherhand it intensifies his sense of guilt and of inadequa-cy and contributes further to the disorder that will inthe end destroy him. This effect manifests itselfphysically in Vickery's mad wanderings over CapeTown and in his suicidal urge, once the movie hascompleted its run and is about to move on, toabandon his duty and follow the film up-country.

What he says to the captain to win release fromduty we are not told. All we know is that the twomen speak for an hour, that Vickery comes awayfrom the meeting in good spirits, and that thecaptain emerges a moment later shipping his courtmartial face, a face he had last worn on the day someof his men had dumped the ship's gunsights over-board. It is significant that gunsights, like the gyro-scope mentioned earlier in the story as having beendeliberately damaged, are instruments designed tokeep men on target and on course, and as such areabsolutely indispensable aboard a war ship. Thecaptain thus reacts to indications of instability inone of his officers as he had done once before to thedeliberate destruction of essential guidance equip-ment. It also is significant that in the description ofthe ship during Vickery's interview with the cap-tain, there appear in the space of seven lines thewords "execution of 'is duty," "my lawful occa-sions," "as a general rule," and "my duties," allemphasizing that ordered aspect of navy life whichVickery's madness is forcing him to flee. In the end,he is ordered off by himself on special assignment toBloemfontein, an assignment from which he willnever return.

Just before he leaves he encounters Pyecroft forthe last time and tries to unburden himself a little of

The whole narrative may,

in fact, be considered an

extended example of

aposiopesis."

his guilt. "I've one thing to say before shakin''ands," Pyecroft recalls his words. "Rememberthat I am not a murderer, because my lawful wifedied in childbed six weeks after I came out. Thatmuch at least I am clear of." This is a cryptic speechbut it comes a little more into focus when we realizethat Kipling restored the word "childbed" to thepassage when he was preparing the magazine ver-sion of the story for book publication [C.A. Bodelsen,Aspects of Kipling's Art, 1964]. Vickery clearlyfeels responsible for his wife's death—elsewhere hespeaks of himself as capable of murder—and physi-cally, of course, he is responsible. His real guilt,however, has to do with his sense of having killedher by betraying her with Mrs. Bathurst. Further-more, there is the sense of having, in his weakness,betrayed Mrs. Bathurst with his wife. This com-pound treachery leads to such self-loathing that, likethe groom in the epigraph, Vickery "must e'en dienow to live with myself one day longer." Certainlyhe desires nothing more, in his weariness with theburden of his own thoughts, than "to throw lifefrom him . . . for a little sleep."

It is in this desperate state of mind that Vickery,having fulfilled his commission at Bloemfontein,drops from sight, embarking on an aimless life asjust another one of the many wandering tramps whopeople the back country. For Vickery is not uniquein his inability to confront the world.' Takes 'em atall ages," says Pyecroft of another man who'd lefthis duty, and "We get heaps of tramps up theresince the war," Hooper explains, suggesting thatmen trained in destruction or shaped by it must usetheir talents somehow, if only on themselves. Deathis what Vickery is seeking, then, as he drifts fromplace to place, and he is not long in finding it. Oneday he and another tramp take refuge beside arailroad track during an electrical storm and there,beneath the teak trees, the two are struck by light-ning and are burned to charcoal. It is easily estab-lished that one of the two is Vickery, for Hooperhappens coincidentally to be there, in his capacity as

V o l u m e 8 287


railroad inspector, to see the tattooed initials M. V.etched in white on the blackened corpse and to takefrom the crumbling jaws an undamaged dental plateidentifiable as Vickery's. In fact, he has the plate inhis waistcoat pocket but delicately refrains fromshowing it out of consideration for Pritchard's obvi-ous distress. Vickery's death is bizarre, certainly,although it is based on a real incident with whichKipling was familiar. But what is really most strik-ing about it is its appropriateness. The man who hadbeen unable to cope with life's disorder achieves, ata stroke, by the accident of lightning, the finaldisorder of death. When Hooper tries to move thescorched body from its position beside the track itliterally crumbles to dust. . . .

In "Mrs. Bathurst," Kipling is dealing withwhat Beckett calls ' 'the mess," and while we have aright to expect that he will give some kind of shapeto his particular vision of life, we are wrong torequire that shape to appear necessarily on thenarrative level of the story. It is precisely on thislevel that we should expect, instead, to find all thecraziness of life, all its meaninglessness. And ameaningless death may, after all, be thematicallysignificant. Nor is it begging the question to say that' 'Mrs. Bathurst'' has a form imposed upon it by itstheme, the persistence of accident, the multiplica-tions of what an existentialist might call the absurd.It is, in fact, just this reiteration of absurdity that ismeant to satisfy our craving for form.

Vickery's story ends spectacularly, then, in theback country of South Africa, but some of thequestions raised by that story still remain unan-swered. Indeed we have still to consider what, forsome reason, has always been the most controver-sial of all the "Mrs. Bathurst" problems, the identi-ty of the second tramp. It was in The Colophon thatJ. Delancey Ferguson, in February, 1932, publishedan article which took for granted the fact that thetramp found beside Vickery in the teak forest wasMrs. Bathurst herself. Since that time this theory hasgained great currency among readers who feel thatthe story would not be as good if Mrs. Bathurst werenot the tramp, who feel that for a satisfying plot it isrequired that the two central figures be broughttogether at the close. Kipling was, however, con-structing anything but a neat plot here; his centralpoint was, of course, the untidiness of the universe.Mrs. Bathurst is not the conventional heroine ofromantic fiction, hurrying to the side of her destitutelover and casting in her lot with his. In the light ofthe rest of the story this conception is difficult toaccept. She is, rather, the unwitting agent of blind

chance who dooms Vickery to death without evenknowing she has done it. She is far away when theman dies and she knows nothing of what has hap-pened to him, for the fates do not know or care whatthey have done and they do not die with theirvictims. It is in just these facts that the great sadnessof the story lies, in just this failure of communication.

Pritchard's last speech accents the blind imper-sonality of Mrs. Bathurst's power.

Pritchard covered his face with his hands for a mo-ment, like a child shutting out an ugliness. 'And tothink of her at Hauraki!' he murmured—with 'er 'air-ribbon on my beer. "Ada," she said to her niece ...Oh, my Gawd!' . . .

It has been suggested that this outburst couldonly be Pritchard's horrified reaction to the newsthat Mrs. Bathurst had been burnt to charcoal in theteak forest. But the speech has a different andperhaps greater significance. Throughout the narra-tive, Pritchard is presented to us as having himselffallen under Mrs. Bathurst's spell. He lovinglyrecounts his experience in the hotel bar at Haurakiand at each suggestion that Mrs. Bathurst may havebeen even remotely responsible for what happenedto Vickery, Pritchard protests vehemently—pro-tests almost too much—that the lady could not havehad anything to do with it. He seems to have a greatstake in her innocence, and all through the story herejects the truth which is dawning slowly on theothers. But the horrible image of Vickery, totallyconsumed by his passion, finally breaks through hisdefenses and lets the truth pour in all at once.And the realization overwhelms him—he is, as wehave seen, naturally emotional anyway—that Mrs.Bathurst, for all her innocence, has been profoundlyinvolved in Vickery's fate. In his horror, Pritchardrecalls what, up to that moment, had always beenone of his pleasantest memories, the harmless flirta-tion in the Hauraki hotel. And understanding nowthe true nature of that blind, corrosive, impersonalattraction he had felt and himself almost succumbedto, he ' 'covers his face with his hands for a moment,like a child shutting out an ugliness." Outside theoffice car, waiting for their train, the picnickers singof romance in conventional, sentimental terms, of-fering an ironic contrast to Pritchard's belated reve-lation about the true nature of woman's love.

On a summer afternoon, when the honeysuck-le blooms,

And all Nature seems at rest,Underneath the bower, 'mid the perfume of

the flower,Sat a maiden with the one she loves the best.



It makes a properly bitter conclusion to a storywhich might equally well have ended with Kurtz'sdespairing words, "The horror, the horror!"

What happens in ' 'Mrs. Bathurst'' is, in the lastanalysis, a function of the work's structure. All hislife Kipling experimented with techniques for draw-ing readers into the heart of a story, for forcingthem, if possible, to participate in the creativeprocess itself. In "Mrs. Bathurst," among otherstories, he succeeded in a way which was to damagehis popularity and earn him a reputation for tricki-ness. But it was in just such stories as this that hewas most brilliantly the innovator, most startlinglythe stylist ahead of his time. Of ' 'Mrs. Bathurst'' itcan accurately be said that the structure is inextrica-bly bound up with the content. "Mrs. Bathurst" is astory about a group of storytellers who are trying toput together a story and discover its meaning. Thestory they are constructing is also the one the readermust construct, so that the two activities go onsimultaneously. The group of four men gathered inthe railroad car to spin yarns is, like the cinema andthe episode of Boy Niven, a metaphor for Kipling'svision of life: the irrationality of the universe andman's need to find some order in it. When the fourcome together, each of them, unknown to the others,has certain disordered fragments of a story, quitemeaningless in themselves. (It would be more accu-rate to say that three of the members of the grouphave these fragments. The fourth member, the writ-er, will one day record the incidents.) They begin tochat idly, in a random way, and slowly, as they talk,a story begins to emerge a little haltingly from theanecdotes and the broken images that each contrib-utes to the general store of information.

Even when all the fragments have been assem-bled it is plain that significant information is miss-ing. But it is also plain that with just the piecesavailable to them they have made an importantdiscovery which leaves them silent and disturbed.They have, in fact, discovered the theme of theirown story, and though that discovery is never dis-cussed in so many words, the same fragments ofinformation which led the four narrators to theirunderstanding are available to guide the reader tothe same conclusions. Indeed, it is because what thestorytellers do is so much the model for whatKipling would have his readers do that such empha-sis is placed on the "picture-frame" elements in"Mrs. Bathurst." The process of telling the story isas important to an understanding of the whole as theincidents of the story themselves.

In order to tell his story in the way he wanted to,Kipling had to abandon certain of the conventionsof prose fiction, most notably the convention ofredundancy....

The trouble with conventional dialogue is, inthe first place, that people do not really talk inexposition. They say just enough to make them-selves understood by the people they are addressingand do not behave as if they were aware of a large,unseen audience requiring to be kept informed.More important, such dialogue stands between thereader and the narrative, rejecting the reader's coop-eration by assuring him that he will learn all there isto learn about the story without any effort on hispart. In Kipling's dialogue there are few indepen-dently meaningful lines; meaning emerges from thetotal organization of what has gone before and whatis to come. Description here is something more thandecoration; it is a background against which indi-vidually obscure lines take on significance. A ges-ture will often finish a sentence. This kind ofdialogue stretches the mind, requires, in MissTompkins' words, "a full participation of the im-agination" [J. M. S. Tompkins, The Art of RudyardKipling, 1959] by readers who, like Pyecroft, recog-nize that seeing and hearing are not the only regula-tion aids to ascertaining facts.

There are many examples of this sort of dia-logue in "Mrs. Bathurst." One toward the end ofthe story is representative. Hooper, speaking of hisjourney up-country on railroad business, says

"I was up there a month ago relievin' a sick inspector,you see. He told me to look out for a couple of trampsin the teak." "Two?" Pyecroft said. "I don't envythat other man if—"

Pyecroft's aposiopesis, out of context, wouldbe meaningless. It is probably meaningless, in anycase, to casual readers of the story who have forgot-ten about Vickery's lunacy and murderous threatsand Pyecroft's fear of being alone with the man.Those who have not forgotten are in a position toreconstruct the end of the sentence and so to partici-pate, with the author and the four men in the railroadcar, in the creation of the story.

The whole narrative may, in fact, be consideredan extended example of aposiopesis. Hooper bringshis hand to his waistcoat pocket, presumably toremove Vickery's teeth, but the hand comes awayempty. Pyecroft seems on the verge of learningfrom Vickery's own lips the story of his affair withMrs. Bathurst, but Vickery breaks off, saying,' 'Therest is silence." We are left to guess what exactly

V o l u m e 8 289


happened between Vickery and the captain, whatVickery did as a tramp up-country, and who hiscompanion was. The tale of "Mrs. Bathurst," likeKipling's irrational universe, mocks our desire forreasonable explanations. Yet in the end, the themeof the story emerges clearly out of the calculatedobscurity of the style....

The symbol in "Mrs. Bathurst" is the story-teller, representing man's eternal quest for the mean-ing concealed in random events. And the art of thestory is aposiopesis, the device of classical rhetoricwhich seeks, on every level of the narrative, towithhold the ultimate secret....

Source: Elliot L. Gilbert,' 'The Art of the Complex,'' in TheGood Kipling: Studies in the Short Story, Ohio UniversityPress, 1970, pp. 76-117.

Sources

Bodelsen, C. A. "The Hardest of All the Stories: 'Mrs.Bathurst,'" in Aspects of Kipling's Art, Barnes & Noble,1964, pp. 124-54.

Gilbert, Elliot. "The Art of the Complex," in The GoodKipling: Studies in the Short Story, Ohio University Press,1970, pp. 71-84.

Lodge, David. '"Mrs. Bathurst': Indeterminacy in ModernNarrative," in Kipling Considered, edited by Phillip Mallet,Macmillan Press, 1989, pp. 71-84.

Seymour-Smith, Martin. "Mrs. Bathurst," in Rudyard Kip-ling , Queen Anne Press, 1989, pp. 305-24.

Further Reading

Bodelson, C. A. "The Hardest of All the Stories: 'Mrs.Bathurst,"' in Aspects of Kipling's Art, Barnes and Noble,1964, pp. 124-54.

Bodelson examines the cinematic footage in "Mrs.Bathurst'' as a key element in the story, particularlywith regard to how it advances the theme of hauntingguilt. He also discusses the relationship between thecharacters Mrs. Bathurst and Vickery.

Brock, P. W. '"Mrs. Bathurst': A Final Summing Up," inThe Kipling Journal, Vol. 31, September, 1964, pp. 6-10.

Comments on the chronology, symbolism, and actionof the story.

Carrington, Charles. Rudyard Kipling: His Life and Work,Macmillan and Co., 1955, 549 p.

Explores connections between Kipling's life andhis works.

McClure, John A. Kipling and Conrad: The Colonial Fic-tion, Harvard University Press, 1981, 182 p.

Offers an in-depth look at colonial themes in Kip-ling's stories written in the 1880s and 1890s.

Seymour-Smith, Martin. "Mrs. Bathurst," in Rudyard Kip-ling , Queen Anne Press, 1989, pp. 305-24.

Comments at length on the ambiguity of " Mrs.Bathurst."

Stinton, T. C. W.' 'What Really Happened in 'Mrs. Bathurst' ?''in Essays in Criticism, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 1, January, 1988,pp. 55-74.

Compares "Mrs. Bathurst" to other Kipling stories.


A New England NunWhen "A New England Nun" was first publishedin A New England Nun and Other Stories (1891),Mary Wilkins Freeman was already an establishedauthor of short stories and children's literature. Herfirst book of short stories, A Humble Romance andOther Stories (1887), had received considerablecritical and popular attention, and she publishedstories in such notable journals as Harper's Bazaar,Harper's Monthly, and the New York Sunday Budget.

Mary Wilkins Freeman is often classified as a' 'local color writer." This means that she attemptedto capture the distinct characteristics of regionalAmerica. Other well-known local colorists wereSarah Orne Jewett (with whom Freeman was oftencompared) and Harriet Beecher Stowe (author ofthe novel Uncle Tom's Cabin). As in the work ofother local color writers, a recognizable regionalsetting plays an important part in most of Freeman'sstories. However, she differed from writers such asJewett and Stowe in that she rarely engaged in themeticulous description of places and people thatthey favored. The details in her stories tend to havesymbolic significance, and most critics agree thather themes are more universal than those commonlyfound in much local color writing of the time. She isadmired for her simple, direct prose and her insightinto the psychology of her characters. "A NewEngland Nun" has a very simple, perhaps evencontrived plot. Yet Freeman manages to depictskillfully the personalities involved in this smalldrama and the time in which they lived.

Mary E, WilkinsFreeman

1891

2 9 1

A New E n g l a n d Nun

Author Biography

Born in 1852, Mary Wilkins Freeman spent the firstfifty years of her life in the rural villages of NewEngland. It was an area suffering severe economicdepression. The combination of fatalities from theCivil War (1861-65), westward expansion, andindustrialization in the cities had taken large num-bers of young men from the countryside. Whatremained was a population largely female, elderly,or both, struggling to earn a living and to keep upappearances. Freeman became famous for herunsentimental and realistic portrayals of these peo-ple in her short stories. She wrote, "A young writershould follow the safe course of writing only aboutthose subjects she knows thoroughly." This is ex-actly what she did, exploring the often peculiar andnearly always strong-willed New England tempera-ment in short stories, poems, novels, and plays.

Freeman is best known for her short stories. Shebegan writing short stories for adults in her earlythirties when faced with the need to support herselfand an aging aunt after the death of her parents. Shehad already had considerable success publishingchildren's stories and poems. Her first stories werepublished in magazines such as Harper's Monthlyand The New York Sunday Budget in the early1880s. She quickly made a name for herself andpublished her first collection of short stories, AHumble Romance and Other Stories, in 1887. Aprolific writer, Freeman published her second col-lection—A New England Nun and Other Stories—only four years later.

Many of her stories concern female characterswho are unmarried, spinsters or widows, often liv-ing alone and supporting themselves. It was a situa-tion she knew well. She herself did not marry untilthe age of fifty, and her marriage was an unhappyone. She separated from her husband and spent thelast years of her life with friends and relatives.

Although Freeman found popular success writ-ing in many different genres, including ghost sto-ries, plays, and romance novels that appeared inserial form in magazines, it is for her short storiesthat she is most highly regarded by critics. Mostcritics concur that her first two volumes of shortstories contain her best work. She was awarded theWilliam Dean Howells Medal in 1925 and in 1926

was elected to the National Institute of Arts andLetters. She died in 1930.

Plot Summary

"A New England Nun" opens with Louisa Ellissewing peacefully in her sitting room. It is lateafternoon and the light is waning. We see Louisagoing about her daily activities calmly and meticu-lously; she gathers currants for her tea, prepares ameal, feeds her dog, tidies up her house carefully,and waits for Joe Dagget to visit. Joe and Louisahave been engaged for fifteen years, during fourteenof which Joe has been away seeking his fortune inAustralia. Louisa has been waiting patiently for hisreturn, never complaining but growing more andmore set in her rather narrow, solitary ways as theyears have passed.

During his visit, both he and Louisa are de-scribed as ill-at-ease. Joe sits "bolt-upright," fidg-ets with some books that are on the table, andknocks over Louisa's sewing basket when he getsup to leave. He colors when Louisa mentions LilyDyer, a woman who is helping out Joe's mother.Louisa becomes uneasy when Joe handles her books,and when he sets them down with a different one ontop she puts them back as they were before hepicked them up. Once he leaves, she closely ex-amines the carpet and sweeps up the dirt hehas tracked in.

Despite their awkwardness with each other,Louisa continues to sew her wedding clothes whileJoe dutifully continues his visits. One evening abouta week before the wedding date, Louisa goes for awalk. As she is sitting on a wall and looking at themoon shining through a large tree, she overhearsJoe and Lily talking nearby. It quickly becomesapparent that they are in love and are saying whatthey intend to be their final good-byes to oneanother. Lily has decided to quit her job and goaway. After they leave, Louisa returns home in adaze but quickly determines to break off her en-gagement. The next evening when Joe arrives, shemusters all the "meek" diplomacy she can find andtells him that while she has "no cause of complaintagainst him, she [has] lived so long in one way thatshe [shrinks] from making a change." They parttenderly. Although that night Louisa weeps, bymorning she feels "like a queen who, after fearinglest her domain be wrested away from her, sees itfirmly insured in her possession."

2 9 2 S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s2 9 2

A New England Nun

Characters

CaesarCaesar is the old yellow dog Louisa Ellis keeps

chained securely to his hut in her yard. "Fat andsleepy" with "yellow rings which looked likespectacles around his dim old eyes," Caesar "sel-dom liftfs] up his voice in a growl or bark." The petof Louisa's cherished dead brother, Caesar bit some-one when he was a puppy and has been restrainedever since. Although he has become, over the years,just as placid as Louisa herself, his reputation as aferocious, bloodthirsty animal has taken on a life ofits own. He has become something of a villagelegend and everyone except Joe Dagget, Louisa'sfiance, firmly believes in his ferocity.

Joe DaggetJoe Dagget, Louisa Ellis's fiance for the past

fifteen years, has spent fourteen of those years inAustralia, where he went to make his fortune. Hehas returned and he and Louisa are planning tomarry. Good-humored, honorable, and hardwork-ing, Joe is awkward and uncomfortable in the me-ticulously ordered, domesticated world Louisa hasbuilt for herself over the years. He has alreadyannounced his intention to free Caesar, Louisa's olddog, who has been chained up ever since he bitsomeone while still a puppy. During the visit toLouisa, described in the story, Joe tracks in dirt,fidgets with the books on her table, and knocks overher sewing basket. Nonetheless, his sense of honoris so strong that even though he has fallen in lovewith Lily Dyer, a younger woman who has beenhelping his ailing mother, and although he realizesthat he and Louisa are no longer suited to oneanother after a fourteen-year separation, he intendsto go through with the marriage.

DogSee Caesar

Lily Dyer' 'A girl full of a calm rustic strength and bloom,

with a masterful way which might have beseemed aprincess," Lily Dyer is "good and handsome andsmart," and much admired in the village. She ispretty, fair-skinned, blond, tall and full-figured. Sheworks for Joe Dagget's mother and—as we andLouisa eventually discover—she and Joe have fall-en in love when the story opens. A better match for

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

Joe, Lily is full of life and vitality and just as good-natured and practical as he is. She also shares hisstrong sense of honor, declaring she wouldn't marryhim even if he broke his engagement because ' 'hon-or's honor, an' right's right."

Louisa EllisAt the beginning of the story, Louisa Ellis has

been engaged for fifteen years to Joe Dagget, whohas spent fourteen of those years working in Aus-tralia. He has been back for some time, and he andLouisa are to be married in a month. All this time,Louisa has been "patiently and unquestioninglywaiting" for her fiance to return. On her own sinceher mother and brother died, she has been living aserene and peaceful life. Her daily activities includesewing quietly, raising lettuce, making perfumesusing an old still, and caring for her canary and herbrother's old dog. Meticulous and tidy, she doeseverything with care and with the precision of oldhabit. She has "almost the enthusiasm of an artistover the mere order and cleanliness of her soli-tary home."

Known for her sweet, even temperament andher "gentle acquiescence," Louisa has "neverdreamed of the possibility of marrying anyoneelse" in all the long years Joe has been away, and

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MediaAdaptations

"A New England Nun" is available on audiotape from Audio Book Contractors (1991), ISBN:1556851812.

"A New England Nun" is also available onmicrofilm from Research Publications (1970-78), Woodbridge, CT. Wright American Fic-tion; v. 3.

has always looked forward to his return and to theirmarriage as the "inevitable conclusion of things."Just the same, she has, by the time the story opens,gotten so in the habit of living peacefully aloneinside her "hedge of lace" that Joe's return findsher ' 'as much surprised and taken aback as if shehad never thought about'' their eventual marriage atall. When Joe stops by for one of his regular visits,she becomes uneasy when he moves some booksshe keeps on a table, and as soon as he leaves shecarefully checks the carpet and sweeps up any dirthe has tracked in. Without really noticing the change,she has become as much a hermit as her old yellowdog, Caesar.

Caesar, chained placidly to his little hut, andLouisa's canary, dozing quietly in his cage, parallelher personality. Her life is serene but also narrow,like that of an "uncloistered nun." Like the canary,who flutters wildly whenever Joe visits, Louisafears the disruption of her peaceful life that mar-riage to Joe represents. After discovering that Joe issecretly in love with Lily Dyer, who has beenhelping to care for his ailing mother, Louisa breaksoff her engagement to him with diplomacy, andrejoices that her "domain" is once again safe.

Themes

quences of choice. Louisa is faced with a choicebetween a solitary and somewhat sterile life of herown making and the life of a married woman. Shehas waited fourteen years for Joe Dagget to returnfrom Australia. During this time she has, withoutrealizing it, "turned into a path, smooth maybeunder a calm, serene sky, but so straight andunswerving that it could only meet a check at hergrave, and so narrow that there was no room for anyone at her side." If she marries Joe, she willsacrifice a great deal of her personal freedom, herquiet way of life, and many of her favorite pastimes.On the other hand, if she chooses to remain single,she faces the disapproval of the community forrebelling against custom (women were expected tomarry if they could); the villagers already disap-prove of her use of the good china on a daily basis.She also faces the probability of growing old alonewith no children to care for her. In the end, whenLouisa discovers Joe is in love with Lily Dyer andbreaks off the engagement, she feels more reliefthan regret. She sacrifices her "birthright" in favorof her independence; she chooses to remain alone,in "placid narrowness."

Courage and CowardiceAnother important and related theme in "A

New England Nun" is the relationship betweencourage and cowardice. Mary Wilkins Freemanshows us that it is often difficult to make decisions.For example, it takes all the ' 'meek'' courage anddiplomacy Louisa Ellis can muster to break off herengagement with Joe Dagget; and she shows morecourage than he, perhaps, in being able to broach thesubject. Furthermore, it is courageous for a womanof her time to choose to remain single given thesocial stigma of being an old maid or spinster. Yet itis her fear of marriage and the disruption it repre-sents that prompts her to find this courage. JoeDagget demonstrates courage, too, in his willing-ness to go ahead with the marriage. He knows he isin love with another woman but is willing to sacri-fice his own happiness for what he believes is thehappiness of the woman who has waited fourteenyears for him to return from Australia. Yet, there issomething cowardly about Joe, too. He is unable totell Louisa the truth about his feelings even whenshe has told him she no longer wishes to getmarried.

Choices and ConsequencesOne important theme in Mary Wilkins Free-

man's "A New England Nun" is that of the conse-

Searchfor SelfLouisa Ellis moves toward greater self-knowl-

edge through the course of the story's action. In the



Topics forFurther

StudyMary Wilkins Freeman is known for her accurateportrayals of rural New England life during thelate nineteenth century. Research urban life dur-ing the same time period (roughly 1880 to 1900)and compare the two. You may wish to read afew of her other short stories from her collectionsA Humble Romance and Other Stories and ANew England Nun and Other Stories in order toget a more complete picture of rural life.

Most historians consider the major forces thatshaped the nineteenth century in America tohave been the Civil War and Reconstruction,urbanization and industrialization, European im-migration, and the expansion westward, includ-ing the building of the intercontinental railroadand the gold rushes of 1849 through 1899. Pickone of these factors and research its impact onAmerican life. Can you find evidence of thisimpact reflected in ' 'A New England Nun'' orother stories by Mary Wilkins Freeman? Are westill feeling the impact of this factor today?

Mary Wilkins Freeman claimed that one of thethings she was interested in exploring in hershort stories was the legacy of Puritanism in New

England. Do some research on Puritanism, per-haps on the impact of the Great Awakening, thePuritan revival that swept New England in 1740-42. You may read one or two Puritan sermons,such as the famous Sinners in the Hands of anAngry God, by Jonathan Edwards. What tracesof Puritanism can you find in ' 'A New EnglandNun," other stories by Mary Wilkins Freeman,or works by other New England writers such asNathaniel Hawthorne or Emily Dickinson? Ifyou are familiar with New England culture to-day, what traces of Puritanism still remain?

Since the 1970s, feminist historians have beeninterested in Mary Wilkins Freeman's short sto-ries for their portrayal of women's lives in ruralpost-Civil War New England. Do some researchto find out what kind of lives women led in NewEngland and in other parts of the United States,such as the South and the West, in the latter partof the nineteenth century. What kinds of attitudesabout women prevailed? What regional differ-ences do you find? What differences betweenurban life and rural? How much have women'slives or attitudes about women changed today?

beginning we see a person who, while sweet andserene, is the very model of passivity. She agreed tomarry Joe Dagget because her mother advised her todo so. She waited patiently for him for fourteenyears without once complaining or thinking ofmarrying someone else. And when he returns andshe discovers she does not love him and does notwant to get married, she plans to go through with itanyway because she doesn't want to hurt Joe. Shefinally breaks off the engagement a week before thewedding; but even then she does so because shefinds out Joe is in love with Lily, not because shedecides to assert her own will. However, she doesrealize, after coming so close to sacrificing herfreedom, how much she cherishes her' 'serenity andplacid narrowness." While it is true Louisa has only

returned to the passive life she has been leading allthese years, she returns to it as a result of activechoice—perhaps the one active choice she has madein her whole life. In making this choice, she haschosen her self and her own "vision" of life.

Duty and ResponsibilityDuty and responsibility are important themes in

"A New England Nun" and they were importantissues for the New England society Freeman por-trays. People were expected to be self-sacrificingand to put responsibility, especially to family orcommunity, ahead of personal happiness. Freemanshows us, however, that too rigid a definition ofduty can be dangerous. Both Louisa and Joe arewilling to go through with a marriage neither of

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them really wants any longer because of a sense ofduty. It is to this same notion of duty that Lily referswhen she says "Honor's honor, an' right's right."Adhering to this rigid notion of duty and responsi-bility would make three people miserable and ac-complish nothing worthwhile.

Flesh vs. SpiritThe conflict between flesh and spirit is a theme

that runs through "A New England Nun" and isdepicted through a variety of striking images. Loui-sa's solitary life is largely a life of the spirit, or, asshe says, of "sensibility." It is contrasted with thelife of the flesh as represented by marriage which, ofcourse, implies sexuality. Throughout the story wefind pairs of images that stand for the conflictbetween the two. The sexually suggestive "luxuri-ant" wild growth, all "woven and tangled togeth-er," where fruit is ripening, is contrasted withLouisa's carefully clipped and controlled little vegeta-ble garden where she grows cool lettuce that shecuts up daintily for her meals. The "order andcleanliness" and "purity" of her home are con-trasted with the "disorder and confusion" she im-agines represent married life. Indeed she actuallysweeps away Joe Dagget's tracks after he has beenin her house, symbolically trying to keep at bay allthat he represents. And finally, we have Louisasitting placidly once again at her window sewing atthe end of the story while Lily Dyer walks pastoutside. Louisa is as contained as her canary in itscage or her old yellow dog on his chain, an"uncloistered nun" who "prayerfully" numbersher days. Lily is outside with the ' 'busy harvest ofmen and birds and bees" and she is "erect andblooming" in the "fervid summer afternoon." Lilyhas, of course, embraced the very life Louisa hasrejected. She will marry Joe in Louisa's place.

Style

SettingThis story about a woman who finds, after

waiting for her betrothed for fourteen years, that sheno longer wants to get married, is set in a smallvillage in nineteenth-century New England. Criticshave often remarked that the setting is particular butalso oddly universal as are the themes Freemanchooses to treat. This village is populated withpeople we might meet nearly anywhere in ru-ral America.

Point of View"A New England Nun" is told in the third

person, omniscient narration. That is, the narrator isnot one of the characters of the story yet appears toknow everything or nearly everything about thecharacters, including, at times, their thoughts. Forexample, the narrator tells us that, after leavingLouisa's house, Joe Dagget "felt much as an inno-cent and perfectly well-intentioned bear might afterhis exit from a china shop."

SymbolismIn general terms, a symbol is a literary devise

used to represent, signal or evoke something else.For example, a fading red rose might be used tosymbolize the fading of a romance. Like NathanielHawthorne, to whom she has been compared, Free-man was adept at using symbolism in her shortstories; but her touch is lighter than Hawthorne's.

There are many symbols in ' 'A New EnglandNun.'' For example, the chained dog Caesar and thecanary that Louisa keeps in a cage both representher own hermit-like way of life, surrounded by a"hedge of lace." The alarm the canary showswhenever Joe Dagget comes to visit is furtheremblematic of Louisa's own fear of her impendingmarriage.

There is a great deal of symbolism associatedwith nature and plant life in this story. The eveningLouisa goes for a walk and overhears Joe and Lilytalking it is harvest time—symbolizing the richfertility and vitality that Lily and Joe represent.Louisa, however, feels oppressed by the sexuallysuggestive "luxuriant" late summer growth, "allwoven together and tangled;" and she is sad as shecontemplates her impending marriage even thoughthere is a "mysterious sweetness" in the air. Thetumultuous growth of the wild plants reminds us ofand contrasts with Louisa's own garden, which istidy, orderly and carefully controlled.

Louisa sits amid all this wild growth and gazesthrough a "little clear space" at the moon. Themoon is a symbol of chastity; Diana, the Romangoddess of the moon, was a chaste goddess. Louisawill later choose to continue her solitary and virgin-al, but peaceful life rather than tolerate the disorderand turmoil she believes married life would bring.Lily, on the other hand, embraces that life; and she isdescribed as "blooming," associating her with thefertile wild growth of summer.



RealismFreeman's work is known for its realism—a

kind of writing that attempts to represent ordinarylife as it really is, rather than representing heroic,fantastic, or melodramatic events. Realism, as aliterary movement, began in America following theCivil War. The disruption of the war, followed bythe Reconstruction of the South and widespreadurbanization and industrialization greatly changedthe way America looked at itself and, in turn, alteredliterary models. The romantic approach of the earli-er generation of writers, represented by Hawthorne,Melville and Poe, gave way to a new realism.Prominent writers of the Realist movement wereMark Twain, Henry James, and William DeanHowells. Freeman can be further classified as alocal color writer along with Bret Harte, Sarah OrneJewett, and Kate Chopin, who wrote about life inCalifornia, Maine, and Louisiana respectively.

Writing StyleMary Wilkins Freeman has frequently been

praised by critics for her economical, direct writingstyle. She uses short, concise sentences and wasteslittle time on detailed descriptions. Her charactersare sketched with a few strong, simple strokes of thepen. For example, the reader never really learnswhat Louisa Ellis looks like, but it does not matter tothe story. We know what we need to know to keepus interested and to keep the story moving. Freemanis also known for her dry, often ironic sense ofhumor. One critic has called it "pungent." It is thekind of subtle humor that makes us smile rather thanlaugh aloud. Freeman's portrait of Caesar, the sleepyand quite harmless old yellow dog that everyonethinks is terribly ferocious, is a good example of herhumorous touch. Freeman tells us "St. George'sdragon could hardly have surpassed in evil reputeLouisa Ellis's old yellow dog." It doesn't matterthat Caesar has not harmed anyone in fourteenyears. The mere fact that he is chained makes peoplebelieve he is dangerous. "Caesar at large mighthave seemed a very ordinary dog" she writes,' 'chained, his reputation overshadowed him, so thathe lost his own proper outlines and looked darklyvague and ominous."

Historical Context

Religion and EconomicsMary Wilkins Freeman wrote most of her best-

known short stories in the 1880s and 1890s. They

provide a unique snapshot of a particular time andplace in American history. The small towns of post-Civil War New England were often desolate places.The war itself, combined with urbanization, indus-trialization, and westward expansion, had takenmost of the young able-bodied men out of theregion. The remaining population was largely fe-male and elderly. Women like Louisa Ellis, whowaited many years for husbands, brothers, fathersand boyfriends to return from the West or otherplaces they had gone to seek jobs, were not uncom-mon. The area was suffering from economic depres-sion and many were forced to leave to supportthemselves and their families. There were manywidows from the war, too, often living hand-to-mouth and trying to keep up appearances. Alsocommon were the New England spinsters or oldmaids—women who, because of the shortage ofmen or for other reasons, never married. They werenumerous enough that they contributed to the mak-ing of a stereotype we all recognize today.

Freeman knew these New England villages andtheir inhabitants intimately, and she used them asmaterial for her many short stories. She said she wasinterested in exploring the New England characterand the strong, often stubborn, New England will.

New England was settled by the Puritans dur-ing the early years of colonization in America.Vestiges of Puritanism remained in New Englandculture in Freeman's day and still remain today.Freeman often said that she was interested in ex-ploring how people of the region had been shapedby the legacy of Puritanism. This is another ques-tion she examines in many of her short stories. In"A New England Nun" we can see traces ofPuritanism in the rigid moral code by which Louisa,Joe and Lily are bound. Even if it makes themunhappy, Louisa and Joe both feel obligated to gothrough with their marriage because of a sense ofduty. Lily echoes this same sense when she says shewould never marry Joe if he went back on hispromise to Louisa.

Women in the Nineteenth CenturyAnother aspect of nineteenth-century culture—

not just in New England, but throughout the UnitedStates—that we find reflected in Mary WilkinsFreeman's short stories is that culture's attitudetoward women. While contemporary readers mayfind Louisa's extreme passivity surprising, it wasnot unusual for a woman of her time. "Calm docili-ty" and a "sweet, even temperament'' were consid-ered highly desirable traits in a woman. We can see

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A New England Nun

Compare&

Contrast1890s: Women are faced with limited political,legal, and social options.

1990s: Women are an important part of thepolitical process. Candidates struggle to attractthe female vote, and women's issues are centralto many political platforms.

1890s: Realism is a popular literary style, re-flecting changing American concerns in the twen-tieth century. Short stories gain popularity as aliterary genre.

1990s: Short stories remain popular, and Ameri-can literature is rich with fine examples of theshort fiction genre. With the advent of the twen-ty-first century, realism also remains a viableliterary form.

1890s: Since in many areas of the United States

women outnumbered men, spinsterhood was notuncommon. The declining male population canbe attributed to the Civil War, other armedconflicts, and westward expansion. To remainsingle was a serious social stigma for women, asit was believed that a woman's primary duty wasto marry and have children.

1990s: Although marriage remains a goal ofmost young American men and women, manyfemales in the late twentieth century often choosenot to marry. A myriad of social and financialopportunities have lessened the stigma of re-maining single. Divorce rates have skyrocketedin the past few decades, making marriage a lessdesirable option for many men and women.

that Louisa has learned these traits from her mother;and in fact, many parents raised their daughters tobe much like Louisa.

Although things were beginning to change inlarger towns and cities in America, in rural areasthere were not many occupations open to women.As a result, while marriage was considered the mostnatural and desirable goal for women, it was ofteneconomically necessary as well. The skills a womanlike Louisa acquired—cooking, sewing, garden-ing—from her own mother rather than from formaleducation, were intended to prepare her for a role aswife and mother. For many women like Louisa, theidea of not marrying was almost too outlandish toconsider. Like Louisa they had been taught toexpect to marry, and there were few if any attractivealternatives available to them. To turn down achance to marry was considered both unnatural andfoolhardy.

RealismOne important artistic influence on Freeman's

work was realism. The same turbulent forces that

shaped much of nineteenth-century American cul-ture—the Civil War, the Reconstruction of theSouth, the industrial revolution—also affected liter-ary tastes. Readers no longer liked the fanciful andheroic works of romanticism. Instead they wantedliterature that reflected life as it truly was. WilliamDean Howells was one of the important novelists inthis country to champion realism. Others were Hen-ry James and Mark Twain. Howells was a friend andmentor to Mary Wilkins Freeman. However, it ispossible Freeman would have been a realist even ifshe had not known Howells. Realism was in vogueand realistic short stories were what sold.

Critical Overview

Freeman's reputation was built upon herunsentimental and realistic portrayals of the ruralnineteenth-century New England life. She was knownfor her ironic sense of humor and the idiosyncraticand colorful characters who populate her stories.Writing for Harper's New Monthly Magazine in



September of 1887, William Dean Howells, a life-time friend, mentor, and fan of Freeman, praised herfirst volume of short stories, A Humble Romanceand Other Stories, for its "absence of literosity"and its "directness and simplicity."

An anonymous critic who reviewed A NewEngland Nun and Other Stories for the AtlanticMonthly in 1891 noted Freeman's "short economi-cal sentences, with no waste and no niggardliness,''her "passion for brevity, her power for packing awhole story in a phrase, a word," and her "fineartistic sense." This critic found the short story "ANew England Nun'' particularly remarkable for itsrealism and praised the "novelty, yet truthfulness"of Freeman's portraiture. Later critics have tendedto agree with Howells and the Atlantic Monthlycritic, lauding Freeman's economy of prose, herrealism, and her insight into her characters.

In this century, most critics have continued todeem ' 'A New England Nun'' as one of Freeman'sbest works, but they have valued it for new reasons.Since the 1920s, psychoanalytic criticism, based onthe theories of Sigmund Freud, has become popular.With their revealing character sketches, her shortstories have lent themselves well to this type ofcriticism. Perry Westbrook, in his book Acres ofFlint, declared that Freeman's work reveals a ' 'psy-chological insight hitherto unknown in New Eng-land literature with the exception of Hawthorne."' 'A New England Nun'' and the character of Louisahave attracted a great deal of attention from psycho-analytic critics. Most of them tend to read Louisa asa person who has repressed her sexual side. LarzerZiff, Jay Martin, and Perry Westbrook, for examplehave all read "A New England Nun" as a psycho-logical study of a woman who has become sonarrow as to be unfit for normal life.

Beginning in the 1970s, feminist critics andhistorians began to take an interest in Freeman'swork for its depiction of the lives of women in post-Civil War New England. As a result, "A NewEngland Nun" has been reevaluated and a debatehas arisen between feminists, represented by thecritic Marjorie Pryse, and more traditional criticssuch as Martin, Edward Foster, and Westbrook,over the interpretation of the character of Louisa.Pryse takes issue with these critics for seeing Louisaas a portrait of sterility and passivity. Pryse inter-prets her instead as a heroic character who dares toreject the traditional role society offers her—that ofwife and mother—for a life she has defined forherself, albeit within the narrow range of choices

Priscilla Alden, leaning against awooden fence and sewing on material,presenting a picture similar to LouisaEllis in ' 'A New England Nun.''

available to a woman of her class in the nineteenthcentury.

