A Companion to the American Short Story
Page 24
talk to the trees, and birds, and beasts in their own language! … Is it science that will
give us back the gift, or shall we owe it to the successors of those friendly old saints
who talked with the birds and fi shes? ( Jewett , Country By - Ways 4 – 5)
New England Local-Color Literature
103
Jewett ’ s anti - modern answer is clear: it is not science. Her resistance to its dominative
colonizing claims is manifest as she continues,
It is not necessary to tame [creatures] before they can be familiar and responsive; we can
meet them on their own ground . … Taming is only forcing them to learn some of our
customs; we should be wise if we let them tame us to make use of some of theirs. (5;
emphasis added)
Jewett proceeds to envisage a day of
“
universal suffrage
…
when the meaning
of every living thing is understood, and is given its rights and accorded its true
value ” (6).
In “ A White Heron ” Sylvia, though inarticulate, has a similar viewpoint; and
although she is attracted initially to the ornithologist and interested in his knowl-
edges, and he stimulates her to expand her horizons (literally: she climbs a tree looking
for the bird and sees the ocean in the distance, something she had never done before);
she nevertheless is distressed by his willingness to destroy the natural world in order
to learn more about it. She “ would have liked him vastly better without his gun; she
could not understand why he killed the very birds he seemed to like so much ” (166).
Also disturbing is the way in which the ornithologist is willing to exploit the girl ’ s
knowledge of the birds for his own purposes. The corruptness of his instrumental
treatment of Sylvia is further emphasized when he offers her money, in a sense bribing
her, to reveal the location of the white heron. The unholy alliance between modern
science and capitalism is tacitly acknowledged in this moment.
In the end Sylvia takes a stand and refuses to reveal the bird ’ s location to the orni-
thologist, thus saving the bird ’ s life and upholding the claims of the premodern,
animist, local world of rural Maine as against the modernist imperative.
No, she must keep silence. What is it that suddenly forbids her and makes her dumb?
… The murmur of the pine ’ s green branches is in her ears, she remembers how the
white heron came fl ying through the golden air and how they watched the sea and the
morning together, and Sylvia cannot speak; she cannot tell the heron ’ s secret and give
its life away. (171)
Sylvia cannot speak but her author does, giving voice to the inarticulate people –
human and non - human – of rural Maine, telling their story, that it not be erased,
that its claim to ontological status be upheld against the colonizing, extirpating forces
of modernity.
Notes
1
Cooke also wrote several stories that depicted
2
Earlier versions of this discussion of Jewett
rural people positively, especially her
“
Polly
and modernity appeared in Donovan,
“
Nan
Mariner ” stories. An earlier version of this dis-
Prince ” and Donovan, “ Local - Color Literature
cussion of Cooke ’ s story appeared in Donovan,
and Modernity. ”
“ Breaking the Sentence. ”
104
Josephine Donovan
References and Further Reading
Ashcroft , Bill , Gareth Griffi ths , and Helen Tiffi n .
— — — . A Country Doctor . Boston : Houghton
The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in
Miffl in , 1884 .
Post - Colonial Literatures . London and New York :
— — — . “ The Courting of Sister Wisby . ” The King
Routledge , 1989 .
of Folly Island and Other People . Boston : Hough-
Cary , Richard , ed. Sarah Orne Jewett Letters . Water-
ton Miffl in , 1888 . 50 – 80 .
ville, ME : Colby College Press , 1967 .
— — — . “ Miss Debby ’ s Neighbors . ” The Mate of
Cooke , Rose Terry . “ How Celia Changed Her Mind ”
the Daylight and Friends Ashore . Boston : Hough-
and Selected Stories . Ed. Elizabeth Ammons . New
ton Miffl in , 1884 . 190 – 209 .
Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press , 1986 .
— — — . “ River Driftwood ” . Boston : Houghton
151 – 81 .
Miffl in , 1881 . 1 – 33 .
Deleuze , Gilles , and Felix Guattari . Kafka: Pour
Krafft - Ebing , Richard von . Psychopathia Sexualis,
une litt é rature mineure . Paris : Editions de Minuit ,
with Especial Reference to the Antipathic Sexual
1975 .
Instinct
. Trans. F. J. Rebman.
New York
:
Donovan , Josephine . “ Breaking the Sentence:
Medical Art Agency , 1906 .
Local - Color Literature and Subjugated Knowl-
Lears , Jackson . No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and
edges . ” The (Other) American Traditions . Ed.
the Transformation of American Culture, 1880
–
Joyce Warren . New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers
1920 . New York : Pantheon , 1981 .
University Press , 1993 . 226 – 43 .
Mayer ,
Sylvia .
Naturethik und Neuengland
-
— — — . “ Local - Color Literature and Modernity:
Regionalliteratur: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Rose Terry
The Example of Jewett . ” Tamking Review 38.1
Cooke, Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary E. Wilkins
(December 2007 ): 7 – 25 .
