♪Money, Money, Money, Money... MONEY!♪

 In Sister Carrie, it obvious that Carrie abhors the routine of daily life. She wants the finer things in ligr. She wants to dress as nice as possible. She wants to go to the theatre all the time. Her choice in men also... interesting. Now, I'm not saying she's a gold digger, but she's not messing with... any broke gentlemen. That is, I don't think that she would intentionally. From the beginning of the book, Dreiser writes that Carrie brought with her to Chicago "her total outfit (in a small trunk), ... a cheap imitation alligator purse, containing her ticket, a scrap of paper with her sister's address in Van Buren Street, and four dollars in money." (page 1) The reader is not given much background information on Carrie's past other than the possessions from her past that she brought with her. What speaks the most about her character to me is the imitation alligator purse. This says to me that she wants people to think she has the money for the high life, but in reality, she cannot afford a real alligator purse, but merely an imitation. Also, the fact that she did not have but four dollars of spending money with her is astounding. She took less than what she would make in a week at the shoe company with her to Chicago. At the shoe company, she made $4.50 per week. So, she took barely no money with her. This emphasizes to me that she literally started from nothing and worked up. She was led by her fancy for the finer life rather than by reality. She found money by it being given to her rather than her working hard for it. First Drouet buys her clothes and a place, but then she sees an even greater profit through Hurstwood. Then, when he loses everything he has, she loses interest in him. Only after her options are exhausted does she decide to pursue her interest of acting. However, when she finally does achieve spending money, the very thing she was so lustful for, she felt a bigger hole in her heart. Something was still missing. I did not like the ending because of the message it brings. In the beginning, it says "money should be desired, because routine is boring". In the end, it says "Money is not the path to happiness." It seems that no matter how hard the characters of the book tried or did not try to gain happiness, they did not find it. I am depressed.

Desire and Shadows

I had but one jaw dropping moment in the whole of Sister Carrie.  This moment came when Hurstwood deceived Carrie concerning Drouet, dragging her all the way to Montreal, and finally to New York. 

It is strange, this novel, everyone gets what they want.  I find that often life can be like that: you get everything you want, but it is not at all what/how you think it would be or should be.  Carrie achieved fame and fortune but (classically) found it empty.  Drouet continues doing what he always did.  The Hurstwood family went about their ways pretending the father no longer existed; Jessica becomes an expert flirt, while the missus tags along with her daughter and son-and-law (I’m sure they love that).  Hurstwood himself escaped on the immediate consequences of his crime, started over with Carrie, and ultimately failed.  Everything you want and more is in the making of a decision, no?

But Carrie’s position is different.  Indeed, she has it all in meaningless fashion, yet she is aware there is more to life.  A part I found so interesting in Dreiser’s description of Carrie’s dreamy nature was this:

“Thus in life there is ever the intellectual and the emotional nature—that mind that reasons, and the mind that feels.  Of one come the men of actions—generals and statesmen; of the other, the poets and dreams—artists all” (353).

I keep trying to decide if Dreiser favors one over the other, the intellectual or the emotional.  And if he does, that means he is more connected to his characters than I originally thought.  Carrie is an obvious dreamer.  If Dreiser favors the emotional, then he is sympathetic to her; if he favors the intellectual, then he is either indifferent or antagonistic.  In my opinion, indifference to one’s characters is disrespectful as an author; as with people, we must come to a place where we like or dislike/love or hate characters.

  

Characters shadow and imitate reality, and Dresier embodies that in Carrie throughout the novel.  From the start Carrie acts as a chameleon in her surroundings, adjusting herself with each turn of the page.  Dreiser ends the novel acknowledging Carrie’s potential to move out of the emptiness, but I question her subconscious motives.  Women of her track record tend to become the projection of whatever man holds her attention at the time, and Sister Carrie ends with Ames.

I read this novel too fast, and it will take a lot longer for it to really sink it.  But I enjoyed it nonetheless.  In class, perhaps let us discuss how Dreiser uses and writes about contrasts in the novel.  I think this becomes a more acknowledged trend toward the end of the novel; at the very least I noticed it more when he started mentioning it.

Sister Carrie 2

Even though Sister Carrie goes through hard times, she eventually finds fame and fortune in the end. However, even with her material success she still feels like she is missing something. The characters in this book are all so greedy, I can't tell if what they feel for one another is real, or if they just need to possess something. Sister Carrie spends the entire book wanting more material things than what she has, so she doesn't even seem to notice what she is really missing. She has two men in her life, and she seems to care a little for each of them, but she doesn't care enough for them to be content with just them. Also, they care for her, but they see her more as a possession. I think at one point both men have some feelings for her, but none of them are real. I feel like they only want her out of greed.  

City of Corruption or City of Fancy

From the beginning the narrator seems to indicate the Carrie’s undoing would happen in the city. The narrator seems to infer that there is a certain innocence that outsiders from the city innately possess, that is easily corrupted,

The gleam of a thousand lights is often as effective as the persuasive light wooing and fascinating the eye. Half the undoing of the unsophisticated and natural mind is accomplished by forces wholly superhuman. A blare of sound, a roar of life, a vast array of human hives, appeal to the astonished senses in equivocal sounds. Without a counselor at hand to whisper cautious interpretations, what falsehoods may not these things breath into the unguarded ear! (1)

The city seems to corrupt the purity of all its new comers. And the narrator is sure to tell us his take when comes to the moral position of the main character, Carrie Meeber. It seems like the narrator pronounces certain ideals and seems to indicate Carrie’s spiraling moral status as she grows in age and maturity.

While the narrator seems to imply that Carrie’s corruption came from moving to the city, one might argue that Carrie innately had a fatal flaw that is easy to fall to—the desire for entertainment and material possession (wealth). It follows that the city merely fed her desires, but it did not cause her fall. The narrator describes her in the very beginning saying, “…She was interested in her charms, quick to understand the keener pleasures of life, ambitious to gain in material things” (2). As a young woman, living with her sister and brother in law she was not entertained by their hum—drum routine of work and rest.   Before she even had her first day of work she wished to go to the theater. She was drawn in by the city, its bright colors and noise because it fed her fancy.

I Apologize in Advance for My (Slightly) Feminist Rant

Why are all the female characters we read about so weak? They are unable to make decisions for themselves. As Dreiser says, “When a girl leaves home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse” (1). But why are these her only two options? Why does a girl of eighteen, or any age for that matter, need someone to save her? She is more than capable of saving herself. I don’t like the way women are portrayed as inferior to men, sorry my feminist hackles are slightly raised right now and I have to write this post. Sister Carrie, even though she is eighteen and self-absorbed, can make all of her own decisions and does not need saving because she will be just fine.

Also, I found it interesting that, on the first page, Dreiser makes a vague Shakespeare reference. “Unrecognised for what they are, their beauty, like music, too often relaxes, then weakens, then perverts the simpler human perceptions” (1). Which is a lot like what Orsino says to Viola in Twelfth Night or What You Will Act II Scene 4: “For women are as roses, whose fair flow’r / Being once display’d, doth fall that very hour” (II.4). Why do so many people believe that women cannot stay beautiful for a prolonged period of time? We can be beautiful, and are beautiful, until the day we die!! I’m mad and I apologize for my ranting.

