Nava Atlas's Blog, page 66
June 16, 2019
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1938)
The Yearling, a 1938 novel by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896 – 1953), was the most successful work by this American author. It was an immediate bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939.
Rawlings struggled to gain a foothold in the literary world and made no secret that she found writing to be a difficult task. After buying an orange grove in Cross Creek, Florida, where she subsequently lived for many decades, she found the inspiration she had long sought from the people and local culture.
The Yearling might now be considered more of a young adult novel, though at the time, this was not yet a separate genre. However, it’s a book for readers of all ages. It can be enjoyed as a great narrative coming-of-age story, or read as a parable.
The Yearling came out as a major Metro-Goldwyn Mayer film in 1946, and starred Gregory Peck as Penny Baxter, Claude Jarman, Jr. as Jody, and Jane Wyman as Ma Baxter.
It can be argued that The Yearling has lost status in the American literary canon. A reconsideration in Harper’s Magazine in 2014, the book’s 75th anniversary, argued for its preservation. This lengthy article by Lauren Groff is worth reading if you’re an admirer of Rawlings’ work, or want to be. It describes succinctly the stature that Rawlings and her most famous book enjoyed (hard-won though it was) in her time:
“The Yearling was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. It was the best-selling novel of 1938, and it has sold millions of copies since. The book remains familiar in a vague way to many American adults, who probably read it in school or have seen the 1946 film based on it. But it is more than a bestseller, and certainly more than a dated children’s book. It is a genuine classic, influenced by Hemingway’s declarative simplicity and edited by Hemingway’s legendary editor, Maxwell Perkins.
For a time, its author was a literary figure to rival the rest of Perkins’s stable, which included F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was friends with Zora Neale Hurston, Martha Gellhorn, and Robert Frost. She corresponded with John Steinbeck, Thornton Wilder, and Eleanor Roosevelt. She was Margaret Mitchell’s guest at the Atlanta premiere of Gone with the Wind. Her house in Cross Creek, about twenty miles from Gainesville, is a state park.”
Following is a wonderfully descriptive review of The Yearling from 1938, the year it came out. Note that it reveals key plot points, none of which are secret, and often discussed in reviews. So if you prefer to be surprised, read the it before consuming reviews.
A 1938 review of The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
From the original review of The Yearling in The Detroit Free Press, April 10, 1938: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Tells a Powerful Story of a Boy Growing into Manhood
A novel of Florida, the story has nothing in common with the Florida of Palm Beach and Miami. It is a tale of the virtual pioneering which goes on in the heart of that peninsula state, in its swamp land and “hammocks,” its higher, drier spots like the fictional Baxter’s Island.
The title refers to the young boy, Jody Baxter, who approaches manhood in the single year of the story’s compass; although there is another yearling, the orphan fawn that Jody brings in from the wilderness. The affection for the fawn, Flag, is regarded by some readers as too sentimental in its treatment by Rawlings.
While we may agree that Jody’s devotion to Flag has moments that are a little tiresome, this very reaction proves the soundness of Rawlings’ emphasis. What adult in real life can maintain unfailing interest in any adolescent passion, whatever it may be? The best many a parent can achieve is a polite tolerance.
It’s not enough to dismiss the fawn’s existence in the story as a pretty device. As the baby fawn grows into a yearling, according to its nature, it becomes a menace to the hard-won livelihood of the Baxters, Pa, Ma, and Jody.
Twice, Flag eats the succulent green shoots of the new corn and ruins the crop. Twice, Jody’s faith in Flag is put to the test. The boy works harder than he ever has in his young life to protect Flag from the judgment of his understanding father and his more matter-of-fact mother.
Throughout the story the point is made that Penny Baxter, a confederate veteran who is Jody’s father is a wise huntsman who never kills game except to meet his own needs. He has always sympathized with Jody’s wish for something alive for his very own, to com at his call as the hold hound, Julia, has tagged Penny’s footsteps.
. . . . . . . . .
Quotes from The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
. . . . . . . . . .
But the laws of human need and survival are stern. The moment comes, at the end, when Penny insists that Jody kill his pet. Jody refuses. Penny is ailing and cannot hold a gun. Ma Baxter, a poor shot, wounds Flag, and Jody is forced to end the animal’s misery. Then he runs away, convinced that even his father has betrayed him.
In a few days of Jody’s futile attempt at escape, he experiences hunger that is akin to starvation, not mere appetite. Rescued from a cockle-shell boat and set down at the home landing, Jody wanders home because he can go nowhere else, only to find that home was where he was wanted as well as needed.
“I’m goin’ to talk to you, man to man,” Penny tells Jody. “You figgered I went back on you. Now there’s a thing ever’ man has got to know. Mebbe you know it a’ready. Twa’nt only me. Twa’nt only your yearlin’deer havin’ to be destroyed. Boy, life goes back on you.”
Penny had done what many another parent has tried to do — shield a beloved child from the sorrows and hardships of life. But when thing was no longer possible, he could only tell the boy that “life knocked a man down and he gets up and it knocks him down agin’ … But ever’ man’s lonesome. What’s he to do then? What’s he to do what he gits knocked down? Why, take it for his share and go on.”
. . . . . . . . .
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings on Amazon
. . . . . . . . .
The Yearling is a superb study of adolescence, which should deepen the sympathies of all who have any dealings with the young.
Beyond that, it’s a detailed and often exciting narrative of a hardscrabble way of American life. For its minutia of daily living, it reminds one of Della Lutes’ The Country Kitchen. We know what the Baxters had to eat — the bear meat, the cracklin’ bread, the pork and greens, and how they traded game for staples at the store at Volusia Landing.
Their neighbors in the scrub are the Forresters, great strapping fellows who have a rollicking, roving live. Lem is the mean one, who added to Jody’s education in the low-down ways of human nature. Buck and Mill-wheel are kinder, with Buck helping on the Baxter land when Penny is bitten by a rattler.
Fodder-wing, the little crippled Forrester, and Jody’s only friend, makes pets of all the wild creatures and, in death, brings another human experience close to Jody.
Jody and Penny almost miss the Christmas “doin’s” at Volusia for the showdown hunt after old Slewfoot, the marauding bear. That Christmas Eve, the Forresters write the final chapter in their feud with Oliver Hutto, who takes is new wife, Twink, the troublemaker, and Grandma Hutto away with him, out of Jody’s life.
To sum up, The Yearling is an acutely real story an existence at once contemporary and utterly alien. Even the dialect is alien, but it’s one that clearly has its roots in the old English, not a dialect of ignorance. What is contemporary, timeless, and universal is the bittersweet story of lost youth.
“Somewhere beyond the sinkhole past the magnolia, under the live oaks, a boy and a yearling ran side by side, and were gone forever.”
. . . . . . . . . .
Learn more about Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
. . . . . . . . . .
*This post contains affiliate links. If the product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
The post The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1938) appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
June 14, 2019
6 Poems by Julia de Burgos about Love and Identity
Julia de Burgos, born Julia Constanza Burgos Garcia (February 17, 1914 – July 6, 1953), was a Puerto Rican poet and civil rights activist for women and African/Afro-Caribbean writers.
After Burgos was awarded a scholarship to attend University High School in 1928, her family moved to Rio Piedras, which would influence her later on to write her first work, Rio Grande de Loiza. The writings of Luis Llorens Torres, Clara Lair, Rafael Alberti, and Pablo Neruda were among some of the people who influenced her career as a young poet.
By the early 1930s, Burgos had already become a published writer in journals and newspapers and she traveled all over Puerto Rico to give book readings. Much of her work contained a collection of the intimate, land, and social struggles of those oppressed on the island as well as her work personal struggles concerning her complicated love life.
Here are six poems by Julia de Burgos in both their original Spanish (poemas de Julia de Burgos) and English translation about the small yet vibrant island of Puerto Rico and her struggles with love and identity.
. . . . . . . . . .
A Julia de Burgos (To Julia de Burgos)Ya las gentes murmuran que yo soy tu enemiga
porque dicen que en verso doy al mundo mi yo.
Mienten, Julia de Burgos. Mienten, Julia de Burgos.
La que se alza en mis versos no es tu voz: es mi voz
porque tú eres ropaje y la esencia soy yo; y el más
profundo abismo se tiende entre las dos.
Tú eres fria muñeca de mentira social,
y yo, viril destello de la humana verdad.
Tú, miel de cortesana hipocresías; yo no;
que en todos mis poemas desnudo el corazón.
Tú eres como tu mundo, egoísta;
yo no; que en todo me lo juego a ser lo que soy yo.
“>Tú eres sólo la grave señora señorona; yo no,
yo soy la vida, la fuerza, la mujer.
Tú eres de tu marido, de tu amo; yo no;
yo de nadie, o de todos, porque a todos, a
todos en mi limpio sentir y en mi pensar me doy.
“>Tú te rizas el pelo y te pintas; yo no;
a mí me riza el viento, a mí me pinta el sol.
Tú eres dama casera, resignada, sumisa,
atada a los prejuicios de los hombres; yo no;
que yo soy Rocinante corriendo desbocado
olfateando horizontes de justicia de Dios.
Tú en ti misma no mandas;
a ti todos te mandan; en ti mandan tu esposo, tus
padres, tus parientes, el cura, el modista,
el teatro, el casino, el auto,
las alhajas, el banquete, el champán, el cielo
y el infierno, y el que dirán social.
En mí no, que en mí manda mi solo corazón,
mi solo pensamiento; quien manda en mí soy yo.
Tú, flor de aristocracia; y yo, la flor del pueblo.
Tú en ti lo tienes todo y a todos se
lo debes, mientras que yo, mi nada a nadie se la debo.
Tú, clavada al estático dividendo ancestral,
y yo, un uno en la cifra del divisor
social somos el duelo a muerte que se acerca fatal.
Cuando las multitudes corran alborotadas
dejando atrás cenizas de injusticias
quemadas, y cuando con la tea de las siete virtudes,
tras los siete pecados, corran las multitudes,
contra ti, y contra todo lo injusto
y lo inhumano, yo iré en medio de
ellas con la tea en la mano.
People now murmur that I am your enemy
For they claim that in verses
I reveal your essence to the world.
They lie, Julia de Burgos. They lie Julia de Burgos.
