Edith Wharton's Literary Analysis and Personal Reflections on Her Works, Study notes of American literature

Download Edith Wharton's Literary Analysis and Personal Reflections on Her Works and more Study notes American literature in PDF only on Docsity! ENG 351 Lecture 7 1 We need to talk about Stephen Crane for another second or two. I said I’d bring you a poem. This is a four-line poem. It doesn’t sound like a poem. Crane’s poetry doesn’t sound like poetry, does it? It doesn’t look like poetry either except it’s kind of arranged in broken lines on a page. Very, very, very much free verse. But I thought that this one was one of the most famous of his poems. This is from a book called War is Kind in 1899. But it really fits with “The Open Boat.” A man said to the universe, “Sir, I exist.” “However,” replied the universe, “the fact is not created in me a sense of obligation.” That’s it. That’s a poem. That’s a poem that gets in anthologies. But you see the whole point. At least the universe answers him, but the universe has no obligation. The universe is flatly indifferent. Nature is indifferent. Look at Part VIII of “The Blue Hotel.” We’re just getting to the end of this thing. In fact, this passage contains a quotation that I have put on tests in the past. The Swede has left after fighting Johnnie and beating Johnnie, and leaving the cowboy and Scully and everybody else back there wanting to beat him up, too, and goes off into the storm. “The Swede, tightly gripping his valise, tacked across the face of the storm as if he carried sails.” Second paragraph of that section — and this is the one I’ve used before. “He might have been in a deserted village. We picture the world as thick with conquering and elate humanity, but here, with the bugles of the tempest pealing, it was hard to imagine a peopled earth. One viewed the existence of man then as a marvel, and ENG 351 Lecture 7 2 conceded a glamour of wonder to these lice which were caused to cling to a whirling, fire-smote, ice-locked, disease-stricken, space-lost bulb. The conceit of man was explained by this storm to be the very engine of life. One was a coxcomb not to die in it. However, the Swede found a saloon.” After all that high diction and hideous description, “a whirling, fire-smote, ice- locked, disease-stricken, space-lost bulb” — that’s one way to think of the earth — “however, the Swede found a saloon.” What would that say about Stephen Crane, about his outlook, about his style? What kinds of things could you say based on that quotation? What’s significant about that to the work of Stephen Crane? Well, if nature’s just indifferent, not exactly openly hostile in “The Open Boat,” here nature is described as — or the earth at least is described as this place without warmth and the people on it are lice. Not a very optimistic attitude. Certainly not a very warm and humanistic attitude. How about the style? Poetic is not exactly the first word that might come to mind with something like this, but this is not ordinary, everyday prose. This is extravagant, highly stylized language. Coxcomb. What’s a coxcomb? [Inaudible student response] The little thing on top of a rooster’s head? Yeah. A coxcomb is a vain, conceited, arrogant fool. And so you can get an awful lot in one word. Well, I’ll let you think about that some more. Don’t you like the scene in the barroom? Wouldn’t that make a good film? These guys peaceably at their game. “‘Gentlemen,’ the Swede cried to the men at the ENG 351 Lecture 7 5 There’s another poem by Crane I should have brought you, but I’ll paraphrase it. It won’t be much different. “One man feared he would find an assassin. Another man feared he would find a victim. Which was the wiser?” In this case, I think the Swede was a man who feared an assassin but actually was probably a victim in search — in search of his fate. Well, let’s go from the wild, wild West to the wild, wild East. Edith Wharton. I have to confess to you I have recently acquired a real fondness for Edith Wharton. Rereading her stuff. In fact, I went to Barnes & Noble yesterday just to see what they had on the shelves and I was surprised to see that they had about seven or eight different editions of Wharton’s books. Several copies of The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence, but also some of her lesser known works like Summer. I bet you read Ethan Frome in high school, didn’t you? They used to make people read Ethan Frome. You did? That’s the coldest book in the world. I mean, that’s a book for summertime reading. Well, I don’t know. I guess Jack London’s To Build a Fire might be a little bit colder than Ethan Frome, but it couldn’t be much colder. I mean, the landscape is frozen. It’s a very, very frozen thing. And it’s a story