Hey, I have WiFi this time. Cool.

I am only about 100 pages in, but already I am starting to see the connections of sexuality in Sister Carrie with the sexuality of McTeague.  It is consistent with the idea that “chance” or even Fate had put Carrie and Drouet on the train together; that Drouet by mere chance sees Carrie from across the street.  Within Carrie there seems a similar sort of tension with Drouet to that Trina has in her initial encounters with McTeague.  Carrie also goes through chances quickly once she gives into the money that Drouet offers her.  This is inverse order to the way Trina and McTeague’s changes occur: for them it begins with caving into physical desires; for Carrie and Drouet, it starts with money but escalates to the physical. 

I don’t want to spend my whole blog comparing the two novels, but I figured it would be a good place to start since Dr. Mitchell had made mention of the similarities of addressing sexuality in the novels. 

I think perhaps my favorite section of the reading so far has been Dreiser’s description of habit:

“Habits are peculiar things.  They will drive the really nonreligious mind out of bed to say prayers that are only a custom and not a devotion.  The victim of habit, when he has neglected the thing which it was his custom to do, feels a little scratching in the brain, a little irritating something of conscience, the still, small voice that is urging him ever to righteousness” (57).

Oh…I am about to fail at not comparing the two novels…because Norris made mention of religiousness once in McTeague, while Dreiser mentions something about religiosity several times within the first 100 pages.  Basically all I am wondering is if that is the difference between writers within the time or if there was not a standard concerning religiousness during the time. 

Anyway, back to habit…I enjoy the way Dreiser uses this description.  He defines habit according to his standards, gives it a meaning within the novel, and then he refers back to the term “habit” on several occasions when he goes to describe characters he introduces.  He also does something similar with several other terms.  I like it; by doing so he creates his own definitions to work from in the novel, rather than a dictionary definition.  Not that he ditches meaning; he keeps the dictionary definition, he isn’t changing words, but he is giving them a specific function within the narrative. 

So far, this novel feels like a sociological experiment—and far less grotesque than McTeague, which is refreshing…then again, I am only 100 pages into it…

Illusion

Why is the transition to realism and modernism an ideal period for marriage conflict? As a guy, I sometimes find it difficult to be whisked into an emotional tangle like Dreiser’s Sister Carrie. Unfortunately, watching Gatsby recently prepared me to understand it more. I am not sure I can handle another conflict over a woman.

At the end of chapter 21, Dreiser writes of Hurstwood, “The manager started, hit as he was by a problem which was more difficult than hers. He gave no sign of the thoughts that flashed like messages to his mind” (144). He does indeed have a problem. He’s a married man who wants to marry another girl. Not that it’s acceptable, but he does not even want to divorce the woman he has now. It seems that his distaste for her promotes her ill temper, which is why he dislikes her anyway. Come on, man.

And Carrie. I’m not sure how I feel about her. I know she’s been caught up in big Chicago. The men initially attract her because they can take care of her, not because they care for her. A lot of her troubles have begun because of Minnie and Hanson’s frugality, of course, but the poor girl needs to realize the trouble she’s entered.

I suppose she cannot be expected to avoid the problem if the men haven’t given her any hints at all. They’re built on illusions. The entire Gatsby affair confronted the same problem—the illusions of the emerging big city. Despite the façade, illusion runs deeply into every pore of life, including marriage.  I just hope Carrie prevents the same violent ending.

Naturally Fresh

New Criticism: a method of literary evaluation and interpretation practiced chiefly in the mid-20th century that emphasizes close examination of a text with minimum regard for the biographical or historical circumstances in which it was produced. (American Heritage definition)

The definition above refers to a dominant form of literary theory that, although developed in the 20’s and 30’s, most certainly took its cues from American naturalism. It is time and period appropriate, as the criticism was born in America and featured American writers and thinkers almost exclusively. Our own Dr. Mitchell is very much a New Critic (note the way in which he has us analyze the texts and write papers) and part of the reason why this form of criticism flourishes in naturalism is because the text logically lends itself to close readings divorced from time/place and the intentions of the author. Remember how The Red Badge of Courage detailed several skirmishes of the Civil War without ever disclosing the location of the battles, the people involved, or the author’s own political opinions. McTeague most certainly took place in San Francisco, yet presented its characters and circumstances from an objective and unbiased viewpoint while shielding the opinions of the author.

Sister Carrie is no different but in fact exemplifies these virtues just as much as the others. Though it clearly takes place in Chicago, the novel bears no socioeconomic critique of the city or its industrialist policies. The narrator details many different aspects and historical elements of life in the city in a neutral tone of voice that hides the narrator’s true feelings about the circumstances. Authors like Dickens and Orwell wrote in such a manner that one cannot help but discuss their socioeconomic goals, but a close reading of Sister Carrie tells you nothing about Theodore Dreiser – this is by design. Instead of making direct statements about morality or ethics, Dreiser instead presents the character’s emotional and mental processes as impartially as he possibly can, creating a sort of omniscient documentary that seeks not to prove a point but present living facts. This ties back into New Criticism because proponents of this theory read literature with no mind for the author’s intentions or what outside circumstances brought the text itself because all that matters is the text itself. Likewise for the naturalist, all that matters is life and humanity itself, so that’s all that you get – as Dreiser seeks to prove, that’s all you really need.

Sister Carrie 1

This book reminds me of two words, consumerism and materialistic. From the very first page, we already know the type of person Sister Carrie is. She is materialistic, and that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. There is nothing wrong with wanting to have nice things, but Sister Carrie may be a little more caught up in that idea than she should be. Right off the bat, the narrator makes sure to bring attention to Sister Carrie’s fake purse. She is so caught up with trying to have the best of everything that she buys a knock-off purse so that people think she has money. 

Sister Carrie isn’t the only person in this book who puts money above everything. Sister Carrie’s sister and brother-in-law are also very materialistic. At first, they seems like a conservative people who are looking out for Sister Carrie. Minnie tries to suggest they do free things for entertainment, and her husband makes sure Sister Carrie budgets her money for car fair when she goes to work. We find out later that the only reason Sister Carrie is staying with them is so she can help supplement their income. They want money out of her, they do not simply want the comfort of family.

This book is about consumerism. It shows how much people want to have nice possessions, and how they will do anything to be able to buy those possessions. Sister Carries works all day at a job that she doesn’t like, and by the time she pays her sister and buys food and whatnot, she has barely any money left to buy any of the nice things she wants. Her sister lures Sister Carrie in under the pretense that she is visiting a loving sister only to realize, her sister just needs her to help foot the bills.  

I have come to the conclusion that WiFi and I will forever be enemies.

I have not read a novel in a while that has made my jaw physically drop from the shock of words I read, but McTeague has given my jaw quite a work out.  The content itself is not really that shocking, but when the first half of the novel is taken into consideration, it does get a bit obnoxious.  