The voice uplifted in my verses is not your own: it is mine,
For you are garment and I essence;
And the greatest abyss lies between the two.
You are the cold-blooded puppet of social deceit,
And I, the driving splendour of human truth.
You, of courtesan hypocrisies…the honey; not I;
Whose heart is revealed in my poems…all.
You are like your world, selfish; not I;
Who dares all to be what I truly am.
You are merely the implacable, elegant lady;
Not I; I am life, I am strength, I am woman.
You belong to your husband, to your master; not I;
I belong to no one, or to everyone, because to all,
everyone,
In wholesome feeling and thought, I give myself.
You curl your locks and paint yourself, not I;
I am curled by the wind; brightened by the sun.
You are homebound, resigned, submissive,
Confined to the whims of men; not I;
I am Rocinante galloping recklessly
Wandering through the boundaries of God’s justice.
You are not in command of self; everyone rules you:
You are ruled by your husband, your parents, relatives,
The priest, the seamstress, theatre, club,
The car, jewels, the banquet, champagne,
Heaven and hell and… social hearsay.
But not me, I am ruled by my heart alone,
My sole thought; it is “I” who rules myself.
You, aristocratic blossom; and I, the people’s blossom.
You are well provided for, but are indebted to everyone,
While I, my nothingness to no one owe.
You, nailed to the stagnant ancestral dividend;
And I, but one digit in the social cipher.
We are the encroaching, inevitable duel to the death.
When the multitude uncontrolled runs,
The ashes of injustices, burnt, left behind,
And when with the torch of the seven virtues,
The throng to the seven sins gives chase,
I will be against you and against all
That is unjust and inhuman.
Upholding the torch… I shall be among the throng.
. . . . . . . . . .
Learn more about Julia de Burgos
. . . . . . . . . .
Ay ay ay, que soy grifa y pura negra;
grifería en mi pelo, cafrería en mis labios;
y mi chata nariz mozambiquea.
Negra de intacto tinte, lloro y río
la vibración de ser estatua negra;
de ser trozo de noche,
en que mis blancos dientes relampaguean;
y ser negro bejuco
que a lo negro se enreda
y comba el negro nido
en que el cuervo se acuesta.
Negro trozo de negro en que me esculpo,
ay ay ay, que mi estatua es toda negra.
Dícenme que mi abuelo fue el esclavo
por quien el amo dio treinta monedas.
Ay ay ay, que el esclavo fue mi abuelo
es mi pena, es mi pena.
Si hubiera sido el amo,
sería mi vergüenza;
que en los hombres, igual que en las naciones,
si el ser el siervo es no tener derechos,
el ser el amo es no tener conciencia.
Ay ay ay, los pecados del rey blanco
lávelos en perdón la reina negra.
Ay ay ay, que la raza se me fuga
y hacia la raza blanca zumba y vuela
hundirse en su agua clara;
tal vez si la blanca se ensombrará en la negra.
Ay ay ay, que mi negra raza huye
y con la blanca corre a ser trigueña;
¡a ser la del futuro,
fraternidad de América!
Ay, Ay, Ay of the Black Grif
Ay, ay, ay, that am kinky-haired and pure black
kinks in my hair, Kafir in my lips;
and my flat nose Mozambiques.
Black of pure tint, I cry and laugh
the vibration of being a black statue;
a chunk of night, in which my white
teeth are lightning;
and to be a black vine
which entwines in the black
and curves the black nest in which the raven lies.
Black chunk of black in which I sculpt myself,
ay, ay, ay, my statue is all black.
They tell me that my grandfather was the slave
for whom the master paid thirty coins.
Ay, ay, ay, that the slave was my grandfather
is my sadness, is my sadness.
If he had been the master
it would be my shame:
that in men, as in nations,
if being the slave is having no rights
being the master is having no conscience.
Ay, ay, ay wash the sins of the white King
in forgiveness black Queen.
Ay, ay, ay, the race escapes me
and buzzes and flies toward the white race,
to sink in its clear water;
or perhaps the white will be shadowed in the black.
Ay, ay, ay my black race flees
and with the white runs to become bronzed;
to be one for the future,
fraternity of America!
. . . . . . . . . .
“Remembering Julia” by Manny Vega, 2006
. . . . . . . . . .
La carrera del mar sobre mi puerta
es sensación azul entre mis dedos,
y tu salto impetuoso por mi espíritu
es no menos azul, me nace eterno.
Todo el color de aurora despertada
el mar y tú lo nadan a mi encuentro,
y en locura de amarme
hasta el naufragio
van rompiendo los puertos y los remos.
¡Si tuviera yo un barco de gaviotas,
para sólo un instante detenerlos,
y gritarle mi voz a que se batan
en un sencillo duelo de misterio!
Que uno en el otro encuentren
su voz propia,
que entrelacen sus sueños en el viento,
que se ciñan estrellas en los ojos
para que den, unidos, sus destellos.
Que sea un duelo de música en el aire
las magnolias abiertas de sus besos,
que las olas se vistan de pasiones
y la pasión se vista de veleros.
Todo el color de aurora despertada
el mar y tú lo estiren en un sueño
que se lleve mi barco de gaviotas
y me deje en el agua de dos cielos.
The Sea and You
The stroke of the sea upon my door
is blue sensation between my toes,
and your impetuous leap through my spirit
is no less blue, an eternal birth.
All the color of awakened aurora
the sea and you swim to my encounter,
and in the madness of loving me
until the shipwreck
you both go breaking the ports and the oars.
If I just had a ship of seagulls,
and could for an instant stop them,
and shout my voice that they fight
in a simple duel of mystery!
That one in the other might find
his own voice,
interweave their dreams in the wind,
bind stars in their eyes
so that they give, united, their beams.
May there be a duel of music in the air
the opened magnolias of their kisses,
that the waves dress in passions
and the passion dress in sailboats.
All the color of awakened aurora
may the sea and you expand it into a dream
that it carry my ship of seagulls
and leave me in the water of two skies.
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
Yo Misma Fui Mi Ruta (I Was My Own Route), 1986—Yo quise ser como los hombres quisieron que yo fuese:
un intento de vida;
un juego al escondite con mi ser.
Pero yo estaba hecha de presentes,
y mis pies planos sobre la tierra promisora
no resistían caminar hacia atrás,
y seguían adelante, adelante,
burlando las cenizas para alcanzar el beso
de los senderos nuevos.
—A cada paso adelantado en mi ruta hacia el frente
rasgaba mis espaldas el aleteo desesperado
de los troncos viejos.
—Pero la rama estaba desprendida para siempre,
y a cada nuevo azote la mirada mía
se separaba más y más y más de los lejanos
horizontes aprendidos:
y mi rostro iba tomando la espresión que le venía de adentro,
la expresión definida que asomaba un sentimiento
de liberación íntima;
un sentimiento que surgía
del equilibrio sostenido entre mi vida
y la verdad del beso de los senderos nuevos.
—Ya definido mi rumbo en el presente,
me sentí brote de todos los suelos de la tierra,
de los suelos sin historia,
de los suelos sin porvenir,
del suelo siempre suelo sin orillas
de todos los hombres y de todas las épocas.
—Y fui toda en mí como fue en mí la vida…
—Yo quiese ser como los hombres quisieron que yo fuese:
un intento de vida;
un juego al escondite con mi ser.
Pero yo estaba hecha de presentes;
cuando ya los heraldos me anunciaban
en el regio desfile de los troncos viejos,
se me torció el deseo de seguir a los hombres,
y el homenaje se quedó esperándome.
I Was My Own Route
I wanted to be like men wanted me to be:
an attempt at life;
a game of hide and seek with my being.
But I was made of nows,
and my feet level on the promissory earth
would not accept walking backwards
and went forward, forward,
mocking the ashes to reach the kiss
of new paths.
At each advancing step on my route forward
my back was ripped by the desperate flapping wings
of the old guard.
But the branch was unpinned forever,
and at each new whiplash my look
separated more and more and more from the distant
familiar horizons;
and my face took the expansion that came from within,
the defined expression that hinted at a feeling
of intimate liberation;
a feeling that surged
from the balance between my life
and the truth of the kiss of the new paths.
Already my course now set in the present,
I felt myself a blossom of all the soils of the earth,
of the soils without history,
of the soils without a future,
of the soil always soil without edges
of all the men and all the epochs.
And I was all in me as was life in me .. . .
I wanted to be like men wanted me to be:
an attempt at life;
a game of hide and seek with my being.
But I was made of nows;
when the heralds announced me
at the regal parade of the old guard,
the desire to follow men warped in me,
and the homage was left waiting for me.
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
Canción amarga (Bitter Song)Nada turba mi ser, pero estoy triste.
Algo lento de sombra me golpea,
aunque casi detrás de esta agonía,
he tenido en mi mano las estrellas.
Debe ser la caricia de lo inútil,
la tristeza sin fin de ser poeta,
de cantar y cantar, sin que se rompa
la tragedia sin par de la existencia.
Ser y no querer ser… esa es la divisa,
la batalla que agota toda espera,
encontrarse, ya el alma moribunda,
que en el mísero cuerpo aún quedan fuerzas.
¡Perdóname, oh amor, si no te nombro!
Fuera de tu canción soy ala seca.
La muerte y yo dormimos juntamente…
Cantarte a ti, tan sólo, me despierta.
Bitter song
Nothing troubles my being, but I am sad.
Something slow and dark strikes me,
though just behind this agony,
I have held the stars in my hand.
It must be the caress of the useless,
the unending sadness of being a poet,
of singing and singing, without breaking
the greatest tragedy of existence.
To be and not want to be … that’s the motto,
the battle that exhausts all expectation,
to find, when the soul is almost dead,
that the miserable body still has strength.
Forgive me, oh love, if I do not name you!
Apart from your song I am dry wing.
Death and I sleep together . . .
Only when I sing to you, I awake.
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
Rio Grande De Loiza (Big River of Loiza)¡Río Grande de Loíza!… Alárgate en mi espíritu
y deja que mi alma se pierda en tus riachuelos,
para buscar la fuente que te robó de niño
y en un ímpetu lo te devolvió al sendero.