Criticism

Deborah M. WilliamsWilliams is an instructor in the Writing Pro-

gram at Rutgers University. In the following essay,

Volume 8 299


WhatDo I Read

Next?Other short stories of note by Mary WilkinsFreeman include "Sister Liddy," a story aboutwomen living in the poorhouse, "A ConflictEnded," in which a stubborn parishioner refusesto enter the church, sitting on the steps instead,because he disagrees with the hiring of the newminister.

Kate Chopin's short novel The Awakening (1899)chronicles the story of a young mother in Louisi-ana who leaves her husband and children insearch of her own identity and later commitssuicide. Like Freeman, Chopin has caught theattention of feminist critics and historians for herdepiction of women's lives at the end of the lastcentury.

Carolyn Chute's novel The Beans of Egypt,Maine (1985) is an example of a recent work thatcontinues the local color realist tradition. It tellsof the poor and eccentric inhabitants of a smallrural town in north-central Maine.

Charlotte Perkins Oilman's social analysis, Wom-

en and Economics (1898), contends that thesexual and maternal roles of nineteenth-centurywomen were overemphasized and their true po-tential neglected.

Thomas Gray's 1751 poem "An Elegy Writtenin a Country Church Yard" meditates on theunrealized potential of the rural people buried ina cemetery. Many, he suggests, may have pos-sessed artistic talent or other gifts stunted byignorance or lack of opportunity. Critics havenoted that the opening to "A New EnglandNun" seems to echo the opening to this poem.

Sarah Orne Jewell's collection of short sloriesThe Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) is regard-ed by most critics as her finest work. A localcolorist and a contemporary of Mary WilkinsFreeman, Jewett wrote aboul aging Maine na-tives trying to preserve Ihe values of ihe pasl in adying small town. Critics often compare Free-man and Jewell.

she views Louisa as a woman who has made themost of the limited opportunities open to her andhas channeled her creative impulses into the every-day activities of her simple life.

A number of critics have noted that the openingparagraph of Mary Wilkins Freeman's "A NewEngland Nun" very closely echoes the firsl slanzaof English poel Thomas Gray's famous "ElegyWritten in a Counlry Churchyard": The curfewlolls Ihe knell of parting day, / The lowing herd windslowly o'er ihe lea, / The plowman homeward plodshis weary way, / And leaves the world to darknessand to me. In Gray's poem, written in the eighteenthcentury, the speaker wonders if the rural churchyardmighl conlain Ihe remains of people who had greallalenls lhat became stunted or went unrealized andunrecognized because of poverty, ignorance andlack of opportunity. He muses thai "some mule

inglorious Milton" might be buried there—some-one who possessed the talent of seventeenlh-cenlu-ry poel John Millon, bul who remains ' 'inglorious''(or wilhoul glory) because lack of education madeIhem mule. Freeman closes her slory in Ihe sameway she opens it. Louisa Ellis is sewing peacefullyat her window in the lale afternoon light Thus Iheopening and closing passages, wilh Iheir allusionslo Gray's elegy, stand as a sort of frame for the storyilself, giving us a key lo one possible interrelation.

As Marjorie Pryse has demonslrated in heressay "An Uncloistered 'New England Nun,'"Louisa Ellis is a woman wilh artistic impulses. Shehas "almosl ihe enlhusiasm of an artisl over themere order and cleanliness of her solitary home"and has polished her windows "until ihey shonelike jewels." Even her lettuce is "raised lo perfec-tion" and she occupies herself in summer "dislil-



ling the sweet and aromatic essences from roses andpeppermint and spearmint'' simply for the pleasureof it. Louisa might have been an artist had hersociety provided her with the tools and opportunity.Lacking these, she has funneled her creative im-pulse into the only outlet available to her. She hasmade her life her life's work. Lacking paints, shehas made her life like a series of still-life paintingsof "delicate harmony." Before the artist can beginto create, however, she needs a blank canvas or aclean sheet of paper.

As Perry Westbrook has noted, Louisa's life issymbolized by her dog, Caesar, chained to his littlehut, and her canary in its cage. She has become ahermit, surrounded by a "hedge of lace." Hercanary goes into a panic whenever Joe Daggetvisits, representing Louisa's own fears of whatmarriage might bring; and Louisa trembles whenev-er she thinks of Joe's promise to set Caesar free.Like her dog and her bird she does not participate inthe life of the community. Instead, she watches fromher window. We might interpret Louisa's life, herdog's chain, and her canary's cage as emblems ofimprisonment, as does Westbrook; but they are alsodefenses. Caesar's ominous-looking chain keepsthe outside world away more than it restrains thedog since the dog has no desire to go anywhere. Andthe canary's cage gives it a safe place to live.Likewise Louisa has found freedom in her solitarylife. Just as she finds a "little clear space" amongthe tangles of wild growth that make her feel ' 'shutin" when she goes out for her walk that fatefulevening, Louisa has cleared a space for herself,through her solitary, hermit-like existence, insidewhich she is free to do as she wishes. The space-clearing gesture is a prerequisite to her creativity.

Although conditions were changing slowly,women in the nineteenth century did not have manyvocational options available to them. Many of themreceived only a grade school education and thenlearned the rest of what was deemed necessary forthem to know from practical experience in thehome. Louisa, like her mother before her, learned tosew, cook, and garden in preparation for what wassupposed to be her vocation as wife and mother. Shewas not taught to be a painter or musician. Hence,she channels her creative impulses into these otheractivities instead.

Critics have made much of the "narrowness"of Louisa's life. Some see it as the very emblem ofsterility and barrenness; yet these interpretationssurely overlook the fact that the community itself is

Critics who have seen

Louisa's life as sterile are

perhaps making the sexist

mistake of assuming that the

only kind of fertility a

woman can have is the

sexual kind,"

narrow. Here is a town that disapproves of even somuch individuality as Louisa's use of her goodchina. A rigid code of ethics is in operation here—one that dictates that Caesar must be chained for lifebecause of one reckless act. Lily and Joe, for alltheir vitality and vigor, show themselves to bebound by this same narrowness. Joe determines togo through with a marriage to a woman he no longerloves because he is bound by a rigid sense of duty.Lily vows that she will not marry Joe even if hebreaks off his engagement to Louisa because "hon-or's honor, an' right's right." Without Louisa'sintervention three people would be made miserablefor the rest of their lives—all for the sake of duty.Louisa is the one who proves herself capable ofstepping outside the narrow code. She alone is ableto improvise an ending other than the "inevitableconclusion" the others see and a life for herselfother than the one prescribed by her community.Her artistic sensibility allows her to provide asubjective, personal answer to what the rigid Puri-tan code of behavior sees as an objective question ofright and wrong.

Furthermore, narrowness is not the same thingas sterility—or it need not be. Critics who have seenLouisa's life as sterile are perhaps making the sexistmistake of assuming that the only kind of fertility awoman can have is the sexual kind. Because Louisachooses not to marry and reproduce, she is thendeemed "barren." These critics have overlookedthe richness inherent in Louisa's deliberate life. Shemeditates as a nun might. She distills "essences,"which, as Pryse has noted, implies extracting themost significant part of life. Louisa "would havebeen loathe to confess how often she had ripped aseam for the mere delight of sewing it togetheragain." When she sets her table for tea, it takes her a

V o l u m e 8 3 0 1


long time because she does it "with as much graceas if she had been a veritable guest to her own self."She uses the good china, not out of ostentation(there's no one to impress, anyway), but out of adesire to get the most out of what she has. She haslearned to value the process of living just as highlyas the product. All her movements are "slow andstill" and careful and deliberate and she savorsevery moment "prayerfully."

Critics have also made much of Louisa's pas-sivity. We need to be careful about using twentieth-century values to judge a nineteenth-century hero-ine. In the nineteenth century, passivity, "calmdocility," and a "sweet even temperament" wereconsidered highly desirable traits in a woman. Par-ents raised their daughters to be this way; and wecan see that Louisa has learned these traits from hermother (who "talked wisely to her daughter") justas she has learned to sew and cook. Louisa ispassive because that is what her society has madeher. She is not, however, completely without voli-tion. She does choose not to marry, even if only tocontinue her placid and passive life. The choice isan act that, as Marjorie Pryse rightly points out, setsher at odds with her community and requires somebravery on her part. Louisa would surely have beenaware of the social stigma associated with being anold maid.

While we can not know Mary Wilkins Free-man's intentions in writing "A New England Nun,"we do know she understood what it meant to be asingle woman and an artist in nineteenth-centuryNew England. She herself did not marry until theage of fifty. And while we can not know howFreeman really felt about Louisa's placid and nar-row life, we can note the tone of the story itself.Louisa's life is narrow, partly by her own choiceand partly because her culture leaves her few op-tions. Yet she has managed to craft a rich inner lifewithin this tightly circumscribed space. Like Tho-mas Gray's "mute, inglorious Milton," Louisa'sartistic gifts are somewhat stunted by her lack ofeducation and largely unrecognized by her commu-nity; but they are not entirely unrealized.

Source: Deborah M. Williams, "Overview of 'A NewEngland Nun,'" for Short Stories for Students, The GaleGroup, 2000.

Marjorie PrysePryse offers a feminist reading of "A New

England Nun,'' interpreting Louisa Ellis's rejec-tion of marriage—a conventional, expected role for

a woman of her era—as a positive, self-affirmingchoice to make for herself a way of life that ensuresher the greatest personal happiness and freedom.

In his biography of Mary Wilkins Freeman [MaryE. Wilkins Freeman, 1956], Edward Foster writesthat '"A New England Nun' . . . has been consid-ered Miss Wilkins' definitive study of the NewEngland spinster." Yet because the spinster hastraditionally carried such negative connotations,critics and historians have either phrased their praiseof Freeman as apologies for her "local" or "nar-row" subject matter, or deemed her depiction ofLouisa Ellis in "A New England Nun" as ironic.Jay Martin views her as ' 'an affectionately patheticbut heroic symbol of the rage for passivity." Hejudges that protagonists like her ' 'have no purposeworthy of commitment.... Lacking a heroic socie-ty, Mary Wilkins' heroes are debased; noble inbeing, they are foolish in action" [Harvests ofChange: American Literature, 1865-1914, 1967].Foster concludes that' 'it is precisely the absence ofdesire and striving which is the story's grimly ironicpoint." Pathetic, passive, debased, foolish, lackingin desire or ambition: such a portrait, they imply,invites the reader to shun Louisa Ellis. Definitivestudy though she may be, we are not to admire oremulate her.

When Louisa Ellis reconsiders marriage to JoeDagget, she aligns herself against the values herepresents. Her resulting unconventionality makesit understandably difficult for historians, themselvesthe intellectual and emotional products of a societywhich has long enshrined these values, to view hereither perceptively or sympathetically. For LouisaEllis rejects the concept of manifest destiny and herown mission within it; she establishes her ownhome as the limits of her world, embracing ratherthan fleeing domesticity, discovering in the processthat she can retain her autonomy; and she expandsher vision by preserving her virginity, an actionwhich can only appear if not "foolish" at leastthreatening to her biographers and critics, most ofwhom have been men.

In analyzing "A New England Nun" withoutbias against solitary women, the reader discoversthat within the world Louisa inhabits, she becomesheroic, active, wise, ambitious, and even transcen-dent, hardly the woman Freeman's critics and biog-raphers have depicted. In choosing solitude, Louisacreates an alternative pattern of living for a womanwho possesses, like her, "the enthusiasm of anartist." If she must sacrifice heterosexual fulfill-



ment (a concept current in our own century ratherthan in hers) she does so with full recognition thatshe joins what William Taylor and ChristopherLasch have termed "a sisterhood of sensibility"["Two 'Kindred Spirits': Sorority and Family inNew England, 1839-1846," New England Quar-terly, 36, 1963]. For all of her apparent sexualrepression, her "sublimated fears of defloration"[David H. Hirsch, "Subdued Meaning in 'A NewEngland Nun,' " Studies in Short Fiction, 2, 1965],she discovers that in a world in which sexuality andsensibility mutually exclude each other for women,becoming a hermit like her dog Caesar is the priceshe must pay for vision. "A New England Nun"dramatizes change in Louisa Ellis. A situation shehas long accepted now becomes one she rejects. Thestory focuses on what she stands to lose, and onwhat she gains by her rejection.

Although Louisa's emotion when Joe Daggetcomes home is "consternation," she does not atfirst admit it to herself. "Fifteen years ago she hadbeen in love with him—at least she consideredherself to be. Just at that time, gently acquiescingwith and falling into the natural drift of girlhood,she had seen marriage ahead as a reasonable featureand a probable desirability of life. She had listenedwith calm docility to her mother's views upon thesubject.. . She talked wisely to her daughter whenJoe Dagget presented himself, and Louisa acceptedhim with no hesitation." Wilkins implies in thispassage that the ' 'natural drift of girlhood'' involv-ing eventual marriage does require gentle acquies-cence as well as wise talk from her mother, and thatin taking Joe Dagget as her lover, Louisa hasdemonstrated "calm docility"—as if she has agreedto accept a condition beyond her control. When JoeDagget announces his determination to seek hisfortune in Australia before returning to marry Loui-sa, she assents ' 'with the sweet serenity which neverfailed her''; and during the fourteen years of hisabsence, "she had never dreamed of the possibilityof marrying any one else." Even though "she hadnever felt discontented nor impatient over her lov-er's absence, still she had always looked forward tohis return and their marriage as the inevitable con-clusion of things." Conventional in her expecta-tions as in her acquiescence to inevitability, howev-er, she has yet placed eventual marriage ' 'so far inthe future that it was almost equal to placing it overthe boundaries of another life." Therefore whenJoe Dagget returns unexpectedly, she is ' 'as muchsurprised and taken aback as if she had neverthought of it."

Given the nature of Joe Dagget's departure, andthat of other men of the region after the Civil Warwho went West or moved to the cities, individuallyenacting the male population's sense of manifestdestiny, Louisa Ellis chose a positive course ofaction in making her solitude a source of happiness.For Joe Dagget would have stayed in Australia untilhe made his fortune. ' 'He would have stayed fiftyyears if it had taken so long, and come home feebleand tottering, or never come home at all, to marryLouisa." Her place in such an engagement, inwhich ' 'they had seldom exchanged letters,'' was towait and to change as little as possible. Joe Daggetmight return or he might not; and either way, Louisamust not regret the passing of years. Within such anarrow prescription for socially acceptable behav-ior, "much had happened" even though Joe Dagget,when he returns, finds Louisa ' 'changed but little.""Greatest happening of all—a subtle happeningwhich both were too simple to understand—Loui-sa's feet had turned into a path, smooth maybeunder a calm, serene sky, but so straight andunswerving that it could only meet a check at hergrave, so narrow that there was no room for any oneat her side." In appearing to accept her long wait,she has actually made a turn away from the "oldwinds of romance" which had "never more thanmurmured" for her anyway. Now, when she sewswedding clothes, she listens with ' 'half-wistful at-tention" to the stillness which she must soonleave behind.

For she has no doubt that she will lose, not gain,in marrying Joe Dagget. She knows, first, that shemust lose her own house. "Joe could not desert hismother, who refused to leave her old home... .Every morning, rising and going about among herneat maidenly possessions, she felt as one lookingher last upon the faces of dear friends. It was truethat in a measure she could take them with her, but,robbed of their old environments, they would ap-pear in such new guises that they would almostcease to be themselves." Marriage will force her torelinquish "some peculiar features of her happysolitary life." She knows that "there would be alarge house to care for; there would be company toentertain; there would be Joe's rigorous and feebleold mother to wait upon." Forced to leave herhouse, she will symbolically have to yield her worldas well as her ability to exert control within it.

She will also lose the freedom to express her-self in her own art. She possesses a still with whichshe extracts ' 'the sweet and aromatic essences from

V o l u m e 8 303

A New England Nun

roses and peppermint and spearmint. By-and-by herstill must be laid away." In Perry Westbrook'sview, this still symbolizes "what her passivity hasdone to her.'' In distilling essences ' 'for no foresee-able use,'' she ' 'has done no less than permit herselfto become unfitted for life" [Mary Wilkins Free-man, 1967]. Such an interpretation misses the artis-tic value, for Louisa, of her achievement in manag-ing to extract the very ' 'essences" from life itself—not unlike her fellow regionalist's apple-picker ("Es-sence of winter sleep is on the night/ The scent ofapples . . . "). Her art expresses itself in variousways.' 'Louisa dearly loved to sew a linen seam, notalways for use, but for the simple, mild pleasurewhich she took in it." Even in her table-setting, sheachieves artistic perfection. Unlike her neighbors,Louisa uses her best china instead of "commoncrockery" every day—not as a mark of ostentation,but as an action which enables her to live "with asmuch grace as if she had been a veritable guest toher own self." Yet she knows that Joe's mother andJoe himself will "laugh and frown down all thesepretty but senseless old maiden ways."

She seems to fear that the loss of her art willmake her dangerous, just as she retains "greatfaith'' in the ferocity of her dog Caesar, who has' 'lived at the end of a chain, all alone in a little hut,for fourteen years" because he once bit a neighbor.Louisa keeps him chained because "she pictured toherself Caesar on the rampage... she saw innocentchildren bleeding in his path...." In spite of thefact that he looks docile, and Joe Dagget claims'''There ain't a better-natured dog in town,"' Loui-sa believes in his "youthful spirits," just as shecontinues to believe in her own. Louisa fears thatJoe Dagget will unchain Caesar—'"Some day I'mgoing to take him out,"' he asserts. Should he do so,Louisa fears losing her vision rather than her vir-ginity. Caesar, to Louisa, is a dog with a visionwhich, as long as he is chained, he retains, at least inhis reputation: ' 'Caesar at large might have seemeda very ordinary dog, and excited no comment what-soever; chained, his reputation overshadowed him,so that he lost his own proper outlines and lookeddarkly vague and enormous." Only Louisa sensesthat setting the dog free would turn him into a ' 'veryordinary dog," just as emerging from her own' 'hut'' after fourteen years and marrying Joe Daggetwould transform her, as well, into a "very ordi-nary" woman—yet a woman whose inner life wouldbe in danger. Louisa "looked at the old dog munch-ing his simple fare, and thought of her approachingmarriage and trembled."

In addition, because the name Caesar evokes anhistorical period in which men dominated women,in keeping Caesar chained Louisa exerts her owncontrol over masculine forces which threaten herautonomy. David Hirsch reads "A New EnglandNun" as Louisa's "suppression of the Dionysian"in herself, a Jungian conflict between order anddisorder, sterility and fertility. He concludes thatCaesar's continuing imprisonment "can be viewedas a symbolic castration," apparently of Louisaherself. To a point, the story appears to justifyHirsch's assertions, for Caesar's first entrance in thestory visually evokes phallic power: ' 'There was alittle rush, and the clank of a chain, and a largeyellow-and-white dog appeared at the door of histiny hut, which was half hidden among the tallgrasses and flowers." Yet Caesar emerges from hishut because Louisa has brought him food. If theimage involves castration, it portrays Louisa intactand only masculine dominance in jeopardy.

Ambiguous images of sexuality abound in thisstory, sedate as Louisa's life appears to be. Whenshe finishes feeding Caesar and returns inside herhouse, she removes a "green gingham apron, dis-closing a shorter one of pink and white print."Shortly she hears Joe Dagget on the front walk,removes the pink and white apron, and ' 'under thatwas still another—white linen with a little cambricedging on the bottom." She wears not one but threeaprons, each one suggesting symbolic if not actualdefense of her own virginity. When Dagget visits,' 'he felt as if surrounded by a hedge of lace. He wasafraid to stir lest he should put a clumsy foot or handthrough the fairy web, and he had always theconsciousness that Louisa was watching fearfullylest he should." The visual image of clumsy handbreaking the "fairy web" of lace like the cambricedging on Louisa's company apron suggests onceagain that Louisa's real fear is Joe's dominancerather than her own sexuality. Joe, when he leaves,' 'felt much as an innocent and perfectly well-inten-tioned bear might after his exit from a china shop."Louisa ' 'felt much as the kind-hearted, long-suffer-ing owner of the china shop might have done afterthe exit of the bear." In Joe's absence she replacesthe additional two aprons, as if to protect herselffrom his disturbing presence, and sweeps up thedust he has tracked in. When she imagines marryingJoe, she has visions of "coarse masculine belong-ings strewn about in endless litter; of dust anddisorder arising necessarily from a coarse mascu-line presence in the midst of all this delicateharmony."


A New England Nun

Taylor and Lasch discuss the nineteenth-centu-ry myth of the purity of women in a way whichexplains some of Louisa's rejection of Joe Daggetand marriage itself.

The myth itself was yet another product of socialdisintegration, of the disintegration of the family inparticular. It represented a desperate effort to find inthe sanctity of women, the sanctity of motherhood andthe Home, the principle which would hold not onlythe family but society together.

When Louisa waits patiently during fourteenyears for a man who may or may not ever return, sheis outwardly acceding to the principle by whichwomen in New England provided their society witha semblance of integration. However, as Taylor andLasch continue,

the cult of women and the Home contained contradic-tions that tended to undermine the very things theywere supposed to safeguard. Implicit in the myth wasa repudiation not only of heterosexuality but of do-mesticity itself. It was her purity, contrasted with thecoarseness of men, that made woman the head of theHome (although not of the family) and the guardian ofpublic morality. But that same purity made inter-course between men and women at last almost literal-ly impossible and drove women to retreat almostexclusively into the society of their own sex, toabandon the very Home which it was their appointedmission to preserve.

Louisa Ellis certainly repudiates masculinecoarseness along with domesticity—for while with-in her own home she maintains order with the"enthusiasm of an artist," in Joe Dagget's house,supervised by a mother-in-law, she would find"sterner tasks" than her own "graceful but half-needless ones." In rejecting Joe Dagget, then, in thephrasing of Taylor and Lasch, she abandons herappointed mission.

Freeman goes farther than Taylor and Lasch,however, in demonstrating that Louisa Ellis also hasa tangible sense of personal loss in anticipating hermarriage. One evening about a week before herwedding, Louisa takes a walk under the full moonand sits down on a wall. ' 'Tall shrubs of blueberryvines and meadow-sweet, all woven together andtangled with blackberry vines and horsebriers, shuther in on either side. She had a little clear spacebetween them. Opposite her, on the other side of theroad, was a spreading tree; the moon shone betweenits boughs, and the leaves twinkled like silver. Theroad was bespread with a beautiful shifting dappleof silver and shadow; the air was full of mysterioussweetness.'' As she sits on the wall "shut in'' by thetangle of sweet shrubs mixed with vines and briers,with her own' 'little clear space between them," she

herself becomes an image of inviolate female sexu-ality. However, what she looks at "with mildlysorrowful reflectiveness" is not physical but imagi-native mystery. Within the protection of the wovenbriers, Louisa's ability to transform perception intovision remains intact. What might be described asembattled virginity from a masculine point of viewbecomes Louisa's expression of her autonomoussensibility.

Therefore when she overhears Joe Dagget talk-ing with Lily Dyer, "a girl full of a calm rusticstrength and bloom, with a masterful way whichmight have beseemed a princess,'' and realizes thatthey are infatuated with each other, she feels free atlast to break off her engagement, "like a queen who,after fearing lest her domain be wrested away fromher, sees it firmly insured in her possession." Free-man writes, ' 'If Louisa Ellis had sold her birthrightshe did not know it, the taste of the pottage was sodelicious, and had been her sole satisfaction for solong." In rejecting marriage to Joe Dagget, Louisafeels "fairly steeped in peace." She gains a tran-scendent selfhood, an identity which earns her mem-bership in a "sisterhood of sensibility."

In the story's final moment, she sees "a longreach of future days strung together like pearls in arosary,... and her heart went up in thankfulness."Like Caesar on his chain, she remains on her own, asthe rosary's ' 'long reach'' becomes an apotheosis ofthe dog's leash. Outside her window, the summerair is ' 'filled with the sounds of the busy harvest ofmen and birds and bees" from which she hasapparently cut herself off; yet inside, "Louisa sat,prayfully numbering her days, like an uncloisterednun." Freeman's choice of concluding image—that Louisa is both nun-like in her solitude yet"uncloistered" by her decision not to marry JoeDagget—documents the author's perception that inmarriage Louisa would have sacrificed more thanshe would have gained. If the ending of "A NewEngland Nun'' is ironic, it is only so in the sense thatLouisa, in choosing to keep herself chained to herhut, has thrown off society's fetters. The enthusiasmwith which Louisa has transformed "graceful" if' 'half-needless'' activity into vision and with whichshe now "numbers" her days—with an aural punon poetic meter by which Freeman metaphoricallyexpands Louisa's art—would have been proscribedfor her after her marriage. Such vision is more thancompensatory for Louisa's celibacy. Louisa's choiceof solitude, her new "long reach," leaves herironically "uncloistered"—and imaginatively fre-er, in her society, than she would otherwise have been.

V o l u m e S 305


In looking exclusively to masculine themes likemanifest destiny or the flight from domesticity ofour literature's Rip Van Winkle, Natty Bumppo,and Huckleberry Finn, literary critics and historianshave overlooked alternative paradigms for Ameri-can experience. The very chaos which the challengeof the frontier for American men brought to the livesof American women also paradoxically led thesewomen, in nineteenth-century New England, tomake their own worlds and to find them in manyways, as Louisa Ellis does, better than the one themen had left. The world Louisa found herself inhab-iting, after the departure of Joe Dagget for Australia,allowed her to develop a vision stripped of itsmasculine point of view which goes unnoticed—both in her own world, where Joe returns to find her"little changed," and in literary history, which tooquickly terms her and her contemporaries sterilespinsters. Yet Louisa Ellis achieves the visionarystature of a "New England nun," a woman whodefends her power to ward off chaos just as stronglyas nineteenth-century men defended their own de-sires to "light out for the territories." The "NewEngland nun," together with her counterpart inanother Freeman story, "The Revolt of 'Mother,'"establishes a paradigm for American experiencewhich makes the lives of nineteenth-century womenfinally just as manifest as those of the men whoseconquests fill the pages of our literary history.

Source: Marjorie Pryse, "An Uncloistered 'New EnglandNun,"' in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 20, No. 4, Fall, 1983,pp. 289-95.

Jay MartinIn the following excerpt, Martin discusses promi-

nent symbols in ' 'A New England Nun'' and assertsthat the character of Louisa Ellis is meant to be asymbol of quiescent passivity.

In her best stories Mary Wilkins has an admirablecontrol of her art . . . . Her best story is undoubtedly"A New England Nun." Louisa Ellis, the "NewEngland Nun'' who has been waiting fourteen yearsfor her lover, Joe Dagget, to return from making hisfortune in Australia, is shocked by his masculinepresence—which now seems crude to her—whenhe finally comes back to claim her hand. For, in theintervening years, she has ' 'turned into a path. . . sostraight and unswerving that it could only meet acheck at her grave": unwittingly she has becomeanother in the tradition of New England solitaries.Her path is described by the adverbs modifying herunconscious modes of action—"peacefully sew-

ing," "folded precisely," "cut up daintily."...Into this delicately ordered world, Joe comes bum-bling and shuffling, bringing dust into Louisa'shouse and consternation into her heart. Wheneverhe enters her house, Louisa's canary—the symbolof her delicacy as well as of her imprisonment—awakes and flutters wildly against the bars of hiscage. Joe's masculine vigor is symbolized by a greatyellow dog named Caesar, which Louisa has chainedin her back yard for fourteen years, and fed cornmush and cakes. Joe threatens to turn him loose,which suggests to Louisa a picture of "Caesar onthe rampage through the quiet and unguarded vil-lage." At last, accidentally overhearing Joe andLily Dyer confess their love for each other—whileyet Joe sadly but sternly remains true to Louisa—she gently rejoices that she can release him, andherself, from his vows. In contrast to the wild,luxuriant fertility—the fields ready for harvest, wildcherries, enormous clumps of bushes—surroundingthe scene between Joe and Lily stands the gentlypassive sterility of Louisa's life, who looks forwardto ' 'a long reach of future days strung together likepearls in a rosary." In contrast to the fervid summerpulsating with fish, flesh, and fowl, is Louisa'sprayerful numbering of days in her twilight cloister.

Beginning with the comic stereotype in NewEngland literature of the aging solitary . . . MaryWilkins transmutes Louisa into an affectionate-ly pathetic but heroic symbol of the rage forpassivity....

Source: Jay Martin, "Paradise Lost: Mary E. Wilkins," inHarvests of Change: American Literature 1865-1914, Pren-tice-Hall, Inc., 1967, pp. 148-52.

Abigail Ann HamblenIn the following excerpt, Hamblen comments

on the naturalistic detail of Freeman's first twobooks of short stories and explores her place inAmerican local color fiction of the New Eng-land region.

Mary Wilkins' first two books of adult fiction, AHumble Romance and Other Stories and A NewEngland Nun and Other Stones do much to estab-lish her place in American literature. For these earlycollections are actually source material for anyoneinterested in early nineteenth century American lifeand thought, giving concrete and vivid details of away of life that, presumably dead, still has notice-able repercussions.


A New England Nun

It is true that a good many writers have concen-trated on rural New England: Sarah Orne Jewett,Rose Terry Cooke, Margaret Deland, Alice Brownare only the most nearly typical of these, andperhaps the best known. They had their vogue for atime, Miss Jewett's delicate art earning special (andlasting) respect. And yet Mary Wilkins achievedsomething more. Granville Hicks explains: "Nei-ther [Rose Terry Cooke nor Sarah Orne Jewett],"he says, ' 'made any effective recognition of what-ever was ignoble or sordid or otherwise unpleasantin the life of New England. . . . Mary Wilkins Free-man . . . at least saw that the small town hadsometimes warped its inhabitants... she had an eyefor varieties of character and types of experience hercontemporaries ignored, and her stories made therecord of New England more nearly complete"[The Great Tradition: An Interpretation of Ameri-can Literature Since the Civil War, rev. ed., 1935].

Source: Abigail Ann Hamblen, in The New England Art ofMary E. Wilkins Freeman, The Green Knight Press, 1966,70 p.

Sources

"New England in the Short Story," in The Atlantic Monthly,Vol. 67, No. 6, June, 1891, pp. 845-50.

Foster, Edward. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, HendricksHouse, 1956.

Hirsch, David. "Subdued Meaning in 'A New EnglandNun,'" in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 2, 1965, p. 131.

Howells, William Dean. "Editor's Study," in Harper's NewMonthly Magazine, Vol. 75, No. 448, September, 1887,pp. 638-42.

Martin, Jay. "Paradise Lost: Mary E. Wilkins," in Harvestsof Change: American Literature 1865-1914, Printice-Hall,Inc., 1967.

Pryse, Marjorie. "An Uncloistered 'New England Nun,'" inStudies in Short Fiction, Vol. 20, No. 4, Fall, 1983, pp. 289-95.

Westbrook, Perry. "The Anatomy of the Will: Mary WilkinsFreeman,'' in his Acres of Flint: Sarah Orne Jewett and HerContemporaries, Scarecrow Press, 1981, pp. 86-104.

. "Mary Wilkins Freeman," in Dictionary of LiteraryBiography, Gale Research, Vol. 78, 1989, pp. 159-73.

. Mary Wilkins Freeman, Twayne Publishers, 1988.

Ziff, Larzer. "An Abyss of Inequality: Sarah Orne Jewett,Mary Wilkins Freeman, Kate Chopin," in his American1890s: Life and Times of a Lost Generation, Viking Press,1966, pp. 275- 305.

Further Reading

"New England in the Short Story," in The Atlantic Monthly,Vol. 67, No. 6, June, 1891, pp. 845-50.

Anonymous review of Freeman's second collectionof short stories which praises their realism and her"economical" writing style.

Donovan, Josephine. "Mary Wilkins Freeman," in her NewEngland Local Color Literature: A Woman's Tradition,Frederick Ungar, 1983, pp. 119-38.

A feminist/psychoanalytic interpretation of some ofFreeman's short stories. Of particular note is Dono-van's theory that the death of a mother figure is amajor recurring theme in Freeman's works.

Foster, Edward. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, HendricksHouse, 1956.

A meticulously researched and fairly straightforwardbiography, considered an important work by Freemanscholars.

Hicks, Granville. "A Banjo on My Knee," in his The GreatTradition: An Interpretation of American Literature since theCivil War, Macmillan Publishing Co., 1935, pp. 32-67.

Marxian-influenced commentary upon Freeman's placein the local color tradition.

Hirsch, David. "Subdued Meaning in 'A New EnglandNun,'" in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 2, 1965, p. 131.

A psychoanalytic appraisal that views Louisa as anexample of sexual repression and sublimation.

Howells, William Dean. "Editor's Study," in Harper's NewMonthly Magazine, Vol. 75, No. 448, September, 1887,pp. 638-42.

Praises Freeman's first collection of short stories fortheir "directness and simplicity."

Westbrook, Perry. "The Anatomy of the Will: Mary WilkinsFreeman," in his Acres of Flint: Sarah Orne Jewett and HerContemporaries, Scarecrow Press, 1981, pp. 86-104.

Discussion of Freeman's "psychological insight" bya noted Freeman scholar.

. Mary Wilkins Freeman, Twayne Publishers, 1988.A biographical and critical study in which Westbrookargues that Louisa's narrow lifestyle has made herunfit to live in normal society.

Ziff, Larzer. "An Abyss of Inequality: Sarah Orne Jewett,Mary Wilkins Freeman, Kate Chopin," in his American1890s: Life and Times of a Lost Generation, Viking Press,1966, pp. 275-305.

Offers a psychoanalytical reading of "A New Eng-land Nun," arguing that Louisa is an example of"sexual sublimation."

V o l u m e 8 307

RedemptionJohn Gardner

1977

John Gardner's story, "Redemption," was firstpublished in the Atlantic Monthly in May, 1977.Gardner later included the story in his collection ofshort stories, The Art of Living, published by Knopfin 1981. "Redemption" chronicles the story of ayoung man named Jack Hawthorne who accidental-ly kills his seven-year-old brother in a farmingaccident. The accident takes place in the first para-graph, and the rest of the story reveals how Jack andthe members of his family deal with the loss.

The central event in the story is autobiographi-cal. As a young man, Gardner accidentally killed hisyounger brother; the circumstances of that tragicevent are nearly identical to those described in thestory. Gardner's recurring themes are present in thispiece of short fiction: the relationship between artand experience, the consequences of death for sur-vivors, the redemption from guilt, and the strugglebetween the forces of order and disorder.

Author Biography

The son of farmer John Champlin Gardner and hiswife Priscilla Jones Gardner, John Gardner wasborn on July 21, 1933, and grew up on a farm. Hismother had been an English teacher, and his father,like the father in ' 'Redemption'' was an avid readerof poetry, Shakespeare, and the Bible. As a result,Gardner was exposed to a myriad of literature and

308

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popular culture during his childhood. When Gardnerwas in early adolescence, he was responsible for theaccidental death of his brother, Gilbert, who wascrushed beneath a cultipacker young Gardner wasdriving home. The tragedy became an importantmotivation for Gardner's writing in later years.

After graduating from high school, Gardnerattended De Pauw University. When he was nine-teen, he married Joan Patterson. Gardner finishedhis undergraduate career at Washington Universityin St. Louis in 1955, before earning an M.A. and aPh. D. at the State University of Iowa. In addition tocreative writing, Gardner studied medieval litera-ture. After completing his Ph.D., Gardner taught at anumber of colleges and universities. From 1959 to1962, he taught at Chico State University in Califor-nia; one of his students during this time was Ray-mond Carver, the short story writer.

Starting in the mid-1960s, Gardner publishedan enormous number of works, including criticalessays, a biography of Chaucer, medieval studies,novels, short stories, plays, and poetry. In 1971, hepublished Grendel, the story of Beowulf laid by themonster. In Gardner's version, the monster is de-picted as an existentialist philosopher. In 1977, theyear he first published ' 'Redemption'' , he won theNational Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction forOctober Light. During the same year he publishedThe Poetry of Chaucer as well as The Life and Timesof Chaucer, and underwent surgery for cancer.

In 1978, Gardner published his most controver-sial book, On Moral Fiction, a treatise in aestheticsand the purpose of fiction. He also married hissecond wife, Liz Rosenberg, whom he divorced in1982. During the next few years following 1978, hetraveled the country, debating the ideas introducedin the book. In 1981, he published a collection ofshort stories titled The Art of Living and Oth-er Stories. The book includes the short story"Redemption."

In 1982, John Gardner died in a motorcycleaccident, days before his planned marriage to SusanThornton. The manuscripts he was working on atthe time of his death were published in 1986 asStillness and Shadows.

Plot Summary

' 'Redemption'' is set in a small farming communityin upstate New York. The story opens abruptly with

John (Champlin) Gardner, Jr.

the announcement that, ' 'Jack Hawthorne ran overand killed his brother, David." Jack was driving atractor and towing a cultipacker when his brotherfell off the large machine. Jack is unable to actquickly enough to stop the accident, and David iscrushed by the large machine.

The accident affects each member of the familyin different ways, and the rest of the story is abouthow the family, especially Jack, finally come toterms with the death. Jack's father, Dale, takes thedeath very hard. A kind and genial man, Dale oftenrecited poetry to groups at local churches and schools.After the accident, Dale begins to engage in a seriesof self-destructive actions, including riding his mo-torcycle at high speeds, smoking cigarettes, andengaging in a series of affairs with women. Hevacillates between a hatred for God and despair-ing atheism.

Jack's mother, Betty, hides her grief from herchildren, crying only when she is alone. She con-centrates on getting her two children through theirgrief. A religious woman, she has many friends whoprovide her with support. During this period, shealso requires that her children take music lessons—Phoebe on the piano, and Jack on the French horn.

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Although many people reach out to Jack, hewithdraws from human contact. He isolates himselffrom family and friends, and even considers suicide.During the long hours he spends alone, the accidentreplays over and over again in his mind. He findssome solace doing his farm chores. One day, a yearand a half after the accident, his sister brings him hislunch out in the field. When he did not say grace, sheis distraught. Jack comforts her by lying, contend-ing that he had said grace to himself earlier. Thismoment is an important one for the story, becausefor the first time since the accident, Jack showsconcern for someone other than himself.

Meanwhile, Jack's father returns after threeweeks away. When Jack comes into the house, hefinds his father crying, asking his wife for forgive-ness. Although Jack hugs his father, he is angry andresentful, presumably because after running awayfrom his responsibilities to the family, his father canfind solace when he returns.

Jack's father never leaves the family again.Jack, on the other hand, remains isolated, retreatinginto music. On Saturdays, he takes the bus toRochester to take music lessons from an elderlyRussian musician, Arcady Yegudkin, who had nar-rowly escaped the horrors of the Russian Revolution.

During one of Jack's lessons, Yegudkin plays aFrench horn, and Jack is transfixed. When he askshis teacher if he thinks that he will ever be able toplay that well, Yegudkin laughs, clearly amazedthat Jack would even think that such a thing werepossible. Although Yegudkin's laughter moves Jackto tears, there is no indication that Jack will notcontinue with his lessons. Further, Yegudkin's re-sponse somehow provides a release for Jack, anacknowledgment that he does not have to be perfect.The story closes with Jack rushing for his bus,starting for home. The implication is that, like hisfather before him, Jack is starting the long journeytoward healing.

Characters

Betty HawthorneBetty Hawthorne is Jack's mother. She grieves

for her son in secret; the outward manifestation ofthis grief is a significant weight gain. Betty strug-gles to keep her family together through a verydifficult time. Fortunately she is comforted by hersupportive friends and is able to find the strength

she needs to keep going. Betty is the one whointroduces the children to music, and her insistenceon French horn lessons makes possible Jack's even-tual recovery.

Dale HawthorneDale Hawthorne is Jack's father. The death of

his younger son nearly destroys him, and he strug-gles to deal with the tragedy. He leaves his family,has several love affairs, and generally shirks hisresponsibility. However, he comes home at last,asking for forgiveness and searching for his ownredemption.

Jack HawthorneOnly twelve years old, Jack accidentally kills

his brother by rolling him over with a cultipacker, alarge machine used for farming. He blames himselffor the accident and isolates himself from his fami-ly. Jack reviews the incident over and over again.Concerned about his increasing isolation, his moth-er insists that he take French horn lessons. Surpris-ingly, it turns into an effective therapy for the youngman. In fact, it is through the French horn that Jackeventually finds redemption.

Phoebe HawthornePhoebe Hawthorne is Jack's younger sister, the

baby of the family. Only five years of age at the timeof the accident, she copes with the loss by makingcakes, doing household chores, and taking food tothe men in the field. She believes that her familywill be reunited in heaven and that God will healher father.

Arcady YegudkinArcady Yegudkin is Jack's music teacher. Like

Jack, he is a survivor of a traumatic incident. He andhis wife escaped from Russia during the Revolutionafter being shot and left for dead by soldiers. InEurope, he became a famous musician, and copedwith his bad memories by burying himself inhis music.

Themes

God and ReligionGardner chooses God and religion as one of his

central themes in "Redemption." More specifical-ly, Gardner chooses to explore theodicy, the defenseof God's omnipotence and goodness in the face of


R e d e m p t i o n

evil. The central question of theodicy is, of course,if God is good and all-powerful, why does Godallow evil in the world? How is it that a beneficentand omnipotent God would allow a small child to becrushed to death under the wheels of a cultipacker?

Dale Hawthorne represents the paradox of God'sgoodness and God's omnipotence in his response toDavid's death. His mind "swung violently at thistime, reversing itself almost hour by hour, fromdesperate faith to the most savage, black-heartedatheism.... He was unable to decide, one momentfull of rage at God's injustice, the next momentwracked by doubt of his existence." Often, whenpresented with unbearable pain, a human will eitherblame God or deny God's existence. Before theaccident, Dale is "aloof from the timid-eyed flock,Christ's sheep." However, after returning to thefamily after an absence of three weeks, Dale begsfor forgiveness. It is as if he finds redemption inbending to what he sees as God's will. Jack feelsscorn for his father, now "some mere sufferingsheep among sheep...."