I think more than anything I am shocked by how long Trina is allowed to go on in her miserly-ways while McTeague does not do anything about it until much later--and by then it is very extreme...because he kills her.  Oddly, it almost feels justified (and somewhat relieving) when McTeague kills Trina, which makes it scary as the reader to be okay with actions I know to be wrong.  But before she was killed, I kept wondering when someone was going to do something about Trina's behavior.  It is overwhelming to read about greed of that degree and see how it infects a person.  Their whole marriage looked more like cohabitation rather than a situation where “two become one.”  Trina repeatedly referred to the money as hers, would correct herself, then call it “ours”—but the heart of the issue never changed.  She always saw the money as hers and hers alone. 

Consider how Trina handles herself and then consider how she handles money.  For some time, she physically withheld herself from McTeague before the day of the kiss.  After the kiss, she decides to give herself over in marriage.  But the moment she physically surrenders to him, everything outside of her person becomes an object she must take in to fill what had been lost in physically giving in to McTeague.  The only difference between a prude and a miser is the difference between sex and money.  The motive and result of the action is the same internal decision: to withhold from another person, who in this case is her husband.  

Chaos, Chaos Everywhere

Last week, I wrote about how uncomfortable I got reading McTeague, this week, I am going to write about how chaos unfolds throughout the novel. It starts with a kiss, albeit, a nonconsensual kiss that the other party knows nothing about; which is a chaotic event because of what happens in the moments leading up to the kiss. McTeague then decides he is going to marry Trina despite the fact that she has already denied his proposal, and sets off to do just that. After a strange day spent in the company of her family, which is a chaotic excursion to say the least, McTeague spends the night in her room and fawns over every item that he knows belongs to her. Then, after Trina and McTeague gets married, the chaos spirals out of control. Trina begins hoarding her money like a miser and won’t let McTeague use any money that she believes belongs to her. McTeague and Marcus get into a fight because Marcus is still in love with Trina which leads to Marcus leaving town and telling the authorities that McTeague doesn’t have a license to practice dentistry. Once McTeague loses his practice, Trina continues to hoard her money which leads to McTeague robbing her, running away, and eventually killing her. And of course, the novel wouldn’t be complete without McTeague killing Marcus in the middle of Death Valley and eventually dying himself, or at least I’m pretty sure he will die, because he is handcuffed to Marcus’ dead body. All of these events are completely chaotic and all stem from McTeague being unable to handle change.

Death&Death&Death

The ending to McTeague by Frank Norris is disturbing to say the least. McTeague’s struggles finally overtake him. Despite his early desires to suppress the wild giant inside him, the big bad blonde man succeeds in annihilating himself, his friends, and the entire world he knows as Norris writes: “McTeague did not know how he killed is enemy, but all at once Marcus grew still beneath his blows. Then there was a sudden last return of energy. McTeague’s right wrist was caught; something clicked upon it’ then the struggling body fell limp and motionless with a long breath” (347).  McTeague had blindly destroyed and had been destroyed.

In the end, Marcus represents the baggage that McTeague could never rid from himself. Norris emphasizes Mac’s inescapable old life, using Marcus to capture McTeague in the end. The money had made Mac crave a higher position, but to achieve it, he would necessarily abandon the life he had always known. Marcus, even in death, ensures that MacTeague cannot escape with his corrupt desires.

The reader must remember what started the collapse. Norris reminds the reader continually during the second half of his novel. The money undoubtedly corrupts them all. Trina rolls in her own gold. MacTeague twice steals money from Trina and twice kills for money (Trina and Marcus). Marcus challenges McTeague, betting his own life for the sack of money McTeague had stolen.

The reader must ask what Norris really desires to convey. Is it the evil of money in itself? Is it the ever-growing industrial world that allows money to accumulate?

McTeague: The End

I did not see the end of this book coming at all. I can't believe Mac killed Trina. Although, I should have known something like this would happen. Any time there is so many greedy people together in one place something bad always happens. This book is proof that loving money brings nothing but evil. Every person in this book who lets greed get the best of them ends up in bad situations.

Even with all the death, I love the end of the book. At the beginning of the book Mac is kind of likable, but he changes. I just wanted him to get what was coming to him. So, I love that after he kills Marcus, he finds himself handcuffed to the body. I thought it was hilarious and very fitting. Wether he dies or gets caught, we know karma gives him what he deserves.

McTeague - LIVE!

         This blog entry is a little more conceptual and imaginative in nature, but is based in my close reading of the text so bear with me.

           As we all saw in class last Monday, a silent film directly based on McTeague was created back in the 20’s called Greed, and while it was built up to be and was received as a critical success it was a failure in the box office. In my opinion, I think it could do better as a stage production or even an opera, where, unlike the director of Greed, one has more licenses to be lengthy and may create truly something truly artistic & inspired, which is much harder to accomplish in Hollywood. McTeague, or perhaps an alternative title of Animals, would take its cues directly from the major parts of the text and would be structured as follows:

               
Act I: Meet McTeague – lottery winner – the wedding night (Ch.1-9)

Act II: Start married life – start of poverty – Trina’s death (Ch. 10-19)
Act III: The mines – the wasteland – finale (Ch. 20-22)

The first act introduces us to the main characters and the primary setting of San Francisco, the dramatic premise starts to develop (greed and lechery), the inciting incident occurs (the lottery), and it ends with McTeague and Trina’s honeymoon scene. The second act begins with the two living happily initially but sharply spirals into poverty and madness, finally ending with Trina’s brutal murder at Mac’s hands. In this act we have the lowest valley of the novel and its greatest complications to the story (poverty, Trina in bed with her money, McTeague’s fall into animalism) and ends with the novel’s most damning and dramatic decision (Trina’s murder). The significantly shorter third act takes place entirely in the desert and the focus here is on McTeague as a runaway, digging for gold in the wasteland and dealing with his guilt, which gives the audience a false sense of denouement before his frenzied flight through the alkali flats and the climactic final confrontation with Marcus puts on the edge of their seats and them shocks them with its terrifying and absurd conclusion.
          The tone of the play is intense and gritty, dark without being gothic in nature, and ultimately tragic without being sympathetic. Think something in line with a Tennessee Williams or an Arthur Miller and you know the direction that I'm going for. This all to argue my point that it is better to reinterpret a novel onstage than on film, especially a naturalist novel.

Frank's Fourth Circle of Hell

            In the first half of McTeague by Frank Norris, one passage summarizes the progression of McTeague and his friends:

“All at once there was a report like a pistol. The men started in their places. Mrs. Sieppe uttered a muffled shriek. The waiter from the cheap restaurant, hired as Maria’s assistant, rose from a bending posture, a champagne bottle frothing in his hand; he was grinning from ear to ear . . . Hardly one of them had ever tasted champagne before. The moment’s silence was broken by McTeague exclaiming with a long breath of satisfaction: ‘That’s the best beer I ever drank . . . .’” (132)

Norris juxtaposes high society, represented by champagne, with the lower class and unintelligent McTeague. His sudden draft into the high society opportunity, provided by his new wife’s small fortune, upsets the balance that he maintained before.