Enróscate en mis labios y deja que te beba,
para sentirte mío por un breve momento,
y esconderte del mundo, y en ti mismo esconderte,
y oir voces de asombro, en la boca del viento.
Apéate un instante del lomo de la tierra,
y busca de mis ansias el íntimo secreto;
confúndeme en el vuelo de mi ave fantasía,
y déjame una rosa de agua en mis ensueños.
¡Río Grande de Loiza!.. Mi manantial, mi río,
desde que alzóse al mundo el pétalo materno;
contigo se bajaron desde las rudas cuestas
a buscar nuevos surcos, mis pálidos anhelos;
y mi niñez fue toda un poema en el río,
y un río en el poema de mis primeros sueños.
Llegó la adolescencia. Me sorprendió la vida
prendida en lo más ancho de tu viajar eterno;
y fui tuya mil veces, y en un bello romance
me despertaste el alma y me besaste el cuerpo.
¿Adónde te Ilevaste las aguas que bañaron
mis formas, en espiga del sol recién abierto?
¡Quién sabe en qué remoto país mediterráneo
alguien fauno en la playa me estará poseyendo!
¡Ouién sabe en qué aguacero de qué tierra lejana
me estaré derramando para abrir surcos nuevos;
o si acaso, cansada de morder corazones,
me estaré congelando en cristales de hielo!
¡Río Grande de Loíza! Azul, Moreno, Rojo.
Espejo azul, caído pedazo azul del cielo;
desnuda carne blanca que se te vuelve negra
cada vez que la noche se te mete en el lecho;
roja franja de sangre, cuando baja la lluvia
a torrentes su barro te vomitan los cerros.
Río hombre, pero hombre con pureza de río,
porque das tu azul alma cuando das tu azul beso.
Muy señor río mío. Río hombre. Único hombre
que ha besado en mi alma al besar en mi cuerpo.
¡Río Grande de Loiza!… Río grande. Llanto grande.
El más grande de todos nuestros llantos isleños,
si no fuera más grande el que de mi se sale
por los ojos del alma para mi esclavo pueblo.
Big River of Loiza
Rio Grande de Loiza!… Elongate yourself in my spirit
and let my soul lose itself in your rivulets,
finding the fountain that robbed you as a child
and in a crazed impulse returned you to the path.
Coil yourself upon my lips and let me drink you,
to feel you mine for a brief moment,
to hide you from the world and hide you in yourself,
to hear astonished voices in the mouth of the wind.
Dismount for a moment from the loin of the earth,
and search for the intimate secret in my desires;
confuse yourself in the flight of my bird fantasy,
and leave a rose of water in my dreams.
Rio Grande de Loiza!… My wellspring, my river
since the maternal petal lifted me to the world;
my pale desires came down in you from the craggy hills
to find new furrows;
and my childhood was all a poem in the river,
and a river in the poem of my first dreams.
Adolescence arrived. Life surprised me
pinned to the widest part of your eternal voyage;
and I was yours a thousand times, and in a beautiful romance
you awoke my soul and kissed my body.
Where did you take the waters that bathed
my body in a sun blossom recently opened?
Who knows on what remote Mediterranean shore
some faun shall be possessing me!
Who knows in what rainfall of what far land
I shall be spilling to open new furrows;
or perhaps, tired of biting hearts
I shall be freezing in icicles!
Rio Grande de Loiza!… Blue. Brown. Red.
Blue mirror, fallen piece of blue sky;
naked white flesh that turns black
each time the night enters your bed;
red stripe of blood, when the rain falls
in torrents and the hills vomit their mud.
Man river, but man with the purity of river,
because you give your blue soul when you give your blue kiss.
Most sovereign river mine. Man river. The only man
who has kissed my soul upon kissing my body.
Rio Grande de Loiza!… Great river. Great flood of tears.
The greatest of all our island’s tears
save those greater that come from the eyes
of my soul for my enslaved people.
. . . . . . . . . .
Julia de Burgos page on Amazon
. . . . . . . . . .
Skyler Isabella Gomez is a 2019 SUNY New Paltz graduate with a degree in Public Relations and a minor in Black Studies. Her passions include connecting more with her Latin roots by researching and writing about legendary Latina authors.
. . . . . . . . . .
*This post contains affiliate links. If the product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
The post 6 Poems by Julia de Burgos about Love and Identity appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
June 13, 2019
Quotes from The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1938)
For many years, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings desperately wanted to break into the literary world, she tried writing the kinds of stories she thought editors were looking for. Mostly, she racked up rejections. The Yearling, published in 1938, was the result of a radical change in her lifestyle and locale, as she immersed herself in an environment that was quite different from where she came from. Here, we’ll sample a selection of quotes from The Yearling, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ crowning literary achievement.
After moving to Florida and buying a remote and rustic orange grove in Cross Creek in the late 1920s, she began to follow the well-worn dictate to “write what you know.” She wrote about the hardscrabble life Florida’s backwoods and her characters were inspired by her neighbors — though it must be said that they regarded this interloper warily.
Finally, after years of rejection, Scribner’s Magazine published two of her short stories in 1931: “Cracker Chidlings” and “Jacob’s Ladder.” A series of modest successes preceded her writing of The Yearling, with her editor, the famed Max Perkins, encouraging her to continue writing from her life.
The Yearling tells the story of 12-year-old Jody Baxter, who is forced to shoot his pet fawn after it’s caught eating his family’s much-needed food crops. The book became an instant bestseller, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1939. Before we get to the quotes, here’s a brief review of the book that appeared in 1938, the year it was published.
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
A brief 1938 review of The YearlingFrom the original review of The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in the Cincinnati Enquirer, April 7, 1938: In that wild, swampy, near-jungle country that is inland Florida, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings has set another enchanting story. Palmettos, sweet gums, magnolias, cypress, and Spanish moss, form the backdrop for the activities of bears, deer, wolves, alligators, panthers, raccoons, rattlesnakes, and an occasional human being.
The Baxters — Ma, Pa, and their son Jody, age 12, live not far from the sea. Their little clearing in the scrub country is known as Baxter’s Island; in the surrounding terrain wild animals abound The year which the story is encompassed is crammed with conflict, tragedy, beauty, and drama.
The land reluctantly yields a subsistence of corn, cane, cowpeas, and garden goods; the fires more readily supplies venison, bear steaks, and squirrel for the table. A horse, a cow, and a brood sow are invaluable in the struggle for a living, but hey must at all times be protected from the raids of hungry wolves and meddlesome bears.
It is around Jody and his pet fawn that the story centers. Today is a kind of Huck Finn, with the woods for a river, and his father, Penny Baxter, for a kind of Jim. Penny shields both his son and the fawn from the deserved wrath of Ma Baxter. Besides these three and their bearded, lawless neighbors the Forresters, there are incidents which will linger long in the reader’s memory.
Despite the grace and clarity of the style and simplicity of the story itself, this is a generously written book into which the author has poured a wealth of emotion and understanding as well as the results of keep and sympathetic observation.
Quotes from The Yearling
“He lay down beside the fawn. He put one arm across its neck. It did not seem to him that he could ever be lonely again.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“You kin tame anything, son, excusin’ the human tongue.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“The wild animals seemed less predatory to him than people he had known.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“She drew gallantry from men as the sun drew water. Her pertness enchanted them. Young men went away from her with a feeling of bravado. Old men were enslaved by her silver curls. Something about her was forever female and made all men virile.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“Now he understood. This was death. Death was a silence that gave back no answer.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“Eulalie in a remote fashion belonged to him, Jody, to do with as he pleased, if only to throw potatoes at her.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“All of us is somehow lonesome.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“He lay down on his pallet and drew the fawn down beside him. He often lay so with it in the shed, or under the live oaks in the heat of the day. He lay with his head against its side. its ribs lifted and fell with its breathing. It rested its chin on his hand. It had a few short hairs there that prickled him. He had been cudgeling his wits for an excuse to bring the fawn inside at night to sleep with him, and now he had one that could not be disputed. He would smuggle it in and out as long as possible, in the name of peace.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“He had perhaps been bruised too often. The peace of the vast aloof scrub had drawn him with the beneficence of its silence. Something in him was raw and tender. The touch of men was hurtful upon it, but the touch of pines was healing.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“A mark was on him from the day’s delight, so that all his life, when April was a thin green and the flavor of rain was on his tongue, an old wound would throb and a nostalgia would fill him for something he could not quite remember.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“Ever’ man wants life to be a fine thing, and easy. ‘Tis fine, boy, powerful fine, but ‘taint easy.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“He was addled with April. He was dizzy with Spring. He was as drunk as Lem Forrester on a Saturday night.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“The sunrise brought a wild, free sadness; the sunset, a lonely yet a comforting one. He indulged his agreeable melancholy until the earth under him turned from gray to lavender and then to the color dried corn husks.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“Don’t go gittin’ faintified on me.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“Life knocks a man down and he gits up and it knocks him down agin”
. . . . . . . . . .
“‘Move close, son. I’ll warm you.’ He edged closer to his father’s bones and sinews. Penny slipped an arm around him and he lay close against the lank thigh. His father was the core of safety. His father swam the swift creek to fetch back his wounded dog. The clearing was safe, and his father fought for it, and for his own.”
. . . . . . . . . .
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings on Amazon
. . . . . . . . . .
*This post contains affiliate links. If the product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
The post Quotes from The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1938) appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
June 12, 2019
The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin (1894) – full text
“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin (1850 – 1904) is a short story that was originally published on December 6, 1894 in Vogue magazine under the title “The Dream of an Hour.” This story, which appeared in St. Louis Life the following year as “The Story of an Hour,” has been much anthologized and is still studied. Like Chopin’s best-known work, the 1899 novella The Awakening, this story was controversial when it first appeared.
The story’s main character, Louise Mallard, who has a weak heart, learns that her husband has died in an accident. The hour referred to in the title is the time that elapses after she receives this news. At first, Louise collapses into her sister’s arms, but then, when she is alone with her thoughts, she whispers, “Free! Body and soul free!” Rather than feeling devastated, she feels quite liberated.
