SLEEPING BEAUTIES: FEMALE PROTAGONISTS IN THE

ACTA
UNI VERSITATIS
LODZIENSIS
FOLIA LITTER A R IA A N G L IC A 3, 1999
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SLEEPING BEAUTIES:
FEMALE PROTAGONISTS IN THE SELECTED WORKS
OF TURN-OF-TIIE-CENTURY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS
T h o u g h heroines in A m erican literature created at the tu rn o f the
century co n stitu te a significantly broad spectrum o f fem ale types, there is
a t least one feature th a t brings m any o f them together. These wom en
frequently have a certain air o f aloofness or detachm ent ab o u t them . T hey
give the im pression th at they are only h a lf aw ake and their inner selves
are im m ersed in som e vague dream iness. C onsequently, they seem only
involuntarily involved in the external events which, w ithout their active
p articip atio n , inevitably send them to their doom .
T he heroine o f “T he A w akening,” while questing for a term th at would
accurately describe her state o f m ind, to her own astonishm ent com es u p o n
the word “delirium .” 1 T he present essay will deal with different m anifestations
and consequences o f this delirium which seems a recurrent feature in the
fem ale characters o f A m erican literature o f th a t period. M oreover, it will
be argued th a t this quality is crucial to the tragic developm ents o f their
lives. T h o u g h it is the lot o f Lily Bart, the heroine o f E dith W h a rto n ’s
The H ouse o f M irth, th at will provide the structure o f the argum ent, m ore
often th a n not illustrative exam ples and parallels will be draw n from other
literary w orks as well.
O n the m o st ap p aren t level this absent-m indedness m anifests itself in
the w om en’s gaze. In The House o f M irth Lily B a rt’s eyes often seemed
“in atten tiv e” 2 thus betraying som e inw ard preoccupation. In M ary W ilkins
F re e m a n ’s story “ Old W om an M ag o u n ” we are told th at the h ero in e’s
1 K ate Chopin, “The A w akening” , in: Sandra M . Gilbert, Susan Gubar, eds, The Norton
Anthology o f Literature by Women (N ew York: Norton, 1995), p. 1046. All references in the
text will be to this edition.
2 Edith W harton, The House o f M irth (N ew York: Scribner’s, 1969), p. 10. All references
in the text will be to this edition.
“ retrospective” eyes “ seemed to see p ast all th a t she looked u p o n .” 3 H er
gran d m o th er, while talking to Lily’s father, looked “ as if she saw through
all externals” and “ spoke w ith her eyes aloft as if addressing som ething
outside o f them b o th ” (1112). Similarly, K a te C h o p in ’s heroine E dna
P ontellier “ had a way o f tu rn in g her eyes upon an object and holding
them there as if lost in some inward m aze o f contem plation or tho u g h t” (995).
T h e n o to rio u s in attcntiveness to w hat is going on a ro u n d is well
exemplified even by the very m ode o f n a rra tio n .4 F o r these w om en, whose
perceptive capacities are so seriously questioned, m ore often th a n n o t
becom e the centers o f consciousness and the description o f their fictive
w orlds hinges on their senses. T herefore in o rd er to have som e idea o f the
degree to which, say, Lily B art is consciously present in her surroundings,
it m ay be enough to assess the verisim ilitude o f The H ouse o f M irth as
a realistic novel.5 And there is no d o u b t th at it is the sensory aspect o f
reality th a t is starkly m issing in the novel. T here are no descriptions o f
New Y o rk because Lily herself hardly know s w hat it looks like. As for
o th er externals, they are limited to a few rem arks in regard to the h ero in e’s
attire and for the sam e reason - Lily’s ow n perception rarely extends
beyond w hat she is wearing. T o be sure, this charge is n o t raised against
the book itself. T he deficiency is simply necessary for the consistency o f
Lily’s character. A ny keenness o f observation on her p a rt would inevitably
im ply certain m eaningful relationship between Lily and her physical en ­
vironm ent. A nd such capacity, in tu rn , would sooner or later tran slate into
som e kind o f personal integrity - a prem ise she dem onstrably lacks.
In o rd er to understand fully the im plications o f the problem one should
p erhaps also look at one episode in C hopin’s “T he A w akening” w hich is
all th e m ore illustrative o f the present thesis as it affirm s the positive
consequences o f a reverse situation. In C h ap ter X X IV E d n a’s husb an d goes
3 M ary E. W ilkins Freeman, “Old W om an M agoun,” in: Gilbert, Gubar, op. cit., p. 1106.
All references in the text will be to this edition.