             The worst part is McTeague’s gradual but inescapable loss of his friend Marcus. Although he imposes himself upon McTeague early in the novel, Marcus provides the friendship McTeague desires. When Trina wins her money, however, Norris introduces a responsibility no one can handle. The money becomes everyone’s idol. Trina herself controls the money and does not surrender it to her husband. The effort appears noble, but (just as Dante illustrates in his fourth circle) a miser and a prodigal are equally greedy. One could even argue the unspent sum corrupts the group more, becoming an unseen ideal prize.

            McTeague could normally preserve hope, as he did desire Trina before she had money, but Marcus’s monetary greed forces the reader to reexamine each character’s motives. Could McTeague have wanted Trina just because Marcus had her? Norris certainly introduces the question. The rest of the novel may tell.

            

Uncomfortable Moment

         McTeague starts out innocently enough. Norris uses words that indicate a city that never changes or diverges from its schedule. McTeague himself never changes the way he does things or the day on which he does those things.

It was Sunday, and according to his custom on that day, McTeague took his dinner at two in the afternoon at the car conductors’ coffee joint on Polk Street. He had a thick, gray soup; heavy, underdone mean, very hot, on a cold plate; two kinds of vegetables; and a sort of suet pudding, full of strong butter and sugar. On his way back to the office, one block above, he stopped at Joe Frenna’s saloon and bought a pitcher of steam beer. It was his habit to leave the pitcher there on his way to dinner. (1)

Within the first paragraph, Norris shows how McTeague spends his Sundays going to the same places, eating the same foods, and doing everything exactly the same as every other Sunday. However, this repetition leads to McTeague not knowing how to handle himself when something changes. This is especially true when that something includes a beautiful young woman under anesthesia. When McTeague first puts Trina under anesthesia, he feels strange animalistic urges begin to grow in him and he has to try to fight them. However, his inner struggle is one of the most uncomfortable scenes that I have ever read. I was not sure that I was really reading the words that were on the page. When he kisses her, I felt sick to my stomach. And then, he asks her to marry him. Who does that kind of thing? What was Norris trying to do? Because I really have no idea what he is trying to insinuate. I will continue reading this novel because I think I have a good paper topic for this next paper, but I am very reluctant to finish it because I know that it will only get more uncomfortable for me and I am not okay with that.

Animal Rights

           Before settling on the title of McTeague, Frank Norris had considered entitling his novel Greed instead, but I offer another alternative title that would prove just as appropriate: Animals. Animals run wild throughout the novel, either directly mentioned or implied indirectly by Norris’ syntax, and it is one of his primary means of conveying his critical intentions.

           
          As Sam has correctly noted, Norris intentionally uses the Irish setter and the Border collie to characterize Marcus and McTeague, pointing out not only the dignity of the actual beasts in relation to their human counterparts but how the two men bark and fight each other as if they were dogs. McTeague in particular is given the most beastly characterization in the novel, depicting his life before Trina as brutish and simplistically sensual and his effect on her to be one of trepidation and powerlessness. It is much like King Kong and Ann Darrow, except in this story Ann Darrow becomes just as frightening as McTeague except for much different reasons. The language employed by these people is gruff and weighty, and the motivations of most of these characters in base and pleasure-focused, designed to emulate the temporal passions of mere beasts, and in the same way that a beasts’ life is devoid of spirituality and purpose thus falls the Sententia of our central characters (a few characters’ stories will end happily, but I’ll just avoid that for now).  There is no positive connection to nature or our possible origins as animals, but a somewhat Renaissance-esque understanding of the superiority of humanity to animalism and how far we can fall into primalnality.

           All of these examples of animal behavior are meant to distinguish a difference between the realization of how humans should interact and be motivated and the stark reality of how they actually live. There is no positive connection to nature or our possible origins as animals, but a somewhat Renaissance-esque understanding of the superiority of humanity to animalism and how far we can fall into not the banal but the primal instead. It is a portrait of how humanity has been perverted by the American Dream and how we foolishly pursue base desires and hurt others in the name of greed. Norris is not interested in idealism or sentimentality, however, and uses direct imagery and clarity of purpose to create what he feels is an honest (re: negative) portrayal of the West as it has become.

Romanticism and Sexuality, Respectively

If you could combine Charles Brockden Brown with Nathaniel Hawthorne and add a pinch of “The Death of a Salesman,” I think you might get something similar to Theron Ware.  I had to keep reminding myself that I was not reading Hawthorne, this was not Young Goodman Brown, and that I was taking an America Realism and Naturalism class, instead of returning to American Romanticism.  For all its naturalism, there was so much romanticism.  But for all its romance it was romanticism explained, and I think that is what constituted to the naturalism.  To me it was like watching a scary movie without the edits, and the film crew kept popping up on the screen reminding me that it was not as romantic as I had initially thought—maybe even the TBS facts bar that kept popping up and telling me that the Soulsbys were really sideshow specials.  Things happen ever so “seemingly,” the imagery of darkness and forests that we become so familiar with in CBB and Hawthorne are immediately debunked one paragraph or page later. 

And is it just me, or are all of the male protagonists consistently somewhat dense during this literary movement?  Meanwhile, you have Isabel Archer trying to save herself and save the world without being incredibly stupid.  If you had McTeague and Lapham in the same room, we might have one lazy afternoon with some Keystone Lights and a bug zapper on a front porch in Alabama, while Theron is quite another ordeal.  He is a prude, though he doesn’t seem to want to be or at best not look like he is a prude.  I think he wants to be like Celia Madden, who reminds me an awful lot of what Isabel would like to be if she had the opportunity—but, Theron is too incredibly dense.  I just can’t help but wonder what the difference with the sexes could be at this time.  The women seem to get it, but the men don’t…meanwhile, I don’t even know what it is.  In terms of naturalism and its need to scientifically break everything apart: what is science saying about the genders, and of sexuality itself? 

I know this became more of a rant, and frankly, studying literary sexuality is not my preferred Sunday afternoon, but I can’t exactly ignore the elephant anymore.  So, Mitchell: can we talk about this gender/sexuality issue?

Several Things // McTeague

Throughout McTeague there seemed to be a constant triangle to situations as well as a consistency of things coming in threes—be they phrases or single words in the dialogue, or even Norris himself writing a sentence three times.  No, I do not have every instance marked.  Initially I did not notice, but once I did I started marking things as “x3,” and I will be glad to share tomorrow.  As far as triangular situations go, we can start with the love triangle itself among McTeague, Marcus, and Trina, soon followed by Maria Macapa, Zerkow, and gold/greed.  Once McTeague and Trina are married, the third angle is the money situation.  It is not simply a union between a man and woman, but a trinity of man, woman, and her money—though it should be theirs. 