Betty Hawthorne represents a different responseto the tragedy. She neither blames nor questionsGod. Rather, it is through her religious faith as wellas the support of her friends that she is able tosurvive the disaster. This is vitally important for thefamily, because ultimately, she is the one who"keep[s] her family from wreck."

The character of Phoebe Hawthorne providesanother insight into God's role in disaster. Whenshe brings the lunch to Jack and he refuses to saygrace, she is upset. To placate her, Jack lies and tellsher that he has already said grace. He realizes laterthat Phoebe must depend on her religious faith; hersurvival requires the belief that God will heal herfather and her brother, and that her family will bereunited in heaven. Phoebe finds solace in servingothers; in many ways she is reminiscent of the"suffering servant" of Christian iconography.

Art and ExperienceCertainly the most important theme in this story

is that of art and its role in understanding life'sexperiences. Kent Thompson in his review in BooksIn Canada writes that virtually ' 'every story in thecollection is equally concerned with the variousrelationships between life and art." Gardner oftenclaimed that art ' 'made my life, and it made my lifewhen I was a kid, when I was incapable of findingany other sustenance, any other thing to lean on, anyother comfort during times of great unhappiness."

Topics forFurther

StudyInvestigate the number of farm accidents involv-ing children in the 1940s and in the 1990s. Whathas happened to the number of reported acci-dents? To what can you attribute the change inthe statistics?

Read portions of Gardner's On Moral Fiction.According to Gardner, what is the role of fiction?Describe his philosophy regarding fiction andmorality. How do Gardner's stories fulfill hisgoals? In what ways are they lacking?

Listen to several recordings of French horn mu-sic. Reread the section of the story describing themusic. How would you describe the music youhear? Try to be as creative as possible, usingconcrete images.

Art, for Gardner, had great redemptive powers.Indeed, only after writing the story did Gardner stophaving flashback memories of his brother's death.Likewise, the story ends with the hope that Jack hasfound redemption through his music.

Furthermore, Gardner maintains that art has animportant role to play in human experience. Litera-ture should be moral, providing models for the waylife should be lived. For example, although thecharacters in the story contemplate suicide, they allreject it as an appropriate response to their grief.Rather, each character finds a way to redeem him orherself through God, through work, or through art.As Thompson writes, for Gardner,' 'art is first of allan act of love."

Style

Images/ImagerySeveral images recur throughout "Redemp-

tion." Skulls, for example, appear three times toremind Jack of David's death. At one point, Jack isalone, driving the tractor in the fields, thinking

V o l u m e 8 3 1 1

R e d e m p t i o n

about the accident and his own guilt, his "sorehands clamped tight to the steering wheel, his shoesunsteady on the bucking axlebeam—for stones layeverywhere, yellowed in the sunlight, a field ofmisshapen skulls." Jack's identification of the stoneswith skulls is connected to his memory of hisbrother's crushed skull in the field. He then recallshis father's story of Lord Byron and Shelley'sskulls, another indirect reference to what he sawhappen to his brother's head.

A few pages later, he has a flashback of hisbrother's death, and this time, he does not see stonesthat look like skulls, nor Shelley's skull, but ratherthe cultipacker "flattening the skull of his brother."Moreover, the adjective "yellowed" suggests theaging of the skulls, and the time passing since hisbrother's death. Ironically, when Jack climbs downfrom the tractor because his memories overwhelmhim, he fixes his eyes on "some comforting object,for instance a dark, smooth stone." The stonebecomes a comforting image that brings him mo-mentary peace.

Images of birds also figure prominently in thestory. Each time, they seem linked to Jack's feel-ings. When he is alone on the tractor, his emotionsthreaten to overwhelm to such an extent that he mustget off the tractor and calm down. The "birdscrazily wheeling" overhead suggest the painfulemotions inside. Later, in a peaceful moment, hehears birdcalls, and a "cloud of sparrows . . . ex-plode[s] into flight." These birds are in search ofsafety. Likewise, Jack is looking for a safe place towork through his emotions.

A final bird image occurs in the closing pages.When Yegudkin begins to play the French horn,' 'itwas if, suddenly, a creature from some other uni-verse had appeared, some realm where feelingsbecome birds and dark sky and spirit is more solidthan stone." The sound grows until Jack likens it to' 'an enormous trapped hawk hunting frantically forescape." The repressed feelings threaten to tear himup. Suddenly, it seems as if Jack understands thatthrough his music, his feelings can take winglike birds.

AntithesisAnther important narrative device used by

Gardner in this story is antithesis, a word that meansoppositions or contrasts. The story opens with themost striking antithesis of all. It is a beautiful springday, a time of year associated with birth. On thislovely day, David dies. Thus, birth and death are

juxtaposed in a paragraph that begins, "One day inApril...." In so doing, Gardner associates the timeof planting with death.

Midway through the story, Gardner opens an-other paragraph with the line, "One day in August,a year and a half after the accident, they werecombining oats...." The similarity between thetwo lines is striking and provides yet another an-tithesis. August is the time for harvesting. Harvesttime is a time of death for crops, yet Jack begins tomove away from his thoughts of death and towardhis obligation to the living.

Historical Context

Post-War WorldJohn Gardner, born during the Great Depres-

sion, reached adolescence in the years immediatelyfollowing World War II. The accident that killed hisbrother took place in 1947, just two years after theend of the war. During this time, much of Americawas still rural and agricultural. With the advent ofthe nuclear age, American society began to changeas they responded to the communist threat fromEastern Europe. The tension between the UnitedStates and the Soviet Union is known as the"Cold War."

In Europe, the aftermath of the World War IIwas very difficult. Much of Europe lay in ruins, theresult of years of conflict. The realization of whathappened at Nazi extermination camps shocked thepublic. In addition, the specter of Communismloomed as Eastern Europe found itself shroudedunder what Winston Churchill called "The IronCurtain."

Post-War Philosophy and ArtIn 1947, Albert Camus published his book, The

Plague. The horrors of the war had convinced manypeople that there was no God, for certainly Godwould not allow such evil to exist in the world.Existentialists such as Camus and John Paul Sartrebelieved that humans are alone in the world, thatexistence is unique and unrepeatable. In addition,they maintained that humans are free to choosetheir own path in the world. This freedom is bothawesome and awful, in the philosopher SorenKierkegaard's terms. Pushed to the extreme, exis-tentialism becomes nihilism, the belief that there isno meaning in the world.

3 i 2 S h o r t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s

R e d e m p t i o n

Compare

Contrast1940s: Many families live on farms, providingfood and dairy products for the nation. Farmerswere excused from the draft because they wereessential to the health of the nation.

1990s: Fewer and fewer families live on farms.Instead, most agriculture is conducted by large-scale industrial farms.

1940s: Farming is one of the most dangerousoccupations in the United States. In addition,many children who work on family farms sufferinjury or death.

1990s: While fewer children work on farms, theoccupation is still a dangerous one. Injuries stilloccur to children working on their family farms.

1940s: World War II draws to a close andveterans return home. Many attend college onthe GI Bill. Women who have been filling facto-ry jobs during the war are encouraged to returnhome to make room for returning soldiers.

1990s: American soldiers are called up to fight inthe Gulf War, and then in the bombing of Serbia.The United States is blessed with a low unem-

ployment rate and qualified men and womenhave little problem finding a job.

1940s: Existentialist philosophers such as JohnPaul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Soren Kierkegaardattempt to make sense out of the world devastat-ed by the war. Sartre, a member of the Frenchresistance, tries to recover from torture he suf-fered at the hands of the Nazis.

1990s: The work of postmodern philosopherssuch as Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucaultcontinue to influence the way that writers depictculture and reality.

1940s: The end of World War II marks thebeginning of the powerful Soviet Bloc. Americaand the Soviet Union struggle to gain supremacyover the other.

1990s: The Soviet Bloc no longer exists, andcommunism is no longer considered the great-est threat to American security. However, thedevolution of the Eastern Bloc leads to potential-ly dangerous situations in the former SovietUnion and Yugoslavia.

In 1947, Alfred Whitehead, the English mathe-matician and philosopher died. Whitehead and hisphilosophy had a great impact on Gardner; in fact, itwas through Whitehead's philosophy that he wasable to reject the existential position taken by mostphilosophers of the day.

The Cold WarDuring the 1950s, the United States engaged in

a serious cold war with the Soviet Union. Theexplosion of the atomic bomb made further ' 'hot''war unthinkable; the annihilation of the entire plan-et was possible with the new weapons. Neverthe-less, the major powers rushed to build nucleararsenals, and the decade saw confrontation afterconfrontation, the world teetering on the edge ofnuclear disaster. In a world such as this, Gardner

looked to art to provide the moral foundation thatseemed to be so lacking in the modern world.

During the 1960s, the Cold War continued. Atthe same time, the United States became involved inthe Vietnam War, a conflict that many young peopleviewed as immoral and wrong. The assassinationsof John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and MartinLuther King, Jr., along with increasing violence inthe nation's cities, led many to question the future ofthe nation.

Experimentation in literature and art occurredduring the 1950s and 1960s. Richard Brautigan,William Gass, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, andJohn Fowles experimented with fiction. RolandBarthes and Jacques Derrida in France began exam-ining language and culture, which led to the concept

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&

R e d e m p t i o n

of deconstruction. John Gardner, while a literaryexperimenter himself, often found himself in oppo-sition to the trends of his day. For these reasons, hefelt compelled to detail his aesthetic and moralphilosophy in a number of essays and interviews.By the 1970s, Gardner was well known as a culturaland literary commentator, contending that good artis also moral art.

Critical Overview

"Redemption" was first published in the AtlanticMonthly in May, 1977. Gardner later included thestory in his collection of short stories, The Art ofLiving, published by Knopf in 1981. Gardner was awriter who generated considerable critical contro-versy, in part from his prodigious writing output.Between the completion of his doctoral dissertationin 1958 and his death in 1982, according to DeanMe Williams in his book, John Gardner, the authorproduced "eight novels, two collections of shortstories, an epic poem, a volume of lyric poetry, eightscholarly or critical books, five children's books,and five volumes of plays and opera libretti."

Although The Art of Living did not generatemuch critical commentary, the book was general-ly well-received. For example, Douglas Hill inMaclean's Magazine wrote, "Gardner is the masterof the economical opening: he gives a reader justenough setting and background to slip him effort-lessly into the world of each tale.... There's humorin these stories, and a full measure of graceful,unstudied prose.... There's considerable expertisein this book, and courage and joy."

Nevertheless, because the book followedGardner's On Moral Fiction, a book-length essaydiscussing the role of fiction, reviewers noted thatGardner used the stories to illustrate the points hemade in his earlier books. Kent Thompson, forexample, wrote in Books in Canada in 1981, that thestories are "illustrations of ideas. Their consequentvalue is therefore not in what they are, but in whatthey lead us to talk about. They seem to be writtenfor professors and students...."

It seems notable, however, that few of the earlyreviews singled out "Redemption" for comment.This may very well be, ironically, because the storydemonstrates strong writing, filled with vivid imageand compelling moments. Such writing does notsquare with critics who want only to see the book as

an illustration of On Moral Fiction. Certainly, laterscholars returned to the story, noting in it a numberof important ideas, themes, and images for theunderstanding of the corpus of Gardner's work.These same scholars, however, while concentratingon the philosophical nature of the story, admired thestrength of the writing as well.

In recent years,' 'Redemption'' has appeared inseveral anthologies of short stories and has receivednotable attention from scholars, a sure indicationthat the story inspires debate and commentary.Ronald Grant Nutter in his 1997 book A Dream ofPeace: Art and Death in the Fiction of John Gardner,for example, spends his first chapter establishingthe importance of' 'Redemption'' as part of Gardner'swork. He discusses autobiographical aspects of thestory, and relates it to the work of Robert Jay Lifton,a famous psychiatrist.

Gregory L. Morris contends that' 'The theme ofart as redemptive force comes through most clearlyand most intensely in ... "Redemption," which isGardner's personal attempt to redefine a particular-ly painful part of his memory.''

As an illustration of Garner's philosophy, asan autobiographical story providing insight intoGardner's life, or as a gripping and moving tale,' 'Redemption'' is likely to garner study and critiquein the coming years. Certainly, any student interest-ed in the body of Gardner's work ought to carefullyread the story for an exploration of what Morriscalls "the magic of art."

Criticism

Diane Andrews HenningfeldDiane Andrews Henningfeld is an associate

professor at Adrian College and has written exten-sively for a variety of educational and academ-ic publishers. In the following essay she exam-ines the autobiographical and thematic importanceof "Redemption" and relates it to the rest ofGardner's work.

At the time of his death in 1982, the result of amotorcycle accident, John Gardner was consideredone of the most prolific, talented, and controversialwriters of his generation. His output was prodi-gious, spanning genres and ideas with ease. Notcontent to write only fiction, he also producedliterary criticism, children's books, plays, poetry,


R e d e m p t i o

n

an

d biography . H e wa s insisten t o n th e rol e tha t

fictio

n shoul d pla y i n th e world , an d mad e thes e

claim

s explici t i n book s suc h a s O n Moral Fiction,

Th

e Ar t o f Fiction, an d O n Becoming a Novelist, an d

i

n th e score s o f interview s h e granted . B y placin g

hi

s assertion s abou t fictio n i n fron t o f academic s

an

d critics , i n bold , vivid , an d highl y opinionate d

terms

, h e generate d critica l interes t an d controver -

sy

. Althoug h mos t scholar s agre e tha t Gardne r wa s

no

t alway s successfu l i n achievin g th e hig h goal s h e

se

t fo r hi s fiction , mos t woul d als o agre e tha t hi s

wa

s a n importan t literar y an d philosophica l voice .

Pu

t simply , a s Julia n Moynaha n write s i n Th e

Ne

w York Times Book Review, Gardne r steadfastl y

argue

d "tha t al l goo d art , includin g pros e fiction ,

shoul

d b e moral . B y thi s h e mean s i t shoul d b e life -

enhancing

, protectin g huma n existenc e fro m th e

dar

k force s o f chao s . . . pressin g i n fro m al l side s

an

d comin g u p fro m below , seekin g who m the y

ma

y devour. " Thi s statemen t seem s particularl y ap t

fo

r an y discussio n o f "Redemption. "

A

numbe r o f writer s hav e suggeste d tha t Gardne r

reache

d thi s philosophica l understandin g o f ar t a s

th

e resul t o f a n acciden t tha t occurre d i n hi s child -

hood

. I n a n inciden t nearl y identica l t o th e on e

describe

d i n "Redemption, " Gardne r wa s respon -

sibl

e fo r th e deat h o f hi s younge r brother , Gilbert .

Althoug

h Gardne r did not writ e of the inciden t in

th

e thirt y year s betwee n th e acciden t an d th e com -

positio

n o f th e shor t stor y i n 1977 , i t seem s clea r

tha

t th e traum a wa s a t th e hear t o f hi s writin g an d

aestheti

c theory . Certainly , on e ca n hea r th e echoe s

o

f thi s acciden t i n som e o f Gardner' s statement s

suc

h a s thi s fro m Th e Ar t o f Fiction: ' 'T o writ e wit h

taste

, i n th e highes t sense , i s .. . t o writ e s o tha t n o

on

e commit s suicide , n o on e despairs. "

On

e schola r wh o make s muc h o f th e signifi -

canc

e o f th e acciden t fo r Gardner' s lif e an d o f

"Redemption

" fo r Gardner' s writin g i s Ronal d

Gran

t Nutter . I n hi s book , A Dream o f Peace: Ar t

an

d Death i n th e Fiction o f John Gardner, Nutte r

summarize

s th e stor y an d th e actua l event . H e find s

th

e stor y importan t fo r tw o reasons . First , o f course ,

i

s th e autobiographica l elemen t i n th e story . Second ,

th

e stor y present s theme s o f death , guilt , religion ,

communit

y an d th e redemptiv e natur e o f art . T o

explor

e thes e themes , Nutte r turn s t o th e wor k o f

Joh

n Howell , wh o i n a n importan t essay , "Th e

Woun

d an d th e Albatross, " discusse s th e connec -

tio

n betwee n th e woun d an d th e creatio n o f art ; an d

t

o th e wor k o f Rober t Ja y Lifton , a psychiatris t wh o

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e 8

3

1 5

R e d e m p t i o n

WhatDo I Read

Next?Grendel (1971) is perhaps Gardner's most fa-mous novel. The story is a retelling of the An-glo-Saxon epic, Beowulf, from the monster'sperspective.

Beowulf is considered a masterpiece of medievalliterature. It is a tale of heroes and monsters, lifeand death. Anyone reading Grendel should alsoread Beowulf.

Gardner's book of advice for young writers, TheArt of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers,offers insight into his ideas about art and life.Also included are a number of exercises de-signed to motivate writers.

has studied survivors and post-traumatic stresssyndrome.

It is possible to expand Nutter's reading of"Redemption" by exploring an important criticalapproach, trauma theory. Although a complicatedtheory, it is possible to understand the basic princi-ples. First, trauma theory hypothesizes that traumat-ic knowledge is a different kind of knowledge. AsGeoffrey H. Hartman argues in New Literary Histo-ry, traumatic knowledge is "one that cannot [be]made entirely conscious, in the sense of being fullyretrieved or communicated without distortion." Thatis, traumatic knowledge enters the mind in differentway from knowledge in general. It bypasses theconscious mind and embeds itself directly in theunconscious. There is a direct and swift inputting ofinformation deep within the victim's mind. Theknowledge itself cannot be recalled directly by theconscious mind. At the same time, as Hartmanexplains, the trauma creates a ' 'kind of memory ofthe event, in the form of a perpetual troping of it bythe bypassed or severely split (dissociated) psy-che." In other words, the memory of the event,deeply embedded in the subject's unconscious mind,continually replays itself in the subject's consciousmind. Thus, while the knowledge of the experienceis hidden in the person's mind, the memory of the

event replays itself in the form of dreams, flash-backs, and hallucinations.

There is a gap, then, between the experience ofthe event and an understanding of the event itself.Recovering from trauma requires that the victim ofthe trauma must somehow bridge this gap. ForGardner, literature and art offer the possibility ofsuch healing. He writes, "Art begins in a wound,and is an attempt either to live with the wound or toheal it." Likewise, trauma theory, according toHartman, "helps us to 'read the wound' with the aidof literature." Thus, the psychic wound caused bytrauma can serve as the impetus for the creation ofart or literature. Moreover, the act of creation of artor literature is a life-affirming process, bridging thegap between experience and understanding.

That Gardner himself was the victim of trau-matic stress seems clear. Gregory L. Morris in hisbook A World of Light and Order cites an interviewfrom The Paris Review in which Gardner states,

Before I wrote the story about the kid who runs overhis younger brother... always, regularly, every day Iused to have four or five flashes of that accident. I'dbe driving down the highway and I couldn't see whatwas coming because I'd have a memory flash. Ihaven't had it once since I wrote the story. You reallydo ground your nightmares, you name them.

Obviously, Gardner and the characters he cre-ates for his story all suffer from psychic wounds.Each character attempts to heal wounds in differentways, trying to fill the space that the loss of Davidcreates. Dale Hawthorne, according to the story,was ' 'as much Romantic poet-hero as his time andwestern New York State could afford." Before theaccident he was known for his vivid recitations oflines from plays and poetry. It may be significantthat Dale read the works of others, rather thancreating works of his own. Before the accident, Dalehad seemed above the crowd to his son Jack, some-how different from the "sheep" of his audience.With David's death, however, Dale found himselfsuddenly empty, and no longer above the crowd.Although he contemplates suicide, he understandsthat suicide would only make greater the gapinghole the rest of his family is trying to fill. Thus, heturns to other women in his attempt to make himselfwhole again, as if by filling their sexual needs hecould fill his own psychic gap. Only when hereturns to his family and creates the tableau ofpenitence does he begin to heal. He returns tohis recitations, but as a "mere suffering sheepamong sheep."


R e d e m p t i o n

Betty Hawthorne understands the need to holdher family together. To do so, she must repress herown grief. Although she has ' 'considerable strengthof character,'' she nonetheless turns to food, as if byfilling her stomach, she can mend her heart. Whilethe overeating does not lead to any healing, the actof writing does. Although she does not create art, soto speak, she connects her trauma to words in theletters she writes to her friends. The written dia-logue that they establish moves her "step by steppast disaster...."

Jack, however, grows increasingly more isolat-ed. As the central figure in the family tragedy, theone who created the moment after which all exist-ence changed, he finds it hard to bridge the gapbetween his knowledge of the event and his under-standing of it. He behaves as a survivor of trauma,the memory of the event replaying itself duringevery waking hour. He attempts to fill the gap firstby creating dramas while riding the tractor, imagin-ing himself as an actor on a stage. Eventually heturns to his French horn and his music for solace. Itis when he begins taking lessons in Rochester fromArcady Yegudkin, however, that the healing begins.

Yegudkin, like Jack, has survived a trauma.With his wife, he had been shot at and left for deadby soldiers during the Russian Revolution. Yegudkin,a brilliant musician, fills the loss of his country andof his youth with music. For the purpose of thestory, Yegudkin is more than a teacher of music,however. He models for Jack one way one cansurvive trauma. When he plays the new horn that hehas ordered for a graduate student, the music com-pletely fills the room. When Jack asks Yegudkin ifhe thinks that Jack might someday be able to playlike him, the teacher laughs, causing an importantmoment in the story: "Jack blinked, startled by thebluntness of the thing, the terrible lack of malice,and the truth of it. His face tingled and his legs wentweak, as if the life were rushing out of them." Thisdescription brings the reader back to the first para-graph of the story, when the life rushed out ofDavid's legs. For Jack, this moment serves as asymbolic death, and a rebirth. When he leaves thestudio, his horn and music under his arm, the crowdparts for him, receives him, and he begins his returnto home. It is as if he understands that music mustjoin him with his family, not separate him fromthem. Through his art, he is redeemed, the guilt overhis brother's death washed clean by his own sym-bolic death. There is not a conclusive ending to thestory, just the suggestion that Jack is beginning to

For the purpose of the

story, Yegudkin is more than a

teacher of music, however. He

models for Jack one way one

can survive trauma."

bridge the gap between the knowledge of the experi-ence and the understanding of it.

Finally, while "Redemption" seems to makeclear that suicide is not an appropriate response totrauma, and that trauma can be survived, it does notsuggest that this is an easy, or quick process, nordoes it suggest that there can ever be a return to thedays before the trauma. Indeed, each of the charac-ters of the story are markedly changed and trans-formed by the experience. Likewise, althoughGardner survived his childhood and moved intoadulthood, using his art to help bridge his own gap,he was a transformed individual. That he once againreturned to the story of the accident and included itin a novel he was working on at the time of his deathsuggests that the wound could never be whollyhealed. Nevertheless, Gardner devoted himself tothe creation of a kind of art that he believed wouldpersuade people to go on living in spite of the horrorof contemporary life. As Nutter quotes Gardner,' 'Good artists are the people who are, in one way oranother, creating, out of deep and honest concern avision of life-in-the-twentieth-century that is worthpursuing." For Gardner, good art leads to life, tohealing of the wound.

Source: Diane Andrews Henningfeld, for Short Stories forStudents, The Gale Group, 2000.

Per WintherIn the following excerpt, Winther discusses

reasons for reading ' 'Redemption,'' including theforcefulness of Gardner's writing, the autobiographi-cal nature of the writing, and the opportunity tosee the effect of Gardner's personal tragedy onhis writing.

"Redemption" also belongs to this group of storieswhich describe and explore the vulnerary functionof art. The theme of this story differs somewhat

V o l u m e 8 3 1 7

R e d e m p t i o n

from that of the other three, but the subject matter isthe same: the protagonist seeks consolation in theworld of music after the death of his brother. JackHawthorne, the protagonist, was driving a tractorwhen his younger brother, David, fell off and wasrun over and killed by the cultipacker the tractor washauling. Driven by guilt and self-hatred, the youngboy tries to deal with his confusion caused by theaccident by perfecting his skills on the French horn;he uses the horn as a means of escape into self-imposed isolation, withdrawing from his family andany other company.

He is brought out of his isolation when hesuddenly realizes that he will never reach the levelof mastery of his teacher Yegudkin, a seventy-year-old Russian exile who has played with famousorchestras around the world. Yegudkin now teachesmusic but also has a set of arrogant values, constant-ly deriding "the herd" for failing to appreciatemusic at his own level. When Jack asks Yegudkin ifhe thinks that he, the student, will ever be able toplay like the great master, the Russian scoffs at thisfoolish presumption. Thus, John Howell points out,Yegudkin, '"beatific and demonic at once,' hasparadoxically saved [Jack] from the artistic self-absorption and isolation he has chosen." After thecrucial lesson in which he is forced to recognize hisown limitations, Jack's reintegration into society isdescribed in symbolic terms. Rushing to catch hisbus back home, he finds that' 'the crowd opened forhim and, with the horn cradled under his right arm,his music under his left, he plunged in, startinghome." The young boy has to recognize his ownlimits; that is, he has to reconcile himself to the factthat the ideal (his aspirations of becoming a greatmusician) and the real do not always match up. Onlyby accepting his own fallibility and imperfectionscan he deal with his own guilt, become reintegratedinto the community and be reunited with his family.Jack's clutching of the instrument and musical scorein that symbolical final scene suggests that musicwill still be an important part of his life, but nowmore in the manner of the other three stories wehave been discussing, and not as a means of alienat-ing himself from the community.

"Redemption" warrants close attention for sev-eral reasons. The early pages in particular containsome of the most gripping lines that Gardner evercommitted. The opening paragraph, describing theaccident which killed Jack's brother, is unique in itscontrol and vividness. The ensuing study of theboy's self-loathing and his estrangement from hisfamily moves as if by its own momentum, wholly

logical and with considerable intellectual and emo-tional authority. Part of the story's attraction, then,lies in the sheer force of the writing that went into it.But even more important are the ways in which itsuggests a key to some of the chief motivatingfactors behind the thematic direction of Gardner'sfiction. The story also helps to explain why art hasbecome such an all-encompassing concern for thiswriter. These points need to be elaborated on atsome length.

The centrality of ' 'Redemption" has to do withthe fact that it is one of Gardner's most stronglyautobiographical pieces of writing, exploring artis-tically an event which left an indelible mark on himas a person and as a writer. The key event—theaccident—is lifted straight from Gardner's personalhistory, with only a few changes of incident andnames. The scene was to play itself over and overagain in his mind several times a day up to thewriting of the story. (It was first published in theAtlantic Monthly in May 1977; the accident involv-ing the death of Gardner's brother took place in1947.) After he had written about the accident,Gardner stopped having the flashbacks, he says,confirming D. H. Lawrence's dictum that one shedsone's illnesses in art. The suicidal feelings Jackdevelops in the story are also true to Gardner's ownexperience, as witnessed, for instance, by the stronglyautobiographical "Stillness" section of the posthu-mous work Stillness and Shadows, and the reasonthat the boy's father gives for not taking his ownlife—"the damage his suicide would do to his wifeand the children remaining"—is the same oneGardner himself has offered for not giving in to hisown suicidal inclinations. Like Jack, Gardner playedthe French horn, and the Eastman School of Musicthat Jack attends on Saturday afternoons is the oneGardner went to for his music lessons.

But the main impulse behind "Redemption" isnot strictly autobiographical. We know that Gardnerused writing much the same way that Jack Haw-thorne used his horn, as a means of escape and as away to combat confusion and despair. Art "mademy life," Gardner has said, "and it made my lifewhen I was a kid, when I was incapable of findingany other sustenance, any other thing to lean on, anyother comfort during times of great unhappiness."It seems obvious, therefore, that when Gardnerclaims that art has the power to console, his primeauthority is his own personal history; one of hischief purposes in writing these stories must clearlyhave been to awaken others to the potentially bene-ficial effects of art.


R e d e m p t i o n

What is of greater interest to us here, however,is the extent to which the excruciating experience ofaccidentally killing his brother has affected his ownwritings. One should tread cautiously here andresist the temptation to establish the kind of rela-tionship between Gardner's life and his art thatPhillip Young sought to set up in the case ofHemingway, arguing that the direction of Heming-way's art, in terms of theme as well as of artistictechnique, was determined by his continuous strug-gle to cope with the psychic effect of the physi-cal wounds he received in the course of a turbu-lent personal history. Nevertheless, there is sure-ly a large degree of truth to Edmund Wilson'sclaims about the relationship between the artist andhis works:

The real elements, of course, of any work of fiction,are the elements of the author's personality: his imagi-nation embodies in the images of characters, situa-tions, and scenes the fundamental conflicts of hisnature or the cycle of phases through which it habitu-ally passes. His personages are personifications of theauthor's various impulses and emotions: and therelations between them in his stories are really therelations between these.

Gardner has himself insisted on the close rela-tionship between the art product and the personalityof the artist: "The tensions we find resolved or atleast defined and dramatized in art are the objectiverelease of tensions in the life of the artist." One istherefore perhaps justified in pursuing the Heming-way parallel at least part of the way. The tensionsthat his childhood experiences engendered in Gardnerevidently never lost their grip on him. As late as1979 he stated: "You keep violently fighting forlife, for what you think is good and wholesome, butyou lose a lot. I think all my struggles towardanything worthwhile are pretty much underminedby psychological doubts. But you keep trying."Thus Heraclitus's old maxim—"the way up is theway down''—truly holds for Gardner. This is a factto bear in mind when assessing the existentialseriousness of his life affirmation. There is nothingfacile about the basic optimism that controls hisbooks. Gardner was intimately acquainted withpersonal despair, and as we shall see, his affirma-tions take into account a number of the majorarguments that are traditionally advanced to supporta pessimistic view of reality.

The paradigmatic nature of ' 'Redemption'' canhardly be exaggerated. Jack Hawthorne's self-ha-tred is generalized into a hatred of the total creation,man and animal. This attraction toward an absurdistview of the world (the motivating force behind Jack

Gardner was intimately

acquainted with personal

despair, and as we shall see,

his affirmations take into

account a number of the major

arguments that are

traditionally advanced to

support a pessimistic view of

reality."

Hawthorne's and—presumably—Gardner's suici-dal inclinations) is explored again and again inGardner's fiction. It is usually yoked with anabsolutist approach to man and life, a failure toreconcile the discrepancy between the real and theideal, and the failure to accept human fallibility,which characterizes Jack Hawthorne's initial re-sponse to the death of his brother. I am, of course,not suggesting that in everything Gardner writeslurk the shadows of his brother's death. But thefrequency with which Gardner returns to situationsand characters which allow him to explore this kindof tension attests to the biblio-therapeutical natureof his writings, as well as to the formative impor-tance of the accident described in "Redemption."This is not to say that Gardner's fiction is narrowlyconfessional, representing a constant and obsessivepicking of the scab over the wound caused by hisbrother's death; that would in the end have renderedhis novels and stories trivial. What saves his fictionfrom triviality (in the sense of it being overlyprivate) is the fact that in his personal traumasGardner has discovered a paradigm, or a metaphor,for what he regards as the central illness of recentWestern culture: the inclination to keep peering intothe abyss, "counting skulls," losing oneself in afashionable attraction toward despair.

In these four stories the answer offered to thistype of dilemma is of a very general kind: art has thepower to console provided one is receptive. It isprobably no coincidence that for his exploration ofthis very general idea Gardner chose to focus onmusic, an art form which is almost totally abstract,speaking primarily to our emotions rather than to

V o l u m e S 319

R e d e m p t i o

n

ou

r intellect . Bu t an y ar t wil l no t d o fo r Gardner .

Whe

n ar t move s int o th e spher e o f ideas , fo r in -

stanc

e i n th e for m o f literature , i t ha s t o mee t certai n

requirement

s i n orde r t o hav e th e life-givin g effec t

tha

t Gardne r think s i t ca n an d ough t t o have . Thi s i s

wher

e hi s concep t o f mora l fictio n come s in , an d a

centra

l axio m o f thi s theor y i s th e ide a tha t ar t

instructs....

Source

: Pe r Winther , "Lif e Follow s Fiction, " i n Th e Ar t o f

John

Gardner: Introduction an d Exploration, Stat e Univer -

sit

y o f Ne w Yor k Press , 1992 , pp . 9-30 .

Gregory

L. Morris

In

the following excerpt, Morris recommends

"Redemption"

for its expression of Gardner's be-

lief

in the power of art to console, redeem, and

transform.

320 S h o r

t S t o r i e s f o r S t u d e n t s

R e d e m p t i o n

Source: Gregory L. Morris, "The Art of Living and OtherStories," in A World of Order and Light: The Fiction of JohnGardner, University of Georgia Press, 1984, pp. 184-205.

Sources

Allen, Bruce. "From Gardner, Short Stories Dimmed byAbstractions," in The Christian Science Monitor, June 24,1981, p. 17.

Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative,and History, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 1996.

Hartman, Geoffrey H. ' 'On Traumatic Knowledge and Liter-ary Studies," in New Literary History, Vol. 26, No. 3,Summer, 1995, pp. 537-63.

Hill, Douglas. "Between the Moral and the Possible," inMaclean's Magaz.ine,Vol.94, No. 23, June 8,1981,pp. 51-2.

McWilliams, Dean. John Gardner, Boston: Twayne, 1990.

Morris, Gregory L. A World of Order and Light: The Fictionof John Gardner, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984.

Moynahan, Julia. "Moral Fictions," in The New York TimesBook Review, May 17, 1981, pp. 7, 27-28.

Nutter, Ronald Grant. A Dream of Peace: Art and Death inthe Fiction of John Gardner, New York: Peter Lang, 1997.

Thompson, Kent. "Intimations of Morality," in Books inCanada, Vol. 10, No. 7, August-September, 1981, pp. 9-10.

Winther, Per. The An of John Gardner, Albany: State Uni-versity of New York Press, 1992.

V o l u m e 8 3 2 1

R e d e m p t i o n

Further Reading

Christian, Ed. "An Interview With John Gardner," in Prai-rie Schooner, Vol. 54, No. 4, Winter, 1980-81, pp. 70-93.

Important interview for any student interested inGardner's fiction. The writer discusses his creativeprocess and philosophy of fiction.

Cowart, David. Arches and Light: The Fiction of JohnGardner, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983.

Views Gardner as moral artist.

Morace, Robert A. John Gardner: An Annotated SecondaryBibliography, New York: Garland Publishers, 1984.

Lists interviews, articles, reviews and criticism. Moracealso offers helpful annotations to the sources.


Residents and TransientsBobbie Ann Mason's short story, "Residents andTransients," initially appeared in the Boston Re-view, and was then included in her first collection ofshort stories, Shiloh and Other Stories. The bookreceived nominations for a variety of awards andearned the Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award in1983. While not as widely anthologized or reviewedas the title story, "Shiloh," "Residents and Tran-sients" is an important story in the collection.Critics and readers praise the story for its tensionbetween past and present, country and city, andchildhood and adulthood.

Mason sets "Residents and Transients" in aregion she is very familiar with—rural westernKentucky, the area she grew up in and the site ofmany of her short stories. As in her other work, shewrites with a lean, spare style. Her characters speakin the cadences of western Kentucky, and often findthemselves bemused by their situations.

"Residents and Transients" is the story of awoman, Mary, caught in a moment of transition.After a long absence, she has returned to live in thehome of her parents who have since moved toFlorida. Her husband, a salesman, is in Louisville,searching for a new house. She is supposed to sellthe house and move to Louisville, but there is a partof her that wants to remain in her hometown. Inaddition, Mary finds herself caught between twomen: her lover, Larry, and her husband Stephen.

Bobbie Ann Mason

1982

323

R e s i d e n t s and T r a n s i e n t s

She vacillates between two different lives, unable to War. The novel was made into a movie in 1989,choose her future. starring Bruce Willis and Emily Lloyd.

Author Biography Plot Summary

Bobbie Ann Mason was born in rural Kentucky in1940. Her father was a farmer, and Mason grew upon the dairy farm he owned. She attended theUniversity of Kentucky and graduated in 1962.Immediately after graduation, Mason moved toNew York City where she took a job writing for fanmagazines. She earned both a master's degree fromthe State University of New York-Binghamton in1966, and a doctoral degree in English from theUniversity of Connecticut in 1972. After a numberof years of writing literary criticism and nonfiction,she began to write short stories.

Her story "Offerings" was published in theNew Yorker in 1980. "Residents and Transients"first appeared in the Boston Review in August of1982 before being included in Mason's first collec-tion of short stories, Shiloh and Other Stories. Thevolume received nominations for a PEN-Faulkneraward and the National Book Critics Circle Award.The collection won the 1983 Ernest HemingwayFoundation Award.

The defining characteristic of Mason's fictionis change. Most of her stories are set in ruralKentucky, a region losing its distinctive flavor.Often, her protagonist is a woman at some momentof transition in her life. In the case of "Residentsand Transients", her protagonist is at a moment ofchoice; either she will stay in her childhood home inthe countryside, or move to Louisville to live withher ' 'Yankee'' husband.

In a conversation with Lila Havens in 1985,Bobbie Ann Mason confirms that one of the themesin her work is that of "residents and transients."She continues, "Some people stay home and othersare born to run." Certainly, this describes the situa-tion in the short story,' 'Residents and Transients."

Since the publication of Shiloh and Other Sto-ries, Mason has produced a number of other works.In addition to the short story collection Love Life:Stories, Mason has also written a number of well-received novels. Perhaps her most famous is InCountry, the story of a young woman's search foridentity and for truth in the aftermath of the Vietnam

"Residents and Transients" is set in western Ken-tucky. The protagonist, Mary, narrates the story inher own voice. She announces in the first paragraph,"Since my husband went away to work in Louis-ville, I have, to my surprise, taken a lover." Fromthis surprising opening, Mary explains how shefinds herself back in Kentucky, living in her formerfamily home.

Three years before the story opens, Mary hadreturned to Kentucky (after an absence of eightyears) in order to care for her ailing parents. Shortlyafter returning to Kentucky, she married Stephen, aword processor salesman. At the time of her mar-riage, she agreed to the frequent transfers his jobwould require, but now, she is not sure that shewants to move away from home again. Neverthe-less, Mary herself feels like an outsider in her homecommunity; her long absence has given her anunderstanding of the world that the local residentsdo not have.

Before the story opens, Mary's parents havemoved to Florida. At the time of the story, Stephenis in Louisville, looking for a house for them to buy.Mary stays in her parents' house because she isresponsible for selling the home. She loves thehouse and is not sure she wants to move to Louis-ville. Mary spends her days caring for the eight catsher parents left and visiting with her lover of threeweeks, Larry, the dentist.

Larry and Mary have known each other sincethey were children, having both grown up in thesame area. Larry is content with his life, and hewants Mary to stay with him. Mary seems ambiva-lent about both her husband and Larry.

Stephen calls Mary regularly, urging her tocome to Louisville to see the house he has pickedout, but she is not enthusiastic. She discusses finan-cial transactions and visits to financial plannersinstead of her feelings.

In an important passage, Mary tries to explainto Larry the difference between residents and tran-sients in the cat population. Although she is ostensi-


R e s ( d e n t s and T r a n s i e n t s

bly discussing cats, it is clear that she is really tryingto say something about her own status as a residentor a transient. She is not truly a resident, because ofher long absence. However, neither is she a tran-sient, at least while she is here in her parents' home.

After eating at a restaurant in Paducah, Larryand Mary are driving home in Larry's truck. In theroad, Mary sees a rabbit with its hind legs smashed,trying frantically with its front legs to get off theroad. The sight leaves Mary near hysteria. When thecouple get back to the house the phone is ringing,and Larry answers without thinking. It is Stephen.Mary tells him she will be coming to Louisville; butinstead of hearing her, he lectures her on the needfor flexibility. This lecture upsets her, and sherushes outdoors.

Outside, Mary sees one of her cats walking upthe drive. The cat's eyes shine red and green. Thestory ends with this image, the eyes like the imageof a traffic light both red and green.

Characters

LarryLarry is Mary's dentist. A friend of Mary's

from childhood, he has never moved away. He is agentle, quiet man, he is quite content with his life. Inaddition to his dental practice, he owns his ownhome and a truck. In contrast to Stephen, Larry isslow and relaxed. Although he is sensitive to Mary'smoods and wants to make her happy, he believesthat he bores her. He tells Mary that he does notwant her to go to Louisville, but wants her toremain in town.

MaryMary is the narrator of the story. As the story

opens, she announces that she has taken a lover. It isrevealed that Mary returned to Kentucky aboutthree years before to take care of her sick parents.Since that time, she has married Stephen and herparents have moved to Florida.

Mary is uncertain what she wants in life. Shethinks she wants to settle on the farm; however, thefarm is for sale. Stephen, her husband, has gone toLouisville to find them a new home. While herhusband is away, Mary begins an affair with herdentist, Larry. The affair leaves her paralyzed withinaction; should she pursue the dentist, or move toLouisville with her husband? As the story ends, she

Bobbie Ann Mason

is still waiting for something to happen that willhelp her decide.

Mary SueSee Mary

StephenStephen is Mary's husband. He met Mary when

he came to Kentucky to sell word processors. As thestory opens, he is in Louisville, looking for a newhouse. He is a salesman, but he does not seem to bedoing a very good job of selling Mary on their futuretogether. Furthermore, he does not seem to under-stand Mary's needs and desires, and often tellsMary how she should feel. Contending that herattachment to her family home is "provincial," heurges her to be more "flexible."

Themes

Change and TransformationIn an interview with Albert Wilhelm, Bobbie

Ann Mason maintains that' 'Literature is principal-

V o l u m e 8 325


Topics forFurther

StudyMason, Raymond Carver, and Anne Beattie havebeen called "K-Mart realists." Read severalstories by each writer and a few definitions ofrealism. Do you think the label "K-mart real-ists' ' fits each of these writers? Why or why not?

Research the changing rural landscape of theUnited States. How much farmland was lost inthe 1980s and 1990s? What was built on thisland? How do you think this changed the lives ofthe people who lived there? If possible, inter-view someone who currently lives on a farm orsomeone who has moved from a farm to find outmore about their lives.