Freeman . Heidelberg, Germany : Winter , 2004 .
— — — . “ Nan Prince and the Golden Apples . ”
Ong , Walter J . Orality and Literature . London :
Colby Library Quarterly 22.1 (March 1986 ):
Routledge , 1988 .
17 – 27 .
Renza , Louis A . “ A White Heron ” and the Question
— — — . New England Local Color Literature: A
of Minor Literature . Madison : University of
Women ’ s Tradition . New York : Ungar , 1983 .
Wisconsin Press , 1984 .
Fields , Annie , ed. Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett .
Said , Edward W . “ Yeats and Decolonization . ”
Boston : Houghton Miffl in , 1911 .
Nationalism, Colonialism and Literature . Eds.
Foucault , Michel . Power/Knowledge: Selected Inter-
Terry Eagleton et al. Minneapolis : University of
views and Other Writings, 1972 – 1977 . Ed. Colin
Minnesota Press , 1990 . 67 – 95 .
Gordon . New York : Pantheon , 1980 .
Stowe , Harriet Beecher . “ A New England Sketch . ”
Freeman , Mary E. Wilkins . Selected Stories of Mary
In (under the title “ Uncle Lot ” ) Regional Sketches:
E. Wilkins Freeman . Ed. Marjorie Pryse . New
New England and Florida . Ed. John R. Adams .
York : W. W. Norton , 1983 .
New Haven, CT : College and University Press ,
Horkheimer , Max , and Theodor W. Adorno . Dia-
1972 . 31 – 55 .
. Trans. John Cumming. Westbrook , Perry D . Acres of Flint: Sarah Orne
1944. Rpt. edn. New York : Continuum , 1988 .
Jewett and Her Contemporaries
. Rev. edn.
Jewett , Sarah Orne . “ An Autumn Holiday . ”
Metuchen, NJ : Scarecrow Press , 1981 .
Country By - Ways . Boston : Houghton Miffl in ,
Wilkins [Freeman] , Mary E . A Humble Romance and
1881 . 139 – 62 .
Other Stories
. 1887. Rpt.
New York
:
Garrett
— — — . The Country of the Pointed Firs and Other
Press , 1969 .
Stories . Ed Willa Cather . Garden City, NY : Dou-
— — — . A New England Nun and Other Stories . New
bleday , 1956 . (In this edition, however, three
York : Harper , 1891 .
stories written later were interpolated into the
original text of The Country of the Pointed Firs. )
8
Charlotte Perkins Gilman and
the Feminist Tradition of
the American Short Story
Martha J. Cutter
When Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860 – 1935) initially attempted to place her short
story “ The Yellow Wallpaper ” (1892) in the prestigious magazine Atlantic Monthly ,
then editor Horace Scudder rejected it with a terse note: “ I could not forgive myself
if I made others as miserable as I have made myself! ” (Golden 3). Eventually the story
was published in New England Magazine but then virtually ignored for over seventy - fi ve
years, until it was republished by Elaine Hedges in a Feminist Press edition in 1973.
Yet today Gilman ’ s story has garnered more critical attention for its feminist themes
than perhaps any other short story by an American writer; it is taught frequently in
American literature courses, has received an abundant amount of scrutiny by literary
scholars, doctors, and historians, and has been adapted for radio, the stage, television,
and fi lm. To grasp the continuing prominence of this work in the feminist tradition
of the American short story, we must place it in the context of Gilman ’ s other short
fi ctions and within the larger history of American women
’
s feminist short story
writing. Gilman ’ s story, while certainly unique, carried forward a number of themes
that other writers have dealt with concerning women and language, women and mas-
culine authority, women and the natural environment, and the material and historical
basis of women ’ s oppression. The continuing popularity of “ The Yellow Wallpaper, ”
then, can be linked to the way it articulates archetypal and enduring themes about the
causes and resolutions of women ’ s social, economic, and linguistic oppression – issues
which continue to be ambiguous and unresolved, even in our own era.
American Women ’ s Feminist Short Story Writing at
the Turn of the Century
With its frank confrontation of male authority and its graphic depiction of the perni-
cious effects of medical treatments that infantilize and sicken women, “ The Yellow
Wallpaper ” seems to be a unique text. Yet numerous women short story writers at
106
Martha J. Cutter
the turn of the century confronted, with less graphic detail, similar questions, embed-
ding historical controversies within their texts and sometimes refashioning limiting
stereotypes of feminine identity and voice. During this era, two images of women ’ s
identity competed with each other: the “ True Woman ” (or “ domestic saint ” ), who
was supposed to be pure, pious, domestic, subservient, and silent, and the “ New
Woman, ” who was fi nancially independent of men, more outspoken, less domestic,
and less subservient to male authority. According to Sarah Grand, who is thought to
have coined the “ New Woman ” term in an essay in North American Review in 1894 ,
man has “ set himself up as a sort of god and required us to worship him, and, to our
eternal shame be it said, we did so ” (Grand 272). However, Grand believes that
women are now rebelling – they are beginning to think for themselves, to look at the
world with their own eyes, and they are becoming more articulate (274 – 6). It would
be simplistic to suggest that women writers from this time period always depict the
triumph of the New Woman over the True Woman; however, many of their texts do
investigate the potential freedom that the new image might offer.