I found the Irish setter and Scotch collie to be an interesting image in the novel.  It reminded me a little of the way John Steinbeck passes through The Grapes of Wrath by alternating each chapter from an outside-though-somewhat-related situation, then somehow mirroring it in the plot with the following chapter.  While Norris does not quite do that, this quarrel between the dogs has a similar effect.  They appear to be symbolic of Marcus and McTeague in some ways, at least they are mentioned quarreling in the yard or street before each time Marcus and McTeague hash it out.  The difference between the dogs and the humans is that the dogs resist a physical fight, though the people watching strongly desire it and encourage it; but when the two humans fight the humans observing end it, discouraging it.

Norris is fond of repetition it seems, as several passages are copies of previous passages, and he often reuses a phrase to describe something from a different perspective than it was mentioned in previously.  Naturally, I thought of Kierkegaard: “Repetition and recollection are the same movement, only in opposite directions, for what is recollected has been, is repeated backward; whereas the real repetition is recollected forward.”  I found this to also be reminiscent of the dogs.

Sex and the consciousness appear to me to be opposite of their portrayal in The Portrait of a Lady.  Where Mazzella says sexual possession is a threat to the consciousness, it seems Norris is saying sex brings the stupid and unconscious to their consciousness.  Where marriage was a detriment to Isabel’s consciousness, Trina and McTeague are more conscious within marriage…or Trina is at the very least.  

                                             Much Less Ministry

           

          Harold Frederic presents Theron Ware as a typical, young minister, who is fresh into the field that he supposedly dedicated his life to. As one choice leads to another, this man is eventually damned and led out of the ministry. This is the result from him trying to change who he is for the sake of pleasing others. He is a shallow and hollow man at heart; he is lucky to have his wife with him at the end of the story. Frederic presents Theron in such a way that it would appear that his circumstances are what damns him, but this is not true. Theron damns himself through and through, with one of the main reasons being his mistrust of his wife and his intellectual infatuation with Celia Madden. She partially damned him, but it is his own fault for fantasizing about her and raising her to the level of a goddess in his mind. This craven man has no substance to call his own, and he is so worried about what others may think about him that it eventually tears him to pieces.

            It is easy to see why Theron cannot make it in the ministry, but why did Frederic put him there in the first place? Theron has so much potential to be a great minister, but he gets swept away by the world and his own desires before he can fully realize his position as a minister. Theron later claims that he is not built for the ministry, but the real issue is that the ministry is not built for him. He begins as a down to earth man who trusts his supportive wife; they live on little, and that is enough for them. But after he sees the luxury of Father Forbes, he begins falling morally. This fall is climaxed during his evening near the piano of Celia and then even further at the two separate church meetings in the woods, where he sees Catholics drinking alcohol and then wanders off with Celia. Theron does not know how to guard his heart against fleshly desires; a weak-hearted man like him can never thrive as a minister, who is supposed to lead his flock by example. Frederic permits Theron to fall in order to show the reader that innocence can be easily lost when a person succumbs to the pressures of the world. Though one could argue that Theron was never innocent to begin with, but merely playing the part of the innocent Christian man. The poor cretin might have made it as a pastor if he just relied on God and his wife more, rather than being so heavily influenced by others. One could also say that he does not honor his marriage as a Christian man should, and this is the reason that he damned himself. Either way, Frederic permits Theron to fall because he succumbs to the desires of his flesh and betrays his position as a minister. He is an example of the world getting the best of a weak Christian, and this is why Frederic puts him in a position to have his faith tested.

Pressures, Conscience, and Grace Experienced

Set in a time just before the Civil War, Frederic’s story about a pastor leads one into the tangled web of absurdities found in American Protestantism of the time, and in general.

I was raised in a family that attended a United Methodist Church (which developed from a Methodist-Episcopal Church) and strangely enough I found the instances with the church both foreign (in its extreme passages) and familiar.  The book of Discipline (basic teachings of United Methodist) and the bishop with the church conference are familiar to me.

The Damnation of Theron Ware seems to deal heavily with the problems that arise when ministry becomes a profession, and church politics mingle with money and ambition. This is not a new problem and not one that can only be attributed to the protestant church (although it is enmeshed in its history too). In fact, the church as a whole has struggled with these kinds of problems throughout the history of the church. If this is no new problem, why does Theron’s situation seem so painful to the reader?

Frederic makes the reverend and his wife very simple and likeable characters. The reader might easily begin to sympathize and relate to them. As the first meeting with the trustees unfolds one can almost feel the awkwardness in the room, and can feel the pressure that Theron undergoes with each word he speaks.

The pressures of making enough money to sustain himself and his wife, the pressures of pleasing the congregation, along with pleasing his own conscience seem to be at tension.  Can all three correlate and mesh together under one accord? Can a pastor juggle all the pressures?

It seems the only glimmers of hope in Theron’s rough situation are the odd people who show up and lend grace in the oddest ways.  There are also moments in which Theron finds grace in nature. Early in the book, Theron and his wife are relinquished of their debt in their third year at Tyre. A man offered to give them a fresh start and he asked nothing back in return. It was only because of this grace that they were able to survive the following year. There was also a strange sense of grace in little acts from  Mr. Gorringe. While no one understood the man, he was the one who made the transition to Octavius bearable. His grave face and a wink at the end of the trustee meeting eased Theron’s anxiety. Theron had been right when he sensed a tone of “anti-Pierce” in the man’s intonations.

It interesting to note how Frederic includes little glimmerings of hope and grace in The Damnation of Theron Ware. While he made his characters realistic and relatable he also included these little moments of grace which made the story seem so real. 

A Passage From Chapter 12

The youth left the scene behind him and he heard and he heard the guns roar suddenly. He imagined them shaking with black rage. Like brass devils guarding a gate, they belched and howled. The soft air filled with tremendous remonstrance and the shattering peal of the opposing infantry came with it. As he turned to look behind him, he saw the sheets of orange light illumine the shadowy distance. Subtle and sudden lightnings were in the far air and he imagined he could see masses of men heaving.

In the dusk he hurried on. The day had faded until he could barley distinguish place for his feet. Men, who lectured and jabbered, filled the purple darkness. The youth could sometimes see them gesticulating against the blue and somber sky. In the forest and fields, a great ruck of men were spread about.

The little narrow roadway now lay lifeless. Like sun-dried boulders, there sat overturned wagons. Bodies of horses and splintered parts of war machines chocked the bed of the former torrent.

His wound pained him now and he was afraid to move rapidly, for a dread of disturbing it. He held his head very still and took many precautions against stumbling. Anxiety filled him and the anticipation of pain of any sudden mistake pinched his face in the gloom.

His thoughts fixed intently upon his hurt as he walked, about which there was a cool, liquid feeling. He imagined blood moving slowly down under his hair. His head was swollen to a size that made him think his neck was a inadequate size. 

The Red Badge of Courage, Chapter 7: First Page Revisited

The young man cringed in guilt. “So they have won after all!” he thought. The line of idiot soldiers still remained and was triumphant in spite of everything, and he could hear them cheering in the distance.