about two — three, actually, I guess, if you count ‘em all — the tragic lives of three people who live in the wintry fastness of New England. And they made a not bad movie of it not too long ago with terrible casting. Liam Neesom played Ethan. Whatever you read by her besides Ethan Frome. Anybody read Age of Innocence? Go see the Martin Scorcese movie which was pretty good about seven or eight years ago? Her experience is so far into my own I don’t know why I like it so much unless I guess I could compare it to kind of like science- ENG 351 Lecture 7 6 fiction. I’m not fond of science-fiction particularly, either, really. But that’s a world that I don’t know. It’s a universe that doesn’t exist, as far as I’m concerned. The upper society, the monied society, the old families in New York City at the middle of and turn of the century are certainly not the kind of people I hang out with. But she creates these worlds so beautifully with such exacting detail of their morals, their manners, the way they talk, the way they dress, the way they eat, the way they travel, that you feel like you’re part of it. She was born in New York City of an old, established family. Money. She never worried about money all her life. She was a big friend of Henry James. She lived in France at the end of her life, but she would visit him in England and she would — she had a car and a chauffeur, and she’d drive Henry James all over England. I think that would’ve been neat to see Edith Wharton and Henry James on the road again. But they took a lot of road trips. She told him — well, speaking of money, she told him one time that she had just bought this new car with the royalties from her latest novel. And Henry James said, “Well, I bought a wheelbarrow with the royalties from my last novel. And it needs paint, so if I sell another novel I’ll have it painted.” So she was always kind of sneaking him money if she could. She was married to Edward Wharton, a Bostonian as they put it, 13 years her senior. They were married for 28 years. There is some evidence that the marriage was never even consummated. She divorced him on the grounds of his adultery in 1913. It was just — it was difficult to obtain a divorce and it also carried with it all kinds of social ENG 351 Lecture 7 7 stigma. Well, it’s all class. They describe how a woman of her background received little formal schooling. What you were supposed to do, your goal in life, your job in life for women, was to marry and to marry well. To marry good connections, to marry family , to marry money, and then your job was to be beautiful and a wonderful hostess. Kind of Edna Pontellier was supposed to be. And raise your daughters so that they would go and marry eligible, powerful, wealthy men. Etiquette, fashion, who’s in/who’s out, the theater, opera, the right kind of carriage, the right kind of clothes. She bought all her clothes in Paris, designer clothes in Paris, but the proper New York woman did not wear the new fashion that year. She had to wait a year or so and then she would wear it. She didn’t want to be too, too new. You didn’t want to be too right on the money. She was in her late thirties when she started writing seriously as a career. It wasn’t that she needed the money. She had plenty of money. But she just liked to write. She wrote her first story famously when she was 11 years old and there’s a line of dialogue in there — she shows it to her mother and the line of dialogue said, “Had I known you were coming, I would have tidied up the drawing room.” And Edith’s mother said, “Drawing rooms are always tidy.” That ought to give you a little bit of an indication as to the kind of life she had. I guess my favorite of her books is The House of Mirth, 1905. It was written six years after the story we had today. That’s the story of Lily Bart. And Lily is handsome but not rich. She has good connections but she is on her own with no fortune to speak of whatsoever. Her main problem is she’s just about to turn 29 and she’s still ENG 351 Lecture 7 10 described in the 1920s. But you want to know what the middle class was like in the ‘50s and ‘60s, you read John Cheever about the commuters. We have various chroniclers, but Edith Wharton is the one who set down what it was like among the rarified upper classes. Tom Wolfe tried to do that with Bonfire of the Vanities about 15 years ago and fell on his face. He just didn’t quite have it. Well, all that being said, what do you think about “Souls Belated”? I had a writing teacher one time who said the secret of a story was to create a character that your readers will like and that your readers will sympathize with, or perhaps even identify with. And put that character up in a tree and throw rocks at ‘em and see how they get