Read the Dylan Thomas poem, "Fern Hill."What is the subject of the poem? Why doesBobbie Ann Mason allude to the poem inher story?

ly about textures and feelings, not themes andsymbols, which are sort of like lead weights on thebottom of a shower curtain. They hold it in placeand give it shape, but they aren't the curtain itself."Certainly, the textures and feelings in "Residentsand Transients'' are ones of uncertainty and change.While there is potential for transformation, it isunclear at the end of the story what that transforma-tion may or may not be.

The main character, Mary, finds herself in themiddle of both emotional and cultural changes.These are signaled, first, by her return to Kentucky,and second, by her reluctance to move to Louisvillewith her husband. Although she has been a transientfor eight years, and agreed to continue this lifestylewhen she married her husband, she seems to rejectthis lifestyle now. In addition, her surprise at havingtaken a lover suggests that this is not normal behav-ior for Mary. Her infidelity must be a symptom of amuch bigger problem.

Mason presents a larger cultural change in herstory as well. Mary tells the reader that Stephen ' 'is

one of those Yankees who are moving into thisregion with increasing frequency, a fact that dis-turbs the native residents." Furthermore, Stephensells word processors. The influx of outside influ-ences—technology, transient lifestyles, northern-ers—will surely bring with it concomitant culturalchange to the quaint region.

Although it is clear by the end of the story thatthe area is undergoing change and transformation, itis difficult to determine how this ultimately willaffect Mary. She is receiving (and sending) conflict-ing signals, the red and the green lights blinkingsimultaneously. She is neither resident nor tran-sient, Stephen's nor Larry's. At the conclusion ofthe story, Mary is still unsure of her future.

Love and PassionThis is a story of a woman who has both a

husband and a lover, yet there is little love orpassion evident in the story. There is little proof thatMary loves her husband; the closest she comes toeven expressing affection for him is when he calls totell her he has found a house, and she muses, ' 'Hisvoice is so familiar I can almost see him, and Irealize that I miss him."

In addition, Mary cannot remember how heraffair with Larry began. "I can't remember whatsignals passed between us, but it was suddenlyappropriate that he drop by," she reports. Thisscarcely seems like the start of a passionate affair.Although "Larry wears a cloudy expression oflove,'' Mary seems to feel only pity for him. Mary'sresponse to the affair is one of surprise, not love orpassion. When Larry asks if she wants to stop seeinghim because he thinks she is bored, Mary does notreassure him. Although it is clear she does not wantto go to Louisville, it is unclear if this has anythingto do with Larry.

The only love Mary seems to feel is for the cats,the corn growing in the field, and her mother'scanning kitchen. The conclusion of the story isambiguous. Although Mary tells Stephen she iscoming to Louisville to see the house, she seems toretreat from this position when Stephen tells herhow to feel. '"You've got to be flexible,' he tellsher breezily. 'That kind of romantic emotion is justlike flag-waving. It leads to nationalism, fascism—you name it; the very worst kinds of instincts.Listen, Mary, you've got to be more open to the waythings are." Mary's response is to rush out of thehouse, and watch her cat come up the lane.



Style

Images and ImageryGenerally, images are defined as figures of

speech that appeal to the senses of the reader.Therefore, there can be visual, auditory, olfactory,tactile, taste, or kinesthetic images. By appealing tothe readers' senses, images help make the literaturemore immediate and visceral. Images often take theform of metaphors or similes, and are symbolicin nature.

Although Bobbie Ann Mason uses simple lan-guage in her stories, her images are nonethelessvivid and clear. Early in the story, she uses visualimagery to establish a clear contrast between thehouse Mary grew up in and the house her husbandStephen wants to buy. Mary says of the old home-stead, ' 'I loved its stateliness, the way it rises upfrom the fields like a patch of mutant jimsonweeds.I'm fond of the old white wood siding, the saggingoutbuildings." When Stephen describes the househe has found, it sounds like anyone one of a hundredtract homes one would see in any suburb: "it's athree-bedroom brick with a two-car garage, finishedbasement, dining alcove, patio ..."

Mason contrasts concrete images of the naturalworld with abstract metaphors of the financial world.For example, she makes several references to thecorn growing in the field in front of the house.Stephen, on the other hand, speaks in terms of liquidassets and maximizing their potential. The twoimages coalesce in Mary and Larry's Monopolygame. Mary says,' 'I shuffle my paper money and itfeels like dried corn shucks. I wonder if there is anew board game involving money market funds."

Perhaps the most terrible—yet most impor-tant—image in the story is the rabbit in the road.Mason writes, ' 'In the other lane I suddenly see arabbit move. It is hopping in place, the way runnerswill run in place. Its forelegs are frantically work-ing, but its rear end has been smashed and it cannotget out of the road." The image is disturbing toMary, who experiences it as a "tape loop." Theimage is also disturbing to the reader who realizesMary's identification with the rabbit.

Barbara Henning asserts that "When a sceneends in Mason's work, it almost always ends with afocus on a specific image." This is certainly true in"Residents and Transients." The final scene of thestory is of Brenda the cat, her eyes shining red andgreen in the porch light. Although readers are uncer-

tain what Mary will decide, the after-image of thecat's eyes is a haunting one.

AllusionsAllusions are references to other works of lit-

erature, pop culture, historical events, or fictional orhistorical characters. Sometimes writers allude tomusic, drama, or television to give their worksimmediacy and cultural currency. Mason is notedfor her use of allusions from popular culture. In InCountry, for example, Sam and Emmett watchreruns of the television show M.A.S.H. and thecharacters from the television show almost seem tobecome characters in the novel. What is notable in' 'Residents and Transients'' is the absence of suchallusions. Instead, Mason includes an importantallusion to a famous poem by Dylan Thomas. Theallusion is an important one for readers to grasp,because it reveals the heart of Mary's anxiety.

In the poem, the poet recalls the days of hisyouth. "And I was green and carefree, famousamong the barns / About the happy yard and singingas the farm was home ..." Like the poet, Marylongs to return to the days of her childhood. Further-more, Thomas reflects on the way youths do notcare about time and change, although by the laststanza it is clear that he regrets both. As a youth, hedid not care that he might' 'wake to the farm foreverfled from the childless land." This is, however, theconcern of an adult. Likewise, Mason's use of thisallusion suggests that Mary herself has deep anxie-ties about the sale of her family farm, and that she isleaving the land childless, with no progeny of herown to take over the farm.

Historical Context

A Changing LandscapeBobbie Ann Mason sets ' 'Residents and Tran-

sients" in a rural landscape to underscore the changesboth the countryside and her characters are experi-encing. Mary's parents have retired and moved toFlorida, leaving her to supervise the sale of the farmand the auction of their belongings. The house willsoon be lost, and it is likely that the new owners willnot farm the land. Such situations were commonthroughout the 1980s and 1990s across the ruralareas of Kentucky. More and more acres, formerlydedicated to farming, were converted to housing

V o l u m e 8 327


Comparefe

Contrast1980s: Unemployment is at 10.8 percent in 1982, arecord high since the Great Depression of the1930s. High inflation rates inhibit economicrecovery.

1990s: The last half of the decade sees lowemployment rates, low inflation, and a boomingeconomy. In some sectors, notably technology,corporations struggle to attract qualified workers.

1980s: The divorce rate peaks in 1981 at 5.3divorces for every 1000 people, before falling offslightly in the next few years.

1990s: While the divorce rate drops slightly, it isstill generally thought that one out of every twomarriages ends in divorce. The marriage ratecontinues to drop throughout the decade.

1980s: Many industries move South to take

advantage of lower salaries and more favorabletax laws. This leads to a boom across the Southand a corresponding slump across the Northeastand Midwest.

1990s: The rush to the South slows, and there is arecovery in Northern industrial states. However,the population of Southern states continues torise as aging baby boomers begin to retire.

1980s: A recession slows the housing marketand makes it very difficult for sellers, prospec-tive buyers, and real estate companies to dobusiness.

1990s: Home mortgages reach post-World WarII record low rates. Because financing a house isrelatively easy, new home construction thrives.

and shopping malls. In Graves County, Kentucky,for example, forty-two percent of all the homes inthe county have been built since the 1970s.

Likewise, the demographics of the region arechanging at the time of the story. Stephen representsthe influx of businessmen from the North; in hiscase, he is a salesman, selling new technology thatbrings about further progress. With word proces-sors, modems, Internet access, and electronic mail,no area is too remote, no area remains untouched bytechnology.

Mary is unlike other Mason female characterswho are generally blue-collar, working-poor wom-en. Moreover, Mary does not fit the demographicpattern of the area, emphasizing her role as anoutsider. For example, only eleven percent ofKentuckians had been to college in 1980. Theimplication is that Mary has had at least four yearsof higher education, and perhaps more than that. Inaddition, Mary's family, while not wealthy, ownland and a farm. Her parents have enough money toretire to Florida. Given that the per capita income inGraves County, Kentucky (Mason's home county),

was only $10,900 in 1985, Mary's financial situa-tion is far better than most of the people around her.

While Stephen and Mary's financial situationseems to be secure, their marriage is not. Thedivorce rate in the United States peaked in 1981 at5.3 divorces for every 1000 people. In addition, inthe years since Mason wrote her story, the marriagerate has steadily dropped. These figures are incontrast to people the age of Mary's parents whogenerally married younger and stayed married longer.

In her deft portrayal of the changing country-side, Mason has accurately and poignantly captureda Kentucky in transition. The cultural and socialchanges provide a rich milieu for Mason's characters.

Critical Overview

After initially appearing in the Boston Review,Mason's short story, "Residents and Transients,"



was collected in her first collection of fiction, Shilohand Other Stories, published in 1982. The volumewas favorably received by critics and readers andearned nominations for a National Book CriticsCircle Award, an American Book Award, and aPEN/Faulkner Award. Mason also won the 1983Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award.' 'Residentsand Transients'' is considered an important story inthe collection.

Reviewers noted Mason's understated prose;her characters speak in convincing dialogue, and itis possible to hear the rural Kentucky dialect in theirspeech patterns. However, some reviewers dislikedthis style, suggesting that Mason's characters andstories are both unconvincing and insignificant.

Both Gene Lyons and Anne Tyler offered praisefor Mason. Lyons found Mason's simple prose to bea positive characteristic of her work, while Tylerdeemed Mason ' 'a full-fledged master of the shortstory...." She also wrote that although Shiloh andOther Stories was Mason's first book of fiction,"there is nothing unformed or merely promisingabout her."

As noted above, Mason's work was not withoutdetractors. Some critics derided the lack of charac-ter development in the stories. Patricia Vigdermansuggested that the stories end with ' 'a closeness thatseems tacked on...." She also charged that "Ma-son takes us into her characters' new Kentuckyhomes and then runs a made-for-TV movie. Herpeople's emotions come across merely as dots onthe screen."

In addition, some reviews faulted Mason for thesimilarity among her stories. Robert Towers, forexample, in The New York Review of Books wrote,"Individually effective as they are, there is a degreeof sameness to the collection...."

In the years since its publication, the collectioncontinues to generate critical interest. John W.Aldrich, in his book, Talents and Technicians:Literary Chic and the New Assembly-Line Fiction,concedes that "one encounters in her work suchtraditional fictive materials as genuine social envi-ronment, characters who take on substance throughthe complex interacting relationship that is createdwhen people actually inhabit an environment."However, he faults Mason for not giving her charac-ters greater depth and significance. ' 'But what shesomehow does not bring to life is their significance,the manner in which their experience tells us some-thing fundamental about the human condition...."

Mason's stories more frequently inspire praisefor their portrayal of characters caught in momentsof cultural and personal change. Albert Wilhelmwrites in The Southern Literary Journal that ' 'cul-ture shock and its jarring effects on an individual'ssense of identity" is the theme that "dominates thesixteen pieces in Shiloh and Other Stories.''' Maur-een Ryan, in an essay in Women Writers of theContemporary South, asserts that Mary is "tornbetween the serene seductions of an obsolete life-style and the intimidating uncertainties of a variablepresent and future."

Finally, Mason has been classified as a"minimalist," that is, a writer who creates lean,focused prose, filled with concise details. Becauseof this identification, her work has been comparedand contrasted with that of Raymond Carver, CharlesPortis, and Ann Beattie. Barbara Henning under-takes such a study in her essay appearing in ModernFiction Studies. In this piece, Henning carefullyreads the details in Mason's work. She contends thatboth Mason's and Carver's characters "have man-aged to survive without protesting in a world withreduced economic and emotional possibilities. Then-anxieties and disappointments are instead displacedthrough drug and alcohol use and through an evenmore deadening activity: a steady focus on therandom details of everyday life."

Likewise, Richard Giannone, in an article inStudies in Short Fiction, focuses on emotionalminimalism, suggesting that ' 'the larger themes inthe stories arise from the breakdown of intimacy."

Criticism

Diane Andrews HenningfeldHenningfeld is an associate professor at Adri-

an College who writes widely on literary topics foreducational publishers. In the following essay, sheexamines the protagonist's fear of adulthood in' 'Residents and Transients.''

Bobbie Ann Mason's short story, "Residents andTransients," first appeared in the Boston Review in1982, shortly before its inclusion in the collection,Shiloh and Other Stories. The volume received highcritical praise and several nominations for awards,as well as receiving the Ernest Hemingway Founda-tion Award in 1983. Readers and critics alike have

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Residents and Transients

Map of western Kentucky, with the region above the sign for Highway 24 being thegeneral setting for "Residents and Transients."

praised Mason's blunt, straightforward style as wellas the way she develops her characters by sayingless, rather than more.

"Residents and Transients" has not beenanthologized quite so widely as some of Mason'sother stories, nor has the story received as muchcritical attention as her novels. Nevertheless, thestory offers a number of interesting features that areworthy of closer examination. Indeed, the story isconsiderably more complicated than might be thoughton first reading.

One of the first features of the story, apparent toanyone who has read Mason's fiction, is that Marydiffers from her other female characters in severalimportant ways. In the first place, she left Kentuckyfor eight years, "pursuing higher learning." Nearlyall of Mason's other female characters make theirhomes in Kentucky and virtually none pursue high-er learning. Mason left Kentucky to earn both amaster's degree and a doctorate in English, living inthe northeast for twenty-eight years before movingback to Kentucky in 1990. The "higher learning" isin all likelihood an advanced degree in English; notonly does Mary stay away for eight years, the lengthof time usually allowed for the completion of adoctorate, she alludes to a Dylan Thomas poem,

"Fern Hill," when she is riding in the planewith Larry.

There are other similarities between the writerand her protagonist. Mason herself grew up on adairy farm, the same background she gives to Mary.Further, as Mason told Albert Wilhelm in a 1995interview, "First, you go out into the world in questof understanding. Then you return to your originsand finally comprehend them. It wasn't until I hadpursued my education that I was able to know wherethe subject of my fiction was. Education has a wayof being abstract until you can link it up withexperience. I loved the abstractions, but then atsome point, I planted a garden, and everythingstarted to come together. Life, art, cats, family,fiction, words, weeds."

Like Mason, Mary wants things to start comingtogether. She watches the corn grow and she tendsto cats. Although it would probably be a mistake toargue too strenuously for an autobiographical linkbetween Bobbie Ann Mason and Mary, certainlyMason has infused Mary with some of her ownaffection for the land and for cats.

Her story features a series of dichotomies. Adichotomy is a division into two mutually exclusive


R e s i d e n t s and Transients

WhatDo I Read

Next?In Country is Bobbie Ann Mason's 1985 novelthat chronicles the struggle of Samantha Hughesto understand her dead father in the aftermath ofthe Vietnam War.

Bobbie Ann Mason's 1989 collection of shortstories, Love Life, offers readers another chanceto meet the characters that compriseMason's world.

The American Story: Short Stories from the ReaAward (1993), edited by Michael Rea, presents asuperb selection of stories by such authors asRaymond Carver, Joyce Carol Oates, Ann Beattie,Charles Baxter, and Grace Paley.

New Women and New Fiction: Short Stories

Since the Sixties is a collection of stories bycontemporary women writers such as CynthiaOzick, Toni Cade Bambara, Anne Tyler, FayWeldon, and Anne Beattie.

Raymond Carver's Where I'm Calling From:New and Selected Stories (1988) is a collectionof stories from one of the important short storywriters of the 1980s.

The Girl Sleuth: A Feminist Guide to the BobbseyTwins, Nancy Drew, and Their Sisters (1975) isBobbie Ann Mason's intriguing glimpse into theheroines of her childhood.

or contradictory groups. By dividing characters,settings, and ideas into two opposite groups, Masonis able to reveal more about each by contrasting itwith its opposite. The most obvious dichotomy inthe story is the one revealed in its title. Maryexplains to Larry the difference between the resi-dent cats and transient cats. This dichotomy alsosuggests something important about Mary: it isdifficult to determine which camp she is in. She isno longer a resident because of her long absence.But she ceased being a transient when she returnedto her parents' home. She is caught somewhere inthe middle. By establishing oppositions such as thisone, Mason reveals this very important featureabout Mary: she frequently finds herself caughtbetween two, mutually exclusive oppositions.

Early in the story, Mason contrasts the Ken-tucky natives with Stephen who is "one of thoseYankees who are moving into this region withincreasing frequency, a fact which disturbs thenative residents." Mary, however,' 'would not havecalled Stephen a Yankee," once again revealing herreluctance to classify people or ideas. Mason alsodivides financial matters and property owners intotwo groups as well. There are those who prefer

"liquid assets," like Stephen, and those who preferto bury their money in the land, both literally andfiguratively. That is, there are those who choose toborrow money to buy property, leaving their cashavailable for other uses, and those who do notbelieve in debt, like Mary's parents.

A less obvious contrast in the story is betweenverbal and non-verbal communication. Stephen is amaster of words. Not only does he sell word-processors for a living, he ' 'processes'' words whenhe and Mary talk on the phone or when they visit thefinancial counselor. His communication is strictlyverbal; words are his business and his life. Larry,ironically, who "overhauls" mouths for a living,says very little. He is reticent, quiet and discreet.Again, Mary seems caught in the middle; she is"incoherent" when she speaks to Stephen on thephone, and she falls silent. However, she is also thenarrator of the story, the one who relates to thereader what happens. Thus, while she does not' 'process'' words in her conversation with Stephen,she nonetheless is a word processor, someone wholinks words together to tell a story.

The most important dichotomy in the story,however, is that between childhood and adulthood.

Volume 8 3 3 1


.Her own anxiety over

pregnancy is further

revealed by her description

of her cat, Ellen, who had

a vaginal infection, lost a

litter of kittens because of

an x-ray, and eventually had

to be spayed,"

There are many clues to suggest that Mary isattempting to return to her childhood. Her allusionto the poem "Fern Hill" by Dylan Thomas under-scores this desire. In "Fern Hill," Thomas recallshis own "green" childhood, with longing and nos-talgia. Furthermore, Mary is at the moment oftransition when she will need to move away fromchildhood and into adulthood, with all the responsi-bilities and cares that such a move entails. She isfearful and resistant to making the change. Whenthe story opens, the reader finds that Mary hasmoved back to Kentucky, to her childhood home, tocare for her failing parents. Yet her parents leaveKentucky shortly thereafter to live in Florida, leav-ing Mary metaphorically orphaned. Their absence,however, signals that it is Mary's turn to take on theresponsibility of a household.

Perhaps less obvious, but no less important, isthe implication that it is time for Mary to start afamily of her own. Certainly, Stephen's search for ahome suggests his need to settle down and start afamily. Mary's resistance to not only moving toLouisville but also to even visiting Stephen seems tosymbolize a deeply rooted fear of sex, pregnancy,and motherhood.

There are many clues pointing in this direction.First, Mary has directed her own maternal instinctstoward the cats. She says, "They seem to be myresponsibility, like some sins I have committed, likeillegitimate children." It would be possible to arguethat the sin is her failure to procreate, to carry on herfamily line. Second, her affair with Larry is essen-tially immature, as evidenced by Mason's descrip-tion of them as children. The first time he comes tothe house, Larry brings ice cream and drives a truck

with ' 'a chrome streak on it that makes it look like arocket, and on the doors it has flames painted."While such a truck might be appropriate for ateenager out to see his girlfriend, it seems lessappropriate for a divorced dentist pursuing an adul-terous affair. Larry does not call her Mary, but MarySue, her childhood name. They play Monopoly, andgo to eat at a restaurant "where you choose yourfood from pictures on a wall."

Certainly, nothing in this relationship suggeststhat two adults are involved. The most obviousabsence in the story is any mention of sex. AlthoughMary and Larry are lovers, the only reference Marymakes to their lovemaking is to note that the ' 'Catsmarch up and down the bed while we are in it."There are other subtle clues that Mary fears both sexand pregnancy; in some cases, Mason uses phallicsymbols to suggest Mary's apprehension about sexualintimacy. For example, when Larry first comes tothe house, he frightens Mary by looking in hermouth. Later, she reports that she will not let him getnear her mouth. "I clamp my teeth shut and grinwidely, fighting off imaginary drills."

While Mary remains in her parents house, awayfrom Stephen, she can avoid pregnancy and mother-hood, even though she seems aware of her ownbiological clock: "I am nearly thirty years old. Ihave two men, eight cats, no cavities."

Her own anxiety over pregnancy is furtherrevealed by her description of her cat, Ellen, whohad a vaginal infection, lost a litter of kittens be-cause of an x-ray, and eventually had to be spayed.Although Mary does not directly relate her worryover the cat to her own body, she nonetheless writesher parents in great detail. She seems unhappy thatthey do not respond, as if she wants reassurancefrom them. In the same paragraph, Mary mentionsagain the house that Stephen wants to buy, indirect-ly reminding the reader that playing house andkeeping house are two different propositions.

The most graphic image appears near the end ofthe story. Larry suggests that they break up, assert-ing that he thinks she is bored with him. Mary doesnot deny this. When Larry says that he wants her tostay with him, Mary responds, "I wish it could bethat way . . . . I wish that was right." As soon asMary implies that staying with him is not right, andthat she should go to Louisville, they come upon arabbit, struggling in the road. "It is hopping inplace, the way runners will run in place. Its forelegsare frantically working, but its rear end has been



smashed and it cannot get out of the road." Maryseems to identify with the rabbit to such an extentthat she is incoherent when her husband calls.Moreover, there is little doubt that the rabbit willdie, reminding the reader of an old euphemism forpregnancy. Years ago, when people said, "Therabbit died,'' they meant that a woman's pregnancytest had come back positive.

As the story closes, Mary obliviously shreds theMonopoly money in her hand as she talks to Ste-phen. Whether or not she will make the next step,from play money to real money, from playing houseto keeping house, from illegitimate cats to realbabies, is unclear at the end of the story. Like therabbit, she is caught in the light, neither here northere, and she waits "for the light to change."

Source: Diane Andrews Henningfeld, for Short Stories forStudents, The Gale Group, 2000.

Thomas E. BurdenBurden is Professor of American Studies and

Director of Graduate Studies at the University ofToledo. In the following essay, he discusses themat-ic and stylistic aspects of the story.

The short story ' 'Residents and Transients'' is at thecenter of her 1983 volume Shiloh and Other Storiesfor a reason. Mason confirmed the story's impor-tance in an interview with Wendy Smith in Publish-er's Weekly shortly after the collection appeared.'' 'Residents and Transients' is a focal point for themain theme of Shiloh and Other Stories, which isthe tension between hanging on to the past andracing toward the future" (Publisher's Weekly, 30August, 1985). The story is significant in its ownright—it is a jewel of finely-crafted language anddense symbolic atmosphere and it develops severalthemes that are fundamental to Mason's work.

This essay will explore the theme of the tensionbetween the past and future in the story in terms ofthree symbols—the cats that populate the narrator'sfarmhouse, the Monopoly game she plays with herlover, and a half-crushed rabbit they see in the road.It will connect the past/future theme to the onereferenced in the story's title, namely the tensionbetween mobility and rootedness. And it will look atsome of the methods Mason uses to bring humanemotion and complexity to these matters, which inless talented hands could easily have devolved intoimpersonal socio-economic musings about thenew South.

Mason's artistic

achievement in this story lies

in her ability to draw such

memorable images and symbols

out of the mundane stuff of

everyday life—cats, board

games, and road-kill."

As is typical of Mason's economy of language,the first sentence of "Residents and Transients"accomplishes a lot in seventeen words. It introducesthe three characters: the narrator Mary, her husband,and her lover. In addition, it presents the story'sgeneral locale, Kentucky—and, by contrast withLouisville, sets up a rural/urban setting polarity.

Furthermore, it establishes the narrator's oddlypassive voice at the outset. She says she is surprisedby her own act of having ' 'taken a lover'' and seemsdisconnected from it, at least as she reveals herselfto her reader. The rest of the paragraph continues inthis vein, introducing Mary's dilemma—her hus-band's involvement in the "race toward the future''(he works for a corporation that keeps him constant-ly moving in an urban world) and her vacillatingdesire to "hang on to the past" by staying in therural area where she grew up.

The tension between the past and future isquickly presented and personified in the two men inthe narrator's life, her husband and her lover. Herhusband Stephen is ' 'one of those Yankees who aremoving in;" her lover, Larry, is a local she hasknown since high school. As a "Yankee" and anative Kentuckian respectively, the two representthe North and the South. This distinction remainssignificant in Bobbie Ann Mason's contemporaryKentucky because it creates a sense of displacementfrom 1980s Reagan-era sunbelt America. Masonjuxtaposes the local country hicks with people whosay "you guys" in a Northern brogue, smokemarijuana, and travel to Europe. Even though theold culture of the "lost cause" South has beenoverrun by brand names and subdivisions, theselocals feel both cut off from their past and unable toconnect with the future that is springing up allaround them.

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Residents and T r a n s i e n t s

The basic polarity of the story is past-Southern-rural-simple-resident versus future-Northern-urban-sophisticated-transient, and its dramatic core isMary's need (but inability) to decide which world tocommit to. Her affair with Larry, which she sug-gests occurred almost without her conscious in-volvement, is a half- hearted attempt to resist Ste-phen's orbit of job changes, word processors, andinvestment counseling. Yet she is unable to hide herboredom with Larry and his provincial life of"smocks and drills" and quiet contentment. She,after all, is a world traveler who has pursued ' 'high-er learning" and was one of the first female porterson the National Limited railroad. He is a ruraldentist who drives a Ford Ranger and is obviouslymuch more in love with Mary than she is with him.

The cats that live in Mary's parents' old farm-house constitute the story's major symbol. Theseeight felines are connected to Mary symbolically, asMason makes clear when she has her absent-mindedlyinclude herself when she counts them. She reinforc-es the connection by having Larry unconsciouslylink Mary and the cats as well. She has the narratorcasually point out that' 'Larry strokes a cat with onehand and my hair with the other." Knowing eachcat by name, Mary's character fits nicely with theirfeline aloofness, their attachment to the farmhouse,and their lack of attachment to anything else.

The cats came with the farm, which places themwith the rural past—but they are also cruel to rabbitsand homeless cats, which associates them with the' 'dog eat dog" world of her husband. The cats gangup on transients after initially making them feel athome. After mentioning this cruel feline trait, Marytells Larry about reading she has done on cat behav-ior in the wild. The story's title comes from thispassage. The issue Mary ponders regarding cats isthe same as her own—namely whether it is better toestablish a permanent residence or to commit tobeing a transient, whether she should stay in herparents' country farmhouse with Larry or follow herhusband into a rootless future of corporate movesand upward mobility.

Mary explains to Larry, who appears to beinterested in everything she has to say, that scien-tists used to think ' 'resident'' cat populations thatcommitted to specific territory were the most suc-cessful groups in the wild and that the transientswere considered "the bums, the losers." But nowthis theory has been questioned; the new idea beingthat maybe the transients are the superior ones, atleast the more intelligent. The paradox of all this, of

course, is that in Mary's case being a "resident"would mean leaving her marriage, because themarriage is based on the "transient" contemporarylifestyle. To stay (geographically) she has to leave(relationship-wise). She is as confused as the scien-tists. To be a resident or a transient, that is thequestion—for cats and for Mary. The story takesplace during an interlude of avoiding that inevitabledecision.

Like the cats, the board game Monopoly sym-bolically renders the tension between wanderingand putting down roots. As a symbol, Monopolyaptly combines the idea of aimless meandering withthe world of financial investing, mortgage strate-gies, and getting ahead by "playing the game."Mason reserves her sharpest satire in the story forthe idea of money management, having Mary recalla session with a financial counselor who usedterminology like "fluid assets" and investment"postures that will maximize your potential." Thewords remind her of a weird sex therapist's advice.

The Monopoly game is the subtext of an eve-ning Larry and Mary spend together, the same onein which they have their cat discussion. It is acurious thing for new lovers to be doing; in a sensethe game is taking the place of intimacy for them,just as financial talk substitutes for intimacy be-tween Mary and her husband Stephen. Their longdistance calls are mostly about money and/or theirnew house in Louisville. (It should be noted herethat the use of the common brand name game is alsoa good example of the popular culture many crit-ics have noted as a conspicuous feature of Ma-son's work.)

While the cats and the Monopoly game subtlysymbolize the tension Mary feels between follow-ing her husband to Louisville and staying with herlover in the country, the wounded rabbit she sees inthe road is a blatant and dramatic representation ofthis conflict. It is an example of what fellow writerRaymond Carver (in the jacket notes to Shiloh andOther Stories') called the "aftereffect image" inMason's fiction—her tendency to create imagesthat, long after one has finished the story, burn in themind as a vivid and disturbing pictures. Rabbits arementioned casually earlier in the story—dead onesthe cats bring in. Yet in this scene Mary is trauma-tized by what she sees. As she and Larry are drivingback from a restaurant they come across a rabbit thathas been hit. "It is hopping in place, the wayrunners will run in place. Its forelegs are frantically



working, but its rear end has been smashed and itcannot get out of the road."

This image is the closest thing to a climax inthis story that, for the most part, carefully avoids thedramatic. The sight of the mangled creature sendsMary into a fit of hysterics. She is inconsolable, andwhen her husband calls and her lover answers thephone, her whole indecision comes to an abrupt end.Trying to deflect her husband's suspicion aboutLarry, she hurriedly commits to coming to Louis-ville, ostensibly ending her affair. In a clever pun-ning reference to the farmhouse felines, Mary saysshe will have to swear to Stephen "on a stack ofcats'' that nothing sexual is going on. As she andStephen discuss her "attachment to place" and her"need to be flexible," Mary finds herself nervouslytearing up the Monopoly money she holds inher hands.

Mary has not really resolved her quandary, andher frantic need to do something is both triggeredand epitomized by the grisly rabbit image—she seesherself as a helpless creature who is hurt, confused,stuck and immobile, but frantically attempting tomove. Mason deftly converges the story's symbolshere—the cats, Monopoly, and the dying rabbit—and then closes with another striking visual image,the night glow of one of her cats' eyes that appear asone red and one green. Both small animal "afteref-fect images" combine to make Mary realize thedepth of her inner conflict. She thinks of the red andgreen glow in the cat's eyes as mixed signals from atraffic light, an objective correlative of her indecision.

Mason's artistic achievement in this story liesin her ability to draw such memorable images andsymbols out of the mundane stuff of everyday life—cats, board games, and road-kill. But the tone of thestory also adds to its success. The flat, emotionlessaffect of her narrator creates an ambiguity betweenwhat is being said and how it is being said. In themangled rabbit episode, for example, she states thatshe becomes hysterical. But the reader is neverprivy to that level of emotion. It is as if the hysteriais happening a long way off. Another example is inthe previously mentioned first sentence. Mary saysshe is cheating on her husband, but she says it as if itwere something interesting she read in the newspaper.

Mason has discussed this aspect of her style inan interview in Contemporary Literature. "I try toapproximate language that's very blunt and Anglo-Saxon. A lot of this is not just meaning but the soundof the words and the rhythm of the words" (Con-temporary Literature, 32, [1991]). Note the phrase

"not just meaning" here; that indicates that toMason, meaning is part of the intent of this style.The flat, "just the facts" tone of the narratorproduces an aura of numbness. One gets the impres-sion Mary is in a kind of shock, like the mangledrabbit, and that she has ironically separated herselffrom her own existence. Her experience of collegeis termed "higher learning." When Larry asks ifshe is bored with him and if he should stop comingto see her, her answer is "I don't know."

Many critics have noted Mason's use of rockand roll as a reference in her stories, but in ' 'Resi-dents and Transients'' she makes one of her rarereferences to formal literature. The poem the narra-tor thinks of, but characteristically cannot recall thename of, is Dylan Thomas's "Fern Hill," a beauti-ful lyric of nostalgia for Thomas's Welsh childhoodbefore he realized the fleeting nature of life and joy.Mary is also nostalgic for her lost past, but she isironic and arch rather than lyrical about it. Anotherpoetic Dylan, Bob, has penned a line that fits Mary'sattitude better than the Welshman's. Dylan's song,"The Man in the Long Black Coat," which coinci-dentally is also about infidelity, has a line that fitsMary's character to a tee—"people don't live ordie, people just float." And it is the flat voicingMason gives her narrator that so effectively conveysthis mood.

Source: Thomas E. Harden, "Symbol and Voice in BobbieAnn Mason's 'Residents and Transients,'" for Short Storiesfor Students, The Gale Group, 2000.


specialization in American cinema, from the Uni-versity of Michigan. She is a freelance writer/editorand film critic and teaches courses In Americancinema. In the following essay, she considers themain character's desire to hang onto her memo-ries of her family farmhouse and small Southernhometown way of life, which is rapidly slippingaway from her.

Bobby Ann Mason is a Southern writer known forher stories that express a strong sense of place.' 'Residents and Transients," as the title suggests, isabout a woman who is torn between her attachmentto her hometown and family farmhouse, where shehas been a "resident" most of her life, and herattachment to her marriage, which necessitates a"transient" lifestyle, as her husband's job requiresthat they move every few years.

V o l u m e 8 3 3 S


story is like the mournful

'yowling of a homeless cat,'

an expression of her own

mourning over the impending

loss of her childhood home,

and the sense of homelessness

it will bring."

On one level, Mary, the narrator, is torn be-tween the two men in her life, her husband and herlover. At a deeper level, however, each man isassociated with Mary's two choices: her lover,Larry, is associated with remaining a "resident" inher home town, while her husband, Stephen, isassociated with the ' 'transient'' life that comes withhis job. At the story's opening, Stephen has gone toLouisville, Kentucky, where he has recently beentransferred, to look for a new house.

Mary's attachment to Larry is based on hisassociations with her hometown, family farmhouse,and childhood memories. The two grew up together,he has never moved out of town (and never will),and he even calls her by her childhood name,"Mary Sue." Larry appeals to Mary's sense ofhome because he wants her to stay there with him.'"You shouldn't go to Louisville,' he pleads. 'Thispart of Kentucky is the prettiest. I wouldn't changeit for anything.'" This deep-rooted attachment toplace is also characteristic of the town's residents:"Most people around here would rather die thanleave town."

Mary's attachment to her husband, Stephen, onthe other hand, necessitates a more "mobile,""flexible" and modern lifestyle in which one doesn'tdevelop any great attachment to a particular loca-tion, but is willing to pick up and move anywhere inpursuit of better professional and financial opportu-nities. His job requires "frequent transfers," fromone location to another. Mary even describes him asone of the Yankee outsiders, from the North, whohave begun to "invade" her community. This "in-vasion" of the town represents an element of changewhich threatens to outmode its rustic, "provincial"

Southern character. Mary explains that this change"disturbs the native residents," herself included.

In the opening paragraph, Mary expresses herstrong desire to be a "resident," to stay where sheis, in her family farmhouse, in her hometown.' 'I donot want to go to Louisville. I do not want to goanywhere." A considerable amount of the story istaken up with Mary's loving descriptions of the landand the house. There is a strong sense of nostalgia—a longing for, or clinging to, fond memories of apast that is quickly slipping way—in these descrip-tions. For instance, Mary's description of the farm-house is rich with majesty and affection: "I love itsstateliness, the way it rises up from the fields like apatch of mutant jimsonweeds." The evidence ofdecay in Mary's description further expresses astrong sense of nostalgia: "I'm fond of the old whitewood siding, the sagging outbuildings."

Mary's attachment to her family home evenfocuses on particular rooms of the house whichevoke images of a simpler, more traditional life-style. Her description of the "canning kitchen" tiesher nostalgia for the house to associations withchildhood memories of her mother's old-fashionedhome cooking: "The canning kitchen was my moth-er's pride. There, she processed her green beanstwenty minutes in a pressure canner, and her tomatojuice fifteen minutes in a water bath."

Even the view from the canning kitchen isdescribed in panoramic beauty.

From the canning kitchen, Larry and I have a goodview of the cornfields. A cross-breeze makes this thecoolest and most pleasant place to be. The house is inthe center of the cornfields, and a dirt lane leads out tothe road, about half a mile away.

The great sense of loss Mary feels in seeingeven her parents let go of this traditional, rurallifestyle is particularly poignant. Mary's rich asso-ciations with her mother's practice of canning herown food is exchanged for the empty, modernpractice of grocery shopping: "Now my motherlives in a mobile home. In her letters she tells me allthe prices of the foods she buys."

Yet Mary's husband expects her to leave thiscountryside, rich with association, in order to live ina neighborhood that she disdainfully describes ashaving other "houses within view." Stephen's de-scription of the new house he has picked out forthem in Louisville only intensifies her distaste formodern homes. He describes it as "a three-bedroombrick with a two-car garage, finished basement,dining alcove, patio-"


In some ways, mary's


"Does it have a canning kitchen?" I want to know.Stephen laughs. "No, but it has a rec room." I quakeat the thought of a rec room.

Mary clings nostalgically not just to the landand the house, but to many of the objects associatedwith farm life.

"This place is full of junk that no one could throwaway," I say distractedly, I'm thinking of the boxes inthe attic, the rusted tools in the barn. In a cabinet in thecanning kitchen I found some Bag Balm, antisepticsalve to soften cows' udders.

When she and Larry are eating at a cheap dinerone night, Mary notices a ' 'framed arrangement offarm tools" hanging on the restaurant wall fordecoration. "Other objects—saw handles, scythespulleys—were mounted on wood like fish trophies."The fact that these farm tools have been framed andhung up on a wall for decoration indicates that theyno longer function as tools, but have become arti-facts—remnants of a past way of life no longeruseful in the modern world. It's as if they've be-come museum pieces. Mary is immediately remind-ed of the tools left in the barn of her family farm-house, and wonders what they "would look like onthe wall of a restaurant." By making this connec-tion between the framed tools on the wall and herfather's old tools at home, Mary is faced withacknowledging that the way of life she is clinging tois outdated, a historical relic, no longer a viableoption for her in the modern world.

Mary's husband, Stephen, looks down on Mary'sattachment to her hometown, telling her it is outdat-ed. "Those attachments to place are so provincial,"he tells her. The word "provincial" suggests asmall-town, ignorant, behind-the-times outlook onthe world. He chides Mary for not having a moremodern, up-to-date attitude: "Listen, Mary, you'vegot to be more open to the way things are," he tellsher. Rather than a traditional, old-fashioned, small-town attitude, Stephen tells her she needs to developa modern, detached attitude toward where and howshe wants to live: "You've got to be more flex-ible," he says.

Even Mary's parents seem to have let go oftheir home town and family farmhouse in pursuit ofa more modern, less rustic, lifestyle. The mobilehome in which they are living suggests both atemporary residence and the idea of mobility, whichsuggests a lack of attachment to any particularlocation. Furthermore, "their minds are on thecondominium they are planning to buy when thisfarm is sold." Yet Mary's sentiments are the oppo-site of her parents. "Now they have moved to

Florida, but I have stayed here, wondering why Iever went away."

The title of this story, ' 'Residents and Tran-sients," refers literally to Mary's explanation of the"two kinds of cats" that live in the wild, "residentsand transients." As the central metaphor of thestory, Mary's discussion of these "two kinds ofcats" provides a key to understanding her funda-mental struggles. Interpreting the cats as metaphorsallows for an interpretation of the distinction be-tween "residents" and "transients" as applying totwo kinds of people: "Some stay put, in their fixedhome ranges, and others are on the move. Theydon't have real homes."

Mary's dilemma is whether or not to "stayput" in her childhood home, her "fixed homerange," or follow her husband, who is always "onthe move,'' and has no "real'' home. As Mary goeson to discuss these distinctions, she expresses herambivalence as to whether "staying put" is or isn'treally a better option than being "on the move."

"Everybody always thought that the ones who estab-lish the territories are the most successful. They arethe strongest, while the transients are the bumsand losers."

Mary's description of the "resident" cats char-acterizes what people used to think was the better,more "successful" way to live—to spend one'swhole life in one's home town, maintaining a strongattachment to the land. Likewise, a more traditionalattitude maintains the perspective that "transients"are "bums and losers." But, again, applying Mary'sdescription to human beings, one can see that theuncertainty of today's "scientists" as to which typeof cat is superior is again an expression of Mary'sconfusion as to which type of lifestyle is bet-ter for her.

"The thing is—this is what the scientists are wonder-ing about now—it may be that the transients are thesuperior ones after all, with the greatest curiosity andmost intelligence."

Mary ends this explanation with the conclusionthat the scientists "can't decide" which type of catis superior. Again, it is Mary herself who "can'tdecide'' whether to stay where she is or to move onwith her husband. In response, Larry inadvertentlyadds to this metaphor by responding that, ' 'none ofthis is true of domestic cats.'' As it is clear that Maryis, by nature, a "domestic cat," Larry's commentthat they are ' 'all screwed up" is again indicative ofMary's feelings of being "all screwed up" by her

V o l u m e 8 337


out-dated attachment to the small town farm life ofher childhood.

Mary's connection to the cats is indicated inother ways, as well. She even inadvertently catego-rizes herself as a cat: "One day I was counting thecats and I absentmindedly counted myself." Onenight she hears a cat, not one of hers, yowlingoutside her house. "There's nothing so mournful asthe yowling of a homeless cat," she says. Maryherself fears becoming like a "homeless cat" if sheloses her family home. In some ways, Mary's storyis like the mournful "yowling of a homeless cat,"an expression of her own mourning over the im-pending loss of her childhood home, and the senseof homelessness it will bring.