                He stood up on his toes and looked off towards the fight. As he looked, he saw a yellow fog drifting through the treetops and beneath it he heard the clattering of muskets, advancing with hoarse, indeterminate shouts of victory.

                He turned away in wrath and amazement, and within his heart blazed the bitter, inescapable feeling that he had been grossly cheated.

                As he tried to collect his memories, he still told himself that he had fled because otherwise he would have been annihilated. “I have done well to save myself,” he mused, “for I am only a little piece of the army, and as far as I’m concerned the moment that I have just ran from was a time in which it is better that every man save himself rather than be slaughtered in full. Indeed, after the initial retreat,” he continued to contemplate, “ the officers could round us up and build a new front, if they so chose to, so why should it be that no one retreat in the face of impending death? It is wiser still for us little pieces to run and hide, for without us there would be no army, and in our deaths there would be no one to bear the flag.” It was clear to him, then, that he was not a deserter as he may have once feared but had followed the greater set of rules after all. How wise was he to obey this strategy instead! Indeed, he possessed a master’s legs and a patriot’s mind.

Chapter 11

A certain moth-like quality within him kept him in the vicinity of the battle. He desired to see or get news. He wished to know who was winning.

He told himself that, despite his unprecedented suffering, he had never lost his greed for a victory, yet, he said, in a half-apologetic manner to his conscience, he could not but know that a defeat for the army this time might mean many favorable things for him. The enemy’s blows would splinter the regiment. Men would desert the colors and scurry like chicken. He would appear as one of them. 

They would be sullen brothers in distress, and he could easily believe in his virtuous perfection, he conceived that there would be small trouble in convincing all others.

He said, as if in excuse for this hope, that previously the army had encountered great defeats and in a few months had shaken off all blood and tradition in them, emerging as bright and valiant as a new one; thrusting out of sight the memory of disaster, and appearing with the valor and confidence of unconquered legions.  He felt no compunction sacrificing a general. He could not tell who the chosen for the barbs might be, so he could center no direct sympathy upon him. The people were afar and he did not conceive public opinion to be accurate at long range.

The Life of a Solider

After journeying with many complications and pauses, there came months of monotonous life in the camp. He believed that real war was a series of death struggles with only a small time in between for sleep and meals; but ever since his regiment settled in the field the army merely sat still and tried to keep warm.

He eventually thought back to his old ideas. The greeklike struggles of men faded away. Men behaved better and more timidly. Secular and religious education effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or either firm finance held the passions in check.

He grew to regard himself merely as a part of a vast blue demonstration. His province, to look out as far as he could, for his personal comfort. For recreation, he twiddled his thumbs and speculated on the thoughts which must agitate the minds of the generals. Also, he drilled and drilled and reviewed, and drilled and drilled and reviewed.

The only foes he saw were some pickets along the river bank. They appeared to be a suntanned, philosophical lot, who sometimes shot reflectively at the blue pickets. When reproached for this afterward, they usually expressed sorrow, and swore by their gods that the guns exploded without their permission. The youth, on guard duty one night, conversed across the stream with one of them. He, a slightly ragged man, spat skillfully between his shoes and possessed a great fund of bland and infantile assurance. The youth liked him personally.

“Yank,” the other informed him, “yer a right dum good feller.” This sentiment, floated to him upon the still air, and made him temporarily regret war.

Various veterans told him tales. Some talked about gray bewhiskered hordes advancing with relentless curses and chewing tobacco valiantly; tremendous bodies of fierce soldiery sweeping along like huns. Others spoke of tattered and eternally hungry men firing despondent powders….     

Beginning of Chapter 5 Rewritten

The army waits restlessly as the long moments creep by very slowly. The waiting reminds the youth of the village street back home as everyone waited in anticipation for the circus parade to pass in the spring. He remembers standing as a small, thrillful boy, preparing to follow the dingy lady upon the white horse, or the band in its faded chariot. He can clearly see the yellow road, the lines of expectant people, and the sober houses. He distinctly remembers an old fellow who used to sit in front of the store, feigning to despise such exhibitions. A thousand details of color and form surge brightly in his mind. The old fellow upon the cracker box appearing in middle prominence.

Some one cries, “Here they come!”

There is a great rustling and muttering among the men. They display a feverish desire to have every possible cartridge easily accessible. The boxes are pulled around into various positions, and the men adjust them carefully and strategically. It is as if they are trying on seven hundred new bonnets.

The tall soldier prepares his rifle and produces a red handkerchief. He is in the process of tying the handkerchief around his neck, paying close attention to where he places the cloth, when the cry is repeated up and down the line. The muffled sound echoes like a roar as it passes to either end of the line.

“Here they come! Here they come!” Gun locks click as the soldiers ready their weapons.

Across the smoke-infested fields come a brown swarm of running men whose yells echo shrilly as they advance. As they advance, they stop and swing their rifles at all angles. A tilted flag advances quickly at the front of the line.

The youth catches sight of the advancing army and suddenly wonders if perhaps his gun is loaded. As they continue to advance he tries to remember loading it and soon concludes it isn’t loaded, and that frightens him. (Beginning of Chapter Five) 

Chapter 19 Red Badge of Courage Rewritten

The youth stared at the land in front of him. Its foliages veiled powers and horrors.He did not know of the machinery of orders that started the charge, although from the corners of his eyes, he seemingly saw a boyish officer waving his hat and riding a galloping horse. Suddenly, he felt a straining and heaving among the men. The line fell slowly forward like a toppling wall, and, intending a cheer with a convulsive gasp, the regiment began its journey. The regiment pushed and jostled the youth for a moment before he understood the movement at all, but directly he lunged ahead and began to run.


He fixed his eye upon a distant and prominent clump of trees where he concluded the soldiers were meeting the enemy, and he ran toward it as toward a goal. He believed throughout that he simply must get over an unpleasant matter as quickly as possible, and he ran desperately, as if running from murderous pursuit. He drew his face hard and tight with the stress of his endeavor. He fixed his eyes in a lurid glare.

And with his soiled and disordered dress, the dingy rag with its spot of blood, his wildly swinging rifle, and banging accouterments surmounted his red and inflamed features, he resembled an insane soldier. As the regiment swung from its position out into a cleared space, the woods and thickets around it awakened. Yellow flames leaped toward it from many directions. The forest made a tremendous objection.

The line lurched straight for a moment. Then the right wing swung forward; then the left surpassed the right. Afterward the center careered to the front until the regiment formed a wedge-shaped mass, but an instant later the opposition of the bushes, trees, and uneven places on the ground split the command and scattered it into detached clusters.

Overwhelming Battle

The Red Badge of Courage, Chapter 16 -- Rewrite

The men heard the unceasing sputter of muskets. Later, the cannon entered the dispute. In the fog-filled air their voices thudded. The reverberations continued without respite. This part of the world led a strange, battleful existence.

Leaders marched the youth's regiment to relieve a command that had lain long in some damp trenches. The men positioned behind a curving line of rifle pits the others turned up, like a large furrow, along the line of woods. Before them a level stretch expanded, peopled with short, deformed stumps. Skirmishers and pickets popped from the woods beyond, firing in the fog. The noise of a terrific fracas called from the right.