Louise’s honest reaction to her husband’s purported death allows the reader to see this dark side of her. It is her escape route from an unhappy marriage. But Louise has a weak heart, and her husband did not actually die in an accident. What happens when he walks in the door after this hour of contemplating freedom? To reveal more would be to give away a major spoiler. Literary critic Emily Toth put the story in context:
“In the mid- to late 1890s, Vogue was the place where Chopin published her most daring and surprising stories [‘The Story of an Hour’ and eighteen others]. . . . Because she had Vogue as a market—and a well-paying one—Kate Chopin wrote the critical, ironic, brilliant stories about women for which she is known today. Alone among magazines of the 1890s, Vogue published fearless and truthful portrayals of women’s lives.”
So without going into any more detail about this brief classic story, once you read it, you’ll find links to analyses of it at the end of this post.
. . . . . . . . . .
You may also enjoy:
The Awakening (1899) – full text
. . . . . . . . . .
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of “killed.” He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.
. . . . . . . . . .
See also: Desirée’s Baby (1893) by Kate Chopin – full text
. . . . . . . . . .
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will — as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under the breath: “free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him — sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
“Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for admission. “Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door — you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.”
“Go away. I am not making myself ill.” No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister’s importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister’s waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine’s piercing cry; at Richards’ quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease — of the joy that kills.
. . . . . . . . . .
More about “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin Analysis of “The Story of an Hour” on ThoughtCo. Kate Chopin Official Website WikipediaThe post The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin (1894) – full text appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
June 5, 2019
Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Cecile Rich (May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) known professionally as Adrienne Rich, was an American poet and essayist known for her radical feminism and activism.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, she was raised in a family that included a younger sister. Her father who worked as a pathologist at John Hopkins, and her mother was a classical concert pianist. It was her father who first encouraged her literary leanings.
After graduating from Roland Park Country School, Rich attended Radcliffe College (the former women’s college of Harvard University), from which she graduated in 1951. Right before she graduated, Rich received the Yale Series of Younger Poets award for her first collection of poetry, A Change of World. The esteemed poet W.H. Auden selected Rich for the prestigious prize.
The development of a poetTwo years after she received her diploma from Radcliffe College, Rich married Alfred H. Conrad, an economist at Harvard. Two years later, she published a collection of poems called The Diamond Cutters. In the next few years, Rich became busy with not only her writing career but with motherhood, having three children in the next six years.
It was during this time that Rich’s poetry became darker, exploring topics like racism, sexism, and the Vietnam War. She also published the poetry collections Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law in 1963, as well as Leaflets in 1969. In these collections, Rich’s poetic style went from carefully metered poems to free verse. While her literary star was rising by leaps and bounds, she left her husband in 1970. Later that year, Alfred Conrad took his own life.
Early on in her career, The Penguin Companion to American Literature (1971) noted the evolution of her poetry:
“Her early verse is marked by a delicacy of insight, but her precocious talent has deepened and darkened in recent years. Her themes are those of personal and family relationships, and the nature of subjective life. The poems in Necessities of Life (1966) have an extraordinary brevity and compassion of feeling.”
A more radical shift took hold in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as noted by Sarah Wyman in her analysis of Dream of a Common Language: Poems 1974 – 1977:
“These poems, about and for women, envision an alternative to a patriarchal system in which men control the avenues of power and the definitions of female existence … At this point in Rich’s evolving process — separatist, radical feminist — she reserves dialogue for the shared experience of women. Although they may remain only dreams, such creative acts can bring forth new realities in the face of a damaging, male-dominated culture where women are not full participants.”
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
Political ActivismWhen Rich and her family moved to New York in the late 1960s, the poet became involved in activist causes such as racism, feminism, and the anti-war movement. Rich even signed a pledge that stated that she would not pay her taxes in order to protest the Vietnam War.
In the late 1960s, Rich gave lectures at Swarthmore College as well as the Columbia University School of the Arts. In the early 1970s, Rich was awarded the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Award. She also spent some time teaching at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.
In 1974, Rich received the National Book Award for Diving Into the Wreck, an honor she shared with Allen Ginsberg. Rich decided to share her award with the two other feminist poets nominated, Audre Lorde and Alice Walker. In her acceptance speech, Rich accepted the National Book Award for the women who go “unheard” in a patriarchal world that often works hard to dismiss them.
Rich started a relationship with the Caribbean-born writer Michelle Cliff in 1974. This relationship lasted until Rich’s death in 2012. For the remainder of her career, Rich wrote about lesbian sexuality and desire in a frank and direct manner.
With collections such as Twenty One Love Poems, Dream of a Common Language, and A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far, Rich cemented her reputation as a poet who broke new ground in exploring the sexual attitudes of women.
. . . . . . . .
Adrienne Rich page on Amazon
. . . . . . . . .
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Rich continued to gain accolades for her teaching, poetry, and activism. Rich refused the honor of the National Medal of Arts in 1997. In her official notice of refusal, she stated that she was protesting Congress’ move to shut down the National Endowment of the Arts, as well as the Clinton administration’s unfriendly moves towards the arts community in general.
From the late 1990s until her death in 2012, Rich continued to publish a mixture of poetry and nonfiction. Some of the work that came from this period include these volumes: Midnight Salvage: Poems 1995 – 1998; Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations (1991); and Fox: Poems 1998 – 2000.
As she grew older, Rich’s political activism didn’t slow down. In the 2000s, she participated in protests of the impending Iraq War. She also got appointed to the board of the Academy of American Poets in 2002. A year later, She got another literary award from Yale University, this one being the Yale Bollingen Prize for American Poetry. During this same time period, the Equality Forum honored her for her work in the LGBTQIA+ activist movement, calling Rich an “icon”.
On March 27, 2012, the esteemed poet Adrienne Rich died at her Santa Cruz home. Rich was survived by her three children from her first marriage, two grandchildren, and her life partner Michelle Cliff.
. . . . . . . . . .
An analysis of Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich
. . . . . . . . . .
Rich is remembered and respected not only for her blistering poetry but for her impassioned activist activities. She was also fervently dedicated to the social justice issues of her time. She had a unique ability to blend the arts with a need to teach future generations of women and artists how to navigate a world that will often be hostile to them. Many modern poets have taken up these battles through poetry and activism. Rich was an important trailblazer for these literary activists.
Adrienne Rich’s poetry has earned her a well-deserved place in the genre, but it must be noted that she was also a fiercely articulate essayist. Her output, though not as prodigious as that of her poetry, was impressive. Of Woman Born (1976), for instance, is a collection that is a second-wave feminist classic. In a 2018 Paris Review essay, The Treasures That Prevail: On the Prose of Adrienne Rich, Sandra M. Gilbert wrote:
“To reread and rethink Rich’s prose as a complete oeuvre is to encounter a major public intellectual—responsible, self-questioning, and morally passionate. For those of us who came of age during feminism’s fabled second wave in the seventies, texts like “When We Dead Awaken” and “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” were key proclamations of ideas that we desperately needed to guide us on our way. Equally important to us was the powerful blend of research, theory, and self-reflection that she produced in her landmark study Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution.”
This essay, well worth reading for admirers of Adrienne Rich, sums up the poet’s legacy beautifully.
More about Adrienne RichOn this site
The Dream of a Common Language, an analysisPoetry Collections (Selected)
A Change of World (1951)The Diamond Cutters, and Other Poems (1955)Necessities of life: Poems, 1962-1965 (1966)Leaflets (1969)The Will to Change: Poems 1968-1970 (1971)Diving into the Wreck (1973)Twenty-one Love Poems (1976)The Dream of a Common Language: Poems 1974 – 1977) (1978)A Wild Patience Has Taken Me this Far: Poems 1978-1981 (1982)The Fact of a Doorframe: Poems Selected and New, 1950-1984 (1984)Time’s Power: Poems, 1985-1988 (1989)An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems 1988-1991 (1991)Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems, 1991-1995 (1995)Midnight Salvage: Poems, 1995-1998. (1999)Fox: Poems 1998-2000. (2001)The School Among the Ruins: Poems, 2000-2004 (2004)Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth: Poems 2004–2007 (2007)Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010 (2010)Essays and Prose (Selected)
Of Woman Born: Motherhood As Experience And Institution (1976)On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966 – 1978 (1979)Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose, 1979–1985 (1986)What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (1993)Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations (1991)A Human Eye: Essays on Art in Society, 1997–2008 (2009)Essential Essays: Culture, Politics, and the Art of Poetry (2018)Critical studies and biographies
Cooper, Jane Roberta, ed. 1984. Reading Adrienne Rich: Reviews and Re-Visions, 1951-81. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Gelpi, Barbara Charlesworth and Albert Gelpi, eds. 1993. Adrienne Rich’s Poetry and Prose: Poems, Prose, Reviews and Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton.Keyes, Claire. 1986. The Aesthetics of Power: The Poetry of Adrienne Rich. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.Langdell, Cheri Colby. 2004.Adrienne Rich: The Moment of Change. Westport, CT: Praeger.Martin, Wendy. 1984. An American Triptych: Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, Adrienne Rich. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Nelson, Cary. 1981. “Meditative Aggressions: Adrienne Rich’s Recent Transactions with History.” In Our Last First Poets: Vision and History in Contemporary American Poetry. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.More information and sources
Wikipedia Poetry Foundation Adrienne Rich: Feminist and Political Poet Academy of Poets The Treasures That Prevail: On the Prose of Adrienne Rich. . . . . . . . . .
*This post contains affiliate links. If the product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
The post Adrienne Rich appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
June 4, 2019
A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell (1917) – full text
A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell (1876 – 1948), a 1917 short story, is arguably this American author’s most enduring work. Certainly, it’s one of her most anthologized. It grew from her 1916 one-act play, Trifles (you can also read the full text of Trifles here), also a widely anthologized work.
Both Trifles and A Jury of Her Peers were inspired by a true crime story that Glaspell covered as a reporter for theDes Moines Daily News in 1900. The murder of John Hossack, a 59-year-old Iowa farmer, was a local sensation because the suspect was his wife Margaret. Because it was suspected that Mrs. Hossack was abused by her husband, it was also assumed that she had motive, and so she was arrested and charged.
Margaret Hossack claimed that John had been murdered with an axe by an intruder. She was found guilty, but on an appeal, the verdict was later overturned. Here is a fascinating reprint of Glaspell’s coverage of the actual case.