4 This idea is related to what is discussed by Julia Bader in her essay “The D issolving
V ision. Realism in Jewett, Freeman, and G ilm an,” in: Eric J. Sundquist, ed., American
RealLim. N ew Essays (Baltimore: H opkins University Press, 1982). Analyzing the fiction of
Sarah Orne Jewett and M ary W ilkins Freeman, she writes: “Through the techniques of
realism, its sober accountability, its com mon-sensical dailiness, Jewett and Freeman explore
the possibilities for their female characters. They create worlds where wom en are neither
rewarded for their obedience to traditional expectations and conventional roles nor offered
rom antic love as a mirror for seeing themselves. On the contrary, the female selves that
emerge in these works are given strength and particularity by the realistic settings that reflect
them. They acquire power and autonom y precisely by controlling some aspect o f this setting.”
(178)
s Here the meaning o f the word realism is limited to the function o f mimetic representation
alone.
to New Y ork, thus leaving the house for the first tim e entirely under her
com m and. N ever before has she had a better chance to exercise her pow er
o r to have her sense o f responsibility tested. It is then a rare m om ent in
E d n a ’s life in which the capacities and energies o f her ad u lth o o d are at
last sum m oned and provided with an adequate outlet. Significantly, at this
p o in t her inner and o uter selves becom e m eaningfully integrated. All o f
a sudden she becom es very sensitive and responsive to w hat is going on
aro u n d her:
She walked all through the house, from one room to another, as if inspecting it for the
first time. She tried the various chairs and lounges, as if she had never sat and reclined
upon them before. And she perambulated around the outside o f the house, investigating,
looking to see if windows and shutters were secure and in order. (1061)
T h e text ab o u n ds with details signifying E d n a ’s em erging sensitivity to
m aterial reality. She begins to discover things th at previously w ould have
stood no chance o f catching her attention: “T he garden walks were dam p
. . . it smelled so good and looked so pretty in the aftern o o n sunlight
. . . the cook . . . served a delicious repast - a luscious tenderloin broiled
a point. T he wine tasted good; the m arro n glace seemed to be ju st w hat
she w anted. It was so pleasant, too, to dine in a com fortable peignoir"
(1061). T his fragm ent o f E d n a ’s life, however, is notable m ainly for its
singularity. E d n a w ould soon fathom the superficiality o f the freedom
granted by her h u sb a n d ’s physical absence and her subsequent alienation
becomes even m o re intense.
U sually the wom en are absorbed in self-sustaining dream s th a t need
little, if any, stim ulus from the outside world. Ever since childhood they
have been engrossed in illusions which, despite their m atu ra tio n , have no t
lost th eir power. N orm ally, as it is in the case o f m en, this infant fantasy
is gradually ad apted for the grow ing dem ands o f the society th at invites
th eir active particip ation in its affairs. E ventually, their inner vision begins
to ap p ro x im ate o u ter reality. T he heroines o f W h arto n and some other
fem ale w riters, by co n trast, often exist in a vacuum . T here seems to be no
connection between their beings and their surroundings; or, even if there
is one, it certainly lacks immediacy and consequentialness. W om en’s em otional
developm ent, unchecked and h ap hazard, brings them to a critical point
when their conception o f the w orld and their ow n position in it does n o t
reflect the actual conditions (physical, financial and political) in which they
are enm eshed.
Such fem ale infantilism is exemplified by Lily B art, the p ro tag o n ist oi
The House o f M irth .6 She lives perm anently in a w orld ol fantasy where
6
See Joan L id off essay “Another Sleeping Beauty. Narcissism in The House o f M irth,"
in: Sundquist, op. cit.
she h as absolute power, inexhaustible w ealth, eternal y o u th and beauty.
H er reality, “ the house o f m irth ,” is the territory o f Eden, entirely free
from w ork and m ortality. Since her childhood she has no t ceased to believe
th at all her desires are naturally congruous with the laws o f her surroundings.
She sees little difference between her wish and its autom atic satisfaction.
F o r Lily the effects do no t necessitate the causes. As she has never exerted
any influence upon her environm ent, she considers herself absolutely sovereign.