The men cuddled behind the small embankment and sat in easy attitudes awaiting their turn. Many kept their backs to the firing. The youth's friend lay down, buried his face in his arms, and almost instantly, it seemed, fell into a deep sleep.

The youth leaned his breast against the brown dirt and peered over at the woods and up and down the line. Curtains of trees interfered with his ways of vision. He saw the low line of trenches but for a short distance. A few idle flags perched on the dirt hills. Behind them rows of dark bodies with a few heads stuck curiously over the top.

Always the noise of skirmishers sounded from the woods on the front and left, and the din on the right grew to frightful proportions. The guns roared without an instant's pause for breath. The men saw the cannon emerge from all parts and engage in a stupendous wrangle. No one could hear a sentence.

People, Places, and Things

I never realized, and maybe I never took the time, as a younger girl that the one and only book all the boys were wrestling over was not just a war tale but a war tale that took place over...what, two maybe three days?  I’m not complaining, I simply thought it was more extensive or perhaps thorough, though I am glad it is not more than it is. 

Crane does a beautiful job of dealing extensively and singularly with the thoughts of one character and one character only.  Often I find that some writers keep in the general way of a singular character while tending to jump to another character and back to the main.  I do not recall once in the duration of The Red Badge of Courage that Crane moves from the thoughts of Henry Fleming.  Anything outside of Henry is noted and thoughts are assumed of others in their appearances and mannerisms but never from their perspective.  Crane also does not name his characters until necessary, which leaves the whole thing vague and again, focused entirely on the thoughts of Henry Fleming. 

The change in Fleming is immediate, and it caught me off guard.  One minute you have a frightened youth, the next you have a blood-thirsty war mongrel.  I feel like I missed the part he became a man, though he doesn’t claim himself as one until the end.  There is a strange religiousness to the war (…battle?) according to Henry Fleming.  In running, he spends the rest of the time, in a way, paying penance for his fleeing the fight—for failing to fulfill the role of the heroes of the Greek epics he so praises.  When he does fulfill the role he builds up in his mind, still he is haunted by the ghost of yesterday.  In addition to religious imagery, there is industry/mechanical imagery to the war. 

I don’t really know what all the implications of these things would be, but I would certainly like to discuss that further in class.  I’ll come with the selections bookmarked.  

Vulgarity and the Pedestrian Life

     Vulgarity is a word that almost every character uses in The Portrait of a Lady; it is something that they despise because they all pretend to be aesthetics. The characters try to focus on the beautiful and desirable in everyday life. When something negative comes up, they refer to it as being vulgar. They seek to overcome the pedestrian, by living supposedly interesting lives as they concern themselves with the personal lives of everyone else. No character's private life is sacred when they are the center of attention. James paints his characters as true aesthetics, but ironically, through the way the characters act and treat each other, they become vulgar and commonplace.

     Isabel Archer is the focus of attention of almost every male character in the novel. She claims to be a strong, independent woman, but this is not the case because through her own ideals and conception of herself, she restrains and traps herself to one art form. She desires to be more than just another ordinary woman who marries someone and lives an ordinary life; she wants to be adventurous and to never make a decision that could possibly restrict her liberty. She fails though, when she marries Osmund, who restricts her more than any other man would have. She becomes the vulgar that she so detests because she becomes a wife to controlling, cruel man. Osmond destroys the future she could have had. He pretends to be an interesting art collector, but in reality, he is a low class man who is desperate for attention from others. He is the epitome of vulgar in this novel, and Isabel too becomes vulgar when she marries him.

    The other characters are just as bad though, they all put on airs of superiority and pretend to live such high and interesting lives as they involve themselves in the affairs of others. They all seek to be aesthetics, but in reality, they are vulgar and commonplace. What makes them so extraordinary? Nothing. They are just regular people with lots of money and too much time on their hands. None of the characters rise any higher as individuals. The pseudo-aesthetics are only what they try to avoid being: vulgar and commonplace.

The Villainous Madame Merle

Madame Merle, one of the characters involved in my mini-rant about manners last week, has become a character I absolutely despise. She befriends Isabel and gets her married to Osmond all the while lying about her own relationship with Osmond. On top of that, she has abandoned her daughter, leaving Pansy with the belief that her mother died in childbirth. The lack of remorse Madame Merle shows throughout the novel is appalling.

However, she is a very realistic character. There are many people out there who only care for themselves. These kinds of people do not think twice about doing something as horrible as plotting to steal someone’s inheritance by marrying her to someone who is already in love with someone else. They do not think about the repercussions of their actions. The consequences and collateral damage are nothing to them.

It is for the above reason and the above reason only, that I understand exactly why James created Madame Merle. She is the epitome of a self-absorbed woman. I hesitate to use the word villain here, though I do think that she is a villain, because this is a realist novel and not a romance wherein the lines between good and evil are quite distinct. She is the antagonistic presence in Isabel’s life, even though for a long time she seemed to be the friend that Isabel needed.

Even though I realize that Madame Merle is definitely there to be the antagonist and the realistic picture of a self-absorbed person, I still despise her with every fiber of my being. I see no redeemable qualities in her. The very fact that she abandoned her daughter is detestable to me.

Isabel from the Inside

As we delve into the life and mind of Isabel Archer, we begin to see many characteristic approaches taken by Henry James. As Dr. Mitchell mentioned in class, the reader does not look at Isabel from the outside-in, the reader sees Isabel from the inside-out.  There are many very candid moments between the narrator and the reader.

James describes Isabel’s view of herself and her defenses. He also describes her mode of thinking. I have noticed that often her mode of thinking is juxtaposed next to the reality outside her which can seem rather apparent to the reader. She desires to travel and be independent; however Ralph realizes she does not have enough money to survive on. He sees her reality before she does and provides for her from his Father’s will.

Isabel also seems to have this strange sense of idealistic suffering.  She turns down Warburton because marrying him would make her less capable of experiencing life and hardship. Marrying Warburton is not an option to her—it would make her life too simple. She wishes for no one to broach upon her freedom, even if that freedom might be violated unintentionally.  She said to Merle, “No; but you sometimes say things that I think people who have always been happy wouldn’t have found out…a great many people give me the impression of never having for a moment felt anything” (168).James presents Isabel as one who values feeling and experience to a high degree.  It is arguable whether or not her ideal of life is wise or realistic. Isabel wishes for a glamorous story. One can only wait and see whether or not that ideal will be futile, if not dangerous.

My Wifi is Awful; This Post is a Miracle

Does anyone else get the notion that the second part of this novel feels so much less of everything?  It has the effect of having come down from something like a very high, almost metaphysical consciousness to something lower, a more mundane sub-consciousness. 

Isabel’s actions and conversations occur in this fast forward skim over the heart of the situation.  Take, for example, Lord Warburton’s final interview with Mr. and Mrs. Osmond in Rome.  James spends more time telling about the happening than letting his audience experience the situation.  And such occurs for the vast majority of the second half.  With that, the explicit dialogues become much more valuable.  It is in these that it is possible to reconnect with Isabel again; she seems more alive.  But when James returns to accounting for the events, she comes off as someone in a reality show.

