Is the personal narration shifted to Joe? In fact, the narration only seems to devolve. As a matter of fact, the reader is fooled. Joe is not in love with Louisa anymore, but now loves Lily. Louisa, being the narrating character, does not know about this though, but anticipates that he still loves her. The objective world is only presented through dialogue; everything else is the subjective point of view of Louisa.
The composition of the final scene reflects the first scene of the story. However, now it is presented as calm and peaceful. Outside was the fervid summer afternoon; the air was filled with the sounds of the busy harvest of men and birds and bees; there were halloos, metallic clatterings, sweet calls, and long hummings. Louisa sat, prayerfully numbering her days, like an uncloistered nun. The image from the beginning is iterated, but changed. This elliptic construction of the text creates unity and the image that changed for the better appears to represent the happy ending, the happy future that is ahead Louisa.
As a matter of fact, this is again only an anticipation by Louisa. A nun-like existence, isolated from the world is, objectively regarded, not desirably. She withdraws herself not only from her former love, but strives to become a spinster. However, due to the fact, that she is the narrator of the story, and she assures herself of her happiness, the whole world is presented sweet and harmonious. Nature functions as an allegory to convey this image.
It is mentioned just a little lines earlier that she cried the night after she broke her engagement. Suppression is one of the major themes of the story, and will be discussed in detail later on, along with the allegories, similes and symbols that serve to convey this subject matter.
It is important here do to note that all these literary devices have to be examined taking into account the fact that the narrator is not reliable. In conclusion, Louisa is not only the protagonist and the narrator of the story, but also the subject matter of the text.
Her perception of the world, her attitude towards love and her mental issues are in the center of the text. The narrative technique used by Mary E.
Wilkins Freeman serves to mediate the picture of this New English woman very graceful. The reader does not judge over her, but identifies with Louisa Ellis and that way maybe comprehends why a future in spinsterhood can be desirable. Louisa Ellis life as a nun is defined by the way in which she takes care of her home, with great accuracy and concentration. At the same time, her daily maiden duties bring her great pleasure in life; if anything, they are the only source of pleasure.
So much the worse appears the prospect to marry Joe and move into his house, because she will then have to leave many of her treasuries behind.
If ever people come close to her house they pass by in hurry fearing the old dog in the garden. Furthermore, Louisa does not attempt to socialize with other people; she devotes all her energy towards her household.
A fetish is commonly known to be an inanimate object to which a certain attachment is maintained, e. The person who establishes the fetish fixates on this objects and it becomes a substitution for the actual desire. The reason for people to create a fetish is, as Elbert also notes, fear and frustration. Louisa surely is a person suffering from these concerns. As a young girl she fell in love with a man who promised to marry her, but left shortly after the engagement.
She stayed in New England with her family, but again she was left alone when first her mother, and then even her brother died. Undeterred by the consequences of her decision, Narcissa withstands the pressure of common-sense and thus formulates an explicit statement of internalized oppression.
She sees the pressure of domestic labor as a form of alienation, deadening in its confinement:. I ain't never had anything like other women. I've never had any clothes nor gone anywhere. I've just stayed at home here and drudged. I've just drudged, drudged, ever since I can remember.
I don't know anything about the world nor life. Freeman constructs here an unglamorous portrait of marriage, in which romantic passion is replaced by the stark realism of domestic work, and love is stripped of its idealism. In the articulation of her feminist discourse, Narcissa develops one of the most explicit statements of the New Woman. At last, Narcissa unleashes her fantasies about her pressing need for change, the more effective if improbable.
In terms of his definition, Freeman's story departs from realism, embracing the improbable realm of fantasy, turning into a consumer's fairy-tale.
The incongruence between the clarity of Narcissa's political discourse, her well-planned escape, and its outcome, is a source of scathing irony. Intending to stay in New York for a whole year in order to spend all the insurance money of fifteen hundred dollars, Narcissa and her mother prepare themselves for a long journey, letting the community enjoy the spectacle of their unexpected trip.
Ultimately, humor derives from the clash between Narcissa's logical language, which makes her a candidate for feminist activism in Freeman's work, and the absurdity of her form of revolt, given her fixation on consumerism.
To her, luxurious clothes become signifiers of power and independence in the constricting spectacle of the self within an inquisitive community.
In this respect, Narcissa's strategy of revolt is unique in its absurd proportions. Monika M. Elbert analyzes the types of advertisement found in the periodicals where Freeman published her work most often, noticing that the poverty in most of Freeman's stories contrasts with the lavish descriptions of the most recent trends of fashion described in the same pages of the magazine. The humor in Narcissa's excess is the result of the pecular juxtaposition of poverty and luxury.
Although Narcissa is not directly influenced by advertising, she explains the various sources of her craving for objects which are completely unneccessary.
After general anticipation and rumors, prepared for an absence of at least a year, the community is shocked when the two women return six days later.
William Crane listens with consternation to Narcissa's account of her adventures in New York. Freeman's opulescent description of the journey lavishes Narcissa and Jane in absurd attire, as impressive and expensive as it is unnecessary.
The gratuitous aspect of Narcissa's purchases is rendered through the inventory that contradicts their low social origin. Wrapped in silk and fur, the two women buy themselves gold watches and diamonds, go to the theater and the opera. Narcissa's story sounds like an excessive fantasy, as exaggerated as the economic scarcity that triggers it. Moreover, they are ignorant of the moment when they run out of money, incurring further debts.