Lily does n o t shrink from applying her childish fantasies to financial
dealings. T he language she em ploys with regard to m oney m akes it evident
th a t she unconsciously expects the tricks o f m agic to be effectual in the
m aterial w orld as well. A t som e point, for instance, she is disturbed th at
“ she can n o t conjure back the vanished three hundred d o llars” [italics added]
(27). W hen she asks T ren o r to help her get aw ay from a financial im passe,
her th o u g h ts once again betray the total inadequacy o f her understanding
as to the harsh m echanism s o f the financial world:
Through a general blur her hopes dilated like lamps in a fog. She understood only that
her m odest investments were to be mysteriously multiplied without risk to herself; and
the assurance that this miracle would take place within a short lime, that there would
be no tedious interval for suspense and reaction, relieved her. (85)
M an y heroines o f turn-of-the-century literature feature sim ilar dualities.
C harity R oyall, the protagonist o f W h a rto n ’s Sum m er “ was [not untypically]
blind and insensible to m any things . . . but to all th at was light and air,
perfum e and color, every d ro p o f blood in her responded.” 7 In o th er w ords,
she disregards reality as it is, bu t is attentive to w hat is pleasing. E d n a
P ontellier, to o , “ even as a child . . . had lived her ow n small life all within
herself. A t a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual
life - the o u tw ard existence w hich conform s, the inw ard existence which
q u estio n s” (1005).
G ertru d e Stein contributes to the gallery o f Sleeping Beauties w ith her
novelette “M elan c th a” (which is the m ajor story o f her early collection
Three Lives [1909]),8 the only problem being th at unlike W h a rto n ’s or
C h o p in ’s art, the fiction o f Stein is highly experim ental and ab stract. T here
is little th at can be said ab o u t the heroine o f this w ork with assurance;
the qualities featured by her, the ones th at are m ost relevant to this essay,
are n o t so m uch depicted by Stein as they are fully em bodied in the form
o f her w ork. C onsequently, since the story operates on the ab stra ct level
7 Edith W harton, “Summer” , in: Elizabeth M cM aham , Susan D ay, Robert Funk, eds.,
Nine Short Novels b y American Women (N ew York: St. M artin’s Press, 1933), p. 269. All
references in the text will be to this edition.
8 Gertrude Stein, “ M elanctha” , in: Three Lives (N ew York: Vintage B ooks, 1936). All
references in the text will be to this edition.
o f m ental processes, M elan cth a’s absent-m indedness and her incapacity for
reflection m ak e her alm ost disappear. W hile the characters w ith whom
M elanctha is contrasted gradually emerge as quite tangible persons, she
herself rem ains a m ere presence, a potentiality or a craving. C om pared with
her lover, Jeff C am pbell, M elanctha has no m em ory on which she could
build her self-image. W ith her eyes fixed on “ a free and w hirling fu tu re”
(98), she is in a co n stant process o f becom ing (it is no t development though,
for this would im ply a sort o f accum ulative progress). She never stops to
acquire palpable attributes; therefore, she never really exists:
M elanctha had not found it easy with herself to make her wants and what she had,
agree. M elanctha was always losing what she had in wanting all the things she saw.
. . . She was always full with mystery and subtle m ovem ents and denials and vague
distrusts and complicated disillusions . . . M elanctha wondered olten how it was she did
not kill herself when she was so blue. (89)
C uriously enough, though “ all her life [M elanctha] was very keen in her
sense for real experience . . . she knew she was n o t getting w hat she
w an ted ” (97). T he true n ature o f her experience is accurately rendered in
a passage describing her fascination with railroad yards - a place of
incessant action, w here hum an sense o f causing, controlling and possessing
is co n stantly confirm ed. M elanctha likes to w atch the yards for hours, but
her involvem ent clearly does no t get beyond th a t o f an audience during
a th eatrical spectacle. It is com pared to the feeling oi “ a lazy m a n ” whom
the scene fills with “ a sense o f a strong m oving pow er,” w ho “ need no t
w ork and yet he has it very deeply;” it parallels the involvem ent of
“ a child w atching th ro u g h a hole in the fence.” Finally, it is im plied th at
M elanctha belongs to one o f those who “ like to feel em otion w ithout the
tro u b le o f having any suffering” (98).9
9
D onald Sutherland in his book Gertrude Stein: A Biography o f her W ork (W estport,
Con.: G reenwood, 1976) offers the historical background o i Stein’s Three Lives. Her argument
helps explain why the use o f female consciousness in fiction at the turn ol century became
so widespread and, as it will be argued, it points to what lies at the heart o f this essay.