By choosing the alliance with Gilbert, which is a less deserving term for all its actuality, Isabel forsook her consciousness.  Now she lives in something like subconscious or perhaps skewed-conscious.  She knows him well, and she knows many others just as well.  No longer is she highly self-conscious; her self-consciousness is subdued.  Her own consciousness seems to serve only the benefit of the others.  And perhaps that is the great fear Mazzella attributed to her in the article, though I still do not agree with it being a fear of sexual possession.  That makes it sound so much like a psychological issue, and I do not believe that is what James would have us believe.

Hunter brings up a great point in labeling Isabel a knight of infinite resignation.  I certainly see that in Isabel.  She could have been a knight of faith, but Gilbert’s presence denied her the possibility—as would any of her suitors for that matter, except perhaps Ralph.  

What's More Important?

In my opinion, Portrait of a Lady asks the question of what is more important, doing what one wants or doing what society wants. At first I thought it was going to be a love-triangle story, but as I kept reading I realized it's more about Isabel, her independence, and her struggle between doing what she wants and doing what is expected of a lady. I love strong female characters, so I was immediately drawn to Isabel, but I was kind of disappointed when I finished the book. I really wanted her to stay in London. She seemed like she had a miserable life in Rome, and I wanted her to choose happiness over duty. "When it comes down to being happy or making the world happy, be selfish,". That is a quote I live by and I very much wanted Isabel to be selfish and not go back to Rome. I think I lost a little bit of respect for her in the end, but I still enjoyed the book very much.

The Portrait of a Resignation

[Special thanks to Sam, who reintroduced this concept to me in Abernathy’s Russian Novels course]

           It has been supposed that Portrait's Isabel is justified in her deference to Osmond in Ch. 41-2 and in her somewhat ambiguous return to him at the novel’s conclusion because she finds her own moral/ethical convictions that allow her to retain her independence and humanity even while trapped in the confines of her adverse marital and social circumstances. As Will correctly mentioned, this falls under the branch of phenomenology, which enables Isabel to attain an authentic personal existence despite outsider opinions and Osmond’s disdain for her. However, I wonder if there is an alternative means of reading Isabel’s choices, perhaps in another existential perspective that says something contrary to James’ intention. Perhaps Isabel is not a maiden of individual victory, but a knight of infinite resignation.

           According to Kierkegaard, the Knight of Infinite Resignation is a type of person who, when in love with another person, finds it impossible to give up on that person because that person is the entire substance of his life and will never go back on the promise of devotion to that person despite the evidence that he should. He never contradicts himself or his love and willingly suffers all manner of pain and disgrace because he has merely reconciled that suffering is inescapable, making an ethical stance to stoically and humbly walk through the storms of life without resistance or hope for change. He will abandon peace and happiness dutifully for the sake of his love, which distinguishes him from the Knight of Faith that seeks justice and truth in his life no matter what the cost and exemplifies his own title of INFINITE (constant) RESIGNATION (compliance).

           Consider now the fate of Isabel in the second half of The Portrait of a Lady, wherein she has foolishly bound herself to a husband that has dedicated himself to extinguishing her personal freedoms for the sake of his own societal benefit and would marry his own daughter away for the same reasons or lock her up in a nunnery as the case may be. They are housed in Rome, an ancient city of timeless traditions and constraints, and wed in a social contract that would be grossly dishonorable to break, so divorce is out of the question and cruel defiance far from her nature, so what is he to do? Suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, that's what, which is not a choice as base as throwing her hands up in frustration and crying out futily into the uncaring night but not the same as internally deciding to find a new hope within herself that can give her the strength to not just make the most of her life but reclaim ownership of it. Instead, she resorts her to her pride and falls back on ethical obligation to her husband and stepdaughter, suffering great emotional distress but still following through with her role in society, despite her former wishes to the contrary. I now wonder if the important point is not whether she is a KoIR, but if she ever had any possibility of becoming anything greater within the framework of James' prose.

Isabel as James

In the second half of Portrait of a Lady, Henry James reveals some of his own belief regarding industrialization and empiricism through the marriage of Isabel and Gilbert Osmond.

After all of Isabel’s fretting over her life and denying all the men who pursued her for the sake of individuality, she entwines herself with the one man who may very well be able to sap all individuality from her. James must have also seen industrial Western society (in which Osmond participates wholeheartedly) the same way.

In chapter 42, Osmond reveals himself to be an egotistic snake hidden in his flowery façade. He sees the world as something to be consciously calculated—and James apparently hated that as much as Isabel does. The last thing either of them wanted was to succumb to the meaningless and calculated life that the Western world presented in the late 1800s. James did not want to be told how to think and what to believe, and neither did Isabel.

James’s apparent repulsion with the emerging society provoked his belief in the idea of phenomenology, a belief totally rooted in the personal experience of the human and his consciousness of it. He claimed a well-defended philosophy that could not be easily disproved despite its inherent difficulty to be definitely proven. It undermined the empirical belief that both Westerners and his representative character Osmond held, refuting them not on their logic, but rather in their perception of the world itself. Without a universal perception, calculated people like Osmond would find it difficult to impose their beliefs upon others. Isabel could, by clinging to a phenomenological belief, defend and retain her life dreams and individuality without having to prove the worth to others.

Culture's Play in the Portrait of a Lady

Again in The Portrait of a Lady we are ushered into a situation in which classes clash. Interestingly, while there are different classes coming together, there is also a clash of cultures. 

The Touchetts are native to America but have lived in Europe for several years. Instead of being colonials in the Americas, there seems to have been a reversal of history and this American family have become like colonials in Europe. Mrs. Touchett , with  her unconventional independence established herself in Florence. Ralph was unsure of which nation he should claim. 

James cleverly added two American young women into the mix of the family.  Isabel Archer, Mrs. Touchett’s niece was staying with the family, and was from New York. Henrietta, Isabel’s friend wanted to report on the differences in culture between Americans and Europeans.

I find it interesting however because the characters seem to create more cultural boundaries than is necessary. Ralph is American yet he says that it is precisely Henrietta’s American patriotism that he dislikes about her at first.  In a miscommunication Ralph insulted Henrietta. Later she told Isabel that Europeans were disrespectful towards women. Could it have been, however, that her own hyper-independence created this illusion?

The reader finds a clash in both nationalities and classes between Isabel and Lord Warburton. Though Warburton loved Isabel immensely, she was hesitant because she was persuaded she could not manage his high society life. She did not wish to be caught up in the system he was born into. She preferred the American way.  Henrietta and Isabel found it absurd that a man should have no work to do with his life.

The clash of classes continues with James’ novel. Now, consider the bigger picture of nineteenth century American literature; will the clash of classes and nationalities be a continuing theme? My speculation is that it will. In light of the history we know from the era, it would be understandable that authors might bring to light such issues.