Soon after reporting on this story, Glaspell quit journalism to write fiction, and some years later, the incident came back to her mind. She quickly wrote Trifles, and a year later, turned it into this short story. Both are based loosely on the Hossack case and both are considered feminist works because the leading female characters gain an understanding of the case that eludes the men in the story.
The story had an impact beyond the page. It was adapted into an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in the 1950s, and in 1980, it was made into an Academy Award-nominated short film by Sally Heckel, which you can watch here. Here is the full text of A Jury of Her Peers:
A Jury of Her Peers by Susan GlaspellWhen Martha Hale opened the storm-door and got a cut of the north wind, she ran back for her big woolen scarf. As she hurriedly wound that round her head her eye made a scandalized sweep of her kitchen. It was no ordinary thing that called her away—it was probably farther from ordinary than anything that had ever happened in Dickson County. But what her eye took in was that her kitchen was in no shape for leaving: her bread all ready for mixing, half the flour sifted and half unsifted.
She hated to see things half done; but she had been at that when the team from town stopped to get Mr. Hale, and then the sheriff came running in to say his wife wished Mrs. Hale would come too—adding, with a grin, that he guessed she was getting scary and wanted another woman along. So she had dropped everything right where it was.
“Martha!” now came her husband’s impatient voice. “Don’t keep folks waiting out here in the cold.”
She again opened the storm-door, and this time joined the three men and the one woman waiting for her in the big two-seated buggy.
After she had the robes tucked around her she took another look at the woman who sat beside her on the back seat. She had met Mrs. Peters the year before at the county fair, and the thing she remembered about her was that she didn’t seem like a sheriff’s wife. She was small and thin and didn’t have a strong voice.
Mrs. Gorman, sheriff’s wife before Gorman went out and Peters came in, had a voice that somehow seemed to be backing up the law with every word. But if Mrs. Peters didn’t look like a sheriff’s wife, Peters made it up in looking like a sheriff. He was to a dot the kind of man who could get himself elected sheriff—a heavy man with a big voice, who was particularly genial with the law-abiding, as if to make it plain that he knew the difference between criminals and non-criminals. And right there it came into Mrs. Hale’s mind, with a stab, that this man who was so pleasant and lively with all of them was going to the Wrights’ now as a sheriff.
“The country’s not very pleasant this time of year,” Mrs. Peters at last ventured, as if she felt they ought to be talking as well as the men.
Mrs. Hale scarcely finished her reply, for they had gone up a little hill and could see the Wright place now, and seeing it did not make her feel like talking. It looked very lonesome this cold March morning. It had always been a lonesome-looking place. It was down in a hollow, and the poplar trees around it were lonesome-looking trees. The men were looking at it and talking about what had happened. The county attorney was bending to one side of the buggy, and kept looking steadily at the place as they drew up to it.
“I’m glad you came with me,” Mrs. Peters said nervously, as the two women were about to follow the men in through the kitchen door.
Even after she had her foot on the door-step, her hand on the knob, Martha Hale had a moment of feeling she could not cross that threshold. And the reason it seemed she couldn’t cross it now was simply because she hadn’t crossed it before. Time and time again it had been in her mind, “I ought to go over and see Minnie Foster”—she still thought of her as Minnie Foster, though for twenty years she had been Mrs. Wright. And then there was always something to do and Minnie Foster would go from her mind. But now she could come.
The men went over to the stove. The women stood close together by the door. Young Henderson, the county attorney, turned around and said, “Come up to the fire, ladies.”
Mrs. Peters took a step forward, then stopped. “I’m not—cold,” she said.
And so the two women stood by the door, at first not even so much as looking around the kitchen.
The men talked for a minute about what a good thing it was the sheriff had sent his deputy out that morning to make a fire for them, and then Sheriff Peters stepped back from the stove, unbuttoned his outer coat, and leaned his hands on the kitchen table in a way that seemed to mark the beginning of official business. “Now, Mr. Hale,” he said in a sort of semi-official voice, “before we move things about, you tell Mr. Henderson just what it was you saw when you came here yesterday morning.”
The county attorney was looking around the kitchen.
“By the way,” he said, “has anything been moved?” He turned to the sheriff. “Are things just as you left them yesterday?”
Peters looked from cupboard to sink; from that to a small worn rocker a little to one side of the kitchen table.
“It’s just the same.”
. . . . . . . . . .
Scene from the 1980 film version of A Jury of Her Peers
by Susan Glaspell, directed by Sally Heckel
. . . . . . . . . .
“Somebody should have been left here yesterday,” said the county attorney.
“Oh—yesterday,” returned the sheriff, with a little gesture as of yesterday having been more than he could bear to think of. “When I had to send Frank to Morris Center for that man who went crazy—let me tell you, I had my hands full yesterday. I knew you could get back from Omaha by to-day, George, and as long as I went over everything here myself—”
“Well, Mr. Hale,” said the county attorney, in a way of letting what was past and gone go, “tell just what happened when you came here yesterday morning.”
Mrs. Hale, still leaning against the door, had that sinking feeling of the mother whose child is about to speak a piece. Lewis often wandered along and got things mixed up in a story. She hoped he would tell this straight and plain, and not say unnecessary things that would just make things harder for Minnie Foster. He didn’t begin at once, and she noticed that he looked queer—as if standing in that kitchen and having to tell what he had seen there yesterday morning made him almost sick.
“Yes, Mr. Hale?” the county attorney reminded.
“Harry and I had started to town with a load of potatoes,” Mrs. Hale’s husband began.
Harry was Mrs. Hale’s oldest boy. He wasn’t with them now, for the very good reason that those potatoes never got to town yesterday and he was taking them this morning, so he hadn’t been home when the sheriff stopped to say he wanted Mr. Hale to come over to the Wright place and tell the county attorney his story there, where he could point it all out. With all Mrs. Hale’s other emotions came the fear now that maybe Harry wasn’t dressed warm enough—they hadn’t any of them realized how that north wind did bite.
“We come along this road,” Hale was going on, with a motion of his hand to the road over which they had just come, “and as we got in sight of the house I says to Harry, ‘I’m goin’ to see if I can’t get John Wright to take a telephone.’ You see,” he explained to Henderson, “unless I can get somebody to go in with me they won’t come out this branch road except for a price I can’t pay. I’d spoke to Wright about it once before; but he put me off, saying folks talked too much anyway, and all he asked was peace and quiet—guess you know about how much he talked himself. But I thought maybe if I went to the house and talked about it before his wife, and said all the women-folks liked the telephones, and that in this lonesome stretch of road it would be a good thing—well, I said to Harry that that was what I was going to say—though I said at the same time that I didn’t know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John—”
Now, there he was!—saying things he didn’t need to say. Mrs. Hale tried to catch her husband’s eye, but fortunately the county attorney interrupted with:
“Let’s talk about that a little later, Mr. Hale. I do want to talk about that, but I’m anxious now to get along to just what happened when you got here.”
When he began this time, it was very deliberately and carefully:
“I didn’t see or hear anything. I knocked at the door. And still it was all quiet inside. I knew they must be up—it was past eight o’clock. So I knocked again, louder, and I thought I heard somebody say, ‘Come in.’ I wasn’t sure—I’m not sure yet. But I opened the door—this door,” jerking a hand toward the door by which the two women stood, “and there, in that rocker”—pointing to it—”sat Mrs. Wright.”
Every one in the kitchen looked at the rocker. It came into Mrs. Hale’s mind that that rocker didn’t look in the least like Minnie Foster—the Minnie Foster of twenty years before. It was a dingy red, with wooden rungs up the back, and the middle rung was gone, and the chair sagged to one side.
“How did she—look?” the county attorney was inquiring.
“Well,” said Hale, “she looked—queer.”
“How do you mean—queer?”
As he asked it he took out a note-book and pencil. Mrs. Hale did not like the sight of that pencil. She kept her eye fixed on her husband, as if to keep him from saying unnecessary things that would go into that note-book and make trouble.
Hale did speak guardedly, as if the pencil had affected him too.
“Well, as if she didn’t know what she was going to do next. And kind of—done up.”
“How did she seem to feel about your coming?”
“Why, I don’t think she minded—one way or other. She didn’t pay much attention. I said, ‘Ho’ do, Mrs. Wright? It’s cold, ain’t it?’ And she said, ‘Is it?’—and went on pleatin’ at her apron.
“Well, I was surprised. She didn’t ask me to come up to the stove, or to sit down, but just set there, not even lookin’ at me. And so I said: ‘I want to see John.’
“And then she—laughed. I guess you would call it a laugh.
“I thought of Harry and the team outside, so I said, a little sharp, ‘Can I see John?’ ‘No,’ says she—kind of dull like. ‘Ain’t he home?’ says I. Then she looked at me. ‘Yes,’ says she, ‘he’s home.’ ‘Then why can’t I see him?’ I asked her, out of patience with her now. ”Cause he’s dead,’ says she, just as quiet and dull—and fell to pleatin’ her apron. ‘Dead?’ says I, like you do when you can’t take in what you’ve heard.
“She just nodded her head, not getting a bit excited, but rockin’ back and forth.
“‘Why—where is he?’ says I, not knowing what to say.
“She just pointed upstairs—like this”—pointing to the room above.
“I got up, with the idea of going up there myself. By this time I—didn’t know what to do. I walked from there to here; then I says: ‘Why, what did he die of?’
“‘He died of a rope round his neck,’ says she; and just went on pleatin’ at her apron.”
Hale stopped speaking, and stood staring at the rocker, as if he were still seeing the woman who had sat there the morning before. Nobody spoke; it was as if every one were seeing the woman who had sat there the morning before.
“And what did you do then?” the county attorney at last broke the silence.
“I went out and called Harry. I thought I might—need help. I got Harry in, and we went upstairs.” His voice fell almost to a whisper. “There he was—lying over the—”
“I think I’d rather have you go into that upstairs,” the county attorney interrupted, “where you can point it all out. Just go on now with the rest of the story.”
“Well, my first thought was to get that rope off. It looked—”
He stopped, his face twitching.
“But Harry, he went up to him, and he said, ‘No, he’s dead all right, and we’d better not touch anything.’ So we went downstairs.