In “ The Revolt of ‘ Mother ’ ” (1890), for example, Mary Wilkins Freeman (1852 –
1930) portrays a “ good ” domestic saint in her main character Sarah Penn, a woman
who spends virtually every minute of the story caring for her family and their home
– cleaning, cooking, sewing, dusting, and helping her husband. But when Sarah learns
that her husband is building a new barn instead of the house he has been promising
her for more than forty years, she revolts. While he is away on a business trip, she
moves all of the family ’ s possessions into the newly fi nished barn and makes it their
home, stabling the horses and cows in the old house. She also asserts her right to
think and speak for herself, telling the town minister: “ I ’ m goin ’ to think my own
thoughts an ’ go my own ways, an ’ nobody but the Lord is goin ’ to dictate to me unless
I ’ ve a mind to have him ” (Freeman 310). In confronting both her husband and her
minister ’ s authority, Sarah enacts a double challenge to the ideal of true womanhood,
which required piety (towards God and religious fi gures) and submissiveness (towards
male authority in general). And her revolt is successful. Throughout the story, when
Sarah tries to plead for the new home, her husband Adoniram ignores her, but at the
end he fi nally hears what she has been saying all along: “ ‘ Why, mother, ’ he said,
hoarsely, ‘ I hadn ’ t no idee you was so set on ’ t as all this comes to ’ ” (313). Through
creative rearrangement of the space of the home into the barn, Sarah merges her world
with her husband ’ s, and fi nally fi nds a voice that can be heard by, and even counter,
male authority.
Stories published after “ The Revolt of ‘ Mother ’ ” continue to show the subtle chal-
lenges turn - of - the - century women writers presented to male authority and its silenc-
ing of women. “ A Jury of Her Peers ” (1917), by Susan Glaspell (1876 – 1948), details
the investigation by an all - male sheriff ’s posse of the murder of a husband. The men
suspect the wife might have committed this crime, but can fi nd no motive. In the
meantime, the women who accompany the men to the scene of the crime – the house
where the couple lived – fi nd one damning piece of evidence: the woman ’ s pet canary,
mournfully buried in a box, after its neck has been broken. Based on this and other
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
107
signs, the women conclude that Minnie Foster has been abused by her husband, that
he killed her pet, and that she eventually killed him. Yet they cover up the evidence
carefully, resisting the male authority of the sheriff and acquitting the woman of her
crime. The female “ jury ” of the town challenges patriarchal
authority. The women
also bring Minnie ’ s silent suffering into language, making it articulate through the
narrative they weave around her.
Like Freeman, Alice Dunbar - Nelson (1875 – 1935), an African American writer,
also illustrates the necessity for women to speak out; in so doing, they sometimes
change not only their own self - defi nition but enhance men ’ s growth and development.
In “ Ellen Fenton ” (c. 1900 – 10) for example, a good housewife embarks on a journey
of self - discovery after twenty - two years of married life because she fi nds herself dis-
contented (Dunbar - Nelson 35). In a direct homage to Gilman ’ s “ The Yellow Wall-
paper, ” Ellen sits “ a long while as if reading the wallpaper ” and discovers that “ she
had not become acquainted with herself ” (35). As Ellen changes, so does her husband,
who also goes through a “ metamorphosis ” and learns to be a “ real companion and
comrade ” (50) to his wife. Stories such as this one indicate that the New Woman and
her new voice may be met, at times, by a New Man who hears her story.
Women from other ethnic groups also consider how race impacts the struggle for
self - defi nition and voice. In many of Sui Sin Far ’ s (Edith Eaton ’ s, 1865 – 1914) short
stories collected in Mrs. Spring Fragrance (1912), for example, women must come to
terms with how society grants them a secondary place due to both race and gender.
In “ Its Wavering Image, ” a young mixed - race woman named Pan is tricked by her
white boyfriend Mark Carson into revealing rituals of the Chinese community; Carson
then publishes these secrets in a newspaper for which he writes. After usurping the
voice of the Chinese community, Mark Carson then also attempts to speak for Pan,
telling her, “ You are not [Chinese]. You are a white woman – white ” (66). But Pan
fi nally fi nds her voice and recovers the cultural heritage Carson has attempted to take
from her: “ I would not be a white woman for all the world. You are a white man.
And what is a promise to a white man! ” Interracial unions frequently end disastrously
in Sui Sin Far ’ s fi ction, perhaps suggesting that within the dominant (white) male
culture, ethnic women are doubly disempowered by race and gender, and they will
not fi nd voice or self - defi nition. Yet stories such as “ Mrs. Spring Fragrance ” suggest