A disturbing image toward the end of the storyserves as a metaphor by which Mary comes closer toan understanding of the nature of her dilemma.Driving home one night with Larry, Mary notices arabbit at the side of the road.

It is hopping in place, the way runners will run inplace. Its forelegs are frantically working, but its rearend has been smashed and it cannot get out of the road.

Like Mary, the rabbit is stuck in one place, its"forelegs are frantically working," an image whichresonates with Mary's "frantic" efforts at movingforward into her future. Yet, despite this effort, therabbit remains where it is, "running in place." Inother words, it is as if Mary were going through themotions of preparing to move to a new house inLouisville with her husband, yet, for all her efforts,remains stuck in the old house, as if "running inplace." Furthermore, the rabbit's back legs havebeen smashed, so that it is stuck in the road, andcannot move at all. Again, as a metaphor, thiscorrelates with Mary's situation, as her "back legs,"or her childhood memories of her home town, havebeen permanently damaged, in terms of being a partof a past she will never be able to recover. Yet, thesense of emotional loss she feels in clinging to thispast leaves Mary, like the rabbit, in a state of agonyand unable to move forward.


G. O. MorphewIn the following excerpt, Morphew examines

the qualities of Mason's heroines: their socio-eco-nomic status among the rural poor of Kentucky andtheir feminist struggle to achieve ' 'breathing spacein their relationships with their men.''

Much has been written about the loss of identityexperienced by the characters of Bobbie Ann Ma-son's short stories; the people of Shiloh and OtherStories in particular seem to be confused by theonslaught of pop culture, the media, and otherforces of social change. The males, perhaps, seemthe more affected, and more ineffectual in theirattempts to seize or to create some new center fortheir lives. The women, at least most of them, reactto their frustration and discontent more forcefully;they are or become downhome feminists, and thedegree of their feminist responses within their cul-ture is largely determined by education, by econom-ic empowerment, and by age, or by some combi-nation of the three.

Almost all of Mason's characters come fromthe rural poor. This is not to say they are poor, eitherin a strict financial or cultural sense. The oldercharacters, survivors of the deprivations of theGreat Depression, have jobs that afford them acomfortable if not luxurious lifestyle; some, likeBill, the retired farmer of "The Ocean," can evenafford a "big camper cruiser," which he proudlycaptains around the backwaters of America even ifit is a far cry from the destroyer he served on as ayouth during World War II.

The culture of Western Kentucky, althoughunsophisticated in comparison to the big cities ofthe East, where so many of the more ambitiouscharacters go, has a solidity, a sophistication even,of its own. In "Nancy Culpepper," the main char-acter, a woman who had fled the unpromising life ofher Kentucky youth only to return years later, hearsher mother say, "We'll never go anywhere. We'vegot our dress tail on a bedpost." Puzzled, Nancyasks her mother the meaning of the expression. Hermother gives it, adding, "I guess you think we'rejust ignorant . . . The way we talk." Nancy re-sponds, "No, I don't." And she doesn't, becausethis folksy saying is exactly one of the little thingsthat richly differentiate her culture, a culture sheonce dismissed as backward but now the source ofan irresistible longing. (She has used the impendingmove of her grandmother into a nursing home tojustify her visiting her relatives, but she is aware thisis really an excuse to test her vague desire to moveback to Kentucky.)

It is important to see that the downhome femi-nists of these stories do not want what their citycousins want: equal legal and political rights, equalaccess to careers, equal pay, government support of


R e s i d e n t s a n d T r a n s i e n t s

child care, and so on. Mason's women simply wantbreathing space in their relationships with theirmen. Sometimes only divorce, always initiated bythe women, will provide the degree of change thesewomen seek but sometimes their assertiveness merelyaims for a change of pace—casual adultery, forexample.

The culture of Mason's Western Kentucky isfocused on the lower class, defined by a general lackof higher education, by consumer taste, and, in-creasingly, by choice of leisure activity. Mason'scharacters have enough discretionary income to buysuch big-ticket items as campers and organs, andenough time to take continuing education classes,or, in the case of Shelby, the preacher in "TheRetreat," even the flexibility to follow an avocationwhich does not support him and his family (he is anelectrician during the week). . . .

The most educated women in the book follow adecidely different path in their relationship withtheir men. Their problems are not as dramatic astheir lesser-educated counterparts and their solu-tions are more ambivalent. Nancy Culpepper wasmarried in 1967 in Massachusetts, where she hadgone for graduate school. Her husband, Jack, aYankee, set up his photography business near Phila-delphia after the wedding. Nancy's marriage hasproduced both a son and relative happiness yet shecan't shake a longing for her Kentucky roots, which,to her consternation, were on her mind even duringher wedding night. After the ceremony Jack takesNancy outside to look for the northern lights. Shesearches the sky diligently but she' 'kept thinking ofher parents at home, probably watching Gunsmoke."The Joy of Cooking, a wedding gift, makes herwonder what her parents are eating at that verymoment. Clumsily, she dances with Jack to a Beatlesalbum. There are no stopping places in the songsand this upsets her:' 'She was crying. 'Songs used tohave stopping places in between.'"

When Nancy learns that she had an ancestoralso named Nancy Culpepper, she begins to go byher maiden name. A few years later she insists onvisiting Kentucky to help her parents with herinvalid grandmother and to look for some lostpictures belonging to her grandmother. Nancy hopessome of the pictures will be of her namesake. This isthe catalyst Nancy has been waiting for becauselately she had "been vaguely wanting to move toKentucky." Thus her feminist search for identity iscuriously, even atavistically linked to a search for

Bobbie Ann Mason has an

uncanny ability to capture

the state of mind of the women

of rural Western Kentucky in

the 1970s. As that culture

becomes more homogenized,

more integrated with the

general American culture,

these women will lose their

special identity and their

special problems,"

roots. She is willing to put a strain on her immediatefamily in conducting this search: both her husbandand her son resent her staying away so long. Duringa telephone conversation Jack says, "We're yourfamily too." And her son hangs up without sayinggoodbye, much to Nancy's distress; moreover, nei-ther husband nor son wants to move to Kentucky.

At the end of the story, the grandmother's photoalbum is found but the grandmother and Nancy'smother disagree on which person in a group pictureis the original Nancy Culpepper. The confusionsurrounding the identity of the original Nancy per-fectly reflects the confusion of identity of the con-temporary Nancy. The ending, with Nancy staringboth at the woman her grandmother had thoughtwas Nancy's ancestor and at the woman's husband,emphasizes the ambivalence of Nancy's situation:

This young woman would be glad to dance to "Lucyin the Sky with Diamonds" on her wedding day,Nancy thinks. The man seems bewildered, as if he didnot know what to expect, marrying a woman who hasher eyes fixed on something so far away.

At that moment Nancy's own husband is faraway and he is as uncertain as the reader aboutNancy's next move.

The main character of "Residents and Tran-sients,' ' the first-person narrator, has many things incommon with Nancy Culpepper. She, too, left Ken-tucky for "higher learning," which in her case tookeight years. She also came back to Kentucky on a

V o l u m e 8 339


family matter, specifically because her parents werein poor health. Even after her parents are recoveredand moved to Florida and even though she admitsshe feels like an outsider, the narrator has stayed onbecause, like Nancy, she felt the tug of her roots. Or,as she puts i t , . . . I have stayed here, wondering whyI ever went away." And she has a Yankee husband,whom she met when he was transferred by hiscompany into the area.

This woman's story is that she is bored in theabsence of her husband, who has been transferredagain, to Louisville. He is looking for a house there,while she remains on the farm to oversee the auctionof household goods for her parents when the farm issold. She has taken a lover, her dentist, Larry. Thatshe has been unfaithful to her husband sets her apartfrom Norma Jean and the others. Although she issomewhat surprised at her behavior, she has the airof a big-city sophisticate, a woman who does whatshe wants, including what some men have done allalong: have a satisfying affair and a satisfyingmarriage at the same time. The key to her attitude isrevealed in a lecture she delivers to Larry about cats:

"In the wild, there are two kinds of cat populations,"I tell him when he finishes his move. "Residents andtransients. Some stay put, in their fixed home ranges,and others are on the move. They don't have realhomes. Everybody always thought that the ones whoestablish the territories are the most successful—likethe capitalists who get ahold of Park Place.".. ."They are the strongest, while the transients are thebums, the losers." "The thing is—this is what thescientists are wondering about now—it may be thatthe transients are the superior ones after all, with thegreatest curiosity and most intelligence. They can'tdecide."

The narrator decides that she misses her hus-band and that she is going to join him in Louisville.However, one gathers, she would be just as happywithout him. The risks she takes while having herfling—going out to dinner with Larry where shemay be recognized, even allowing Larry to answerher phone—illustrate confidence, a sense of herown superiority. Her identifying with the transientcats is made explicit in the last five lines of the story:

I see a cat's flaming eyes coming up the lane to thehouse. One eye is green and one is red, like a trafficlight. It is Brenda, my odd-eyed cat. Her blue eyeshines red and her yellow eye shines green. In amoment I realize that I am waiting for the lightto change.

She is a transient and transients are just as likelyto leave mates as they are to leave territories.

Bobbie Ann Mason has an uncanny ability tocapture the state of mind of the women of ruralWestern Kentucky in the 1970s. As that culturebecomes more homogenized, more integrated withthe general American culture, these women willlose their special identity and their special prob-lems. They will become more like Nancy Culpepperand the narrator of "Residents and Transients" asthey become better educated and more economical-ly independent. They will have more complex rela-tionships with their men and families; their liveswill be more refined, more introspective—and thetrade-off in vigor and earthiness may leave them farless interesting.

Source: G. O. Morphew, "Downhome Feminists in 'Shiloh'and Other Stories," in Southern Literary Journal, Vol. XXI,No. 2, Spring, 1989, pp. 41^9.

Maureen RyanIn the following excerpt, Ryan emphasizes the

struggles of Mason's heroines in facing change andtheir impulses either to cling to the security of thepast or to look for something better in a new life.

"Old Things" demonstrates most poignantly theauthority of the past in Mason's world. Cleo Watkinsis perplexed by the modern predilection for an-tiques, for she "has spent years trying to get rid ofthings she has collected.... She doesn't want tolive in the past." Cleo does not perceive that heravoidance of life, her discontent with contemporarysociety, anchor her in a past that no longer exists."Kids never seem to care about anything any-more," she reflects bitterly when her grandchildrenact oblivious to their cluttered surroundings, and"she has put a chain on the door, because youngpeople are going wild, breaking in on defenselessolder women." Cleo envies a friend who has justtaken a trip out West but maintains that she couldnot "take off like that" because "now there are toomany maniacs on the road."

Although she declares that "there's no usetrying to hang on to anything. You just lose it all inthe end. You might as well not care," the story'sdenouement teaches Cleo that some of the pastcannot—and should not—be forgotten. At a fleamarket, amidst the Depression glass and rusty farmtools, she spots a familiar object, a miniature what-not in which her husband used to keep his stampsand receipts. At the sight of the small box, with itsdrawers that form a scene of a train running through



the meadow, Cleo's "blood is rushing to her headand her stomach is churning." As the story ends,she pays three dollars (too much) for the piece and,looking at the train, imagines that her happy familyis aboard, crossing the valley, heading West: "Cleois following unafraid in the caboose, as the trainpasses through the golden meadow and they allwave at the future and smile perfect smiles." Al-though the past offers quiet solace from the hecticpace of modern life, Mason is aware of the dangersof ignoring the inexorable changes of society. Cleo,with her refusal to adapt to contemporary culture,personifies another Mason theme—the inordinatefear of life in this strange new world. At fifty-twoCleo feels and acts like an old woman;' 'everythingseems to distress her, she notices." Mack Skaggs isalso relatively young (in his late forties), but hisagoraphobia and his ineffectual attempts to keep upwith his college-student daughter (he struggles withThe Encyclopedia of Philosophy only to discoverthat she is studying physics) are the pathetic actionsand attitudes of a man completely overwhelmed bythe world around him. In ' 'Still Life with Watermel-on," Louise's husband goes off to Texas withouther because, he claims, she is "afraid to try newthings." She is initially angry at his accusations andhis wanderlust, but at his return her feelings change."Something about the conflicting impulses of menand women has gotten twisted around, she feels.She had preached the idea of staying home, but itoccurs to her now that perhaps the meaning of homegrows out of the fear of open spaces. In some peoplethat fear is so intense that it is a disease, Louisehas read."

Mary, in "Residents and Transients," has,unlike most of these characters, experimented withvarious lifestyles, but she has returned to her rootsin Kentucky. Now, although her husband has beentransferred and has moved to the city to work andfind them a home, she stays behind because, shesays, "I do not want to go anywhere." Mary lovesher parents' old farmhouse and worries about aworld that sends her mother off to live in a mobilehome in Florida. She knows that her mother, wholoved her canning kitchen, would be appalled tofind that her daughter has taken a lover and spendsher afternoons with him drinking Bloody Marysmade with the old woman's canned tomato juice.An obviously more educated and sophisticated wom-an than many of her neighbors in these stories, Marytoo is torn between the serene seductions of anobsolete lifestyle and the intimidating uncertaintiesof a variable present and future. Eventually she

educated and sophisticated

woman than many of her

neighbors in these stories,

Mary too is torn between the

serene seductions of an

obsolete lifestyle and the

intimidating uncertainties

of a variable present and

future."

recognizes the dangers of stasis:' 'I am nearly thirtyyears old," she proclaims. "I have two men, eightcats, no cavities. One day I was counting the catsand I absent-mindedly counted myself." Near theend of the story Mary relates to her lover theperception that will ultimately send her—howeverreluctantly—to Louisville and a new life with herhusband:

"In the wild, there are two kinds of cat populations. . . Residents and transients. Some stay put, in theirfixed home ranges, and others are on the move. Theydon't have real homes. Everybody always thoughtthat the ones who establish the territories are the mostsuccessful. . . . They are the strongest, while the tran-sients are the bums, the losers. .. The thing is—this iswhat the scientists are wondering about now—it maybe that the transients are the superior ones after all,with the greatest curiosity and most intelligence. Theycan't decide.. . . When certain Indians got tired ofliving in a place—when they used up the soil, or thegarbage pile got too high—they moved on to thenext place."

Bobbie Ann Mason's Kentucky is paradigmat-ic of the contemporary South, and to an extent ofmodern America. Overwhelmed by rapid and fright-ening changes in their lives, her characters and herreaders must confront contradictory impulses, thetemptation to withdraw into the security of homeand the past, and the alternative prospect of takingto the road in search of something better. There areno easy answers, Mason tells us, a fact that makesher stories all the more satisfying. They are smallstopping places, brief, refreshing respites from acomplex world.

V o l u m e 8 3 4 1

A n o b v i o u s l y m o r e


Source: Maureen Ryan, "Stopping Places: Bobbie AnnMason's Short Stories," in Women Writers of the Contempo-rary South, edited by Peggy Whitman Prenshaw, UniversityPress of Mississippi, 1984, pp. 283-94.

Sources

Aldridge, John W. Talents and Technicians: Literary Chicand the New Assembly-Line Fiction, Charles Scribner'sSons, 1992.

Brinkmeyer, Robert H., Jr. "Finding One's History: BobbieAnn Mason and Contemporary Southern Literature,'' in TheSouthern Literary Journal, Vol. 29, No. 2, Spring, 1987,pp. 20-33.

Giannone, Richard. "Bobbie Ann Mason and the Recoveryof Mystery," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 27, No. 4, Fall,1990, pp. 553-66.

Henning, Barbara. "Minimalism and the American Dream:'Shiloh' by Bobbie Ann Mason and 'Preservation' by Ray-mond Carver," in Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 35, No. 4,Winter, 1989, pp. 689-98.

Lyons, Gene. Review, in Newsweek, Nov. 15, 1982, p. 107.

Mason, Bobbie Ann. "Bobbie Ann Mason: A Conversationwith Lila Havens," in The Story and Its Writer: An Introduc-tion to Short Fiction, 2nd ed., edited by Ann Charters, St.Martin's, 1987, pp. 1345-349.

Mason, Bobbie Ann, Bonnie Lyons, and Bill Oliver. Inter-view, in Contemporary Literature, Vol. 32, No. 4, Winter,1991, pp. 449-70.

Morphew, G. O.' 'Downhome Feminists in Shiloh and OtherStories," in The Southern Literary Review, Vol. 21, No. 2,Spring, 1989, pp. 41-9.

Ryan, Maureen. "Stopping Places: Bobbie Ann Mason'sShort Stories," in Women Writers of the ContemporarySouth, edited by Peggy Whitman Prenshaw, University Pressof Mississippi, 1984, pp. 283-94.

Towers, Robert. Review, in The New York Review of Books,December 16, 1982, p. 38.

Tyler, Anne. Review, in The New Republic, November 1,1982, p. 36.

Vigderman, Patricia. Review, in The Nation, March 19,1983, p. 345.

Wilhelm, Albert. "An Interview with Bobbie Ann Mason,"in his Bobbie Ann Mason: A Study of the Short Fiction,Twayne, 1998, pp. 128-34.

. "Private Rituals: Coping with Change in the Fictionof Bobbie Ann Mason," in The Midwest Quarterly, Vol. 28,No. 2, Winter, 1987, pp. 271-82.

. "Making Over or Making Off: The Problem ofIdentity in Bobbie Ann Mason's Fiction," in The SouthernLiterary Journal, Vol. 18, No. 2, Spring, 1986, pp. 76-82.

Further Reading

Folks, Jeffrey J., and James A. Perkins, eds. Southern Writersat Century's End, Lexington: University of KentuckyPress, 1997.

Offers essays on twenty-one Southern writers, includ-ing Mason, Anne Tyler, Alice Walker, and Lee Smith.The lucid introduction speaks to the fresh and new inSouthern literature, as well as to "a continuing tradi-tion of narrative that draws on the South's cultural andhuman complexity."

Reisman, Rosemary M. and Christopher J. Canfleld. Con-temporary Southern Women Fiction Writers: An AnnotatedBibliography, Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1994.

A valuable resource for any student who wants to findadditional critical sources on not only Bobbie AnnMason, but on a host of other writers as well. Theannotations are both thorough and helpful.

Wilhelm, Albert. Bobbie Ann Mason: A Study of the ShortFiction, New York: Twayne, 1998.

Written by the leading scholar of Mason's work, thebook offers students a comprehensive introduction toher fiction.


Silent Snow, Secret Snow"Silent Snow, Secret Snow" (1934) is not onlyConrad Aiken's most anthologized work, but alsoone of the most widely read twentieth-century Ameri-can short stories. The story concerns the degenera-tion of its protagonist, a young boy named PaulHasleman, into madness. Critics often view thisstory in light of Aiken's childhood, and search forautobiographical aspects to the work. Some inter-pret the story using a psychoanalytic framework;but it has been noted that the problem of thepsychoanalytic interpretation is that it treats theevents of the tale too clinically, diminishing thestory's emotional power.

It seems that a valid interpretation of "SilentSnow, Secret Snow" can neither avoid purely psy-chological issues—the theme of child-parent con-flict, for example—nor justifiably ignore the realistictragedy of a twelve-year-old boy's world demol-ished by madness.

Conrad Aiken

1934

Author Biography

In 1889 Conrad Aiken was born to parents ofScottish descent in Savannah, Georgia. In 1901,when he was eleven years old, Aiken's father, killedhis wife and then committed suicide. Aiken livedwith an aunt in New Bedford, Massachusetts, until

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Silent Snow, Secret Snow

he entered Harvard University in 1907. There, hestudied with George Santayana, a renowned phi-losopher and poet. Santayana's philosophy empha-sized the utility of human sensory perception andreason. This aesthetic reaction to the world alsoemerges in Aiken's own poetry and fiction.

Aiken wrote steadily in many genres, but pre-ferred writing poetry and short stories. He alsowrote several novels, including The Blue Voyage(1927), Great Circle (1933), King Coffin (1935),and A Heart of the Gods for Mexico (1939).

Aiken's poetry ranges from short lyrics to ex-tended "symphonies," as he called them, to morestraightforward verse narratives. He received thePulitzer Prize for his Selected Poems (1929) and aNational Book Award for his Collected Poems(1953). As a poet, Aiken belonged to the modernistschool, yet his verse was different from the work ofEzra Pound or Wallace Stevens. As a prose writer,Aiken tended to be more conventional, though suchmodernistic devices as stream-of-consciousness canbe found in his work.

Plot Summary

Aiken divides "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" intofour distinct sections. In section I, the story intro-duces Paul Hasleman, age twelve, a student in Mrs.Buell's sixth-grade classroom. Paul is distracted,however, by his intense memory of an event thatoccurred several days before. He thinks about theglobe that figures in the day's geography lesson andhears Deirdre, the girl who sits in front of him,awkwardly answer a question about the definitionof the term "equator." A few days earlier, Paul hadthe impression that snow had fallen; the sound of thepostman's feet on the cobblestones outside hishouse suddenly sounded muffled. When he got upand looked out, however, the cobblestones werebare and there was no snow. Yet in his own mind,Paul is mysteriously aware of a "secret snow" thatsignals his growing sense of detachment from thereal world.

Paul recalls that the sound of the postman'sfootsteps grow less and less distinct each day, andare audible only as the postman draws closer andcloser to the Hasleman's house. Paul speculatesabout the necessity of keeping this strange knowl-

edge from others and rehearses a family conversa-tion over dinner as if he were practicing a play.Meanwhile, in the classroom, Mrs. Buell talks aboutthe seventeenth- and eighteenth-century search todiscover the Northwest Passage. When Paul rouseshimself sufficiently to successfully answer a ques-tion about Henry Hudson, Deirdre turns in her chairto smile at him with ' 'approval and admiration.'' Atlast the bell rings for dismissal.

In Part II, Paul is on his way home from school.He thinks about the secret snow and how difficult itis to drag himself out of bed each morning when allhe wants to do is stay in bed. For Paul, the worldgrows increasingly more alien, incomprehensible,and repulsive. For example, he takes inventory ofthe items in a dirty gutter, and stares at tracks left bya dog in the sidewalk when the cement was freshlypoured. He then arrives at his own house and istroubled by the thought that it is the sixth housefrom the corner, when he had all along supposed itto be the seventh. The house seems strange as hecomes inside from the street.

In Part III, after supper, Paul's parents growconcerned about their son and call in a doctor toexamine him. Paul regards the examination as aninquisition, and becomes emphatically defensive.During the exam, Paul hears the secret snow. Thepressure of the doctor's questions forces Paul toadmit that his recent state of distraction stems fromconstantly thinking about the snow. His parentsreact negatively, and Paul fails to understand thefull impact of his revelation.

In Part IV, Paul rushes to his bedroom. Thewhiteness of the snow has become overwhelming.He now views his mother as a "cruel disturbance,"a hostile intruder as she tries to help him. He rejectsher defiantly as he finally slips away:

"Mother! Mother! Go away! I hate you!"

And with that effort, everything was solved, every-thing became all right: the seamless hiss advancedonce more, the long white wavering lines rose and felllike enormous whispering sea-waves, the whisperbecoming louder, the laughter more numerous.

"Listen!" it said. "We'll tell you the last, mostbeautiful and secret story—shut your eyes—it is avery small story—a story that gets smaller and small-er—it comes inward instead of opening like a flow-er—it is a flower becoming a seed—a little coldseed—do you hear? we are leaning closer to you—"

The hiss was now becoming a roar—the whole worldwas a vast moving screen of snow—but even now it


S i l e n t Snow, S e c r e t Snow

said peace, it said remoteness, it said cold, it saidsleep. (Excerpt from "Silent Snow, Secret Snow")

Characters

DeirdreDeirdre is Paul's classmate. She sits at the desk

in front of his. She is not a fully developed charac-ter, but her gesture of turning around to smileadmiringly at Paul when he answers a questioncorrectly is girlish. Deirdre has freckles on her neckand delicate hands; she is a stereotypical "firstlove'' for a young boy verging on his teens.

DoctorThe doctor is the first to suggest that Paul is

suffering from some sort of mental illness. Initiallyhe gives the boy a physical examination. Then,announcing that the problem might be ' 'somethingelse," begins a psychological examination.

Mrs. HaslemanMrs. Hasleman obviously cares for and is wor-

ried about her son. In the first part of the story, sheworries about Paul's condition and speculates thathe suffered from "eyestrain." To remedy this, shebuys him a new lamp. She tells him one evening that' 'if this goes on, my lad, we'll have to see a doctor,"and she continues reading a magazine, laughing alittle, "but with an expression which wasn't mirth-ful." When she finally understands the seriousnessof Paul's mental illness, she falls silent and hermouth ' 'opens in an expression of horror." After hehas vanished upstairs to his room, Paul views hismother as a monster chasing after him, though she ismerely a terrified parent seeking to save her sonfrom his illness—a task in which, as far as the readercan tell, she fails.

Norman HaslemanPaul's father, Norman Hasleman, is as con-

cerned as his wife about Paul's welfare, but he ismore reticent about expressing his emotions. Healso exhibits some impatience with the boy. Duringhis examination by the doctor, for example, Paulrecognizes what he calls his father's "punishmentvoice," which the reader may interpret as a sign that

Conrad Aiken

the father is the disciplinarian of the family. Paul'sdescription of the voice as "resonant and cruel,"however, may be attributed to his increasing dementiarather than to reality.

Paul HaslemanPaul Hasleman, age twelve and presumably in

the sixth grade, lives in an American town, probablyin New England. Prior to the onset of his madness,Paul was an ordinary boy, good at geometry, andexcited about geography. At first he is consideredintrospective, but it is soon clear that he is detachedfrom reality; this alienation is metaphorically repre-sented in this story as the secret snow.

As the disturbance takes over, Paul feels ter-ribly lonely. As his sickness triumphs, Paul be-comes distinctly paranoid regarding the "grossintelligences" that surround him. He only vaguelyunderstands the pain that he is causing others.

Paul's FatherSee Norman Hasleman

Paul's MotherSee Mrs. Hasleman

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PostmanThe first indication of Paul's mental distur-

bance comes when the usual sound of the postman' sfootfalls on his early morning rounds are deadenedas if by a fresh snowfall. The sound of the muffledfootsteps and the fatality of his knock suggest aclassic personification of death—if not clinical death,then the death-to-the-world that constitutes psychosis.

Themes

Sanity and InsanityIn "Silent Snow, Secret Snow," sanity is de-

fined as the ability to function in the everyday worldand interact with people. Conversely, insanity ismeasured by the degree to which one is unfamiliarwith everyday occurrences and the inability to com-municate with others. Deirdre's eagerness to an-swer Mrs. BuelFs geography question is evidenceof her sanity. The globe that figures in Mrs. Buell'sgeography lesson is a symbol for the real andeveryday world in which people, as they mature,become increasingly interactive. In contrast, Paul'sdesire to avoid reality and seek refuge in the shelter-ing snow is indicative of his increasing behavioralabnormality.

Truth and FalsehoodSaneness may be defined in "Silent Snow,

Secret Snow" as a person's ability to distinguishbetween the truth and lies. Paul's parents are con-cerned that he is no longer his true self. The doctorinvestigates the truth of Paul's altered condition;Mrs. Buell teaches the accumulated significant truthsabout the world to her students; Deirdre admiresPaul and flashes her smile to indicate, truthfully,that she is fond of him. Falsehood, on the otherhand, is linked to insanity in the story. Paul labors toconceal his knowledge of the snow.

Love and HatredLove involves valuing, cherishing, and volun-

tarily assuming responsibility for another person.Love can also be directed toward institutions orthings, like a job, a house, or a dog. Paul loved hisparents, but his madness erases his feelings andeventually causes him to reject his mother. Hatredinverts love, for it closes rather than opens personal

relationships, and thrives on suspicion and self-involvement. Hatred dissolves the bonds that unitepeople and in its very intensity constitutes a distur-bance of the mind.

Community and AlienationCommunity consists of a conscious sharing of

values and things. In "Silent Snow, Secret Snow,"the schoolroom and the family home symbolizecommunity; Deirdre attempts to establish a moreintimate community with Paul by indicating that sheadmires him for correctly answering a question.Alienation is a disconnection from those sharedbonds of community. For Paul, this happens whenthe snow alters his view of the world and at lastobliterates it.

Style

LyricismAiken brought the poet's sensibility and craft to

his fiction. He narrates "Silent Snow, Secret Snow"from Paul's point-of-view; this perspective guaran-tees that the author's stream-of-consciousness prosestyle will affect readers directly. Not surprisingly,one finds a large number of lyric poems in Aiken'sverse. Aiken also utilizes the material properties ofwords. For example, the pervasive alliteration, withits repeated "s" sounds, already appears in thestory's title. In addition, Aiken manages to endowhis prose with the naturalness of colloquial speech.Although couched in the third person, Aiken'snarration remains faithful to the linguistic style of atwelve-year-old boy.

GrammarIn "Silent Snow, Secret Snow," Aiken's de-

piction of insanity begins at the grammatical level.In the opening paragraph, for example, Paul thinksof the snow—the initial stages of his madness—andrefers to it with the pronoun "it": "Just why itshould have happened, or why it should have hap-pened just when it did, he could not, of course,possibly have said'' (emphasis added). The personi-fied "it," then, becomes a thing.

Point of ViewAiken provides Paul's perceptions, as when he

stares at the debris in a muddy gutter:' 'In the gutter,beside a drain, was a scrap of torn and dirty newspa-per, caught in a little delta of filth; the word ECZE-


S i l e n t Snow, Secret Snow

MA appeared in large capitals, and below it was aletter from Mrs. Amelia D. Cravath, 2100 PineStreet, Fort Worth, Texas, to the effect that afterbeing a sufferer for years she had been cured byHaley's Ointment. In the little delta, beside the fan-shaped and deeply funneled continent of brownmud, were lost twigs . . . dead matches, a rustyhorse-chestnut burr, a small concentration of egg-shell, a streak of yellow sawdust . . . a brownpebble, and a broken feather." Aiken does not needto add commentary, since the very randomness ofthe objects correlates to the randomness of Paul'sinner disturbance.

On the other hand, every item described in thegutter metaphorically describes Paul's worseningcondition; eczema is an irritating skin condition; abroken feather indicates a bird's inability to fly; anda broken eggshell may suggest the fractured whole-ness of a personality.

The reader should note, finally, that Aiken'sconsummate usage of the whiteness of the snowmay indicate the annihilation of Paul's conscious-ness. This whiteness joins with the cascade ofsibilating S's at the end of the story to convey Paul'sdescent into madness.

Historical Context

The Great Depression"Silent Snow, Secret Snow" appeared in 1934,

the second year of President Franklin Delano Roo-sevelt's first term in office. America was also in themidst of the Great Depression, which disruptedAmerican life, put many people out of work, and leftmany impoverished. Other nations were affected:Britain, France, Italy, and Germany also sufferedfrom high inflation and unemployment. A fascistgovernment, put in power because of its promise torestore national order and stabilize the economy,had achieved power in Italy in 1922. Another fascistgovernment was established in 1934 in Germany asthe Nazis gained control. England, too, had itstotalitarian movement around this time, when OswaldMosley formed the Union of Fascists, the so-called"Black Shirts."

National MoodIn the United States, on the other hand, there

was continuing progress in industry and technolo-gy. Although not everyone in 1934 could affordthem, a variety of new household conveniences—

Topics forFurther

StudyResearch the fundamentals of Freud's psycho-logical theory, especially his concepts of theOedipal complex and the "Primal Scene." Howare these concepts related to the clinical conceptof madness? To what degree do they explainwhat happens to Paul Hasleman?

What human connections will Paul be unable todevelop since he has become ill? Explore theimplications of his illness.

As a poet and to a certain extent as a fictionwriter, Aiken was identified with the modernistschool. What aspects or elements of "SilentSnow, Secret Snow" make it modernistic? Al-ternatively, does anything suggest that the storydoes not belong to modernism but to some moretraditional school of fiction writing?

Discuss the theme of alienation as it relates to"Silent Snow, Secret Snow." Is alienation in-separable from insanity, or is it possible to imag-ine a perfectly sane individual who is just asalienated from reality?

such as refrigerators and electric ovens—appeared.Air travel increasingly competed with train travel,and radio, the first great mass medium, had comeinto its own. President Roosevelt's "Fireside Chats,"broadcast nationally, brought the country closertogether.

Literary and Artistic TrendsAround 1934, there were two important trends

in American literature. There was the social con-sciousness movement of writers like John Stein-beck, who portrayed the lives of ordinary peopleduring hard financial times. There was also themodernist movement, as exemplified by the poetryof Ezra Pound and Wallace Stevens, or the novels ofJohn Dos Passes.

Rejecting the literary conventions of the nine-teenth century, the modernist movement concerned

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S i l e n t S n o w S e c r e t S n o w

Compareft

Contrast1930s: The American economy is staggeringfrom the impact of the Great Depression. TheWall Street crash of 1929 precipitated a world-wide economic crisis that resulted in devastatingcircumstances: record unemployment; high in-flation; and financial institutions such as banksfailing. Many families lose all of their savingsand assets, and are forced to rely on charity. Inresponse, the American government implementsa number of social programs to relieve suffering,jump-start the economy, and get people back ontheir feet.

1990s: The economy is experiencing a recordperiod of affluence and growth. Unemploymentis very low, as is the inflation rate. The U.S.

budget, at a record deficit in the 1980s, is at asurplus for the first time in many years.

1930s: Fascism is on the rise in Europe asfinancial and social instability allow leaders suchas Benito Mussolini in Italy to gain power.

1990s: The same powers that embraced fascismin the 1930s now function as republics. Forexample, Germany has recovered from the ef-fects of two World Wars to once again become aworld power, economically and politically. Eu-rope is united to become the European Commu-nity, with one currency and concentrated eco-nomic resources.

itself with formal experimentation and deliberatedisorientation of the reader, often by fragmentingnarration into dislodged and discontinuous sections.Modernism also appeared in the non-representa-tional schools of painting and sculpture, as well asin atonal music. Advocates of modernism claimedthat the "alienation" aspect of the movement accu-rately reflected the world—human consciousnesswas becoming progressively detached from itsorigins.

Critical Overview

Given the interest in the psychoanalytic theory ofSigmund Freud in the 1930s, it is not surprising thatearly interpretations of "Silent Snow, Secret Snow"examined the story from that perspective. LeoHamalaian provided an early example of psycho-analytic analysis in his "Aiken's "Silent Snow,Secret Snow'" of 1948. Frederick Hoffman's 1957study of Freudianism and the Literary Mind, whichdevotes considerable space to Aiken's fiction, isanother case in point, although it should be added

that Hoffman later de-emphasized the Freudianaspect of his reading of Aiken.

Psychoanalysis still influences readings of thetale. As late as 1980, Laura Slap invoked the Oedi-pus complex as the unconscious theme of Aiken'sstory: "My thesis is that Paul Hasleman's illness isa reaction to his realization of his parents' sexualactivity." When the doctor asks Paul to read apassage from a book taken from the shelves, thepassage happens to be from Sophocles' play Oedi-pus at Colonus. This permits Slap to work theOedipus theme into her discussion.

Some critics have avoided the psychoanalyticapproach in favor of a purely aesthetic approach,inspired by the fact that Aiken considered himself apoet first and a prose-writer second. An example ofthe aesthetic, or formalist, approach is to be found inElizabeth Tebeux's '"Silent Snow, Secret Snow':Style as Art" (1983). In the essay, Tebeaux dis-cusses Aiken's careful usage of such poetic devicesas ambiguity and polysemy (the endowing of onesimple word with many meanings, each of whichdepends on a particular context); she also looksclosely at the use of rhythm and alliteration as ameans of reproducing the feelings that accompany



Paul's descent into madness. According to Tebeaux,' 'focusing only on Paul is to miss the most remark-able literary aspects of the story. Combining senseand symbol and rhythm and tone and sound, Aikenuses his poetic skills to draw the reader intoPaul's world."

A more recent tendency is to deconstruct thestory by making a deliberately counter-intuitiveinterpretation. Such interpretations turn insanityinto a positive; Paul's behavior is viewed as asymbolic breaking away from an oppressive societyand the restrictive bonds of community and family.As such, Paul's growing individuality and indepen-dence is seen as insanity. Ann Gossman and JesseSwan both exemplify this critical trend. Gossman'sthesis is that "Paul's withdrawal is not psychopath-ic, but rather the alienation of the artist from socie-ty." Gossman argues that what we mistake forPaul's madness is his flowering "as an artist" orseer who "must die" rather than "'mature' intoperhaps another Mr. Hasleman." While admittingthat the ' 'reasonable modern reader naturally seemsto recoil from accepting" what she calls "Paul'schoice" to embrace madness, Jesse Swan neverthe-less contends that this same "modern reader" mightactually resent "Paul for having the courage" toturn his back on the world and enter the secret,artistic world of the snow.

Criticism

Thomas BertonneauBertonneau is a Temporary Assistant Professor

of English and the Humanities at Central MichiganUniversity, and Senior Policy Analyst at the Mackl-nac Center for Public Policy. In the following essay,he surveys the various critical interpretations ofPaul's mental disturbance in Aiken's ' 'Silent Snow,Secret Snow.''

Critics do not interpret Conrad Aiken's short story"Silent Snow, Secret Snow" (1934) in a literalway. Upon initial examination, they consistentlyregard the story as something other than what it is.Thomas L. Erskine, for example, in his 1972 psy-choanalytical interpretation of the story, claims that"Silent Snow, Secret Snow" is about the "bal-ance" between "two worlds" and the "discovery"that results by leaving one to enter the other. For

Snow covered spruce tree.

Erskine, each of young Paul Hasleman's deformedor defamiliarized perceptions of the world amountto an "epiphany," an intense vision with deepsymbolic meaning.

Appreciating the story on purely aestheticgrounds, Elizabeth Tebeaux calls attention to Ai-ken's work, stating that he "enables us to feel someof the magic and terrifying wonder that the snowworld, whatever it is, offers Paul." Tebeaux con-cludes by noting that the story "will more thanlikely continue to be enjoyed long after the nature ofPaul's problem has ceased to be of any psychologi-cal interest."

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WhatDo I Read

Next?Edgar Allen Poe's "Ligeia" (1838) and "TheTell-Tale Heart" (1843) both deal with insanityand serve as interesting contrasts to Aiken's"Silent Snow, Secret Snow."

Ray Bradbury's story,' 'The Earth Men'' (1948),later published in The Martian Chronicles (1952),is a story about madness. It is a fascinatinginversion of the usual insanity narrative andmakes a useful contrast with Aiken's tale.

Chapter Two of Freud's Civilization and its

Discontents (1930) explores the roots of aliena-tion and offers background information for adiscussion of Paul Hasleman's detachment fromthe reality.

Arthur Rimbaud's "A Season in Hell" (1870) isa long poem that explores the alienation of ayoung poet.

"Senlin: A Biography" is a story by ConradAiken. It is often discussed in connection with"Silent Snow, Secret Snow."

Moreover, Jesse Swan maintains that we arenot to believe that Paul is insane, because madnessis a label applied in an arbitrary and oppressivemanner. Similarly, Ann Gossman referred to Paul'sparents, and to the whole adult world in the story, as' 'philistine''—an extreme judgment.

Paul Hasleman, the protagonist of "Silent Snow,Secret Snow," suffers the terrible fate of having hislife annihilated by a "fixed idea," or an over-whelming obsession. What should one say aboutthose critics who attempt to convert the tragedy intosomething other than what it is by claiming thatPaul's condition corresponds to something otherthan what the evidence dictates?

Starting from the fact, however, that Aikenunderstood the effects of insanity—his father killedhis mother and then himself in a psychotic fit, andAiken himself later attempted suicide—I believethat readers need to understand that Paul's distur-bance may never qualify as an experience throughwhich he might live and personally or artisticallyprofit, but that his collapse is simply the end of all ofhis conscious experiences.

Aiken has something in common with EdgarAllan Poe, an earlier American short story writer,who also struggled with madness and wrote about itin such stories as "The Tell-Tale Heart" and

"Ligeia." In the former, insanity is rooted in guilt,while in the latter, it assumes the form of an evil entity.

The term "possession" appears in the firstparagraph of "Silent Snow, Secret Snow." Thesetting is Mrs. Buell's sixth-grade classroom duringa geography lesson. Paul ignores her, and insteadconcentrates on his growing obsession with thesnow: "It was like a peculiarly beautiful trinket tobe carried unmentioned in one's trouser pocket—arare stamp, an old coin, a few tiny gold links foundtrodden out of shape on a path in the park, a pebbleof carnelian, a seashell distinguishable from allothers by an unusual spot or stripe—and, as if itwere any of these, he carried around with himeverywhere a warm and persistent and increasinglybeautiful sense of possession."

All aspects of Paul's state of mind in regard tohis "possession" may strike the reader as sinisterforeshadowings of the story's climax. Even at thegrammatical level, Aiken's use of the nonspecificpronoun ' 'it'' to designate the encroaching psycho-sis carries a frightening connotation, for a thing thatcannot be named cannot be fully understood. Think-ing of "it" as a seashell with "an unusual spot orstripe'' admits to the oddness of the condition butdoes nothing to pinpoint or solve it. Thinking of"it" as a broken chain of gold links "trodden out ofshape" also anticipates the subsequent breakup and


Silent S n o w , Secret Snow

deformation of Paul's mind, not to mention thesundering of his family.

At this early point in the story, Aiken deliber-ately confounds the idea of possession. Does theword designate an item which one owns, or does itdesignate an involuntary state to which one sub-mits? Paul mistakenly thinks that he possesses ' 'it,"when "it" really possesses him. Moreover, "it"has already drawn Paul out of his world, out of theworld in which healthy people live and love. WhenDeirdre gives an unwittingly silly answer to one ofMrs. Buell's questions, Paul does not join in thelaughter—not because he disapproves of it, butbecause the madness has already abstracted himfrom the generality of the classroom community.