“M elanctha,” he contends, as well as the other two stories o f the collection, can be seem as
deriving from the tradition o f realism at its best, that is, realism o f Flaubert and James, in
his historical analysis Sutherland goes back very far. While classicism, as he points out, is
founded on the equivalence o f the inner life to the outer events, romanticism breaks this
unity and explores what heretofore has been disregarded - the irrational and often alienated
self. G ustave Flaubert and Henry James, then, are the ones who try to return to the classical
objectivity, yet they arc unwilling to sacrifice the achievements o f the rom antics. In M adam e
Bovary, The P ortrait o f a L ady, or, for that matter, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, the outer reality
and the inner life coexist, they are “ synchronized or made contrapuntal (Sutherland 24). 1 he
events are misrepresented for they are reflected by consciousness which is often subjected to
self-dramatization and aestheticism . The resulting grotesque was held by these authors to be
the m ost im portant quality o f the full reality. N ot to put too fine a point on it, it seems
T he breach in the fem ale psyche, however, is anything b u t fixed. R ather
th a n being an unfluctuating, solid duality, it repeatedly undergoes painful
crises which, worse still, do not bring ab o u t any fundam ental change. Lily
B art, for instance, every now and then poignantly experiences w hat is for
m o st o f the tim e hidden from her - only to equip her illusions with better
safeguards. D istressful as these m om ents are, they never lead, on her part,
to m ore radical re-evaluations o f herself or her surroundings. Lily’s incorrigibly
false self-image, instead o f collapsing, com plicates itself and is obstinately
sustained as long as possible.
T h e first o f her insights into tru er p ro p o rtio n s and m o re accurate
relationships occurred when she was nineteen. Lily was then “ d istu rb ed ”
by the reap pearance o f flowers on the luncheon-table, even th o u g h their
freshness, as she keenly observed, began to dwindle. T he ground o f her
in d ignation was tw ofold. N o t only did she stubbornly persist in childish
ignorance as to the dire financial situation o f her fam ily, but also she
refused to acknow ledge the n atu ral process o f the flow ers’ w ithering which
sym bolically stands for her own m ortality (notice the parallel betw een her
nam e and the nam e o f the flowers in question - /i//as-of-the-'valley). D uring
this evening she learned th at her fam ily was ruined; shortly afterw ards her
fath er, tired and distressed, dies a m a rty r’s death, due to his wife’s as well
as his d au g h ter’s excessive spending. T his episode, which w ould seem to
m an y ra th e r illum inating, did n o t becom e a turnin g -p o in t in Lily’s life.
Instead o f m ak in g her redefine her conception o f the w orld, it sim ply sank
into oblivion. T he d eath o f her father, who disturbed her conscience, was
m et with “re lie f’ (33). A nd even his m em ory, apparently so threatening to
h er m ental equilibrium , was scrupulously erased from her m ind. “ She
seemed always to have seen him through a b lu r,” we are told, but “ now
the fog has thickened till he was alm ost indistinguishable” (33).
A n o th er disillusioning m om ent com es when Lily is lured by G us T re n o r
in to his tow nhouse. This scene unequivocally exhibits w hat heretofore has
com pletely escaped Lily’s notice, th at is, the necessary connection between
m oney and sex. D espite its potency, this m om ent, no t unlike the previous
one, fails to integrate the conflicting forces w ithin her m ind. O n the
co n trary , it sim ply brings them to light - only to m ake this duality m ore
p ainful. “ She seemed a stranger to herself, o r ra th e r there were tw o selves
in her, the one she had always know n, and a new ab h o rren t being to
w hich it found itself chained” (148).
that at this historical m om ent, with such understanding o f what constitutes the full reality,
the use o f wom en as protagonists appeared to Flaubert, James and their follow ers possibly
m ore fruitful than the use o f men. It is females, alienated and estranged, that helped them
bring out the incoherence between inner and outer reality - a quality which, incidentally, is
to certain degree universal — which such a remarkable force. In short, w om en’s consciousness,
when set beside that o f men, seemed an artistic tool o f greater possibilities.
P aradoxically, those revealing m om ents only hasten the com ing o f the
catastro p h e. O nce the heroine catches a glimpse o f w hat she has heretofore
been blind to, she clings to her private vision even m ore eagerly. A nd when
this can no longer be sustained, w hen it begins to crash u n d er th e
accum ulated burden o f irony and failure, her internal life disintegrates
com pletely.
Lily B art, for exam ple, at the end o f her life at last achieves an absolute
lucidity o f vision which is sym bolically represented in a chronic insom nia.
“ Sleep” , the n a rra to r tells us, “ was w hat she w anted;” ironically, in a sense
she has always been in a deep sleep. One can n o t help feeling th a t if only
this utter wakefulness had com e earlier, it would p robably have saved her
life; now she sim ply resorts to narcotics th at g ran t her “ b rief bath s o f
o blivion” and in the end alm ost half-willingly dies o f an overdose.