“She was still sitting that same way. ‘Has anybody been notified?’ I asked. ‘No,’ says she, unconcerned.
“‘Who did this, Mrs. Wright?’ said Harry. He said it businesslike, and she stopped pleatin’ at her apron. ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘You don’t know?’ says Harry. ‘Weren’t you sleepin’ in the bed with him?’ ‘Yes,’ says she, ‘but I was on the inside.’ ‘Somebody slipped a rope round his neck and strangled him, and you didn’t wake up?’ says Harry. ‘I didn’t wake up,’ she said after him.
“We may have looked as if we didn’t see how that could be, for after a minute she said, ‘I sleep sound.’
“Harry was going to ask her more questions, but I said maybe that weren’t our business; maybe we ought to let her tell her story first to the coroner or the sheriff. So Harry went fast as he could over to High Road—the Rivers’ place, where there’s a telephone.”
“And what did she do when she knew you had gone for the coroner?” The attorney got his pencil in his hand all ready for writing.
“She moved from that chair to this one over here”—Hale pointed to a small chair in the corner—”and just sat there with her hands held together and looking down. I got a feeling that I ought to make some conversation, so I said I had come in to see if John wanted to put in a telephone; and at that she started to laugh, and then she stopped and looked at me—scared.”
At sound of a moving pencil the man who was telling the story looked up.
“I dunno—maybe it wasn’t scared,” he hastened; “I wouldn’t like to say it was. Soon Harry got back, and then Dr. Lloyd came, and you, Mr. Peters, and so I guess that’s all I know that you don’t.”
He said that last with relief, and moved a little, as if relaxing. Every one moved a little. The county attorney walked toward the stair door.
“I guess we’ll go upstairs first—then out to the barn and around there.”
He paused and looked around the kitchen.
“You’re convinced there was nothing important here?” he asked the sheriff. “Nothing that would—point to any motive?”
The sheriff too looked all around, as if to re-convince himself.
“Nothing here but kitchen things,” he said, with a little laugh for the insignificance of kitchen things.
The county attorney was looking at the cupboard—a peculiar, ungainly structure, half closet and half cupboard, the upper part of it being built in the wall, and the lower part just the old-fashioned kitchen cupboard. As if its queerness attracted him, he got a chair and opened the upper part and looked in. After a moment he drew his hand away sticky.
“Here’s a nice mess,” he said resentfully.
The two women had drawn nearer, and now the sheriff’s wife spoke.
“Oh—her fruit,” she said, looking to Mrs. Hale for sympathetic understanding. She turned back to the county attorney and explained: “She worried about that when it turned so cold last night. She said the fire would go out and her jars might burst.”
Mrs. Peters’ husband broke into a laugh.
“Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worrying about her preserves!”
The young attorney set his lips.
“I guess before we’re through with her she may have something more serious than preserves to worry about.”
“Oh, well,” said Mrs. Hale’s husband, with good-natured superiority, “women are used to worrying over trifles.”
The two women moved a little closer together. Neither of them spoke. The county attorney seemed suddenly to remember his manners—and think of his future.
“And yet,” said he, with the gallantry of a young politician, “for all their worries, what would we do without the ladies?”
The women did not speak, did not unbend. He went to the sink and began washing his hands. He turned to wipe them on the roller towel—whirled it for a cleaner place.
“Dirty towels! Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?”
He kicked his foot against some dirty pans under the sink.
“There’s a great deal of work to be done on a farm,” said Mrs. Hale stiffly.
“To be sure. And yet”—with a little bow to her—”I know there are some Dickson County farm-houses that do not have such roller towels.” He gave it a pull to expose its full length again.
“Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men’s hands aren’t always as clean as they might be.”
“Ah, loyal to your sex, I see,” he laughed. He stopped and gave her a keen look. “But you and Mrs. Wright were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too.”
Martha Hale shook her head.
“I’ve seen little enough of her of late years. I’ve not been in this house—it’s more than a year.”
“And why was that? You didn’t like her?”
“I liked her well enough,” she replied with spirit. “Farmers’ wives have their hands full, Mr. Henderson. And then—” She looked around the kitchen.
“Yes?” he encouraged.
“It never seemed a very cheerful place,” said she, more to herself than to him.
“No,” he agreed; “I don’t think any one would call it cheerful. I shouldn’t say she had the home-making instinct.”
“Well, I don’t know as Wright had, either,” she muttered.
“You mean they didn’t get on very well?” he was quick to ask.
“No; I don’t mean anything,” she answered, with decision. As she turned a little away from him, she added: “But I don’t think a place would be any the cheerfuller for John Wright’s bein’ in it.”
“I’d like to talk to you about that a little later, Mrs. Hale,” he said. “I’m anxious to get the lay of things upstairs now.”
He moved toward the stair door, followed by the two men.
“I suppose anything Mrs. Peters does’ll be all right?” the sheriff inquired. “She was to take in some clothes for her, you know—and a few little things. We left in such a hurry yesterday.”
The county attorney looked at the two women whom they were leaving alone there among the kitchen things.
“Yes—Mrs. Peters,” he said, his glance resting on the woman who was not Mrs. Peters, the big farmer woman who stood behind the sheriff’s wife. “Of course Mrs. Peters is one of us,” he said, in a manner of entrusting responsibility. “And keep your eye out Mrs. Peters, for anything that might be of use. No telling; you women might come upon a clue to the motive—and that’s the thing we need.”
Mr. Hale rubbed his face after the fashion of a show man getting ready for a pleasantry.
“But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?” he said; and, having delivered himself of this, he followed the others through the stair door.
The women stood motionless and silent, listening to the footsteps, first upon the stairs, then in the room above them.
Then, as if releasing herself from something strange, Mrs. Hale began to arrange the dirty pans under the sink, which the county attorney’s disdainful push of the foot had deranged.
“I’d hate to have men comin’ into my kitchen,” she said testily—”snoopin’ round and criticizin’.”
“Of course it’s no more than their duty,” said the sheriff’s wife, in her manner of timid acquiescence.
“Duty’s all right,” replied Mrs. Hale bluffly; “but I guess that deputy sheriff that come out to make the fire might have got a little of this on.” She gave the roller towel a pull. “Wish I’d thought of that sooner! Seems mean to talk about her for not having things slicked up, when she had to come away in such a hurry.”
She looked around the kitchen. Certainly it was not “slicked up.” Her eye was held by a bucket of sugar on a low shelf. The cover was off the wooden bucket, and beside it was a paper bag—half full.
Mrs. Hale moved toward it.
“She was putting this in there,” she said to herself—slowly.
She thought of the flour in her kitchen at home—half sifted, half not sifted. She had been interrupted, and had left things half done. What had interrupted Minnie Foster? Why had that work been left half done? She made a move as if to finish it,—unfinished things always bothered her,—and then she glanced around and saw that Mrs. Peters was watching her—and she didn’t want Mrs. Peters to get that feeling she had got of work begun and then—for some reason—not finished.
“It’s a shame about her fruit,” she said, and walked toward the cupboard that the county attorney had opened, and got on the chair, murmuring: “I wonder if it’s all gone.”
It was a sorry enough looking sight, but “Here’s one that’s all right,” she said at last. She held it toward the light. “This is cherries, too.” She looked again. “I declare I believe that’s the only one.”
With a sigh, she got down from the chair, went to the sink, and wiped off the bottle.
“She’ll feel awful bad, after all her hard work in the hot weather. I remember the afternoon I put up my cherries last summer.”
She set the bottle on the table, and, with another sigh, started to sit down in the rocker. But she did not sit down. Something kept her from sitting down in that chair. She straightened—stepped back, and, half turned away, stood looking at it, seeing the woman who had sat there “pleatin’ at her apron.”
The thin voice of the sheriff’s wife broke in upon her: “I must be getting those things from the front room closet.” She opened the door into the other room, started in, stepped back. “You coming with me, Mrs. Hale?” she asked nervously. “You—you could help me get them.”
They were soon back—the stark coldness of that shut-up room was not a thing to linger in.
“My!” said Mrs. Peters, dropping the things on the table and hurrying to the stove.
“Wright was close!” she exclaimed, holding up a shabby black skirt that bore the marks of much making over. “I think maybe that’s why she kept so much to herself. I s’pose she felt she couldn’t do her part; and then, you don’t enjoy things when you feel shabby. She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively—when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls, singing in the choir. But that—oh, that was twenty years ago.”
With a carefulness in which there was something tender, she folded the shabby clothes and piled them at one corner of the table. She looked up at Mrs. Peters and there was something in the other woman’s look that irritated her.
“She don’t care,” she said to herself. “Much difference it makes to her whether Minnie Foster had pretty clothes when she was a girl.”
Then she looked again, and she wasn’t so sure; in fact, she hadn’t at any time been perfectly sure about Mrs. Peters. She had that shrinking manner, and yet her eyes looked as if they could see a long way into things.
“This all you was to take in?” asked Mrs. Hale.
“No,” said the sheriff’s wife; “she said she wanted an apron. Funny thing to want,” she ventured in her nervous little way, “for there’s not much to get you dirty in jail, goodness knows. But I suppose just to make her feel more natural. If you’re used to wearing an apron—. She said they were in the bottom drawer of this cupboard. Yes—here they are. And then her little shawl that always hung on the stair door.”
She took the small gray shawl from behind the door leading upstairs, and stood a minute looking at it.
Suddenly Mrs. Hale took a quick step toward the other woman.
“Mrs. Peters!”
“Yes, Mrs. Hale?”
“Do you think she—did it?”
A frightened look blurred the other thing in Mrs. Peters’ eyes.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, in a voice that seemed to shrink away from the subject.
“Well, I don’t think she did,” affirmed Mrs. Hale stoutly. “Asking for an apron, and her little shawl. Worryin’ about her fruit.”
“Mr. Peters says—.” Footsteps were heard in the room above; she stopped, looked up, then went on in a lowered voice: “Mr. Peters says—it looks bad for her. Mr. Henderson is awful sarcastic in a speech, and he’s going to make fun of her saying she didn’t—wake up.”
For a moment Mrs. Hale had no answer. Then, “Well, I guess John Wright didn’t wake up—when they was slippin’ that rope under his neck,” she muttered.