The scene with Deirdre in part one of "SilentSnow, Secret Snow'' tends to slip past in the paradeof Paul's confusion, although it offers one key tounderstanding the story. What Paul notices aboutDeirdre is not that she is an eager student, willing torise to answer questions, but that her neck sports a"funny little constellation of freckles . . . exactlylike the Big Dipper." Paul has failed to see the full,human Deirdre, and instead reduces her to an anoma-lous blemish. Aiken skillfully interweaves Paul'sautistic inner monologue with brief intrusions fromMrs. Buell's lesson (sometimes reported parentheti-cally). At one point during the story Mrs. Buellgently admonishes Paul that if he stopped day-dreaming he might answer a question about HenryHudson's success or failure in finding the North-west Passage. Paul rouses himself momentarily tocorrectly respond that Hudson "was disappoint-ed." As he sits down, "Deirdre half turned in herchair and gave him a shy smile, of approval andadmiration."

Setting all theories aside, consider what Deirdre'ssmile means in the context of a sixth-grade class-room. All of the children have begun to take aninterest in the opposite sex, and all are quite shyabout admitting to it. Admitting to such an interestbefore the eyes of one's classmates is usually dread-ful, but Deirdre does just that, spontaneously turn-ing to smile shyly and approvingly at Paul. Wecannot discount the episode, for it constitutes amoment of healthy adolescence in that the girlprobably wants to establish intimacy with the boy. Itis an opportunity for Paul to experience the world ofadolescence. The "exploration" theme implied bythe geography lesson about Henry Hudson, I wouldargue, refers to the potential romance offered byDeirdre. Paul's madness prohibits any such explo-

Paul's declining

interest in and growing

aversion to the world is very

much a sickness, with

physical as well as

psychological symptoms,"

ration and any such issue from childhood fromtaking place. Paul's madness, then, robs him of thepossibility of love.

It is suggested that Paul's mental distractionhas multiple consequences, for he has become slov-enly and neglectful. He has not, for example, recent-ly polished his shoes because (as he rationalizes)' 'they were one of the many parts of the increasingdifficulty of the daily return to daily life, the morn-ing struggle." Paul's declining interest in and grow-ing aversion to the world is very much a sickness,with physical as well as psychological symptoms.

The attraction that Paul ought to feel towardDeirdre is directed toward the hallucinatory snow-storm: ' 'He loved it—he stood still and loved it. Itsbeauty was paralyzing—beyond all words, all expe-rience, all dream. No fairy story he had ever readcould be compared with it." The reader needs toremember, however, that "it" does not exist. At thesame time, the snowstorm strikes him as "faintlyand deliciously terrifying," a reaction that belongsto that vanishing part of him that is still sane. Thepsychosis will soon rob Paul of his memory—aterrifying prospect, although Paul will not be able torecognize it as such. When he arrives at the gate ofthe family home, for example, and sees the stenciledH (for Hasleman), he fails to understand its import.

The final terror comes after Paul is examinedby the doctor. Paul feels compelled to divulge thesecret of the snow and then, in a panic, he runsupstairs to his bedroom and throws himself into bed.The snow begins to speak to Paul, telling him: "Liedown. Shut your eyes—you will no longer seemuch—in this white darkness who could see, orwant to see? We will take the place of everything."

In conclusion, readers of "Silent Snow, SecretSnow" need to be wary of the numerous interpreta-

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S i l e n t S n o w S e c r e t S n o w

tions of Paul's affliction. Psychoanalytic approach-es tend to reduce the full humanity of the event.More recent approaches which rely on makinginsanity into something other than what it is, alsodeserve to be regarded with skepticism. Aiken didnot regard insanity either as a purely theoretical ordesirable phenomenon. His understanding of in-sanity might be described as existential, althoughthat, too, is an oversimplification. Perhaps oneshould simply say that Aiken is a profound observerof the human condition, a lover of life, and a writerwho can lead us to appreciate life by giving us theexample of someone who loses life by losinghis mind.

Source: Thomas Bertonneau, Overview of "Silent Snow,Secret Snow," for Short Stories for Students, The GaleGroup, 2000.

Jesse G. SwanIn the following excerpt, Swan discusses the

major themes of Aiken's ' 'Silent Snow, Secret Snow.''

In "Senlin: A Biography" and "Silent Snow, Se-cret Snow," Conrad Aiken explores the psyches oftwo people, one an old man, the other a child, whoseem to be confronting something much larger thanthey are. In both pieces, the central figures experi-ence something to which no one else seems to besensitive. As this experience is uncommon, thedepiction of it demands uncommon material. Ai-ken succeeds in presenting these nebulous experi-ences by carefully casting silences in his work.Aiken's silences surround man, embody man, andare embodied by man. They also resemble theChristian God in their ubiquity as well as theircomprehensiveness. In both pieces, Aiken tries tocommunicate the import of these silences, and hedoes this by stretching our consciousness to includethe edges of our minds. Although "Senlin" is anearly poem of Aiken's and "Silent Snow, SecretSnow'' is a later short story, both rely on silence toconvey their intendment. Realizing that Aiken em-ploys silence in "Senlin" and develops that em-ployment in "Silent Snow, Secret Snow," we notonly develop a greater understanding of Aiken'sWeltanschauung, we also perceive new possibilitiesfor reading Paul Hasleman's confrontation with thesilent snow.. . .

Silence motivates the events of Aiken's great-est work, his short story, "Silent Snow, SecretSnow." Like "Senlin," "Silent Snow, Secret Snow"is an investigation of a psyche that involves muchmore than only the psyche. Indeed in an even more

developed fashion, "Silent Snow, Secret Snow"reveals a struggle that, it appears, Aiken believes weall experience. Some dismiss the confrontation withsilence in the story as puberty or madness. Howev-er, since the silence in the story develops the silenceof "Senlin," it appears that this story, like thepoem, depicts a serious confrontation with eternity,with truth, with silence.

A common temptation is to view the silentsnow negatively. Paul, we may be tempted to say, isgoing mad. This conclusion, however, is one thatMr. and Mrs. Hasleman would form. Paul knowsthat he cannot tell his parents about his silent snow,"No—" he thinks, "it was only too plain that ifanything were said about it, the merest hint given,they would be incredulous—they would laugh—they would say 'Absurd!'—think things about himwhich weren't true...." And clearly the parentswould think him insane, but we are not to do so. Theparents are "gross intelligences ... humdrum mindsso bound to the usual, the ordinary" that theycannot experience something "irrational." Thisdescription from Paul's point of view, if not whollyaccurate because of its extremity, does represent theparents' general character. Perhaps it is inappropri-ate to be so harsh on the parents for being "nor-mal," but they clearly are normal. The parentsnotice a change in their son's usual, acceptablecharacter and think that something must be wrongwith him. If they knew that he was listening to silentsnow, they would think him mad. They do not see it,so, for them, it is not there. Like any good parent,they decide to call in an authority—the familyphysician.

The physician epitomizes the typical adult. Webelieve that there must be a "rational" explanationfor everything and that the world is a rationallyunderstandable environment. Anything supernatu-ral cannot be accounted for and is therefore relegat-ed to the realm of "irrationality," "madness," andthe like. The parents believe this as does the physi-cian. The physician asks Paul, ' 'Now, young man,tell me,—do you feel all right?" When Paul tellshim that he feels fine—indeed Paul feels exception-ally well because of his silent, secret snow—thedoctor performs a physical survey of Paul whichincludes Paul's reading from a passage of a book.When this reveals nothing out of the ordinary,"silence thronged the room", and the doctor asksPaul, moving to a psychological survey assumingthat if nothing is physically wrong, somethingpsychologically must be wrong with Paul, whetherthere is "anything that worries you?" Since Paul's


S i l e n t Snow, Secret Snow

answer remains "No," the doctor becomes exas-perated and exclaims: "Well, Paul! . . . I'm afraidyou don't take this quite seriously enough". Thedoctor has given Paul numerous chances to declarehimself mad, but since he does not, the doctorconcludes that Paul is not only mentally troubledbut unacceptably obstinate. Thinking about the doc-tor's and the parents' actions and portraits, it seemsthat Paul is not so unreasonable. Concluding that thestory is about a boy "whose mind finally breaksdown" [Edward Stone, Voices of Despair: FourMotifs in American Literature, 1996] ignores thepossibility, if not fact, that the parents and physicianare blind, insensitive and thereby negative agents inthe story and that the silent snow and Paul's em-brace of it are the positive agents. Such a narrowreading reveals that the readers, like the parents, are' 'so bound to the usual, the ordinary . . . [that it is]impossible to tell them about'' the positive beautyand peacefulness of the silent snow. These readers,like the parents and the doctor, have pushed awaythe silence which surrounds them and have chosento embrace the rational, language-centered world.Paul, many try to conclude, is mad, and the parentsand doctor, they silently assume, are the standard bywhich to judge sanity and madness.

That the silent snow is positive not only pro-vides additional support for reading the story as arepresentation of one of Aiken's favorite points inhuman development, it also seems rather obvious tothe unprejudiced reader. From the very beginningthe silent snow is a pleasant experience. In theopening scene where Paul is in class, we find out that

he was already, with a pleasant sense of half-effort,putting his secret between himself and the [MissBuell' s] words. Was it really an effort at all? For effortimplied something voluntary, and perhaps even some-thing one did not especially want; whereas this wasdistinctly pleasant, and came almost of its own accord.

Although this can be read negatively, as a signof Paul's ensuing madness, a more positive readingsuggests itself as well. The silent secret comes on toPaul, perhaps as ' 'madness'' does ' 'a schizoid per-sonality" [William M. Jones, Explicator, 18, March1960], but also as nature's breezes and soothingsounds do. A breeze is not an effort, but we oftenfeel a half-effort to experience it fully. Like thesilent secret, a breeze is not voluntary and it is oftenpleasant. Hence, the silent secret snow is not ipsofacto madness and therefore negative. In fact, itseems really quite a positive experience for Paul,much like a mystical experience must be for adevout Christian or a cognitive insight for a criti-cal theorist.

imposing itself on the world,

reveals the essential silent

entity that embodies

everything."

The development of the silent, secret snowseems to provide further evidence that the snow is apositive force. As in "Senlin," the silence is first aquality that characterizes as well as surrounds, andsecond it is an entity itself. The silence in the storycharacterizes the snow which comes to surroundPaul's world and then becomes ' 'the most beautifuland secret story" in the end. In class, Paul contem-plates the fact that

All he now knew was, that at some point or other—perhaps the second day, perhaps the sixth—he hadnoticed that the presence of the snow was a little moreinsistent.. .. There, outside, were the bare cobbles;and here, inside, was the Snow growing heavier eachday, muffling the world, hiding the ugly, and deaden-ing increasingly—above all—the steps of the postman.

The snow is "hiding the ugly" of the worldmuch like Percy Bysshe Shelley claims poetry doesin his A Defence of Poetry [Roger Ingpen andWalter E. Peck, eds., A Defence of Poetry: theComplete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1965].Shelley claims that "Poetry turns all things toloveliness; it exalts the beauty of that which is mostbeautiful, and it adds beauty to that which is mostdeformed. . . . It subdues to union under its lightyoke, all irreconcilable things. It transmutes all thatit touches...." The snow, then, may resemblepoetry. If the snow resembles poetry, is Paul a poet?Perhaps, but since Aiken concerns himself withEveryman and not just artists, it seems more likelythat Paul is an Everyman. The snow may be poeticwithout Paul being a poet if the silent snow isuniversal truth that poets, children, and old peopleare sensitive to.

If the snow is universal truth that includes boththe rational and the irrational, as it is in "Senlin,"the significance of its "deadening increasingly—above all—the steps of the postman" may be am-biguous. The postman has been seen as representingdeath as well as, more modestly,' 'the plain ordinary

V o l u m e 8 353

T h e s i l e n t s n o w , a f t e r


world in which small boys have to get up, eatbreakfast, go to school, listen attentively, and do allthe other things expected of small boys" [BallewGraham, English Journal, 57, May 1968]. The moremodest view seems more appropriate especially ifwe see the silent snow as positive. If the snow hideswhat is ugly, as poetry does, it would muffle thesound of the postman since the postman is "thebringer of information from the outside world"(Jones). The postman, with the parents and thedoctor, becomes associated with the adult and loudworld that has chosen to ignore the silent truth Pauldecides to embrace. By incessantly assaulting thebeauty of Paul's newly discovered world with newsfrom the adult's mundane world, the postman mustbe silenced by the purifying silent snow.

The silent snow, after imposing itself on theworld, reveals the essential silent entity that embod-ies everything. Toward the end of the story, whenPaul is being interviewed by the physician, thesilent snow becomes an entity that "Even here,even amongst these hostile presences, and in thisarranged light, he could see the snow, he could hearit—it was in the corners of the room, where theshadow was deepest". The snow occupies the cor-ners—the fringes—of the room much like silenceencompasses the edges of sound. Moreover, thissilent snow tells Paul to resist his parents and thedoctor so that it can provide him with "somethingnew! Something white! Something cold! somethingsleepy! something of cease, and peace, and the longbright curve of space!" This is a rather temptingpromise to make, especially when contrasted withwhat the parents and the world they represent of-fers him.

The end of the story presents Paul's realizationof the silent secret of the universe. The silent snowexclaims:

Listen! ... We'll tell you the last, the most beautifuland secret story—shut your eyes—it is a very smallstory—a story that gets smaller and smaller—it comesinward instead of opening like a flower—it is a flowerbecoming a seed—a little cold seed—do you hear?We are leaning closer to you.

This statement, compounded by the closing linethat describes the snow becoming a fierce "movingscreen of snow—but even now it said peace, it saidremoteness, it said cold, it said sleep", leads manyreaders to conclude that Paul dies, that his deathwish is fulfilled. But the scene has other possibili-ties, as Jay Martin notes that "we seem alwaysabout to break through to the truths contained in the'secret' snow. But we never, in the story, transcend

the snow itself, whose meanings remain secret"[Conrad Aiken: A Life of his Art, 1962]. Secret theyremain to those who, as "reasonable" adults, em-brace only what can be understood with mere hu-man language. The snow's depiction of the secret asa flower growing inward back to the beginning oflife seems more positive than what is normal—i.e.,a flower growing outward and dying! If the secretgrows inward it can grow outward again, and repeatthis cycle infinitely. The secret that grows inward isrelated to the silence that developed before Pauldashed up to bed. That "silence seemed to deepen,to spread ou t . . . to become timeless and shapeless,and to center inevitably . . . on the beginning of anew sound.'' Hence, we have the most beautiful andsecret story; namely, we have the story of thedynamics of eternal life. Life grows out to grow in,indefinitely.

There is certainly more to it than this. However,as the meaning is obviously ultimately silent, allthat any of us can do is approximate the truth.Approaching the truth is what Aiken does best. Hetakes us to the edge of our minds momentarilyinnumerable times in his poetry and fiction. Senlinhas been recognized as a character who probes theproblem of understanding who we are. However,Paul, because he is a child, has received incompleterecognition. Like Senlin, Paul is encountering silenttruth. Like Senlin, Paul embraces this beauty which"was simply beyond anything—beyond speech asbeyond thought—utterly incommunicable". But un-like Senlin, Paul is twelve years old and the "rea-sonable" modern adult reader naturally seems torecoil from accepting Paul's choice as courageousand insightful. Perhaps the modern reader recog-nizes the situation and resents Paul for having thecourage that only old men, such as Senlin, usuallyhave. In both cases, Aiken clearly presents a personat a critical point in a human's life—that is, at theedge of sound and silence—and both choose the onewhich encompasses the other.

Source: Jesse G. Swan, "At the Edge of Sound and Silence:Conrad Aiken's 'Senlin: A Biography' and 'Silent Snow,Secret Snow,'" in The Southern Literary Journal, Vol. XXII,No. 1, Fall, 1989, pp. 41-9.

Elizabeth TebeauxIn the following excerpt, Tebeaux explores Ai-

ken 's development of the narrative and the use ofpoetical devices in ' 'Silent Snow, Secret Snow.''

" Silent Snow, Secret Snow," one of Aiken's mostfamous, most anthologized short stories, has re-



ceived sparse critical discussion. Most likely be-cause of Aiken's admitted indebtedness to Freud,the core of existing criticism attempts to definePaul's problem in terms of Freudian psychology.Recent criticism gives a general overview of Ai-ken' s short fiction and attempts to place Paul amongAiken's other protagonists, his "lost people" whofail to accept the real world. I would like to suggest,however, that the powerful, intriguing effect of thestory emanates less from the enigmatic nature ofPaul's problem and more from Aiken's carefulmanipulation of style to develop the narrative. Ai-ken is less concerned with our interpreting Paul'sproblem than in making Paul's journey from realityinto the world of snow as credible, sensual, andtangible as possible.

At best, however, Aiken's technique has re-ceived passing commentary. Aiken's effective useof symbol has been recognized, but no analysis hasbeen directed to his style or its importance tothe development or the effectiveness of the narra-tive. Close analysis of the story reveals that Aikencarefully implements a number of poetic devicesthat mesh sound and sense and content to conveythe stages, development, and intensity of Paul'sexperience.

The narrative develops about the constant jux-taposition of the real world and the snow world.These juxtapositions occur within four main set-tings. The narrative begins during Paul's geographyclass, shifts to his walk home from school, thenfocuses on his confrontation with his parents, andfinally ends with the description of Paul's finalwithdrawal after he escapes to the darkness of hisbed room. Paul's fate—his rejection of the livingworld and his acceptance of the snow—the theme ofthe story, develops through the contrasting descrip-tions of each world. Shifts within each description,accentuated by Aiken's use of poetic devices andprosody, allow us to follow vividly Paul's changingperception.

The opening paragraph defines this technique.As the narrator brings us into Paul's perception, webecome aware that Paul does not understand what ishappening to him. He refers to this new dimensionof his perception as "it," "the thing." Aiken'schoice of words to control the tone of the passagemakes clear that Paul's attitude toward "the thing"is, at this point, not only positive but also secretive,defensive, and possessive:

Just why it should have happened, or why it shouldhave happened just the way it did, he could not, of

Sigmund Freud, founder ofpsychoanalysis, which deals with thetreatment of abnormal mental states suchas autism and paranoia.

course, possibly have said; nor perhaps would it evenhave occurred to him to ask. The thing was above all asecret, something to be preciously concealed fromMother and Father; and to that very fact it owed anenormous part of its deliciousness. It was like apeculiarly beautiful trinket to be carried unmentionedin one's trouser pocket... he carried around with himeverywhere a warm and persistent and increasinglybeautiful sense of possession. Nor was it only a senseof possession —it was also a sense of protection. Itwas as if, in some delightful way, his secret gave him afortress, a wall behind which he could retreat intoheavenly seclusion . [Italics mine]

Note that even in the opening passage "it" isused polysemically, as a grammatical expletive andas a pronominal substitution for an unknown. In thefirst and last sentence, the polysemic "it" suggestshow entrenched "it" has already become in Paul'smind. In addition, the order of the descriptive adjec-tives foreshadows the development of the story:possession, protection, fortress, seclusion. "It" be-gins as a secret possession but leads to total seclusion.

Immediately after this description of Paul'sattitude toward "it," the narrative shifts to a de-scription of what Paul sees transpiring during hisgeography class. The reverie ends abruptly; and

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Silent S n o w , Secret Snow

In nearly every

paragraph of the story, Aiken

has plied the tools of the

poet—rhythm, meter, and

common figures—to congeal

meaning, sound, and sense."

in contrast to the preceding passage, the descrip-tive language here is objective, neutral, extremelyprecise to suggest Paul's boredom and lack ofinvolvement:

it was the half-hour for geography. Miss Buell wasrevolving with one finger, slowly, a huge terrestrialglobe which had been placed on her desk. The greenand yellow continents passed and repassed, questionswere asked and answered, and now the little girl infront of him, Deirdre, who had a funny little constella-tion of freckles on the back of her neck, exactly likethe Big Dipper, was standing up and telling MissBuell that the equator was the line that ran aroundthe middle.

In addition to establishing contrasting styles,the opening passage is stylistically significant fortwo additional reasons: (1) it serves as a benchmarkby which we can compare Paul's shifting view ofreality as the narrative develops; and (2) the passageforeshadows the end of the story. The simile—"itwas as if, in some delightful way, his secret gavehim a fortress, a wall behind which he could retreatinto heavenly seclusion"—changes from a com-parative device here to reality for Paul. This kind ofsimile, which Aiken uses repeatedly, becomes, as itoccurs, an indicator of Paul's vision as it becomesincreasingly snow laden.

In the following paragraphs Aiken introducesus to the story's two central symbols, the postmanand the snow. The fading, muffled footsteps of thepostman, who represents the real world, mark thestages of Paul's withdrawal. The snow, the ideal-ized world toward which Paul is moving, possessesthe transitory magic that covers, transforms, muf-fles, and harmonizes a temporal reality which Paulrejects. Also operating as a metaphor for the beck-oning new world, the snow becomes the compara-tive intermediary between us and Paul's visionwhich Aiken wants us to grasp as vividly as possi-

ble. To embody each intrusion of the snow, Aikendevelops these descriptions about poetic figures.The repetition of the "s" captures the onomatopoeic,hissing sound of the snow and suggests the trans-forming effect it has over Paul:

They [postman's footsteps] were softer, they had anew secrecy about them, they were muffled andindistinct; and while the rhythm of them was thesame, it now said a new thing—it said peace, it saidremoteness, it said cold, it said sleep.

Note again, as in paragraph one of the story, theuse of the polysemic "it" to introduce the final fiveclauses. Use of anaphora, parallelism, and cadenceadd a sense of incantation and foreboding. As inparagraph one, the order of the descriptive nouns—peace, cold, remoteness, sleep—suggests the in-creasing distance that "it" will move from reality.In all the snow passages, the onomatopoeic effect issubtle and enters as softly as the snow:

All he now knew was, that at some point or other—perhaps the second day, perhaps the sixth—he hadnoticed that the presence of the snow was a little moreinsistent, the sound of it clearer; and conversely, thesound of the postman's footsteps more indistinct.

In other snow passages, Aiken combines theonomatopoeic effect with either rhythm or definitemeter to capture the movement and momentum offalling snow. In the final clause in the passagebelow, predominant dactyls created by polysendetonslow the line to develop a sense of inevitable,increasingly ominous depth:

the long white ragged lines were drifting and siftingacross the street, across the faces of the old houses,whispering and hushing, making little triangles ofwhite in the corners between cobblestones, seething alittle when the wind blew them over the ground to adrifted corner; and so it would be all day, gettingdeeper and deeper and silenter and silenter.

Abruptly, as Paul's conscience once again re-verts to the classroom, the reality he perceives isdescribed in decidedly non-rhythmic, non-emotiveactive voice clauses and sentences. These sentenceswith their pristine clarity contrast sharply with thecomplex sentence structure of the preceding pas-sage with its twisting, unpredictable structure whichmoves as steadily, but unpredictably, as the snow:

(Miss Buell was now asking if anyone knew thedifference between the North Pole and the MagneticPole. Deirdre was holding up her flickering brownhand, and he could see the four white dimples thatmarked the knuckles.)

In redirecting Paul's thoughts from the snowvision to the stark reality of the classroom, Aikenuses parenthesis five separate times in Part I. Ai-


S i l e n t Snow Secret Snow

ken's choice of parenthesis suggests that Paul'sattitude toward reality is indeed "parenthetical": itis cut off from his main thought sequence and evennow occurs only as interpolated data within theexpanding, beckoning snow vision.

Therefore, throughout Part I and Part II, Aikensteadily intensifies the contrast between the snowworld and the real world. The tone emerging fromthe descriptions of his daily, routine activities be-comes increasingly less objective, less neutral, moreshrill, disjointed, and irritated: "A new lamp? Anew lamp. Yes, Mother, No, Mother, Yes, Mother.School is going very well. The geometry is veryeasy, The history is very dull." As he walks homefrom school, Paul's view of a living world notcovered with snow is composed of black, desiccatedlilac stems, dirty sparrows, a gutter, holding "ascrap of torn and dirty newspaper, caught in a littledelta of filth." In contrast, the snow passages be-come steadily and increasingly richer, more ardent,more intense. The addition of assonance to the "s"passages slows the pace of the lines, the repetitionof the "o" throughout the passage producing avisual euphony:

nevertheless he did in a sense cease to see, or to see theobvious external world, and substituted for this visionthe vision of snow, the sound of snow, and the slow,almost soundless, approach of the postman . . . thesound of its seething was more distinct, more sooth-ing, more persistent.

By the end of Part I, the content of the simileshas clearly demarcated the advance of Paul's with-drawal: "as if it was . . . a fortress," to "as ifeverything in the world had been insulated bysnow," to "as if he were trying to live a doublelife." The similes themselves, as they occur peri-odically, become a kind of motif of transformationby which we can trace Paul's progress towardcomplete withdrawal. In addition, they also indicatePaul's continuing inability to apprehend his deterio-rating condition, in that he can describe his condi-tion only by comparative statements.

By the end of Part II, Paul's shifting, intensifying,sharply contrasting attitudes toward the real worldand the snow world are caught in a definite tensionas Paul experiences both worlds concomitantly. Atone point in Part II, Aiken uses sharp changes indiction and prosody to focus the tension as Paulwrestles with the claims of the two ontologies. Theincreasing abstraction of the terms used to describethe snow—words, experience, dream, fairy sto-ry, ethereal loveliness—and lengthening sentenc-es enforce the sense of ebullition. These sentenc-

es end with an oxymoron and contrast sharplywith the monosyllabic cadence, the final sentence,composed of words that are totally neutral, flat,depersonalized:

He loved it—he stood still and loved it. Its beauty wasparalyzing—beyond all words, all experience, alldream. No fairy story he had ever read could becompared with it—none had ever given him thisextraordinary combination of ethereal loveliness witha something else unnameable, which was just faintlyand deliciously terrifying. What was this thing! [Ital-ics mine]

Aiken will use oxymoron and paradox through-out Part II to sustain the conflict of fear and ecstasythat Paul feels as he finds himself steadily drawn toa vision of thickening snow. In the last passage,"it" combines "ethereal loveliness" with some-thing "deliciously terrifying." The snow "sooth-ingly and beautifully encroaches with its subtlegradations of menace, in which he could luxuriate.""Every minute was more beautiful than the last,more menacing."

Part III describes Paul's final alienation fromthe real world. He sees the doctor as a "fat fist," a"fixed false smile," grinning with "false amiabili-ty." His parents are only "slippers," "voices,"and "hostile presences." His paranoia comes to aclimax appropriately expressed in a series of similesthat show Paul's inability to respond to humanconcern: "it was as if one had been stood up on abrilliantly lighted stage, under a great round blaze ofspotlight; as if one were merely a trained seal, or aperforming dog, or a fish, dipped out of an aquariumand held up by the tail": "nevertheless he wasaware that all three of them were watching him withan intensity—staring hard at him—as if he had donesomething monstrous, or was himself some kind ofmonster." Those of the living world most con-cerned about him are totally depersonified in de-scription, while the snow becomes personified andspeaks with the onomatopoeic "s" controlling thelength and slow, steady rhythm of the line. Again, asin earlier snow passages, the order of descriptivewords—new white, cold, sleepy, cease, peace,space—forebodes the outcome:

Ah, but just wait! Wait till we are alone together!Then I will begin to tell you something new! Some-thing white! something cold! something sleepy! some-thing of cease, and peace, and the long bright curveof space!

The conclusion of Part II, which occurs afterPaul's hostile, paranoid confrontation with his par-ents, shifts his apprehension abruptly to the roomand to the activities in the house. The imagery is

V o l u m e 8 357


impersonal, Hopkinsesque in its disjoint, acuteprecision:

He could hear the soft irregular flutter of the flames;the cluck-click-cluck-click of the clock; far and faint,two sudden spurts of laughter from the kitchen, asquickly cut off as begun, a murmur of water inthe pipes;. . .

Then, equally abruptly, in mid-sentence, Paul'sthoughts shift to the impending world of snow.Aiken uses anaphora to build a 46-word clausewhich demarcates the beginning of Paul's irrevoca-ble plunge into the beckoning world of snow. Eachsegment of the clause lengthens, becoming moreheavily accented. The clauses, linked with verbalsand prepositions, produce a sense of momentumthat ends with two heavily stressed words and afinality of a "new sound."

and then, the silence seemed to deepen, to spread out,to become world-long and world-wide, to becometimeless and shapeless, and to center inevitably andrightly, with a low and sleepy but enormous concen-tration of all power, on the beginning of a new sound.

While Aiken has used meter as well as majorschemes and tropes in Parts I-III, the main effect ofPart IV relies on prosody. Part III concludes with asentence whose prose rhythm captures both thespeed and direction conveyed by the meaning:

Without / another word / he turned / and ran up /the stairs.

Note the use of iambic feet on either side of fourstressed feet to suggest Paul's rapid, decisive move-ment up the stairs. The iambic feet create a rhythmof forcefulness and decision. Note, in contrast, howthe speed of this line has changed from the slow,deliberate pace of the preceding 46-word clause.

Part IV then begins with paradox: ' 'The dark-ness was coming in long white waves," whichintroduces the paradoxical reversal that has takenplace. Before, the snow had been the "thing,"but now the real world has become the unknown,the intruder. As Paul's mother suddenly enters hisroom, the rhythm and sound of intrusion into hisrelinquishment (sentence 1) are marked by discordand cacophony, which punctuate his loathing to-ward his mother:

But then a gash of horrible light fell brutally across theroom from the opening door—the snow drew backhissing—something alien had come into the room—something hostile. This thing rushed at him, clutchedat him, shook him—and he was not merely horrified,he was filled with such a loathing as he had neverknown. What was this? This cruel disturbance? thisact of anger and hate? It was as if he had to reach up ahand toward another world for any understanding of

it—an effort of which he was only barely capable. Butof that other world he still remembered just enough toknow the exorcising words. They tore themselvesfrom his other life suddenly—Mother! Mother! Goaway! I hate you!

The description utilizes heavily stressed phras-es which emphasize the negative words describingPaul's view of reality. Repetition of "something". . . enforces the point that reality, not the snow, hasbecome the alien thing. While the opening clause,' 'But then a gash of horrible light fell brutally acrossthe room from the opening door," is perhaps themost cacophonous, jarring line in the entire story,Aiken will use metrical patterns to accentuate themeaning of lines. For example,' 'This thing / rushedat him / clutched at him / shook him," uses aspondee and light endings on the remaining threefeet to accentuate the monosyllabic verbs. Aikenwill also use heavy stresses to slow the line—"What was this?"—and anaphora combined withparallel stress pattern—"this cruel / disturbance? /this act / of anger / and hate?"—to embody theintensity of Paul's loathing. The simile—"as if hehad to reach up a hand toward another world for anyunderstanding of it"—the final one in the story,serves as the climatic element in the motif oftransformation. Aiken will use molossus (to reachup) followed by the anti-bacchic (a hand toward)—five stressed feet—to suggest the momentum ofreaching up.

The final sentence of the passage begins deci-sively with three spondees —"they tore / them-selves / from his"—moves to a softer cretic pat-tern—"other life"—which suggests the lesserimportance of reality—and ends with a molossus—"suddenly"—which prepares us for the heavilyaccented crucial line—"Mother! Mother! Go away! Ihate you!"—which appropriately ends with anoth-er molossus.

The reversal of worlds and values now com-plete, everything "was solved"; the final "exorcis-ing words" make everything "all right." The snowadvances "once more." Each clause appropriatelyends with a spondee to enforce the finality of theresolution. The rhythm of the description againcaptures the movement of the snow: "the long /white / wavering lines / rose and fell / like enormous/sea waves."

In the closing passage of the narrative, Aikenchooses an image which maintains the paradox ofPaul's story. Instead of developing by an organic


S i l e n t Snow Secret Snow

process, his story has become "smaller and small-er"; it has come inward instead of opening like aflower—"it is a flower becoming a seed." Byinversion Paul's problem is solved. Because thetension has been resolved, the passage lacks notice-able, stressed endings, except for two—"shut youreyes" and "do you hear?"—which accentuate thefirm hold the snow now has on him. Much of thelulling quality emanates from the parallel soft end-ings and the parallel trochees. The words used bythe snow to describe the "story" are, like the earliersnow passages, regressive: small, smaller, inward,seed, cold seed. Each ending becomes more accent-ed and builds to the molossus "do you hear?"which introduces the incantatory final line of thepassage, the four trochees:

We'll tell you / the last, / the most / beautiful / andsecret / story— / shut your eyes / it is / a very / smallstory—/ a story—/ that gets smaller / and smaller—/ itcomes inward / instead of/ opening / like a / flower— /it is / a flower / becoming a seed— / a little coldseed— / do you hear? / we are / leaning / clos-er / to you—.

In nearly every paragraph of the story, Aikenhas plied the tools of the poet—rhythm, meter, andcommon figures—to congeal meaning, sound, andsense. For example, when Paul first looks out hiswindow and expects to see snow, he sees only brightsunshine enameling the familiar street. This surpris-ing sight is described in words that are crisplyobjective; the syntax is regular; the rhythm, as sharpand bumpy as the cobbled street Paul sees:

What he saw instead, was brilliant sunlight on a roof;and when, astonished, he jumped out of bed and stareddown into the street, expecting to see the cobblesobliterated by the snow, he saw nothing but the barebright cobbles themselves.

Yet, Aiken can rapidly shift his rhythm byincorporating alliteration, simile, onomatopoeia, andloose, irregularly patterned sentences composed ofwords with light endings to preserve the dual visionthat Paul carries. In the passage below, which istypical, in part 1 of the sentence, we feel the gentlerhythm of the snow mixed with the accented actuali-ty of the real cobbles in part 2. The repetitive ' 'ing''words also serve as connectives among the phrasesin part 1:

[A ghost of snow falling in the bright sunlight, softlyand steadily floating and turning and pausing, sound-lessly meeting the snow that covered, as with atransparent mirage,] [the bare bright cobbles.]

Analysis of Aiken's style thus reveals that thereis much more to "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" than

defining the nature of Paul's problem. While thestory can be called a case history narrative, Aiken'ssustained, crafted style suggests that the narrativehas more artistic aims. Even the alliterative titlesuggests such a purpose. Focusing only on Paul is tomiss the most remarkable literary aspects of thestory. Combining sense and symbol and rhythm andtone and sound, Aiken uses his poetic skills to drawthe reader into Paul's world. Through the art ofstyle, then, Aiken enables us to feel some of themagic and terrifying wonder that the snow world,whatever it is, offers Paul. Because of Aiken's skillin shaping the tools of poetry and rhetoric to fit thegoal of the narrative—the vivid and sensual illumi-nation of this particular aspect of human experi-ence—' 'Silent Snow'' will more than likely contin-ue to be enjoyed long after the nature of Paul'sproblem has ceased to be of any psychologicalinterest.

Source: Elizabeth Tebeaux, '"Silent Snow, Secret Snow':Style as Art," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 20, No. 2-3,Spring-Summer, 1983, pp. 105-14.

Sources

Erskine, Thomas L. "The Two Worlds of 'Silent Snow,Secret Snow,'" in From Fiction to Film: Conrad Aiken's' 'Silent Snow, Secret Snow,'' edited by Gerald R. Barrett andThomas L. Erskine, Encino, Calif.: Dickenson PublishingCo., 1972, pp. 86-91.

Gossman, Ann. '"Silent Snow, Secret Snow': The Child asArtist," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 1, No. 2, Winter,1964, pp. 123-28.

Hamalian, Leo. "Aiken's 'Silent Snow, Secret Snow,'" inExplicator, Vol. 7, 1948, Item 17.

Hoffman, Frederick J. Conrad Aiken, New York: TwaynePublishers, 1962.

. Freudianism and the Literary Mind, 2nd ed., BatonRouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1957.

Slap, Laura. "Conrad Aiken's 'Silent Snow, Secret Snow':Defenses against the Primal Scene," in American Imago,Vol. 37, 1980, pp. 1-11.

Swan, Jesse. "At the Edge of Sound and Silence: ConradAiken's 'Senlin: A Biography' and 'Silent Snow, SecretSnow,"' in The Southern Literary Journal, Vol. XXII, No. 1,Fall, 1989, pp. 41-9.

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Tebeaux, Elizabeth. '"Silent Snow, Secret Snow': Style asArt." Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 20, No. 2-3 , Spring-Summer, 1983, pp. 105-14.

Further Reading

Butscher, Edward. Conrad Aiken: Poet of White Horse Vale,Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988.

Butscher provides biographical context forAiken's work.

Erskine, Thomas L. "The Two Worlds of 'Silent Snow,Secret Snow,'" in From Fiction to Film: Conrad Aiken's' 'Silent Snow, Secret Snow,'' edited by Gerald R. Barrett andThomas L. Erskine, Encino, Calif.: Dickenson PublishingCo., 1972, pp. 86-91.

Erskine offers his interpretation of "Silent Snow,Secret Snow," particularly the theme of discovery.

Hoffman, Frederick J. Conrad Aiken, New York: TwaynePublishers, 1962.

Hoffmann evaluates Aiken's achievement. For Hoff-man, the snow is a symbol of death, an interpretationwhich assigns the story firmly to the realm of the tragic.



Aestheticism: A literary and artistic movement ofthe nineteenth century. Followers of the movementbelieved that art should not be mixed with social,political, or moral teaching. The statement' 'art forart's sake" is a good summary of aestheticism. Themovement had its roots in France, but it gainedwidespread importance in England in the last half ofthe nineteenth century, where it helped change theVictorian practice of including moral lessons inliterature. Edgar Allan Poe is one of the best-knownAmerican "aesthetes."

Allegory: A narrative technique in which charac-ters representing things or abstract ideas are used toconvey a message or teach a lesson. Allegory istypically used to teach moral, ethical, or religiouslessons but is sometimes used for satiric or politicalpurposes. Many fairy tales are allegories.

Allusion: A reference to a familiar literary or his-torical person or event, used to make an idea moreeasily understood. Joyce Carol Dates's story "WhereAre You Going, Where Have You Been?" exhibitsseveral allusions to popular music.

Analogy: A comparison of two things made toexplain something unfamiliar through its similari-ties to something familiar, or to prove one pointbased on the acceptance of another. Similes andmetaphors are types of analogies.

Antagonist: The major character in a narrative ordrama who works against the hero or protagonist.The Misfit in Flannery O'Connor's story "A GoodMan Is Hard to Find'' serves as the antagonist forthe Grandmother.

Anthology: A collection of similar works of litera-ture, art, or music. Zora Neale Hurston's "TheEatonville Anthology'' is a collection of stories thattake place in the same town.

Anthropomorphism: The presentation of animalsor objects in human shape or with human character-istics. The term is derived from the Greek word for"human form." The fur necklet in KatherineMansfield's story "Miss Brill" has anthropomor-phic characteristics.

Anti-hero: A central character in a work of litera-ture who lacks traditional heroic qualities such ascourage, physical prowess, and fortitude. Anti-he-roes typically distrust conventional values and areunable to commit themselves to any ideals. Theygenerally feel helpless in a world over which theyhave no control. Anti-heroes usually accept, andoften celebrate, their positions as social outcasts. Awell-known anti-hero is Walter Mitty in JamesThurber' s story ' 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.''

Archetype: The word archetype is commonly usedto describe an original pattern or model from whichall other things of the same kind are made. Archetypesare the literary images that grow out of the "collec-

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live unconscious," a theory proposed by psycholo-gist Carl Jung. They appear in literature as incidentsand plots that repeat basic patterns of life. They mayalso appear as stereotyped characters. The "schlemiel"of Yiddish literature is an archetype.

Autobiography: A narrative in which an individualtells his or her life story. Examples include Benja-min Franklin's Autobiography and Amy Hempel'sstory "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Bur-ied," which has autobiographical characteristicseven though it is a work of fiction.

Avant-garde: A literary term that describes newwriting that rejects traditional approaches to litera-ture in favor of innovations in style or content.Twentieth-century examples of the literary avant-garde include the modernists and the minimalists.

BBelles-lettres: A French term meaning "fine let-ters" or "beautiful writing." It is often used as asynonym for literature, typically referring to imagi-native and artistic rather than scientific or exposito-ry writing. Current usage sometimes restricts themeaning to light or humorous writing and apprecia-tive essays about literature. Lewis Carroll's Alice inWonderland epitomizes the realm of belles-lettres.

Bildungsroman: A German word meaning "novelof development." The bildungsroman is a study ofthe maturation of a youthful character, typicallybrought about through a series of social or sexualencounters that lead to self-awareness. J. D. Salin-ger's Catcher in the Rye is a bildungsroman, andDoris Lessing's story "Through the Tunnel" ex-hibits characteristics of a bildungsroman as well.

Black Aesthetic Movement: A period of artisticand literary development among African Ameri-cans in the 1960s and early 1970s. This was the firstmajor African-American artistic movement sincethe Harlem Renaissance and was closely paralleledby the civil rights and black power movements. Theblack aesthetic writers attempted to produce worksof art that would be meaningful to the black masses.Key figures in black aesthetics included one of itsfounders, poet and playwright Amiri Baraka, for-merly known as LeRoi Jones; poet and essayistHaki R. Madhubuti, formerly Don L. Lee; poet andplaywright Sonia Sanchez; and dramatist Ed Bullins.Works representative of the Black Aesthetic Move-ment include Amiri Baraka's play Dutchman, a1964 Obie award-winner.

Black Humor: Writing that places grotesque ele-ments side by side with humorous ones in anattempt to shock the reader, forcing him or her tolaugh at the horrifying reality of a disordered world."Lamb to the Slaughter," by Roald Dahl, in whicha placid housewife murders her husband and servesthe murder weapon to the investigating policemen,is an example of black humor.