down, was her idea of conflict and how to tell a story. Did you like anybody in the story? You do like Lydia? Well, good. I like Lydia because I’m used to Wharton’s women. But I thought maybe she might have put you off. Why do you like her? [Inaudible student response] She has left her husband to travel in Europe with another man that she is not married to. Why did she leave her husband? [Inaudible student response] She didn’t like the society they were in. Plus she supposedly loves Gannett. She says she loves him and he says he loves her. But who did they live with? His mother. She has this mother-in-law constantly who thinks everything — if you have enough money, you never have to be surprised by anything. She can’t imagine that anybody would — how did she put that? I thought it was pretty well done. “Mrs. ENG 351 Lecture 7 11 Tillotson senior dreaded ideas as much as a draught in her back.” It’s at the bottom of 848. “Prudent people liked an even temperature; and to do anything unexpected was as foolish as going out in the rain. One of the chief advantages of being rich was that one need not be exposed to unforeseen contingencies: by the use of ordinary firmness and common sense one could make sure of doing exactly the same thing every day at the same hour.” And this is happiness. Well, it’s time for tea or it’s time for whatever. This is routine, routine. On Thursdays you receive. On Tuesdays you go calling. So this narrow — narrow existence she was leading was bad. She didn’t feel like she was her own person. Did that sound like somebody else we’ve read? Sounds a lot like Edna. But look at the different way they take it. She goes down and she buys her ticket and she has her escape from Gannett. Edna would’ve gotten on the ferry and left. Edna would have gone off to be herself. Instead — well, what’s he do when he sees her coming back? He gets the railroad tables out. When’s the next train for Paris? ‘Cause what are they gonna do if they go to Paris? They’re gonna get married and go right back to what she had escaped from. She describes it so well. Aren’t those snobs terrible at that hotel? By the way, Wharton was accused of being a snob. It was just that that was her natural manner. She was just reserved. She was — there’s a famous story that she was on her way — she was going towards an elevator in a hotel in England or someplace and her husband was talking to a couple of women. And he said, “Oh, dear, do you remember the duchess?” She just went right — she nodded to him and got right on the elevator. And ENG 351 Lecture 7 12 somebody heard him exclaim, “My wife is very much affected by the cold.” And the duchess said, “Yes, it was a little frigid.” And when they got back to the room she told her husband and the person they were with — she said, “We don’t see them in the United States. Why should we see them here?” So I guess she might’ve had a little bit of hauteur herself. She was a designer of interiors. She built and designed a beautiful home back east and she also wrote a couple of books about it, in case you’re interested in that kind of thing. I want to find that — okay, 862. It’s a longish paragraph, but look at this. She says, “You’ve liked it here.” She makes him admit. He says, “Oh, I’ve liked it--I’ve liked it. Haven’t you?” “Yes. That’s the worst of it. That’s what I can’t bear. I fancied it was for your sake that I insisted on staying.” Because he says he’s a writer. How much does he write in this story? In the two months he hasn’t written a single line. What does he do? He goes for walks, he smokes cigars, they dine. She says, “Afterwards I wanted to stay myself--I loved it. Oh, do you see the full derision of it? These people are the very prototypes of the bores you took me away from, with the same fenced-in view of life, the same keep-off-the-grass morality, the same little cautious virtues and the same little frightened vices--well, I’ve clung to them. I’ve delighted in them, I’ve done my best to please them. I’ve toadied Lady Susan, I’ve gossiped with Miss Pinsent, I’ve pretended to be shocked with Mrs. Ainger. Respectability! It was the one thing in life that I was sure I didn’t care about, and it’s grown so precious to me that I’ve stolen it because I couldn’t get it in any other way.” If that’s always been your life based on a system of manners, an ordained set of ENG 351 Lecture 7 15 Did anybody think about Hemingway’s Hills like White Elephants story? Remember that story? It’s just two people talking in Spain and she wants to travel and keep on traveling and he wants her to get an abortion. And she says, “Well, can we go back to the way we were, where we’ll be traveling and we’ll be happy?” “Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.” But you know it won’t be. It won’t be the same because there’s this thing between them. And she says, “Forever’s a long word” and he says, “For the rest of our lives, then.” Oooh. Has she got issues? Can you say commitment? Clip her wings. And he says, “I mean after we’re married” and she says, “Thank you!” “‘Lydia!’ he exclaimed blankly; and she felt in every fibre of her averted person that he had made the inconceivable, the unpardonable mistake of anticipating her acquiescence.” He didn’t ask. He assumed. He just anticipated. Well, I don’t know. A woman who’s left her husband and traveled all over Europe with you, and she just got a divorce finally, could you make some assumptions? [Inaudible student response] It kinda puts her on the spot now, yeah. She’s obligated and he feels obligated, and nobody wants to be obligated. Is there a hope for this relationship? What do you see these two people doing five, six years down the road? Will they still be traveling from hotel to hotel all over Europe? [Inaudible student response] She’d jump ship. Could be. Well, she does get up and bustle and pack and sneak out. Money’s no problem. You know, he says “Where will you go?” and she just ENG 351 Lecture 7 16 tosses that off. There’s no problem with money. All these people have independent incomes from investments and don’t have to worry about that kind of thing. There was no income tax, by the way, back then either. But, yeah, where will she go? She can buy her way anywhere. He’s her last anchor. Don’t you like — and I just want to mention one more scene. The scene when the woman approaches her, when her shadow comes over her book, and she looks up and, “Oh, no, no. Not me. You’re not looking for me, are you? Not me.” And she gives her back what she really kind of needs. She says, “These Lintons have been ignoring their ignorers. I want to speak to you.” And she goes, “Who, me?” And I get confused. She says, “I want you to tell me what my husband said to your husband last night.” “Lydia turned pale. ‘My husband--to yours?’ she faltered.” Wouldn’t it be your husband to mine? And this woman is just a little bit too much. She has a rattle of bracelets. That implies she has on too many bracelets. She has on very expensive clothing but they really put it on a little much. Champagne with every meal and the best room. She says, “My husband has said nothing to me of--of yours.” She can’t even say it because she knows — suspects he’s not. “‘I say--is that true?’ she demanded. Lydia rose from her seat. ‘Oh, look here, I didn’t mean that, you know.’” What is it she didn’t mean? Imply that she was a liar. And then she lets his name slip. “‘Oh, Lord--there, it’s out! What a fool I am! But I supposed of course you knew.’” And so we find out that this was a famous elopement. And then she wants to her spy and she says, “Do you call that spying--for one woman to help out another?” And then she makes her threat. Lydia says, “What you ask is impossible. You ENG 351 Lecture 7 17 must see that it is. No one could interfere in the way you ask.” She’s got her by the hand. “Mrs. Cope’s clutch tightened. ‘You won’t, then? You won’t?’ ‘Certainly not. Let me go, please.’” She lets her go with a laugh. “Oh, go by all means--pray don’t let me detain you! Shall you go and tell Lady Susan Condit that there’s a pair of us--or shall I save you the trouble of enlightening her?” Oooooh. I mean, you know, where does she get on her high horse with this woman? When she’s living in sin. I like that expression, living in sin, as well. She says to her, “Oh, I’m not spiteful by nature, my dear; but you’re a little more than flesh and blood can stand!” A little holier than thou, yeah. Don’t you hate it when somebody’s really holier than thou when they have nothing to be holier than thou about? “Let you go, indeed! You’re too good to be mixed up in my affairs, are you? Why, you little fool, the first day I laid eyes on you I saw that you and I were both in the same box.” That’s a very crude way of putting it, I think. We’re both in the same box. And she likes having said that. She says it some more. “I always play fair. If you’ll tell I’ll promise not to. Now, then, which is it to be?” Childish? But think about some of the manners and mores, and so forth, that we adhere to everyday and go along with. They’re kind of childish, aren’t they? It’s not what’s really important about people. Well, I don’t know. Empty lives, sounds like to me, but Wharton could really, really, really depict the pain of these people. The situation of the women in her novels are the things that are interesting to read about. Was she a feminist? In some ways she was resolutely independent in her own life when she finally got her divorce. But she’s more interested in how people react in these