The painful humor of their adventures seems, I suggest, to reveal more convincingly the confinement of their world, making the escape more effective.
The gap between the two women's real status and their exorbitant posing and spending is made clear in the scene of their break-down when they discover that they have spent all the money. The inventory of Narcissa's trespassing has carnivalesque features, resplendent in abundance and deceiving glamour. Cyclical-end-of-the-season release, Narcissa's escape from her dull life involves both exorbitant shopping and possible romance.
She prides herself on the scale of her adventure:. Laughter itself in this context becomes a form of liberation, allowing Freeman to express a woman's anger at the restraints of her limited experiences. Narcissa's denunciation of women's hardships and her demystification of domesticity is counterbalanced by her gratuitous and ludicrous form of release, whereby humor offsets anger and pain. I've had one good time, an'-- I ain't sorry. Breaking with convention, Narcissa manipulates language, boasting her new experience.
An initiator of action, like most comedic figures in women's humorous work, Narcissa defies the norms of her New England code of restraint through her escape. A rebellious figure throughout the story, Narcissa returns to William Crane. She is willing to marry him while at the same time affirming her loss of independence.
Humor allows for these apparently incongruous messages to abide in the same space without destroying the unity and the credibility of the story. Although both heroines are powerful, they use their extraordinary linguistic endowment to fight false wars. While Juliza exhausts her artistic energy in disguising a willful mistake in the courtship game, Narcissa projects her frustrations, both sexual and economic, in an overindulgent shopping spree, thus fulfilling a consumer's dream of escape.
It could be stated that Juliza and Narcissa are heroic actors in scripts of courtship to be sanctioned by an inquisitive community.
The language of humor allows them to temporarily evade the prescribed codes of behavior and experiment with alternative forms of revolt. Westbrook tends to suggest here an exclusive distinction between serious and humorous fiction. Finally, Freeman's work that endures best in time includes stories that combine feminist revolt with humorous fantasy, inviting readers to pendulate between laughter of joy and pain. Juliza and Narcissa are both inclined to introspection.
By critiquing conventional courtship scenarios, Freeman liberates women from a compulsory obsession with marriage. Camfield, Gregg. New York: Oxford UP, Cutter, Martha J. Elbert, Monika M. Freeman, Mary E. Best Stories of Mary Wilkins Freeman. Henry Wysham Lanier. New York: Harper, Wilkins Freeman. Brent L. Metuchen: Scarecrow, A Mary Wilkins Freeman Reader. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, Jackson: UP of Mississippi, Glasser, Leah Blatt.
Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, Marchalonis, Shirley. Shirley Marchalonis. Boston: Hall, Martin, Jay. Harvests of Change: American Literature Engelwood Cliffs: Prentice, Pattee, Fred Lewis. Reichardt, Mary R. She was influenced at times by her editors' demands for "gentility" in accordance with their sense of the codes of female behavior at the turn of the century.
Consequently, Freeman's endings often couch rebellious content in acceptable, domestic scenes of female submission. The shift in Hetty's behavior in "A Church Mouse" is interesting in this context, as is the reunion of Sarah and her husband in "The Revolt of 'Mother. Her capacity for psychological portrait compares well with James, and many of her heroines may be compared with the heroines in James's short fiction.
Her chapter in this novel should be compared with the chapters by James and Howells. Freeman enraged her male conterparts when she transformed the figure of "the old maid" as conceived by Howells in his first chapter into a boldly sensual and liberated single woman in her chapter entitled "The Old Maid Aunt. How do these conclusions relate to earlier stages of revolt in each story? What does the final scene suggest?
Students enjoy focusing on the development of Freeman's heroines, their contradictions and strengths. Consider a paper on the attitudes toward women the story suggests and its influence on the heroine's actions. Ask students to study a particular scene or set of images Sarah Penn's work in her house: "She was an artist"; Hetty's quilt in "A Church Mouse.
Study the death scene in "Old Woman Magoun. Wilkins Freeman by Leah Blatt Glasser Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, , a feminist study that demonstrates the way in which reeman's life and fiction are interwoven and suggests her lifelong struggle between autonomy and rebellion. The most recently published selection of Freeman's stories is Mary R.
Wilkins Freeman" by Leah B. Wilkins Freeman , intelligently edited and introduced by Brent L. Her letters, though cautious and unrevealing on the surface, hint at the intensity of her relationship with her childhood friend Mary Wales. Freeman lived with Wales for over twenty years, and it is likely that much of her focus on friendships between women was drawn from this relationship.
The difficulties of her marriage are also apparent in many of her letters written during that trying period of her life. The numerous letters she wrote to her editors reveal Freeman's seriousness about her career. The two earlier biographies on Freeman are useful, although somewhat outdated: Foster's Mary E. For a good sampling of Freeman's short stories through the successive phases of her career, see Selected Stories of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman New York: Norton, Freeman's novels are not as strong as her short stories; the novel most representative of her talent is Pembroke The Shoulders of Atlas , Madelon , and By the Light of the Soul are fascinating examples of Freeman's duality as protagonists are continuously caught between rebellion and submission.
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman Contributing Editor: Leah Blatt Glasser Classroom Issues and Strategies The best strategy in approaching Mary Wilkins Freeman's work is to provide a full context for both her life and period and to select particularly paradoxical passages for class discussion.
In the following excerpt, Freeman disparages her story for its lack of realism: In the first place all fiction ought to be true and "The Revolt of 'Mother' " is not true.
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