Catharsis: The release or purging of unwantedemotions—specifically fear and pity—brought aboutby exposure to art. The term was first used by theGreek philosopher Aristotle in his Poetics to refer tothe desired effect of tragedy on spectators.

Character: Broadly speaking, a person in a literarywork. The actions of characters are what constitutethe plot of a story, novel, or poem. There arenumerous types of characters, ranging from simple,stereotypical figures to intricate, multifaceted ones."Characterization" is the process by which anauthor creates vivid, believable characters in a workof art. This may be done in a variety of ways,including (1) direct description of the character bythe narrator; (2) the direct presentation of the speech,thoughts, or actions of the character; and (3) theresponses of other characters to the character. Theterm ' 'character'' also refers to a form originated bythe ancient Greek writer Theophrastus that laterbecame popular in the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies. It is a short essay or sketch of a personwho prominently displays a specific attribute orquality, such as miserliness or ambition. "MissBrill," a story by Katherine Mansfield, is an exam-ple of a character sketch.

Classical: In its strictest definition in literary criti-cism, classicism refers to works of ancient Greek orRoman literature. The term may also be used todescribe a literary work of recognized importance (a"classic") from any time period or literature thatexhibits the traits of classicism. Examples of laterworks and authors now described as classical in-clude French literature of the seventeenth century,Western novels of the nineteenth century, and Ameri-can fiction of the mid-nineteenth century such asthat written by James Fenimore Cooper and MarkTwain.

Climax: The turning point in a narrative, the mo-ment when the conflict is at its most intense. Typi-cally, the structure of stories, novels, and plays is

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one of rising action, in which tension builds to theclimax, followed by falling action, in which tensionlessens as the story moves to its conclusion.

Comedy: One of two major types of drama, theother being tragedy. Its aim is to amuse, and ittypically ends happily. Comedy assumes many forms,such as farce and burlesque, and uses a variety oftechniques, from parody to satire. In a restrictedsense the term comedy refers only to dramaticpresentations, but in general usage it is commonlyapplied to nondramatic works as well.

Comic Relief: The use of humor to lighten themood of a serious or tragic story, especially in plays.The technique is very common in Elizabethan works,and can be an integral part of the plot or simply abrief event designed to break the tension of thescene.

Conflict: The conflict in a work of fiction is theissue to be resolved in the story. It usually occursbetween two characters, the protagonist and theantagonist, or between the protagonist and societyor the protagonist and himself or herself. The con-flict in Washington Irving's story "The Devil andTom Walker'' is that the Devil wants Tom Walker'ssoul but Tom does not want to go to hell.

Criticism: The systematic study and evaluation ofliterary works, usually based on a specific methodor set of principles. An important part of literarystudies since ancient times, the practice of criticismhas given rise to numerous theories, methods, and"schools," sometimes producing conflicting, evencontradictory, interpretations of literature in generalas well as of individual works. Even such basicissues as what constitutes a poem or a novel havebeen the subject of much criticism over the centu-ries. Seminal texts of literary criticism include Pla-to's Republic, Aristotle's Poetics, Sir Philip Sid-ney's The Defence ofPoesie, and John Dryden's OfDramatic Poesie. Contemporary schools of criti-cism include deconstruction, feminist, psychoana-lytic, poststructuralist, new historicist, postcolonialist,and reader-response.

DDeconstruction: A method of literary criticismcharacterized by multiple conflicting interpretationsof a given work. Deconstructionists consider theimpact of the language of a work and suggest thatthe true meaning of the work is not necessarily themeaning that the author intended.

Deduction: The process of reaching a conclusionthrough reasoning from general premises to a spe-cific premise. Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sher-lock Holmes often used deductive reasoning tosolve mysteries.

Denotation: The definition of a word, apart fromthe impressions or feelings it creates in the reader.The word "apartheid" denotes a political and eco-nomic policy of segregation by race, but its con-notations—oppression, slavery, inequality—arenumerous.

Denouement: A French word meaning "theunknotting." In literature, it denotes the resolutionof conflict in fiction or drama. The denouementfollows the climax and provides an outcome to theprimary plot situation as well as an explanation ofsecondary plot complications. A well-known exam-ple of denouement is the last scene of the play AsYou Like It by William Shakespeare, in whichcouples are married, an evildoer repents, the identi-ties of two disguised characters are revealed, and aruler is restored to power. Also known as "fallingaction."

Detective Story: A narrative about the solution of amystery or the identification of a criminal. Theconventions of the detective story include the detec-tive's scrupulous use of logic in solving the mys-tery; incompetent or ineffectual police; a suspectwho appears guilty at first but is later provedinnocent; and the detective's friend or confidant—often the narrator—whose slowness in interpretingclues emphasizes by contrast the detective's bril-liance. Edgar Allan Poe's "Murders in the RueMorgue" is commonly regarded as the earliestexample of this type of story. Other practitioners areArthur Conan Doyle, Dashiell Hammett, and Aga-tha Christie.

Dialogue: Dialogue is conversation between peoplein a literary work. In its most restricted sense, itrefers specifically to the speech of characters in adrama. As a specific literary genre, a "dialogue" isa composition in which characters debate an issueor idea.

Didactic: A term used to describe works of litera-ture that aim to teach a moral, religious, political, orpractical lesson. Although didactic elements areoften found in artistically pleasing works, the term"didactic" usually refers to literature in which themessage is more important than the form. The termmay also be used to criticize a work that the criticfinds "overly didactic," that is, heavy-handed in its

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delivery of a lesson. An example of didactic litera-ture is John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.

Dramatic Irony: Occurs when the reader of a workof literature knows something that a character in thework itself does not know. The irony is in thecontrast between the intended meaning of the state-ments or actions of a character and the additionalinformation understood by the audience.

Dystopia: An imaginary place in a work of fictionwhere the characters lead dehumanized, fearfullives. George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four, andMargaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale portray ver-sions of dystopia.

EEdwardian: Describes cultural conventions identi-fied with the period of the reign of Edward VII ofEngland (1901-1910). Writers of the EdwardianAge typically displayed a strong reaction against thepropriety and conservatism of the Victorian Age.Their work often exhibits distrust of authority inreligion, politics, and art and expresses strong doubtsabout the soundness of conventional values. Writersof this era include E. M. Forster, H. G. Wells, andJoseph Conrad.

Empathy: A sense of shared experience, includingemotional and physical feelings, with someone orsomething other than oneself. Empathy is oftenused to describe the response of a reader to a literarycharacter.

Epilogue: A concluding statement or section of aliterary work. In dramas, particularly those of theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the epilogueis a closing speech, often in verse, delivered by anactor at the end of a play and spoken directly to theaudience.

Epiphany: A sudden revelation of truth inspired bya seemingly trivial incident. The term was widelyused by James Joyce in his critical writings, and thestories in Joyce's Dubliners are commonly called"epiphanies."

Epistolary Novel: A novel in the form of letters.The form was particularly popular in the eighteenthcentury. The form can also be applied to shortstories, as in Edwidge Danticat's "Children of theSea."

Epithet: A word or phrase, often disparaging orabusive, that expresses a character trait of someoneor something. "The Napoleon of crime" is an

epithet applied to Professor Moriarty, arch-rival ofSherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle's series ofdetective stories.

Existentialism: A predominantly twentieth-centu-ry philosophy concerned with the nature and per-ception of human existence. There are two majorstrains of existentialist thought: atheistic and Chris-tian. Followers of atheistic existentialism believethat the individual is alone in a godless universe andthat the basic human condition is one of sufferingand loneliness. Nevertheless, because there are nofixed values, individuals can create their own char-acters—indeed, they can shape themselves—throughthe exercise of free will. The atheistic strain culmi-nates in and is popularly associated with the worksof Jean-Paul Sartre. The Christian existentialists, onthe other hand, believe that only in God may peoplefind freedom from life's anguish. The two strainshold certain beliefs in common: that existence can-not be fully understood or described through em-pirical effort; that anguish is a universal element oflife; that individuals must bear responsibility fortheir actions; and that there is no common standardof behavior or perception for religious and ethicalmatters. Existentialist thought figures prominentlyin the works of such authors as Franz Kafka, FyodorDostoyevsky, and Albert Camus.

Expatriatism: The practice of leaving one's coun-try to live for an extended period in another country.Literary expatriates include Irish author James Joycewho moved to Italy and France, American writersJames Baldwin, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein,and F. Scott Fitzgerald who lived and wrote in Paris,and Polish novelist Joseph Conrad in England.

Exposition: Writing intended to explain the natureof an idea, thing, or theme. Expository writing isoften combined with description, narration, orargument.

Expressionism: An indistinct literary term, origi-nally used to describe an early twentieth-centuryschool of German painting. The term applies toalmost any mode of unconventional, highly subjec-tive writing that distorts reality in some way. Advo-cates of Expressionism include Federico GarciaLorca, Eugene O'Neill, Franz Kafka, and JamesJoyce.

FFable: A prose or verse narrative intended to con-vey a moral. Animals or inanimate objects withhuman characteristics often serve as characters in



fables. A famous fable is Aesop's "The Tortoiseand the Hare."

Fantasy: A literary form related to mythology andfolklore. Fantasy literature is typically set in non-existent realms and features supernatural beings.Notable examples of literature with elements offantasy are Gabriel Garcia Marquez's story "TheHandsomest Drowned Man in the World" andUrsula K. LeGuin's "The Ones Who Walk Awayfrom Omelas."

Farce: A type of comedy characterized by broadhumor, outlandish incidents, and often vulgar sub-ject matter. Much of the comedy in film and televi-sion could more accurately be described as farce.

Fiction: Any story that is the product of imagina-tion rather than a documentation of fact. Charactersand events in such narratives may be based in reallife but their ultimate form and configuration is acreation of the author.

Figurative Language: A technique in which anauthor uses figures of speech such as hyperbole,irony, metaphor, or simile for a particular effect.Figurative language is the opposite of literal lan-guage, in which every word is truthful, accurate,and free of exaggeration or embellishment.

Flashback: A device used in literature to presentaction that occurred before the beginning of thestory. Flashbacks are often introduced as the dreamsor recollections of one or more characters.

Foil: A character in a work of literature whosephysical or psychological qualities contrast stronglywith, and therefore highlight, the correspondingqualities of another character. In his Sherlock Holmesstories, Arthur Conan Doyle portrayed Dr. Watsonas a man of normal habits and intelligence, makinghim a foil for the eccentric and unusually perceptiveSherlock Holmes.

Folklore: Traditions and myths preserved in aculture or group of people. Typically, these arepassed on by word of mouth in various forms—suchas legends, songs, and proverbs—or preserved incustoms and ceremonies. Washington Irving, in"The Devil and Tom Walker" and many of hisother stories, incorporates many elements of thefolklore of New England and Germany.

Folktale: A story originating in oral tradition.Folktales fall into a variety of categories, includinglegends, ghost stories, fairy tales, fables, and anec-dotes based on historical figures and events.

Foreshadowing: A device used in literature tocreate expectation or to set up an explanation oflater developments. Edgar Allan Poe uses foreshad-owing to create suspense in ' "The Fall of the Houseof Usher" when the narrator comments on thecrumbling state of disrepair in which he finds thehouse.

GGenre: A category of literary work. Genre mayrefer to both the content of a given work—tragedy,comedy, horror, science fiction—and to its form,such as poetry, novel, or drama.

Gilded Age: A period in American history duringthe 1870s and after characterized by political cor-ruption and materialism. A number of importantnovels of social and political criticism were writtenduring this time. Henry James and Kate Chopin aretwo writers who were prominent during the Gild-ed Age.

Gothicism: In literature, works characterized by ataste for medieval or morbid characters and situa-tions. A gothic novel prominently features elementsof horror, the supernatural, gloom, and violence:clanking chains, terror, ghosts, medieval castles,and unexplained phenomena. The term "gothicnovel'' is also applied to novels that lack elementsof the traditional Gothic setting but that create asimilar atmosphere of terror or dread. The term canalso be applied to stories, plays, and poems. MaryShelley's Frankenstein and Joyce Carol Gates'sBellefleur are both gothic novels.

Grotesque: In literature, a work that is character-ized by exaggeration, deformity, freakishness, anddisorder. The grotesque often includes an elementof comic absurdity. Examples of the grotesque canbe found in the works of Edgar Allan Poe, FlanneryO'Connor, Joseph Heller, and Shirley Jackson.

HHarlem Renaissance: The Harlem Renaissance ofthe 1920s is generally considered the first signifi-cant movement of black writers and artists in theUnited States. During this period, new and estab-lished black writers, many of whom lived in theregion of New York City known as Harlem, pub-lished more fiction and poetry than ever before, thefirst influential black literary journals were estab-lished, and black authors and artists received theirfirst widespread recognition and serious critical

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appraisal. Among the major writers associated withthis period are Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes,Arna Bontemps, and Zora Neale Hurston.

Hero/Heroine: The principal sympathetic charac-ter in a literary work. Heroes and heroines typicallyexhibit admirable traits: idealism, courage, and in-tegrity, for example. Famous heroes and heroines ofliterature include Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist,Margaret Mitchell's Scarlett O'Hara, and the anony-mous narrator in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.

Hyperbole: Deliberate exaggeration used to achievean effect. In William Shakespeare's Macbeth, LadyMacbeth hyperbolizes when she says, "All theperfumes of Arabia could not sweeten this littlehand."

is stated. The title of Jonathan Swift's "A ModestProposal" is ironic because what Swift proposes inthis essay is cannibalism—hardly "modest."

/Jargon: Language that is used or understood onlyby a select group of people. Jargon may refer toterminology used in a certain profession, such ascomputer jargon, or it may refer to any nonsensicallanguage that is not understood by most people.Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange and JamesThurber's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" bothuse jargon.

I

Image: A concrete representation of an object orsensory experience. Typically, such a representa-tion helps evoke the feelings associated with theobject or experience itself. Images are either "liter-al" or "figurative." Literal images are especiallyconcrete and involve little or no extension of theobvious meaning of the words used to express them.Figurative images do not follow the literal meaningof the words exactly. Images in literature are usuallyvisual, but the term "image" can also refer to therepresentation of any sensory experience.

Imagery: The array of images in a literary work.Also used to convey the author's overall use offigurative language in a work.

In medias res: A Latin term meaning' 'in the middleof things.'' It refers to the technique of beginning astory at its midpoint and then using various flash-back devices to reveal previous action. This tech-nique originated in such epics as Virgil's Aeneid.

Interior Monologue: A narrative technique in whichcharacters' thoughts are revealed in a way thatappears to be uncontrolled by the author. The interi-or monologue typically aims to reveal the inner selfof a character. It portrays emotional experiences asthey occur at both a conscious and unconsciouslevel. One of the best-known interior monologues inEnglish is the Molly Bloom section at the close ofJames Joyce's Ulysses. Katherine Anne Porter's"The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" is also told inthe form of an interior monologue.

Irony: In literary criticism, the effect of language inwhich the intended meaning is the opposite of what

KKnickerbocker Group: An indistinct group ofNew York writers of the first half of the nineteenthcentury. Members of the group were linked only bylocation and a common theme: New York life. Twofamous members of the Knickerbocker Group wereWashington Irving and William Cullen Bryant. Thegroup's name derives from Irving's Knickerbock-er's History of New York.

LLiteral Language: An author uses literal languagewhen he or she writes without exaggerating orembellishing the subject matter and without anytools of figurative language. To say ' 'He ran veryquickly down the street" is to use literal language,whereas to say ' 'He ran like a hare down the street''would be using figurative language.

Literature: Literature is broadly defined as anywritten or spoken material, but the term most oftenrefers to creative works. Literature includes poetry,drama, fiction, and many kinds of nonfiction writ-ing, as well as oral, dramatic, and broadcast compo-sitions not necessarily preserved in a written format,such as films and television programs.

Lost Generation: A term first used by GertrudeStein to describe the post-World War I generation ofAmerican writers: men and women haunted by asense of betrayal and emptiness brought about bythe destructiveness of the war. The term is common-ly applied to Hart Crane, Ernest Hemingway, F.Scott Fitzgerald, and others.



MMagic Realism: A form of literature that incorpo-rates fantasy elements or supernatural occurrencesinto the narrative and accepts them as truth. GabrielGarcia Marquez and Laura Esquivel are two writersknown for their works of magic realism.

Metaphor: A figure of speech that expresses anidea through the image of another object. Meta-phors suggest the essence of the first object byidentifying it with certain qualities of the secondobject. An example is "But soft, what light throughyonder window breaks?/ It is the east, and Juliet isthe sun" in William Shakespeare's Romeo andJuliet. Here, Juliet, the first object, is identified withqualities of the second object, the sun.

Minimalism: A literary style characterized by spare,simple prose with few elaborations. In minimalism,the main theme of the work is often never discusseddirectly. Amy Hempel and Ernest Hemingway aretwo writers known for their works of minimalism.

Modernism: Modern literary practices. Also, theprinciples of a literary school that lasted fromroughly the beginning of the twentieth century untilthe end of World War II. Modernism is defined byits rejection of the literary conventions of the nine-teenth century and by its opposition to conventionalmorality, taste, traditions, and economic values.Many writers are associated with the concepts ofmodernism, including Albert Camus, D. H. Law-rence, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Eu-gene O'Neill, and James Joyce.

Monologue: A composition, written or oral, by asingle individual. More specifically, a speech givenby a single individual in a drama or other publicentertainment. It has no set length, although it isusually several or more lines long. "I Stand HereIroning" by Tillie Olsen is an example of a storywritten in the form of a monologue.

Mood: The prevailing emotions of a work or of theauthor in his or her creation of the work. The moodof a work is not always what might be expectedbased on its subject matter.

Motif: A theme, character type, image, metaphor, orother verbal element that recurs throughout a singlework of literature or occurs in a number of differentworks over a period of time. For example, the colorwhite in Herman Melville's Moby Dick is a "specif-ic" motif, while the trials of star-crossed lovers is a"conventional" motif from the literature of allperiods.

WNarration: The telling of a series of events, real orinvented. A narration may be either a simple narra-tive, in which the events are recounted chronologi-cally, or a narrative with a plot, in which the accountis given in a style reflecting the author's artisticconcept of the story. Narration is sometimes used asa synonym for "storyline."

Narrative: A verse or prose accounting of an eventor sequence of events, real or invented. The term isalso used as an adjective in the sense "method ofnarration." For example, in literary criticism, theexpression "narrative technique" usually refers tothe way the author structures and presents his or herstory. Different narrative forms include diaries,travelogues, novels, ballads, epics, short stories,and other fictional forms.

Narrator: The teller of a story. The narrator may bethe author or a character in the story through whomthe author speaks. Huckleberry Finn is the narratorof Mark Twain's The Adventures of HuckleberryFinn.

Novella: An Italian term meaning "story." Thisterm has been especially used to describe four-teenth-century Italian tales, but it also refers tomodern short novels. Modern novellas include LeoTolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilich, FyodorDostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground, andJoseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

oOedipus Complex: A son's romantic obsessionwith his mother. The phrase is derived from thestory of the ancient Theban hero Oedipus, whounknowingly killed his father and married his moth-er, and was popularized by Sigmund Freud's theoryof psychoanalysis. Literary occurrences of the Oedi-pus complex include Sophocles' Oedipus Rex andD. H. Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner."

Onomatopoeia: The use of words whose soundsexpress or suggest their meaning. In its simplestsense, onomatopoeia may be represented by wordsthat mimic the sounds they denote such as ' 'hiss" or"meow." At a more subtle level, the pattern andrhythm of sounds and rhymes of a line or poem maybe onomatopoeic.

Oral Tradition: A process by which songs, ballads,folklore, and other material are transmitted by wordof mouth. The tradition of oral transmission pre-dates the written record systems of literate society.

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Oral transmission preserves material sometimesover generations, although often with variations.Memory plays a large part in the recitation andpreservation of orally transmitted material. NativeAmerican myths and legends, and African folktalestold by plantation slaves are examples of orallytransmitted literature.

pParable: A story intended to teach a moral lesson oranswer an ethical question. Examples of parablesare the stories told by Jesus Christ in the NewTestament, notably "The Prodigal Son," but par-ables also are used in Sufism, rabbinic literature,Hasidism, and Zen Buddhism. Isaac Bashevis Sing-er's story "Gimpel the Fool" exhibits characteris-tics of a parable.

Paradox: A statement that appears illogical orcontradictory at first, but may actually point to anunderlying truth. A literary example of a paradox isGeorge Orwell's statement "All animals are equal,but some animals are more equal than others" inAnimal Farm.

Parody: In literature, this term refers to an imitationof a serious literary work or the signature style of aparticular author in a ridiculous manner. A typicalparody adopts the style of the original and applies itto an inappropriate subject for humorous effect.Parody is a form of satire and could be consideredthe literary equivalent of a caricature or cartoon.Henry Fielding's Shamela is a parody of SamuelRichardson's Pamela.

Persona: A Latin term meaning "mask." Personaeare the characters in a fictional work of literature.The persona generally functions as a mask throughwhich the author tells a story in a voice other thanhis or her own. A persona is usually either a charac-ter in a story who acts as a narrator or an ' 'impliedauthor," a voice created by the author to act as thenarrator for himself or herself. The persona inCharlotte Perkins Oilman's story "The YellowWallpaper'' is the unnamed young mother experi-encing a mental breakdown.

Personification: A figure of speech that giveshuman qualities to abstract ideas, animals, andinanimate objects. To say that "the sun is smiling"is to personify the sun.

Plot: The pattern of events in a narrative or drama.In its simplest sense, the plot guides the author in

composing the work and helps the reader follow thework. Typically, plots exhibit causality and unityand have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Some-times, however, a plot may consist of a series ofdisconnected events, in which case it is known as an"episodic plot."

Poetic Justice: An outcome in a literary work, notnecessarily a poem, in which the good are rewardedand the evil are punished, especially in ways thatparticularly fit their virtues or crimes. For example,a murderer may himself be murdered, or a thief willfind himself penniless.

Poetic License: Distortions of fact and literaryconvention made by a writer—not always a poet—for the sake of the effect gained. Poetic license isclosely related to the concept of' 'artistic freedom.''An author exercises poetic license by saying that apile of money "reaches as high as a mountain"when the pile is actually only a foot or two high.

Point of View: The narrative perspective fromwhich a literary work is presented to the reader.There are four traditional points of view. The ' 'thirdperson omniscient'' gives the reader a ' 'godlike''perspective, unrestricted by time or place, fromwhich to see actions and look into the minds ofcharacters. This allows the author to comment openlyon characters and events in the work. The "thirdperson" point of view presents the events of thestory from outside of any single character's percep-tion, much like the omniscient point of view, but thereader must understand the action as it takes placeand without any special insight into characters'minds or motivations. The "first person" or "per-sonal" point of view relates events as they areperceived by a single character. The main character"tells" the story and may offer opinions about theaction and characters which differ from those of theauthor. Much less common than omniscient, thirdperson, and first person is the "second person"point of view, wherein the author tells the story as ifit is happening to the reader. James Thurber em-ploys the omniscient point of view in his short story' 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." Ernest Heming-way's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is a shortstory told from the third person point of view. MarkTwain's novel Huckleberry Finn is presented fromthe first person viewpoint. Jay Mclnerney's BrightLights, Big City is an example of a novel which usesthe second person point of view.

Pornography: Writing intended to provoke feel-ings of lust in the reader. Such works are oftencondemned by critics and teachers, but those which



can be shown to have literary value are viewed lessharshly. Literary works that have been described aspornographic include D. H. Lawrence's LadyChatterley's Lover and James Joyce's Ulysses.

Post-Aesthetic Movement: An artistic responsemade by African Americans to the black aestheticmovement of the 1960s and early 1970s. Writerssince that time have adopted a somewhat differenttone in their work, with less emphasis placed on thedisparity between black and white in the UnitedStates. In the words of post-aesthetic authors suchas Toni Morrison, John Edgar Wideman, and KristinHunter, African Americans are portrayed as lookinginward for answers to their own questions, ratherthan always looking to the outside world. Two well-known examples of works produced as part of thepost-aesthetic movement are the Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Color Purple by Alice Walkerand Beloved by Toni Morrison.

Postmodernism: Writing from the 1960s forwardcharacterized by experimentation and application ofmodernist elements, which include existentialismand alienation. Postmodernists have gone a stepfurther in the rejection of tradition begun with themodernists by also rejecting traditional forms, pre-ferring the anti-novel over the novel and the anti-hero over the hero. Postmodern writers includeThomas Pynchon, Margaret Drabble, and GabrielGarcia Marquez.

Prologue: An introductory section of a literarywork. It often contains information establishing thesituation of the characters or presents informationabout the setting, time period, or action. In drama,the prologue is spoken by a chorus or by one of theprincipal characters.

Prose: A literary medium that attempts to mirror thelanguage of everyday speech. It is distinguishedfrom poetry by its use of unmetered, unrhymedlanguage consisting of logically related sentences.Prose is usually grouped into paragraphs that form acohesive whole such as an essay or a novel. Theterm is sometimes used to mean an author's generalwriting.

Protagonist: The central character of a story whoserves as a focus for its themes and incidents and asthe principal rationale for its development. Theprotagonist is sometimes referred to in discussionsof modern literature as the hero or anti-hero. Well-known protagonists are Hamlet in William Shake-speare's Hamlet and Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzger-ald's The Great Gatsby.

RRealism: A nineteenth-century European literarymovement that sought to portray familiar charac-ters, situations, and settings in a realistic manner.This was done primarily by using an objectivenarrative point of view and through the buildup ofaccurate detail. The standard for success of anyrealistic work depends on how faithfully it transferscommon experience into fictional forms. The realis-tic method may be altered or extended, as in streamof consciousness writing, to record highly subjec-tive experience. Contemporary authors who oftenwrite in a realistic way include Nadine Gordimerand Grace Paley.

Resolution: The portion of a story following theclimax, in which the conflict is resolved. The reso-lution of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey is neatlysummed up in the following sentence: "Henry andCatherine were married, the bells rang and everybody smiled."

Rising Action: The part of a drama where the plotbecomes increasingly complicated. Rising actionleads up to the climax, or turning point, of a drama.The final "chase scene" of an action film is gener-ally the rising action which culminates in the film'sclimax.

Roman a clef: A French phrase meaning "novelwith a key." It refers to a narrative in which realpersons are portrayed under fictitious names. JackKerouac, for example, portrayed various his friendsunder fictitious names in the novel On the Road. D.H. Lawrence based ' 'The Rocking-Horse Winner''on a family he knew.

Romanticism: This term has two widely acceptedmeanings. In historical criticism, it refers to a Euro-pean intellectual and artistic movement of the lateeighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that soughtgreater freedom of personal expression than thatallowed by the strict rules of literary form and logicof the eighteenth-century neoclassicists. The Ro-mantics preferred emotional and imaginative ex-pression to rational analysis. They considered theindividual to be at the center of all experience and soplaced him or her at the center of their art. TheRomantics believed that the creative imaginationreveals nobler truths—unique feelings and attitudes—than those that could be discovered by logic or byscientific examination. "Romanticism" is also usedas a general term to refer to a type of sensibilityfound in all periods of literary history and usuallyconsidered to be in opposition to the principles of

V o l u m e 8 369


classicism. In this sense, Romanticism signifies anywork or philosophy in which the exotic or dreamlikefigure strongly, or that is devoted to individualisticexpression, self-analysis, or a pursuit of a higherrealm of knowledge than can be discovered byhuman reason. Prominent Romantics include Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William Wordsworth, John Keats,Lord Byron, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

sSatire: A work that uses ridicule, humor, and wit tocriticize and provoke change in human nature andinstitutions. Voltaire's novella Candide and Jona-than Swift's essay "A Modest Proposal" are bothsatires. Flannery O'Connor's portrayal of the fami-ly in ' 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find'' is a satire of amodern, Southern, American family.

Science Fiction: A type of narrative based uponreal or imagined scientific theories and technology.Science fiction is often peopled with alien creaturesand set on other planets or in different dimensions.Popular writers of science fiction are Isaac Asimov,Karel Capek, Ray Bradbury, and Ursula K. Le Guin.

Setting: The time, place, and culture in which theaction of a narrative takes place. The elements ofsetting may include geographic location, charac-ters's physical and mental environments, prevailingcultural attitudes, or the historical time in which theaction takes place.

Short Story: A fictional prose narrative shorter andmore focused than a novella. The short story usuallydeals with a single episode and often a singlecharacter. The "tone," the author's attitude towardhis or her subject and audience, is uniform through-out. The short story frequently also lacks denoue-ment, ending instead at its climax.

Signifying Monkey: A popular trickster figure inblack folklore, with hundreds of tales about thischaracter documented since the 19th century. HenryLouis Gates Jr. examines the history of the signify-ing monkey in The Signifying Monkey: Towards aTheory of Afro-American Literary Criticism, pub-lished in 1988.

Simile: A comparison, usually using "like" or"as,"of two essentially dissimilar things, as in"coffee as cold as ice" or "He sounded like abroken record." The title of Ernest Hemingway's"Hills Like White Elephants" contains a simile.

Social Realism: The Socialist Realism school ofliterary theory was proposed by Maxim Gorky and

established as a dogma by the first Soviet Congressof Writers. It demanded adherence to a communistworldview in works of literature. Its doctrines re-quired an objective viewpoint comprehensible tothe working classes and themes of social strugglefeaturing strong proletarian heroes. Gabriel GarciaMarquez's stories exhibit some characteristics ofSocialist Realism.

Stereotype: A stereotype was originally the namefor a duplication made during the printing process;this led to its modern definition as a person or thingthat is (or is assumed to be) the same as all others ofits type. Common stereotypical characters includethe absent-minded professor, the nagging wife, thetroublemaking teenager, and the kindheartedgrandmother.

Stream of Consciousness: A narrative techniquefor rendering the inward experience of a character.This technique is designed to give the impression ofan ever-changing series of thoughts, emotions, im-ages, and memories in the spontaneous and seem-ingly illogical order that they occur in life. Thetextbook example of stream of consciousness is thelast section of James Joyce's Ulysses.

Structure: The form taken by a piece of literature.The structure may be made obvious for ease ofunderstanding, as in nonfiction works, or may ob-scured for artistic purposes, as in some poetry orseemingly "unstructured" prose.

Style: A writer's distinctive manner of arrangingwords to suit his or her ideas and purpose in writing.The unique imprint of the author's personality uponhis or her writing, style is the product of an author'sway of arranging ideas and his or her use of diction,different sentence structures, rhythm, figures ofspeech, rhetorical principles, and other elements ofcomposition.

Suspense: A literary device in which the authormaintains the audience's attention through the build-up of events, the outcome of which will soon berevealed. Suspense in William Shakespeare's Ham-let is sustained throughout by the question of wheth-er or not the Prince will achieve what he has beeninstructed to do and of what he intends to do.

Symbol: Something that suggests or stands forsomething else without losing its original identity.In literature, symbols combine their literal meaningwith the suggestion of an abstract concept. Literarysymbols are of two types: those that carry complexassociations of meaning no matter what their con-texts, and those that derive their suggestive meaning



from their functions in specific literary works. Ex-amples of symbols are sunshine suggesting happi-ness, rain suggesting sorrow, and storm cloudssuggesting despair.

TTale: A story told by a narrator with a simple plotand little character development. Tales are usuallyrelatively short and often carry a simple message.Examples of tales can be found in the works of Saki,Anton Chekhov, Guy de Maupassant, and O. Henry.

Tall Tale: A humorous tale told in a straightfor-ward, credible tone but relating absolutely impossi-ble events or feats of the characters. Such tales werecommonly told of frontier adventures during thesettlement of the west in the United States. Literaryuse of tall tales can be found in Washington Irving'sHistory of New York, Mark Twain's Life on theMississippi, and in the German R. F. Raspe's BaronMunchausen's Narratives of His Marvellous Trav-els and Campaigns in Russia.

Theme: The main point of a work of literature. Theterm is used interchangeably with thesis. Manyworks have multiple themes. One of the themes ofNathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown"is loss of faith.

Tone: The author's attitude toward his or her audi-ence may be deduced from the tone of the work. Aformal tone may create distance or convey polite-ness, while an informal tone may encourage afriendly, intimate, or intrusive feeling in the reader.The author's attitude toward his or her subjectmatter may also be deduced from the tone of thewords he or she uses in discussing it. The tone ofJohn F. Kennedy's speech which included the ap-peal to ' 'ask not what your country can do for you''was intended to instill feelings of camaraderie andnational pride in listeners.

Tragedy: A drama in prose or poetry about a noble,courageous hero of excellent character who, be-

cause of some tragic character flaw, brings ruinupon him- or herself. Tragedy treats its subjects in adignified and serious manner, using poetic languageto help evoke pity and fear and bring about cathar-sis, a purging of these emotions. The tragic formwas practiced extensively by the ancient Greeks.The classical form of tragedy was revived in thesixteenth century; it flourished especially on theElizabethan stage. In modern times, dramatists haveattempted to adapt the form to the needs of modernsociety by drawing their heroes from the ranks ofordinary men and women and defining the nobilityof these heroes in terms of spirit rather than exaltedsocial standing. Some contemporary works that arethought of as tragedies include The Great Gatsby byF. Scott Fitzgerald, and The Sound and the Fury byWilliam Faulkner.

Tragic Flaw: In a tragedy, the quality within thehero or heroine which leads to his or her downfall.Examples of the tragic flaw include Othello's jeal-ousy and Hamlet's indecisiveness, although mostgreat tragedies defy such simple interpretation.

uUtopia: A fictional perfect place, such as "para-dise" or "heaven." An early literary Utopia wasdescribed in Plato's Republic, and in modern litera-ture, Ursula K. Le Guin depicts a Utopia in "TheOnes Who Walk Away from Omelas."

VVictorian: Refers broadly to the reign of QueenVictoria of England (1837-1901) and to anythingwith qualities typical of that era. For example, thequalities of smug narrow-mindedness, bourgeoismaterialism, faith in social progress, and priggishmorality are often considered Victorian. In litera-ture, the Victorian Period was the great age of theEnglish novel, and the latter part of the era saw therise of movements such as decadence and symbolism.

V o l u m e 8 3 7 1

CumulativeAuthor/Title Index

AA <fc/> (Updike): V3Achebe, Chinua

Vengeful Creditor: V3Aiken, Conrad

Silent Snow, Secret Snow: V8An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

(Bierce): V2Anderson, Sherwood

Sophistication: V4Araby (Joyce): VIAtwood, Margaret

Rape Fantasies: V3Axolotl (Cortazar): V3

BBabylon Revisited (Fitzgerald): V4Baldwin, James

Sonny's Blues: V2Bambara, Toni Cade

Blues Ain 't No Mockin Bird: V4Raymond's Run: V7

Barn Burning (Faulkner): V5Barth, John

Lost in the Funhouse: V6Barthelme, Donald

Robert Kennedy Saved fromDrowning: V3

Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale ofWall Street (Melville): V3

Bates, H. E.The Daffodil Sky: V7

The Bear (Faulkner): V2The Beast in the Jungle (James): V6Berriault, Gina

The Stone Boy: V7

Bierce, AmbroseAn Occurrence at Owl Creek

Bridge: V2Big Blonde (Parker): V5Blackberry Winter (Warren): V8Blood-Burning Moon (Toomer): V5Bloodchild (Butler): V6The Bloody Chamber (Carter): V4Blues Ain't No Mockin Bird

(Bambara): V4The Blues I'm Playing (Hughes): V7Borges, Jorge Luis

Pierre Menard, Author of theQuixote: V4

Bowen, ElizabethThe Demon Lover: V5

Boys and Girls (Munro): V5Bradbury, Ray

There Will Come Soft Rains: VIButler, Octavia

Bloodchild: V6

cCamus, Albert

The Guest: V4The Canterville Ghost (Wilde): V7Capote, Truman

A Christmas Memory: V2Carter, Angela

The Bloody Chamber: V4Carver, Raymond

Cathedral: V6Where I'm Calling From: V3

The Cask of Amontillado (Poe): V7Cathedral (Carver): V6

Gather, WillaNeighbour Rosicky: VIPaul's Case: V2

The Celebrated Jumping Frog ofCalaveras County (Twain):VI

Cheever, JohnThe Swimmer: V2

Chekhov, AntonThe Lady with the Pet Dog: V5

Children of the Sea (Danticat): VIChopin, Kate

The Story of an Hour: V2A Christmas Memory (Capote): V2The Chrysanthemums (Steinbeck):

V6Cisneros, Sandra

Woman Hollering Creek: V3Clarke, Arthur C.

The Star: V4Connell, Richard

The Most Dangerous Game: VIConrad, Joseph

The Secret Sharer: VIA Conversation with My Father

(Paley): V3Cortazar, Julio

Axolotl: V3Crane, Stephen

The Open Boat: V4

DThe Daffodil Sky (Bates): V7Dahl, Roald

Lamb to the Slaughter: V4

3 7 3

C u m u l a t i v e A u t h o r / T i t l e I n d e x

Danticat, EdwidgeChildren of the Sea: VI

The Dead (Joyce): V6The Death of Ivan Ilych

(Tolstoy): V5The Demon Lover (Bowen): V5The Devil and Tom Walker

(Irving): VIDinesen, Isak

The Ring: V6Sorrow-Acre: V3

Disorder and Early Sorrow(Mann): V4

The Door in the Wall (Wells): V3Dostoevsky, Fyodor

The Grand Inquisitor: V8Doyle, Arthur Conan

The Red-Headed League: V2

EThe Eatonville Anthology

(Hurston): VIEliot, George

The Lifted Veil: V8Ellison, Ralph

King of the Bingo Game: VIEveryday Use (Walker): V2

FThe Fall of the House of Usher

(Poe): V2Far, Sui Sin

Mrs. Spring Fragrance: V4Faulkner, William

Barn Burning: V5The Bear: V2A Rose for Emily: V6

Fever (Wideman): V6Fitzgerald, F. Scott

Babylon Revisited: V4Flaubert, Gustave

A Simple Heart: V6Flight (Steinbeck): V3Flowering Judas (Porter): V8Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins

A New England Nun: V8The Revolt of 'Mother': V4

GGaines, Ernest

The Sky is Gray: V5Galsworthy, John

The Japanese Quince: V3The Garden Party (Mansfield): V8Gardner, John

Redemption: V8The Gift of the Magi (Henry): V2Oilman, Charlotte Perkins

The Yellow Wallpaper: VI

Gimpel the Fool (Singer): V2Girl (Kincaid): V7Glaspell, Susan

A Jury of Her Peers: V3Gogol, Nikolai

The Overcoat: VIA Good Man Is Hard to Find

(O'Connor): V2Gordimer, Nadine

The Train from Rhodesia: V2The Grand Inquisitor

(Dostoevsky): V8The Guest (Camus): V4Guests of the Nation (O'Connor): V5A Guide to Berlin (Nabokov): V6

HThe Handsomest Drowned Man in

the World (Marquez): VIHan's Crime (Naoya): V5Harrison Bergeron (Vonnegut): V5Harte, Bret

The Outcasts of Poker Flat: V3Hawthorne, Nathaniel

The Minister's Black Veil: VIYoung Goodman Brown: VI

Head, BessieSnapshots of a Wedding: V5

Heinlein, Robert A.Waldo: VI

Hemingway, ErnestHills Like White Elephants: V6In Another Country: V8The Short Happy Life of Francis

Macomber: VIHempel, Amy

In the Cemetery Where Al JolsonIs Buried: V2

Henry, O.The Gift of the Magi: V2

Hills Like White Elephants(Hemingway): V6

A Horse and Two Goats(Narayan): V5

How I Contemplated the Worldfrom the Detroit House ofCorrection and Began My LifeOver Again (Gates): V8

Hughes, LangstonThe Blues I'm Playing: VISlave on the Block: V4

A Hunger Artist (Kafka): VIHurston, Zora Neale

The Eatonville Anthology: VISpunk: V6

// Stand Here Ironing (Olsen): VIIn Another Country

(Hemingway): V8

In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson IsBuried (Hempel): V2

In the Garden of the North AmericanMartyrs (Wolff): V4

In the Penal Colony (Kafka): V3Irving, Washington

The Devil and Tom Walker: VIThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow: V8

/Jackson, Shirley

The Lottery: VIJacobs, W. W.

The Monkey's Paw: V2James, Henry

The Beast in the Jungle: V6The Japanese Quince

(Galsworthy): V3Jewett, Sarah Orne

A White Heron: V4The Jilting of Granny Weatherall

(Porter): VIJoyce, James

Araby: VIThe Dead: V6

A Jury of Her Peers (Glaspell): V3

KKafka, Franz

A Hunger Artist: VIIn the Penal Colony: V3

Kincaid, JamaicaGirl: VIWhat I Have Been Doing

Lately: V5King of the Bingo Game

(Ellison): VIKingston, Maxine Hong

On Discovery: V3Kipling, Rudyard

Mrs. Bathurst: V8

LThe Lady, or the Tiger?

(Stockton): V3The Lady with the Pet Dog

(Chekhov): V5Lamb to the Slaughter (Dahl): V4Lawrence, D. H.