“No, it’sstrange,” breathed Mrs. Peters. “They think it was such a—funny way to kill a man.”
She began to laugh; at sound of the laugh, abruptly stopped.
“That’s just what Mr. Hale said,” said Mrs. Hale, in a resolutely natural voice. “There was a gun in the house. He says that’s what he can’t understand.”
“Mr. Henderson said, coming out, that what was needed for the case was a motive. Something to show anger—or sudden feeling.”
“Well, I don’t see any signs of anger around here,” said Mrs. Hale. “I don’t—”
She stopped. It was as if her mind tripped on something. Her eye was caught by a dish-towel in the middle of the kitchen table. Slowly she moved toward the table. One half of it was wiped clean, the other half messy. Her eyes made a slow, almost unwilling turn to the bucket of sugar and the half empty bag beside it. Things begun—and not finished.
After a moment she stepped back, and said, in that manner of releasing herself:
“Wonder how they’re finding things upstairs? I hope she had it a little more red up up there. You know,”—she paused, and feeling gathered,—”it seems kind ofsneaking: locking her up in town and coming out here to get her own house to turn against her!”
“But, Mrs. Hale,” said the sheriff’s wife, “the law is the law.”
“I s’pose ’tis,” answered Mrs. Hale shortly.
She turned to the stove, saying something about that fire not being much to brag of. She worked with it a minute, and when she straightened up she said aggressively:
“The law is the law—and a bad stove is a bad stove. How’d you like to cook on this?”—pointing with the poker to the broken lining. She opened the oven door and started to express her opinion of the oven; but she was swept into her own thoughts, thinking of what it would mean, year after year, to have that stove to wrestle with. The thought of Minnie Foster trying to bake in that oven—and the thought of her never going over to see Minnie Foster—.
She was startled by hearing Mrs. Peters say: “A person gets discouraged—and loses heart.”
The sheriff’s wife had looked from the stove to the sink—to the pail of water which had been carried in from outside. The two women stood there silent, above them the footsteps of the men who were looking for evidence against the woman who had worked in that kitchen. That look of seeing into things, of seeing through a thing to something else, was in the eyes of the sheriff’s wife now. When Mrs. Hale next spoke to her, it was gently:
“Better loosen up your things, Mrs. Peters. We’ll not feel them when we go out.”
Mrs. Peters went to the back of the room to hang up the fur tippet she was wearing. A moment later she exclaimed, “Why, she was piecing a quilt,” and held up a large sewing basket piled high with quilt pieces.
Mrs. Hale spread some of the blocks out on the table.
“It’s log-cabin pattern,” she said, putting several of them together. “Pretty, isn’t it?”
They were so engaged with the quilt that they did not hear the footsteps on the stairs. Just as the stair door opened Mrs. Hale was saying:
“Do you suppose she was going to quilt it or just knot it?”
The sheriff threw up his hands.
“They wonder whether she was going to quilt it or just knot it!”
There was a laugh for the ways of women, a warming of hands over the stove, and then the county attorney said briskly:
“Well, let’s go right out to the barn and get that cleared up.”
“I don’t see as there’s anything so strange,” Mrs. Hale said resentfully, after the outside door had closed on the three men—”our taking up our time with little things while we’re waiting for them to get the evidence. I don’t see as it’s anything to laugh about.”
“Of course they’ve got awful important things on their minds,” said the sheriff’s wife apologetically.
They returned to an inspection of the block for the quilt. Mrs. Hale was looking at the fine, even sewing, and preoccupied with thoughts of the woman who had done that sewing, when she heard the sheriff’s wife say, in a queer tone:
“Why, look at this one.”
She turned to take the block held out to her.
“The sewing,” said Mrs. Peters, in a troubled way. “All the rest of them have been so nice and even—but—this one. Why, it looks as if she didn’t know what she was about!”
Their eyes met—something flashed to life, passed between them; then, as if with an effort, they seemed to pull away from each other. A moment Mrs. Hale sat her hands folded over that sewing which was sounlike all the rest of the sewing. Then she had pulled a knot and drawn the threads.
“Oh, what are you doing, Mrs. Hale?” asked the sheriff’s wife, startled.
“Just pulling out a stitch or two that’s not sewed very good,” said Mrs. Hale mildly.
“I don’t think we ought to touch things,” Mrs. Peters said, a little helplessly.
“I’ll just finish up this end,” answered Mrs. Hale, still in that mild, matter-of-fact fashion.
She threaded a needle and started to replace bad sewing with good. For a little while she sewed in silence. Then, in that thin, timid voice, she heard:
“Mrs. Hale!”
“Yes, Mrs. Peters?”
“What do you suppose she was so—nervous about?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Hale, as if dismissing a thing not important enough to spend much time on. “I don’t know as she was—nervous. I sew awful queer sometimes when I’m just tired.”
She cut a thread, and out of the corner of her eye looked up at Mrs. Peters. The small, lean face of the sheriff’s wife seemed to have tightened up. Her eyes had that look of peering into something. But next moment she moved, and said in her thin, indecisive way:
“Well, I must get those clothes wrapped. They may be through sooner than we think. I wonder where I could find a piece of paper—and string.”
“In that cupboard, maybe,” suggested Mrs. Hale, after a glance around.
One piece of the crazy sewing remained unripped. Mrs. Peters’ back turned, Martha Hale now scrutinized that piece, compared it with the dainty, accurate sewing of the other blocks. The difference was startling. Holding this block made her feel queer, as if the distracted thoughts of the woman who had perhaps turned to it to try and quiet herself were communicating themselves to her.
Mrs. Peters’ voice roused her.
“Here’s a bird-cage,” she said. “Did she have a bird, Mrs. Hale?”
“Why, I don’t know whether she did or not.” She turned to look at the cage Mrs. Peter was holding up. “I’ve not been here in so long.” She sighed. “There was a man round last year selling canaries cheap—but I don’t know as she took one. Maybe she did. She used to sing real pretty herself.”
Mrs. Peters looked around the kitchen.
“Seems kind of funny to think of a bird here.” She half laughed—an attempt to put up a barrier. “But she must have had one—or why would she have a cage? I wonder what happened to it.”
“I suppose maybe the cat got it,” suggested Mrs. Hale, resuming her sewing.
“No; she didn’t have a cat. She’s got that feeling some people have about cats—being afraid of them. When they brought her to our house yesterday, my cat got in the room, and she was real upset and asked me to take it out.”
“My sister Bessie was like that,” laughed Mrs. Hale.
The sheriff’s wife did not reply. The silence made Mrs. Hale turn round. Mrs. Peters was examining the bird-cage.
“Look at this door,” she said slowly. “It’s broke. One hinge has been pulled apart.”
Mrs. Hale came nearer.
“Looks as if some one must have been—rough with it.”
Again their eyes met—startled, questioning, apprehensive. For a moment neither spoke nor stirred. Then Mrs. Hale, turning away, said brusquely:
“If they’re going to find any evidence, I wish they’d be about it. I don’t like this place.”
“But I’m awful glad you came with me, Mrs. Hale,” Mrs. Peters put the bird-cage on the table and sat down. “It would be lonesome for me—sitting here alone.”
“Yes, it would, wouldn’t it?” agreed Mrs. Hale, a certain determined naturalness in her voice. She had picked up the sewing, but now it dropped in her lap, and she murmured in a different voice: “But I tell you what I do wish, Mrs. Peters. I wish I had come over sometimes when she was here. I wish—I had.”
“But of course you were awful busy, Mrs. Hale. Your house—and your children.”
“I could’ve come,” retorted Mrs. Hale shortly. “I stayed away because it weren’t cheerful—and that’s why I ought to have come. I”—she looked around—”I’ve never liked this place. Maybe because it’s down in a hollow and you don’t see the road. I don’t know what it is, but it’s a lonesome place, and always was. I wish I had come over to see Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now—” She did not put it into words.
“Well, you mustn’t reproach yourself,” counseled Mrs. Peters. “Somehow, we just don’t see how it is with other folks till—something comes up.”
“Not having children makes less work,” mused Mrs. Hale, after a silence, “but it makes a quiet house—and Wright out to work all day—and no company when he did come in. Did you know John Wright, Mrs. Peters?”
“Not to know him. I’ve seen him in town. They say he was a good man.”
“Yes—good,” conceded John Wright’s neighbor grimly. “He didn’t drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him—.” She stopped, shivered a little. “Like a raw wind that gets to the bone.” Her eye fell upon the cage on the table before her, and she added, almost bitterly: “I should think she would’ve wanted a bird!”
Suddenly she leaned forward, looking intently at the cage. “But what do you s’pose went wrong with it?”
“I don’t know,” returned Mrs. Peters; “unless it got sick and died.”
But after she said it she reached over and swung the broken door. Both women watched it as if somehow held by it.
“You didn’t know—her?” Mrs. Hale asked, a gentler note in her voice.
“Not till they brought her yesterday,” said the sheriff’s wife.
“She—come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself. Real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery. How—she—did—change.”
That held her for a long time. Finally, as if struck with a happy thought and relieved to get back to every-day things, she exclaimed:
“Tell you what, Mrs. Peters, why don’t you take the quilt in with you? It might take up her mind.”
“Why, I think that’s a real nice idea, Mrs. Hale,” agreed the sheriff’s wife, as if she too were glad to come into the atmosphere of a simple kindness. “There couldn’t possibly be any objection to that, could there? Now, just what will I take? I wonder if her patches are in here—and her things.”
They turned to the sewing basket.
“Here’s some red,” said Mrs. Hale, bringing out a roll of cloth. Underneath that was a box. “Here, maybe her scissors are in here—and her things.” She held it up. “What a pretty box! I’ll warrant that was something she had a long time ago—when she was a girl.”
She held it in her hand a moment; then, with a little sigh, opened it.
Instantly her hand went to her nose.
“Why—!”
Mrs. Peters drew nearer—then turned away.
“There’s something wrapped up in this piece of silk,” faltered Mrs. Hale.
“This isn’t her scissors,” said Mrs. Peters, in a shrinking voice.
Her hand not steady, Mrs. Hale raised the piece of silk. “Oh, Mrs. Peters!” she cried. “It’s—”
Mrs. Peters bent closer.
“It’s the bird,” she whispered.