O th er heroines end up similarly. As their m inds begin to crum ble, their
visions dissolve. C harity R oyal in W h a rto n ’s novel Sum m er, after her visit
to the M o u n ta in “ lost the exact sense o f things . . . She had only
a confused sensation o f slipping dow n a sm ooth irresistible current; and
she ab an d o n ed herself to the feeling as a refuge from the to rm en t o f
th o u g h t” (375). T h ough she does no t die physically, her u tter passivity is
ta n ta m o u n t to psychological death. In The Aw akening M rs. P ontellier, as
if o u t o f the blue, com m its suicide. T h e fact th a t she does this so
unexpectedly is paradoxically even m ore telling. H er ap p a ren t level-headed
behaviour right before the tragedy occurs would suggest th a t the breach
betw een her physical, social self and her em otional life has been com pleted.
T h e epilogue o f F ree m a n ’s story “ Old W om an M ag o u n ” follows suit,
too. Lily as well as her grandm other, both entrapped in their im aginary
w orlds, gravitate tow ard final alienation. T he old w om an, in ord er to
p rotect Lily from sexual initiation, encourages her to eat poisonous berries.
H er g ra n d d a u g h te r sym bolically goes blind before dying. B ut a new
vision is p u t in place o f th a t threatened one as the g ran d m o th er encourages
her to see a w orld where “ it is always light and the com m onest things
shine” (1118), in which Lily will never cease to be a sexless child. This
w orld alm ost all too unequivocally resem bles th at o f Lily B art or C harity.
T he old w om an, on the o th er hand, refuses to recognize L ily’s death
and goes m ad.
In all these texts the dichotom y between the heroines’ feelings and the
outside w orld results from the fact th at society does n o t proffer any
satisfactory form ulas for their adulthood. T here are no legitim ate m echanism s
th ro u g h which they could achieve m atu rity in the sense o f tailoring their
expectations to the conditions im posed by their surroundings. R a th e r than
stim ulating their em otional and intellectual grow th, the environm ent im pedes
it. T he w om en’s developm ent, which in the case o f m en w ould have led
to ever m o re p ro fo u n d personal integrity, is sim ply diverted and induces
estrangem ent. W hile their interactions with the o u ter world dw indle, their
inner selves becom e bleak territories full o f dangerous repressions and
fru stratio n s. T he stories, though originally no t intended to be predom inantly
political, have now become essential to fem inists’ cause. And the tragic
lives o f Sleeping Beauties still rem ain central to their plea for social change.
G rzegorz Kość
ŚP IĄ C E KRÓLEW NY: BOHATERKI W YBRANYCH UTW O RÓ W
PO W IEŚCIO PISAR EK AM ERYKAŃSKICH
P odstaw ą tego artykułu jest obserwacja, iż wiele bohaterek am erykańskiej literatury
kobiecej przełomu X IX i X X w. łączy jedna wspólna cecha. O tóż sprawiają one wrażenie
zaabsorbow anych wyłącznie sobą, nieobecnych w świecie, w który są przecież fizycznie
i politycznie uwikłane i który w końcu doprow adza je do tragedii. W oparciu o wybrane
utwory Edith W harton, K ate Chopin, Gertrudy Stein i M ary Wilkins Freeman analizuję
objawy tej alienacji, następnie pokazuję procesy jej pow stawania i funkcjonowania. Postacie
kobiece w tych książkach przypominają Śpiące K rólewny, na pozór tylko trochę zadumane,
tak naprawdę zaś stale, niebezpiecznie balansujące na granicy pom iędzy faktem a fantazją
typow ą jeszcze dla wieku dziecięcego. Ich wyobrażenia o świecie nie przystają d o rzeczywistości,
gdyż wcześniej nie miały żadnej szansy weryfikowania ich poprzez własną aktyw ność i d o ­
świadczenie. Prawda dociera do nich zbyt nagle, by m ogła um ożliwić stopniow y proces
adaptacji i zbyt późno, by dało się wyciągnąć z niej jakieś konstruktywne wnioski. Jest za to
lak szokująca, że nieuchronnie prowadzi d o stanów schizofrenicznych, a niejednokrotnie nawet
d o sam obójstw. Losy tych kobiet, odciętych od naturalnych, dostępnych tylko m ężczyznom
procesów dojrzewania, doskonale ilustrują więc mechanizmy, przeciw którym wystąpił ruch
feministyczny.