Odour of Chrysanthemums: V6The Rocking-Horse Winner: V2

Le Guin, Ursula K.The Ones Who Walk Away from

Omelas: V2The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

(Irving): V8Lessing, Doris

Through the Tunnel: VIThe Life You Save May Be Your Own

(O'Connor): VI



The Lifted Veil (Eliot): V8London, Jack

To Build a Fire: VILost in the Funhouse (Barth): V6The Lottery (Jackson): VI

MThe Magic Barrel (Malamud): V8Malamud, Bernard

The Magic Barrel: V8The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg

(Twain): V7The Man to Send Rain Clouds

(Silko): V8The Man Who Lived Underground

(Wright): V3The Management of Grief

(Mukherjee): V7Mann, Thomas

Disorder and Early Sorrow: V4Mansfield, {Catherine

The Garden Party: V8Miss Brill: V2

Marquez, Gabriel GarciaThe Handsomest Drowned Man in

the World: VIA Very Old Man with Enormous

Wings: V6Mason, Bobbie Ann

Residents and Transients: V8Shiloh: V3

The Masque of the Red Death(Poe): V8

Mateo Falcone (Merimee): V8Maupassant, Guy de

The Necklace: V4McCullers, Carson

Wunderkind: V5Melanctha (Stein): V5Melville, Herman

Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale ofWall Street: V3

Merimee, ProsperMateo Falcone: V8

The Minister's Black Veil(Hawthorne): V7

Mishima, YukioSwaddling Clothes: V5

Miss Brill (Mansfield): V2Mistry, Rohinton

Swimming Lessons: V6The Monkey's Paw (Jacobs): V2Morrison, Toni

Recitatif: V5The Most Dangerous Game

(Connell): VIMrs. Bathurst (Kipling): V8Mrs. Spring Fragrance (Far): V4Mukherjee, Bharati

The Management of Grief: VIMunro, Alice

Boys and Girls: V5

AT

Nabokov, VladimirA Guide to Berlin: V6

Naoya, ShigaHan's Crime: V5

Narayan, R. K.A Horse and Two Goats: V5

The Necklace (Maupassant): V4Neighbour Rosicky (Gather): V7The New Dress (Woolf): V4A New England Nun (Freeman): V8

oGates, Joyce Carol

How I Contemplated the Worldfrom the Detroit House ofCorrection and Began My LifeOver Again: V8

Where Are You Going, WhereHave You Been?: VI

O'Brien, TimThe Things They Carried: V5

O'Connor, FlanneryA Good Man Is Hard to Find: V2The Life You Save May Be Your

Own: VIO'Connor, Frank

Guests of the Nation: V5Odour of Chrysanthemums

(Lawrence): V6O'Flaherty, Liam

The Wave: V5Olsen, Tillie

/ Stand Here Ironing: V1On Discovery (Kingston): V3The Ones Who Walk Away from

Omelas (Le Guin): V2The Open Boat (Crane): V4The Open Window (Saki): VIOrwell, George

Shooting an Elephant: V4The Outcasts of Poker Flat

(Harte): V3The Overcoat (Gogol): V7Ozick, Cynthia

The Shawl: V3

PPaley, Grace

A Conversation with MyFather: V3

Parker, DortothyBig Blonde: V5

Paul's Case (Gather): V2Phillips, Jayne Anne

Souvenir: V4Pierre Menard, Author of the

Quixote (Borges): V4Poe, Edgar Allan

The Cask of Amontillado: VI

The Fall of the House ofUsher: V2

The Masque of the RedDeath: V8

The Tell-Tale Heart: V4Pomegranate Seed (Wharton): V6Porter, Katherine Anne

Flowering Judas: V8The Jilting of Granny

Weather all: VI

RRape Fantasies (Atwood): V3Raymond's Run (Bambara): V7Recitatif (Morrison): V5Redemption (Gardner): V8The Red-Headed League (Doyle): V2Residents and Transients

(Mason): V8The Revolt of 'Mother1

(Freeman): V4The Ring (Dinesen): V6Robert Kennedy Saved from

Drowning (Barthelme): V3The Rocking-Horse Winner

(Lawrence): V2Roman Fever (Wharton): V7A Rose for Emily (Faulkner): V6

SSaki,

The Open Window: VIThe Secret Life of Walter Mitty

(Thurber): VIThe Secret Sharer (Conrad): VIThe Shawl (Ozick): V3Shiloh (Mason): V3Shooting an Elephant (Orwell): V4The Short Happy Life of Francis

Macomber (Hemingway): VISilent Snow, Secret Snow

(Aiken): V8Silko, Leslie Marmon

The Man to Send RainClouds: V8

Yellow Woman: V4A Simple Heart (Flaubert): V6Singer, Isaac Bashevis

Gimpel the Fool: V2The Sky is Gray (Gaines): V5Slave on the Block (Hughes): V4Snapshots of a Wedding (Head): V5Sonny's Blues (Baldwin): V2Sophistication (Anderson): V4Sorrow-Acre (Dinesen): V3Souvenir (Phillips): V4Spunk (Hurston): V6The Star (Clarke): V4Stein, Gertrude

Melanctha: V5

V o l u m e 8 375


Steinbeck, JohnThe Chrysanthemums: V6Flight: V3

Stockton, Frank R.The Lady, or the Tiger?: V3

The Stone Boy (Berriault): V7The Story of an Hour (Chopin): V2Swaddling Clothes (Mishima): V5The Swimmer (Cheever): V2Swimming Lessons (Mistry): V6

TThe Tell-Tale Heart (Poe): V4There Will Come Soft Rains

(Bradbury): VIThe Things They Carried

(O'Brien): V5Through the Tunnel (Lessing): VIThurber, James

The Secret Life of WalterMitty: VI

To Build a Fire (London): V7Tolstoy, Leo

The Death of Ivan Ilych: V5Toomer, Jean

Blood-Burning Moon: V5The Train from Rhodesia

(Gordimer): V2Twain, Mark

The Celebrated Jumping Frog ofCalaveras County: VI

The Man That CorruptedHadleyburg: VI

uUpdike, John

A & P: V3

VVengeful Creditor (Achebe): V3A Very Old Man with Enormous

Wings (Marquez): V6Vonnegut, Kurt

Harrison Bergeron: V5

wWaldo (Heinlein): V7Walker, Alice

Everyday Use: V2Warren, Robert Penn

Blackberry Winter: V8The Wave (O'Flaherty): V5Wells, H. G.

The Door in the Wall: V3Welty, Eudora

A Worn Path: V2Wharton, Edith

Pomegranate Seed: V6

Roman Fever: V7What I Have Been Doing Lately

(Kincaid): V5Where Are You Going, Where Have

You Been? (Gates): VIWhere I'm Calling From

(Carver): V3A White Heron (Jewett): V4Wideman, John Edgar

Fever: V6Wilde, Oscar

The Canterville Ghost: VIWolff, Tobias

In the Garden of the NorthAmerican Martyrs: V4

Woman Hollering Creek(Cisneros): V3

Woolf, VirginiaThe New Dress: V4

A Worn Path (Welty): V2Wright, Richard

The Man Who LivedUnderground: V3

Wunderkind(UcCulleTs): V5

YThe Yellow Wallpaper (Gilman): VIYellow Woman (Silko): V4Young Goodman Brown

(Hawthorne): VI


Nationality/Ethnicity IndexAfrican AmericanBaldwin, James


Blues Ain 't No Mockin Bird: V4Raymond's Run: VI

Butler, OctaviaBloodchild: V6

Ellison, RalphKing of the Bingo Game: VI


Hurston, Zora NealeThe Eatonville Anthology: VISpunk: V6

Toomer, JeanBlood-Burning Moon: V5

Walker, AliceEveryday Use: V2

Wideman, John EdgarFever: V6

Wright, RichardThe Man Who Lived

Underground: V3

AmericanAiken, Conrad

Silent Snow, Secret Snow: V8Anderson, Sherwood

Sophistication: V4Baldwin, James


Blues Ain't No Mockin Bird: V4Raymond's Run: V7

Barm, JohnLost in the Funhouse: V6

Barthelme, DonaldRobert Kennedy Saved from

Drowning: V3Berriault, Gina

The Stone Boy: VIBierce, Ambrose

An Occurrence at Owl CreekBridge: V2

Bradbury, RayThere Will Come Soft Rains: VI

Butler, OctaviaBloodchild: V6

Capote, TrumanA Christmas Memory: V2

Carver, RaymondCathedral: V6Where I'm Calling From: V3

Gather, WillaNeighbour Rosicky: V7Paul's Case: V2

Cheever, JohnThe Swimmer: V2

Chopin, KateThe Story of an Hour: V2

Cisneros, SandraWoman Hollering Creek: V3

Connell, RichardThe Most Dangerous Game: VI

Crane, StephenThe Open Boat: V4

Ellison, RalphKing of the Bingo Game: VI

Faulkner, WilliamBarn Burning: V5The Bear: V2

A Rose for Emily: V6Fitzgerald, F. Scott

Babylon Revisited: V4Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins

A New England Nun: V8The Revolt of 'Mother': V4

Gaines, ErnestThe Sky is Gray: V5

Gardner, JohnRedemption: V8

Gilman, Charlotte PerkinsThe Yellow Wallpaper: VI

Glaspell, SusanA Jury of Her Peers: V3

Harte, BretThe Outcasts of Poker Flat: V3

Hawthorne, NathanielThe Minister's Black Veil: VIYoung Goodman Brown: VI

Heinlein, Robert A.Waldo: V7

Hemingway, ErnestHills Like White Elephants: V6In Another Country: V8The Short Happy Life of Francis

Macomber: VIHempel, Amy

In the Cemetery Where Al JolsonIs Buried: V2

Henry, O.The Gift of the Magi: V2


Hurston, Zora NealeThe Eatonville Anthology: VISpunk: V6

377


Irving, WashingtonThe Devil and Tom Walker: VIThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow: V8

Jackson, ShirleyThe Lottery: VI

James, HenryThe Beast in the Jungle: V6

Jewett, Sarah OneA White Heron: V4

Kincaid, JamaicaGirl: V7What I Have Been Doing

Lately: V5Kingston, Maxine Hong

On Discovery: V3Le Guin, Ursula K.

The Ones Who Walk Away fromOmelas: V2

London, JackTo Build a Fire: V7

Malamud, BernardThe Magic Barrel: V8

Mason, Bobbie AnnResidents and Transients: V8Shiloh: V3

McCullers, CarsonWunderkind: V5

Melville, HermanBartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of

Wall Street: V3Morrison, Toni

Recitatif. V5Nabokov, Vladimir

A Guide to Berlin: V6Gates, Joyce Carol

How I Contemplated the Worldfrom the Detroit House ofCorrection and Began My LifeOver Again: V8

Where Are You Going, WhereHave You Been?: VI

O'Brien, TimThe Things They Carried: V5

O'Connor, FlanneryA Good Man Is Hard to Find: V2The Life You Save May Be Your

Own: VIOlsen, Tillie

/ Stand Here Ironing: VIOzick, Cynthia

The Shawl: V3Paley, Grace


Parker, DortothyBig Blonde: V5

Phillips, Jayne AnneSouvenir: V4

Poe, Edgar AllanThe Cask of Amontillado: VIThe Fall of the House of

Usher: V2

The Masque of the RedDeath: V8

The Tell-Tale Heart: V4Porter, Katherine Anne

Flowering Judas: V8The Jilting of Granny

Weatherall: VISilko, Leslie Marmon


Yellow Woman: V4Singer, Isaac Bashevis

Gimpel the Fool: V2Stein, Gertrude

Melanctha: V5Steinbeck, John

The Chrysanthemums: V6Flight: V3

Stockton, Frank R.The Lady, or the Tiger?: V3

Thurber, JamesThe Secret Life of Walter

Mitty: VIToomer, Jean

Blood-Burning Moon: V5Twain, Mark

The Celebrated Jumping Frog ofCalaveras County: VI

The Man That CorruptedHadleyburg: VI

Updike, JohnA & P: V3

Vonnegut, KurtHarrison Bergeron: V5

Walker, AliceEveryday Use: V2

Warren, Robert PennBlackberry Winter: V8

Welty, EudoraA Worn Path: V2

Wharton, EdithPomegranate Seed: V6Roman Fever: VI

Wideman, John EdgarFever: V6

Wolff, TobiasIn the Garden of the North

American Martyrs: V4Wright, Richard

The Man Who LivedUnderground: V3

AntiguanKincaid, Jamaica

Girl: VIWhat I Have Been Doing

Lately: V5

ArgentineBorges, Jorge Luis

Pierre Menard, Author of theQuixote: V4

Cortazar, JulioAxolotl: V3

Asian AmericanKingston, Maxine Hong

On Discovery: V3

AustrianKafka, Franz


CanadianAtwood, Margaret

Rape Fantasies: V3Mistry, Rohinton

Swimming Lessons: V6Mukherjee, Bharati

The Management of Grief: VIMunro, Alice

Boys and Girls: V5

ChicanoCisneros, Sandra

Woman Hollering Creek: V3

ColombianMarquez, Gabriel Garcia

The Handsomest Drowned Man inthe World: VI

A Very Old Man with EnormousWings: V6

CzechKafka, Franz


DanishDinesen, Isak

The Ring: V6Sorrow-Acre: V3

EnglishBates, H. E.

The Daffodil Sky: VIBowen, Elizabeth

The Demon Lover: V5Carter, Angela

The Bloody Chamber: V4Clarke, Arthur C.

The Star: V4Conrad, Joseph

The Secret Sharer: VI



Eliot, GeorgeThe Lifted Veil: V8

Far, Sui SinMrs. Spring Fragrance: V4

Galsworthy, JohnThe Japanese Quince: V3

Jacobs, W. W.The Monkey's Paw: V2

Kipling, RudyardMrs. Bathurst: V8

Lawrence, D. H.Odour of Chrysanthemums: V6The Rocking-Horse Winner: V2

Lessing, DorisThrough the Tunnel: VI

Orwell, GeorgeShooting an Elephant: V4

Saki,The Open Window: VI

Wells, H. G.The Door in the Wall: V3

Woolf, VirginiaThe New Dress: V4

EurasianFar, Sui Sin

Mrs. Spring Fragrance: V4

FrenchCamus, Albert

The Guest: V4Flaubert, Gustave

A Simple Heart: V6Maupassant, Guy de

The Necklace: V4Merimee, Prosper

Mateo Falcone: V8

GermanMann, Thomas

Disorder and Early Sorrow: V4

HaitianDanticat, Edwidge

Children of the Sea: VI

Narayan, R. K.A Horse and Two Goats: V5

IrishBowen, Elizabeth

The Demon Lover: V5Joyce, James

Araby: VIThe Dead: V6

O'Connor, FrankGuests of the Nation: V5

O'Flaherty, LiamThe Wave: V5

Wilde, OscarThe Canterville Ghost: VI

JapaneseMishima, Yukio

Swaddling Clothes: V5Naoya, Shiga

Han's Crime: V5

JewishBerriault, Gina

The Stone Boy: VIKafka, Franz


Jewish AmericanMalamud, Bernard

The Magic Barrel: V8Ozick, Cynthia

The Shawl: V3Paley, Grace


Singer, Isaac BashevisGimpelthe Fool: V2

Stein, GertrudeMelanctha: V5

New ZealanderMansfield, Katherine

The Garden Party: V8Miss Brill: V2

NigerianAchebe, Chinua

Vengeful Creditor: V3

PolishConrad, Joseph

The Secret Sharer: VISinger, Isaac Bashevis

Gimpel the Fool: V2

RussianChekhov, Anton

The Lady with the Pet Dog: V5Dostoevsky, Fyodor

The Grand Inquisitor: V8Gogol, Nikolai

The Overcoat: VINabokov, Vladimir

A Guide to Berlin: V6Tolstoy, Leo

The Death of Ivan Ilych: V5

ScottishDoyle, Arthur Conan

The Red-Headed League: V2

South AfricanGordimer, Nadine

The Train from Rhodesia: V2Head, Bessie

Snapshots of a Wedding: V5

WelshDahl, Roald

Lamb to the Slaughter: V4

IndianMistry, Rohinton

Swimming Lessons: V6Mukherjee, Bharati

The Management of Grief: VI

Native AmericanSilko, Leslie Marmon


Yellow Woman: V4

West IndianKincaid, Jamaica

Girl: VIWhat I Have Been Doing

Lately: V5

V o l u m e 8 379

Subject/Theme Index1950s

The Magic Barrel: 196, 201

AAbandonment

The Lifted Veil: 179, 182-183The Man to Send Raindouds: 230

AbstinenceA New England Nun: 302,

304-305Adultery

The Magic Barrel: 209Adulthood

Blackberry Winter: 1, 5-6, 17-19How I Contemplated the World

...: 108-110Silent Snow, Secret Snow: 354

AfricaMrs. Bathurst: 275, 278-281

AlienationFlowering Judas: 28Mrs. Bathurst: 279

Alienation and LonelinessIn Another Country: 125

AlienationFlowering Judas: 24, 26,

28-30, 34-36The Grand Inquisitor: 85, 89In Another Country: 122,

125,133-135The Lifted Veil: ISO, 183

AllegoryThe Masque of the Red Death:

232, 235-238, 243-244,255-257

AmbiguityFlowering Judas: 40-41

American NortheastThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

139-140, 145-147, 153,155-163

A New England Nun: 296-299, 303-306

American SouthBlackberry Winter: 1-2, 6-7Residents and Transients: 324,

326-332, 339-340Anger

How I Contemplated the World...: 115

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:152-153

Mateo Falcone: 262, 266Apathy

The Masque of the Red Death:250-252

ApocalypseThe Masque of the Red

Death: 237Appearances and Reality

The Man to Send Raindouds: 220Mrs. Bathurst: 278

Art and ExperienceMrs. Bathurst: 111Redemption: 311

AtonementFlowering Judas: 29, 32-33The Magic Barrel: 207-208,

212-213Redemption: 311,321

AustraliaThe Garden Party: 49

AuthoritarianismSilent Snow, Secret Snow:

347-348

BBeauty

The Garden Party: 51, 53-55, 64-65

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:143, 145-147

Silent Snow, Secret Snow:354, 357, 359

BetrayalFlowering Judas: 25, 28-29, 38,

40-41,44-47Mateo Falcone: 264-265, 270

B ildungsromanHow I Contemplated the World

...: 104-106Biography

The Lifted Veil: 174-175Bloomsbury Group

The Garden Party: 49-50

cChange and Transformation

Residents and Transients: 325Childhood

Blackberry Winter: 1-2, 6, 21-22The Lifted Veil: 169,171Residents and Transients: 331-

332, 337-338Choices and Consequences

A New England Nun: 294

3 8 I

S u b j e c t / T h e m e I n d e x

ChristianityBlackberry Winter: 13-14The Grand Inquisitor: 82,

84, 88-89The Man to Send Rainclouds:

221-222City versus Country

The Legend of SleepyHollow: 142

ClairvoyanceThe Lifted Veil: 169

Class and Race ConflictHow I Contemplated the World

. . .: 101Classicism

Mateo Falcone: 264, 268Coming of Age

The Magic Barrel: 209, 212-213Communism

The Grand Inquisitor: 81, 85-86Community and Alienation

Silent Snow, Secret Snow: 346Courage and Cowardice

In Another Country: 124A New England Nun: 294

CourageFlowering Judas: 26How I Contemplated the World

. ..: 110In Another Country: 122-

125, 131-134A New England Nun: 294

CreativityThe Man to Send Rainclouds: 219

Creativity and ImaginationThe Legend of Sleepy

Hollow: 144Creativity

The Man to Send Rainclouds:226-227

Crime and CriminalsBlackberry Winter: 3, 6-7How I Contemplated the World

. ..: 100-102, 115, 117-118Mateo Falcone: 264, 269-270

CrueltyBlackberry Winter: 15Flowering Judas: 37, 42How I Contemplated the World

....•103-104,109,111In Another Country: 120,

125, 127Mateo Falcone: 261, 264-

265,269-271Culture Clash

The Man to Send Rainclouds: 220Mateo Falcone: 264

CuriosityMrs. Bathurst: 274, 277-279

Custom and TraditionThe Man to Send Rainclouds: 219

CynicismBlackberry Winter: 13-14

Flowering Judas: 28, 32The Lifted Veil: 178,181

DDeath

The Man to Send Rainclouds: 220The Masque of the Red

Death: 235Death

Blackberry Winter: 2-3, 7, 16-19Flowering Judas: 38-46The Garden Party: 50-53,

56, 61-67The Grand Inquisitor: 70, 76-

77,92, 94-95In Another Country: 123-

128, 132-137The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

159, 161, 163The Lifted Veil: 165-167, 170-

172, 175,184-194The Magic Barrel: 210-212The Man to Send Rainclouds:

218-228The Masque of the Red Death:

232-259Mateo Falcone: 266, 269-271Mrs. Bathurst: 278-280, 286-288Redemption: 309, 311 -319

DeceitFlowering Judas: 24-26, 30

Depression and MelancholyThe Grand Inquisitor: 82-83, 88The Lifted Veil: 179-183

DescriptionFlowering Judas: 30, 32The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:


244-246Residents and Transients:

336-337Silent Snow, Secret Snow:

357-358Despair

In Another Country: 131,133, 135

DevilThe Grand Inquisitor: 69, 71,

73, 92, 94-95Dialect

Mrs. Bathurst: 274, 279, 281Dialogue

Flowering Judas: 42Mrs. Bathurst: 275, 279-280

Dignity and the Human ConditionIn Another Country: 123

DiseaseThe Masque of the Red Death:

233, 235, 238-239, 257-259Divorce

Residents and Transients: 328

Dream and RealityThe Garden Party: 53

Dreams and VisionsFlowering Judas: 38, 41-42,

45,47The Garden Party: 50-51, 55-56The Legend of Sleepy

Hollow: 161The Lifted Veil: 179-186The Masque of the Red Death:

242-245A New England Nun: 303-306Silent Snow, Secret Snow:

357, 359Duty and Responsibility

A New England Nun: 295Duty and Responsibility

The Grand Inquisitor: 92-93Mrs. Bathurst: 287A New England Nun: 295-298

EEmotions

Blackberry Winter: 17, 19Flowering Judas: 25, 43, 46-47The Garden Party: 60, 63-65How I Contemplated the World

....•107,118In Another Country: 124-126The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

147, 161The Lifted Veil: m, 180,

184-187The Magic Barrel: 199-200,

204, 215The Masque of the Red Death:

250-252Mrs. Bathurst: 288A New England Nun: 302-303Redemption: 318-320Residents and Transients: 329,

333, 335, 338Silent Snow, Secret Snow: 343

EnglandThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

139, 147The Lifted Veil: 167, 171-174The Masque of the Red

Death: 240Mrs. Bathurst: 276, 278-279, 285

EnvyThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

159-160Error

Flowering Judas: 45-47Essay

How I Contemplated the World.. .: 111-112, 117-118

EternityBlackberry Winter: 17, 19The Grand Inquisitor: 81, 83, 86,

88-89, 94-95


Subject/Theme Index

How I Contemplated the World. . . .-113,116

The Masque of the Red Death:257, 259

EuropeThe Garden Party: 55-56The Grand Inquisitor: 74-76,

83-85, 89In Another Country: 121, 123,

125-127,132-137The Legend of Sleepy

Hollow: 146The Lifted Veil: 167, 171-172,

178, 180, 182, 184-185,188, 191-192

The Magic Barrel: 204The Masque of the Red Death:

238-241Mateo Falcone: 262, 264-270Mrs. Bathurst: 280Redemption: 312-313Silent Snow, Secret Snow: 348

EvilBlackberry Winter: 10, 12, 14, 20Flowering Judas: 29-32, 45-47The Grand Inquisitor: 86-87,

93-96The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

157-160, 163The Lifted Veil: 190-192The Magic Barrel: 208, 210-213The Masque of the Red Death:

248-249Redemption: 312,320

FFaith and Betrayal

Flowering Judas: 28Family Life

A New England Nun: 302,305-306

Farm and Rural LifeBlackberry Winter: 1,3,5-

6,9-11, 15The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

139, 143, 145-146, 153-155, 158-162

A New England Nun: 298Redemption: 308-310, 313Residents and Transients: 323,

327-329, 334-340Fate

The Lifted Veil: 170Fate and Chance

Mrs. Bathurst: 279Fate and Chance

The Grand Inquisitor: 81-83, 86,88-89, 92, 94

The Lifted Veil: 165,170-171The Masque of the Red Death:

257-259Mrs. Bathurst: 287-288

Fathers and SonsBlackberry Winter: 4

Fear and TerrorFlowering Judas: 37-44The Grand Inquisitor: 83-84,

89-91How I Contemplated the World

...: 107-109In Another Country: 122-123The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

153-155The Lifted Veil: 166-167, 172-

174, 185, 188-189The Masque of the Red Death:

234-235, 238-240, 250-252, 257-259

Mrs. Bathurst: 288-289Feminism

The Man to Send Rainclouds: 226Residents and Transients:

338-339Film

Flowering Judas: 38-39In Another Country: 130-131The Masque of the Red

Death: 240Mrs. Bathurst: 276, 278, 280-

281,284-287Flesh vs. Spirit

A New England Nun: 296Folklore

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:140, 142-143, 147, 152-156

ForeshadowingBlackberry Winter: 16-18

ForgivenessFlowering Judas: 45,47Mateo Falcone: 266, 271

Free WillThe Grand Inquisitor: 73

Free Will Vs. DeterminismThe Grand Inquisitor: 11, 73-75

FreedomThe Grand Inquisitor: 82-90,

93-94French Revolution

Mateo Falcone: 266-267

GGhost

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:140-141, 152-155, 159-160

God and ReligionThe Grand Inquisitor: 72The Magic Barrel: 200Redemption: 310

GodThe Grand Inquisitor: 70-76,

80, 90-95The Magic Barrel: 198-200,

206-213

The Masque of the RedDeath: 249

Mateo Falcone: 271Redemption: 309-312

GothicismThe Lifted Veil: 165, 169,


238-240Greed


Grief and SorrowThe Grand Inquisitor: 92-94How I Contemplated the World

...: 115,117Residents and Transients:

336, 338Grotesque


GuiltFlowering Judas: 45-47The Grand Inquisitor: 91-93Mrs. Bathurst: 287

HHappiness and Gaiety

The Grand Inquisitor: 71, 73-74,87-91,94


HatredThe Grand Inquisitor: 82,93, 95The Lifted Veil: 180, 189-192The Masque of the Red Death:

251-252Silent Snow, Secret Snow:

357-358Heaven

The Lifted Veil: 175-178The Magic Barrel: 211-212The Masque of the Red Death:

248-249Hell

The Magic Barrel: 208, 210-212Heroism

Flowering Judas: 25-26, 32How I Contemplated the World

...: 109-111In Another Country: 125,

127, 131The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

143-145The Lifted Veil: 179-180The Magic Barrel: 213The Masque of the Red Death:

246-247History

The Grand Inquisitor: 71, 73,81-82,86-88

V o l u m e 8 383


HomelessnessFlowering Judas: 34The Man to Send Rainclouds:

223, 225Residents and Transients:

336, 338Honor and Betrayal

Mateo Falcone: 264Honor

Mateo Falcone: 261, 264,270-271

HopeBlackberry Winter: 12, 14In Another Country: 133-135The Lifted Veil: 176-178, 188-189

Human ConditionThe Lifted Veil: 185

Human TraitsThe Masque of the Red

Death: 238Humor

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:139, 141, 145-147, 155-161

A New England Nun: 298

/Idealism

The Grand Inquisitor: 83-84, 88Ideals and Reality

Flowering Judas: 28Identity

The Magic Barrel: 199Imagery and Symbolism

Blackberry Winter: 8-14Flowering Judas: 25, 32, 37-38The Garden Party: 49,53,

55, 61-62How I Contemplated the World

...: 118The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

157, 160, 162The Lifted Veil: 179, 189-190The Masque of the Red Death:

232,235-238,241-244A New England Nun: 296,

303-304Redemption: 319Residents and Transients: 327,

333-334, 338Imagination


Immigrants and ImmigrationThe Magic Barrel: 197, 200-204

Individual versus CommunityThe Man to Send Rainclouds: 220

InnocenceBlackberry Winter: 5

Innocence and ExperienceThe Garden Party: 52

InsanityThe Masque of the Red Death:

232, 236-238, 242, 244-245, 254-255

Silent Snow, Secret Snow: 346-347, 350-353

IronyBlackberry Winter: 18-19The Garden Party: 61-62The Masque of the Red Death:

253,255A New England Nun: 302, 305

JJourney

The Garden Party: 53Judaism

In Another Country: 136The Magic Barrel: 196-205,

210-213

KKillers and Killing

Flowering Judas: 26, 28,40-41The Grand Inquisitor: 72,

75-76, 95How I Contemplated the World

. ..: 107, 109Mateo Falcone: 262, 264-266Redemption: 309, 312-313

KindnessThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

143-144The Lifted Veil: m,\W

KnowledgeBlackberry Winter: 16-20The Grand Inquisitor: 88In Another Country: 126, 132The Lifted Veil: 169-171, 178-179

LLandscape

Blackberry Winter: 20-21The Grand Inquisitor: 82-83, 89How I Contemplated the World

....-104-107, 113-114,117-118

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:141-145, 150-153, 157-159, 162

The Lifted Veil: 185, 187-189Mateo Falcone: 269-21 \Mrs. Bathurst: 277-280Redemption: 310-312

Law and OrderMateo Falcone: 264

Law and OrderThe Grand Inquisitor: 90-93How I Contemplated the World

....-99, 101, 113, 115-116

The Magic Barrel: 209-213The Masque of the Red Death:

248-249Mateo Falcone: 262, 264, 266-

267, 270-271Life after Death

The Lifted Veil: 170Literary Criticism

Flowering Judas: 33The Garden Party: 54The Magic Barrel: 213A New England Nun: 306

LonelinessBlackberry Winter: 17,20Flowering Judas: 25, 28-30In Another Country: 126The Lifted Veil: m, 184,

186-187Lost Generation

Flowering Judas: 34Love

Flowering Judas: 28How I Contemplated the World

...: 100Love and Hatred

Silent Snow, Secret Snow: 346Love and Passion

Mrs. Bathurst: 278Residents and Transients: 326

Love and PassionFlowering Judas: 24, 26, 28-29,

33-36,40-47The Grand Inquisitor: 73, 77-78,

82-85,88,91-93How I Contemplated the World

....•97,100-102,108-110,115-118

In Another Country: 135-137The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

143, 148, 158-159, 162The Lifted Veil: 175-187, 191-192The Magic Barrel: 198-211,


247-249Mrs. Bathurst: 278-279, 286-288A New England Nun: 294-

295, 303, 305Redemption: 320-321Residents and Transients: 324,

326, 333-335Lower Class

Flowering Judas: 28, 30-31The Garden Party: 50-52, 60-61

LoyaltyFlowering Judas: 34-35,47Mateo Falcone: 264

MMadness




MagicBlackberry Winter: 18-19The Legend of Sleepy

Hollow: 144The Lifted Veil: 175, 177-178The Magic Barrel: 214

MarriageThe Lifted Veil: 167, 169,

171,173,175The Magic Barrel: 196-199,

202,209-210A New England Nun: 294-

298, 303-305Residents and Transients:

328, 339-340Masque


MaterialismThe Grand Inquisitor: 85-86

Memory and ReminiscenceThe Lifted Veil: 183-184, 187-192Redemption: 312,314

Mental InstabilityThe Lifted Veil: 179

MiracleThe Grand Inquisitor: 70-74,

82, 87-89, 92Misanthropy

The Lifted Veil: 179-180Modernism

Flowering Judas: 32-33The Garden Party: 54, 56Mrs. Bathurst: 280, 284Silent Snow, Secret Snow:

347-348Monarchy

The Masque of the Red Death:232-235, 238-239, 243-253, 256-259

Money and EconomicsThe Legend of Sleepy

Hollow: 159The Masque of the Red Death:

238-239Monologue

The Grand Inquisitor: 78-81Mood

The Lifted Veil: 187, 189Morals and Morality

Blackberry Winter: 16-17Flowering Judas: 32, 45-47The Grand Inquisitor: 86-95The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

157-163The Lifted Veil: 179,181-183The Magic Barrel: 201-202,

210,213The Masque of the Red Death:

237-239, 256-257Mateo Falcone: 261, 266,

269,271Redemption: 311, 313-314, 321

MotherhoodResidents and Transients:

332-333Music

Flowering Judas: 24-26, 37-42The Grand Inquisitor: 81, 88-90Redemption: 310-312,317-319

The Mystery of LifeThe Lifted Veil: 169

Mystery and IntrigueThe Grand Inquisitor: 80,

86-91,95The Lifted Veil: 165-167, 170-

171,176-178Silent Snow, Secret Snow: 348-

349, 353-354Myths and Legends

The Garden Party: 55-56The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

145, 147-156, 163The Lifted Veil: 190-192The Magic Barrel: 207The Masque of the Red Death:

246-247, 257, 259A New England Nun: 304-305

NNarration

Blackberry Winter: 1-3, 6, 8,11, 13-17,20

Flowering Judas: 24, 30, 32The Garden Party: 49-51, 54-55The Grand Inquisitor: 71, 74How I Contemplated the World

...: 97-107In Another Country: 121-

127, 132-137The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

144-145, 151-156, 161-163The Lifted Veil: 171, 174, 179-


217,220-221,226The Masque of the Red Death:

232, 237-240, 244-246Mateo Falcone: 265, 267-

268, 273Mrs. Bathurst: 275-281, 284,

286-290Residents and Transients:

333-335, 340Silent Snow, Secret Snow:

355-356, 359Natural Law

Mateo Falcone: 264Naturalism

In Another Country: 128Nature

Blackberry Winter: 17-21Flowering Judas: 44,46-47The Grand Inquisitor: 82,

86, 88-93

How I Contemplated the World...: 104,112


148-150, 153, 156-159The Lifted Veil: 175-178, 182,

184, 186-187Mateo Falcone: 266, 269, 271Mrs. Bathurst: 286, 288A New England Nun: 303, 305Redemption: 310, 314, 320-321Silent Snow, Secret Snow:

355,359North America

Flowering Judas: 24-26, 31-32The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

139, 145-147The Magic Barrel: 200-202Redemption: 313

NovelThe Grand Inquisitor: 69, 71,

73-74,77-78How I Contemplated the World

...: 109The Lifted Veil: 165-166, 173-175The Magic Barrel: 204The Masque of the Red Death:

239-241Nuclear War

Redemption: 312-313Nurturance

How I Contemplated the World...: 108-109

oOccultism

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:140, 146

Oedipus ComplexHow I Contemplated the World

...: 107-110Old Age

The Man to Send Rainclouds:217-218

pPainting


ParanormalThe Lifted Veil: 165-166, 170-

173, 176-178, 181, 183,185-188

ParodyFlowering Judas: 37,41 -42

PassivityHow I Contemplated the World

...: 107-110In Another Country: 134-135

PerceptionBlackberry Winter: 16-20The Garden Party: 52, 54-56

V o l u m e 8 385


The Lifted Veil: 167, 169, 172-173, 177-178, 184-185, 188

PermanenceThe Garden Party: 64-65The Grand Inquisitor: 84,

87-88, 95In Another Country: 131-135The Lifted Veil: 188-189

PersecutionBlackberry Winter: 18-19The Grand Inquisitor: 84, 87-88How I Contemplated the World

....-109-111The Magic Barrel: 207The Masque of the Red Death:

247-249Mateo Falcone: 270Redemption: 316

PerseveranceThe Grand Inquisitor: 92-93

Personal IdentityFlowering Judas: 41-42The Garden Party: 56How I Contemplated the World

....-107-115Residents and Transients:

338-340Personification

Flowering Judas: 37-38,42-45The Grand Inquisitor: 85, 89The Masque of the Red Death:

232, 235, 238, 242-244Silent Snow, Secret Snow: 353-

354, 357-358Philosophical Ideas

The Grand Inquisitor: 82, 84,88, 90, 96

In Another Country: 126Redemption: 312-314

Playing GodThe Lifted Veil: 169

PleasureThe Lifted Veil: 175-177

PlotThe Grand Inquisitor: 74How I Contemplated the World

....-107,109-110Mateo Falcone: 273

PoetryThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

149-151The Lifted Veil: 179-180, 183-

184, 187-189Silent Snow, Secret Snow:

353-354Point of View

Flowering Judas: 40-41In Another Country: 126-127, 137The Lifted Veil: 171,174The Magic Barrel: 200

PoliticsFlowering Judas: 26, 28, 30-33

The Grand Inquisitor: 76, 78,80, 83, 85-86

Silent Snow, Secret Snow:347-348

PrideThe Legend of Sleepy

Hollow: 161The Masque of the Red Death:

249-250Prophecy

The Lifted Veil: 180-182Prostitution


Psychology and the Human MindFlowering Judas: 37-38,41 -42The Garden Party: 55-56How I Contemplated the World

....- 109, 111-112,118In Another Country: 131-133The Lifted Veil: 180-183, 187-189The Masque of the Red Death:

238-239, 250A New England Nun: 291, 299Redemption: 315-316Silent Snow, Secret Snow: 346,

348-349, 352-353

RRace

Blackberry Winter: 6-7The Man to Send Rainclouds:

218, 220, 222-223Realism

A New England Nun: 297-299Regionalism

A New England Nun: 291, 297Religion and Religious Thought

Blackberry Winter: 11-14Flowering Judas: 28, 32-33,

42,45, 47The Grand Inquisitor: 70, 72-76,

80, 82, 85, 87,92The Legend of Sleepy

Hollow: 160The Lifted Veil: 165, 176-177The Magic Barrel: 198-199,

206,209-213The Man to Send Rainclouds:

221-223The Masque of the Red

Death: 249Mateo Falcone: 263, 265, 271Redemption: 309-311

Religious WorksThe Magic Barrel: 208, 211-213The Masque of the Red Death:

247-249Revenge

How I Contemplated the World....-114

Mateo Falcone: 264-265Roman Catholicism

Flowering Judas: 24, 26, 28-32The Grand Inquisitor: 71-73,


217-225, 230Romanticism

Mateo Falcone: 265-267

sSadism and Masochism

The Lifted Veil: 193-194Sanity and Insanity

Silent Snow, Secret Snow: 346Satire

How I Contemplated the World. ..: 107, 109

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:156, 158-161

Science and TechnologyThe Grand Inquisitor: 81,

83-85, 89In Another Country: 121 -126,

129-130, 133-134The Lifted Veil: 169, 172-174,

179, 181-183, 194Mrs. Bathurst: 279-281Residents and Transients: 328

Science versus the supernaturalThe Lifted Veil: 169

Sea and Sea AdventuresBlackberry Winter: 17, 19Mrs. Bathurst: 274, 276, 279-281

Search For KnowledgeHow I Contemplated the World

. . . .-112,114Search for Self

A New England Nun: 294Self-confidence

In Another Country: 121, 123-124Self-realization

Flowering Judas: 41-42The Garden Party: 55-56

SettingIn Another Country: 121,

123, 125The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

156-158The Masque of the Red

Death: 240Mateo Falcone: 266-267

Sex and SexualityThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

161-162The Magic Barrel: 209-211A New England Nun: 302-305

SicknessHow I Contemplated the World

....-114-115The Lifted Veil: 179-180




SinBlackberry Winter: 10-11,

17, 19-20Flowering Judas: 25, 28-29,

44-47The Grand Inquisitor: 92-93The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

159-163The Magic Barrel: 210-211The Masque of the Red Death:

247-249Mateo Falcone: 266, 269-271Redemption: 313,320

SlaveryThe Grand Inquisitor: 90-94

Social OrderFlowering Judas: 28, 31The Garden Party: 49, 53, 55, 57The Grand Inquisitor: 81,

85, 88-89Socialism

Flowering Judas: 24-26, 30-32The Grand Inquisitor: 83-86

SolitudeA New England Nun: 292, 294,

296, 300-303Silent Snow, Secret Snow:

355-356Soothsayer

The Lifted Veil: 169,172Redemption: 316

SoulThe Lifted Veil: 176-177, 185,

189, 191-192Spiritual Leaders

The Grand Inquisitor: 81-82,88-89

The Magic Barrel: 198-202,210-213

The Man to Send Rainclouds:218-221,224-225

SpiritualityBlackberry Winter: 13-14Flowering Judas: 25-26, 29,

32-33The Grand Inquisitor: 71-74, 79-

80, 92, 94The Lifted Veil: 165, 169, 171-

172, 177-178The Magic Barrel: 210-212Mateo Falcone: 270-271

Sports and the Sporting LifeIn Another Country: 121-

123, 132-135The Legend of Sleepy

Hollow: 153

The Lifted Veil: 167, 169-171,190-192

Storms and Weather ConditionsHow I Contemplated the World

...: 113-114The Man to Send Rainclouds:

218,220-223,229-230Silent Snow, Secret Snow: 346-

349, 353-359Stream of Consciousness

The Garden Party: 49, 54The Masque of the Red Death:

236-237Strength

The Grand Inquisitor: 90-91The Man to Send Rainclouds: 219

StructureThe Grand Inquisitor: 73-74,

94,96The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

156, 159, 162-163The Lifted Veil: 171-172The Magic Barrel: 212-213

Suburban LifeHow I Contemplated the World

.. .: 97-98, 102-103Success and Failure

The Grand Inquisitor: 82, 84-86The Lifted Veil: 183-185, 188

SuicideThe Grand Inquisitor: 91, 93-94

SupernaturalThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

144, 153-156, 162-163The Lifted Veil: 170-174, 178,

181, 183, 185

TTime


Time and ChangeBlackberry Winter: 16-17The Grand Inquisitor: 85, 91The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

158, 161-163Tone

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:156, 158, 163

Silent Snow, Secret Snow:355, 357, 359

Truth and FalsehoodSilent Snow, Secret Snow: 346

uUgliness


UncertaintyThe Lifted Veil: 185-188The Masque of the Red Death:

257-259Understanding

Blackberry Winter: 19The Grand Inquisitor: 83-86The Lifted Veil: 187, 189

UtopianismThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

149-151,158-160, 163The Masque of the Red Death:

246-247

VViolence and Cruelty

Mateo Falcone: 265

wWar, the Military, and Soldier Life

Flowering Judas: 26,31-32In Another Country: 122-

128, 132-135Mateo Falcone: 262, 265-267Mrs. Bathurst: 276-281A New England Nun: 298-299Redemption: 313

WealthThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

157, 159, 161, 163The Masque of the Red Death:

232-235, 238, 242-256, 259Wildlife


160, 162The Magic Barrel: 208, 210-211

WisdomThe Grand Inquisitor: 82,

84, 86-87World War I

In Another Country: 121,123,125-127

YYearning

The Grand Inquisitor: 82-84,87-89

V o l u m e 8 387

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