“But, Mrs. Peters!” cried Mrs. Hale. “Look at it! Its neck—look at its neck! It’s all—other side to.”
She held the box away from her.
The sheriff’s wife again bent closer.
“Somebody wrung its neck,” said she, in a voice that was slow and deep.
And then again the eyes of the two women met—this time clung together in a look of dawning comprehension, of growing horror. Mrs. Peters looked from the dead bird to the broken door of the cage. Again their eyes met. And just then there was a sound at the outside door.
Mrs. Hale slipped the box under the quilt pieces in the basket, and sank into the chair before it. Mrs. Peters stood holding to the table. The county attorney and the sheriff came in from outside.
“Well, ladies,” said the county attorney, as one turning from serious things to little pleasantries, “have you decided whether she was going to quilt it or knot it?”
“We think,” began the sheriff’s wife in a flurried voice, “that she was going to—knot it.”
He was too preoccupied to notice the change that came in her voice on that last.
“Well, that’s very interesting, I’m sure,” he said tolerantly. He caught sight of the bird-cage. “Has the bird flown?”
“We think the cat got it,” said Mrs. Hale in a voice curiously even.
He was walking up and down, as if thinking something out.
“Is there a cat?” he asked absently.
Mrs. Hale shot a look up at the sheriff’s wife.
“Well, not now,” said Mrs. Peters. “They’re superstitious, you know; they leave.”
She sank into her chair.
The county attorney did not heed her. “No sign at all of any one having come in from the outside,” he said to Peters, in the manner of continuing an interrupted conversation. “Their own rope. Now let’s go upstairs again and go over it, piece by piece. It would have to have been some one who knew just the—”
The stair door closed behind them and their voices were lost.
The two women sat motionless, not looking at each other, but as if peering into something and at the same time holding back. When they spoke now it was as if they were afraid of what they were saying, but as if they could not help saying it.
“She liked the bird,” said Martha Hale, low and slowly. “She was going to bury it in that pretty box.”
“When I was a girl,” said Mrs. Peters, under her breath, “my kitten—there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes—before I could get there—” She covered her face an instant. “If they hadn’t held me back I would have”—she caught herself, looked upstairs where footsteps were heard, and finished weakly—”hurt him.”
Then they sat without speaking or moving.
“I wonder how it would seem,” Mrs. Hale at last began, as if feeling her way over strange ground—”never to have had any children around?” Her eyes made a slow sweep of the kitchen, as if seeing what that kitchen had meant through all the years. “No, Wright wouldn’t like the bird,” she said after that—”a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that too.” Her voice tightened.
Mrs. Peters moved uneasily.
“Of course we don’t know who killed the bird.”
“I knew John Wright,” was Mrs. Hale’s answer.
“It was an awful thing was done in this house that night, Mrs. Hale,” said the sheriff’s wife. “Killing a man while he slept—slipping a thing round his neck that choked the life out of him.”
Mrs. Hale’s hand went out to the bird-cage.
“His neck. Choked the life out of him.”
“We don’t know who killed him,” whispered Mrs. Peters wildly. “We don’t know.”
Mrs. Hale had not moved. “If there had been years and years of—nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful—still—after the bird was still.”
It was as if something within her not herself had spoken, and it found in Mrs. Peters something she did not know as herself.
“I know what stillness is,” she said, in a queer, monotonous voice. “When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died—after he was two years old—and me with no other then—”
Mrs. Hale stirred.
“How soon do you suppose they’ll be through looking for the evidence?”
“I know what stillness is,” repeated Mrs. Peters, in just that same way. Then she too pulled back. “The law has got to punish crime, Mrs. Hale,” she said in her tight little way.
“I wish you’d seen Minnie Foster,” was the answer, “when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons, and stood up there in the choir and sang.”
The picture of that girl, the fact that she had lived neighbor to that girl for twenty years, and had let her die for lack of life, was suddenly more than she could bear.
“Oh, I wish I’d come over here once in a while!” she cried. “That was a crime! That was a crime! Who’s going to punish that?”
“We mustn’t take on,” said Mrs. Peters, with a frightened look toward the stairs.
“I might ‘a’ known she needed help! I tell you, it’s queer, Mrs. Peters. We live close together, and we live far apart. We all go through the same things—it’s all just a different kind of the same thing! If it weren’t—why do you and I understand? Why do we know—what we know this minute?”
She dashed her hand across her eyes. Then, seeing the jar of fruit on the table, she reached for it and choked out:
“If I was you I wouldn’t tell her her fruit was gone! Tell her it ain’t. Tell her it’s all right—all of it. Here—take this in to prove it to her! She—she may never know whether it was broke or not.”
She turned away.
Mrs. Peters reached out for the bottle of fruit as if she were glad to take it—as if touching a familiar thing, having something to do, could keep her from something else. She got up, looked about for something to wrap the fruit in, took a petticoat from the pile of clothes she had brought from the front room, and nervously started winding that round the bottle.
“My!” she began, in a high, false voice, “it’s a good thing the men couldn’t hear us! Getting all stirred up over a little thing like a—dead canary.” She hurried over that. “As if that could have anything to do with—with—My, wouldn’t they laugh?”
Footsteps were heard on the stairs.
“Maybe they would,” muttered Mrs. Hale—”maybe they wouldn’t.”
“No, Peters,” said the county attorney incisively; “it’s all perfectly clear, except the reason for doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women. If there was some definite thing—something to show. Something to make a story about. A thing that would connect up with this clumsy way of doing it.”
In a covert way Mrs. Hale looked at Mrs. Peters. Mrs. Peters was looking at her. Quickly they looked away from each other. The outer door opened and Mr. Hale came in.
“I’ve got the team round now,” he said. “Pretty cold out there.”
“I’m going to stay here awhile by myself,” the county attorney suddenly announced. “You can send Frank out for me, can’t you?” he asked the sheriff. “I want to go over everything. I’m not satisfied we can’t do better.”
Again, for one brief moment, the two women’s eyes found one another.
The sheriff came up to the table.
“Did you want to see what Mrs. Peters was going to take in?”
The county attorney picked up the apron. He laughed.
“Oh, I guess they’re not very dangerous things the ladies have picked out.”
Mrs. Hale’s hand was on the sewing basket in which the box was concealed. She felt that she ought to take her hand off the basket. She did not seem able to. He picked up one of the quilt blocks which she had piled on to cover the box. Her eyes felt like fire. She had a feeling that if he took up the basket she would snatch it from him.
But he did not take it up. With another little laugh, he turned away, saying:
“No; Mrs. Peters doesn’t need supervising. For that matter, a sheriff’s wife is married to the law. Ever think of it that way, Mrs. Peters?”
Mrs. Peters was standing beside the table. Mrs. Hale shot a look up at her; but she could not see her face. Mrs. Peters had turned away. When she spoke, her voice was muffled.
“Not—just that way,” she said.
“Married to the law!” chuckled Mrs. Peters’ husband. He moved toward the door into the front room, and said to the county attorney:
“I just want you to come in here a minute, George. We ought to take a look at these windows.”
“Oh—windows,” said the county attorney scoffingly.
“We’ll be right out, Mr. Hale,” said the sheriff to the farmer, who was still waiting by the door.
Hale went to look after the horses. The sheriff followed the county attorney into the other room. Again—for one final moment—the two women were alone in that kitchen.
Martha Hale sprang up, her hands tight together, looking at that other woman, with whom it rested. At first she could not see her eyes, for the sheriff’s wife had not turned back since she turned away at that suggestion of being married to the law. But now Mrs. Hale made her turn back. Her eyes made her turn back. Slowly, unwillingly, Mrs. Peters turned her head until her eyes met the eyes of the other woman. There was a moment when they held each other in a steady, burning look in which there was no evasion nor flinching. Then Martha Hale’s eyes pointed the way to the basket in which was hidden the thing that would make certain the conviction of the other woman—that woman who was not there and yet who had been there with them all through that hour.
For a moment Mrs. Peters did not move. And then she did it. With a rush forward, she threw back the quilt pieces, got the box, tried to put it in her handbag. It was too big. Desperately she opened it, started to take the bird out. But there she broke—she could not touch the bird. She stood there helpless, foolish.
There was the sound of a knob turning in the inner door. Martha Hale snatched the box from the sheriff’s wife, and got it in the pocket of her big coat just as the sheriff and the county attorney came back into the kitchen.
“Well, Henry,” said the county attorney facetiously, “at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was going to—what is it you call it, ladies?”
Mrs. Hale’s hand was against the pocket of her coat.
“We call it—knot it, Mr. Henderson.”
The post A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell (1917) – full text appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
May 31, 2019
Trifles by Susan Glaspell (full text of the 1916 one-act play)
Trifles is a 1916 one-act play by the American author Susan Glaspell (1876 – 1948). It’s one of her most anthologized works, along with the 1917 short story she based upon this play, A Jury of Her Peers. Trifles was first performed at the Wharf Theater in Provincetown Massachusetts in August of 1916. The author herself performed as Mrs. Hale, the wife of a neighboring farmer.
Glaspell’s inspiration was the true crime story of the murder of John Hossack, a 59-year-old farmer. Working as a journalist at the time of the incident in 1900, Glaspell covered it for the Des Moines Daily News. The case was a sensation, because Hossack’s wife Margaret was accused of killing him. Neighbors believed that Margaret Hossack was an abused wife, and thus, she was the object of suspicion.
Margaret claimed that John had been murdered with an axe by an intruder. She was found guilty, but later, the verdict was overturned on appeal. A great reprint of Glaspell’s coverage of the actual case can be read here. Shortly after reporting on this story, Glaspell quit journalism to write fiction.
Some years later, the incident came back to haunt her. She wroteTrifles in ten days, and a year later fashioned it into the short story A Jury of Her Peers. Both had a feminist slant.
The plot of the play, in a nutshell, is as follows: George Henderson (County Attorney), Henry Peters (the sheriff) and his wife, and Mr. and Mrs. Hale (neighboring farmers) enter the Wright’s empty farmhouse. The previous day, Mr. Wright was found dead in an upstairs bedroom with a top around his neck.
When Mrs. Wright was questioned, she claimed that someone had broken in and strangled her husband while she was asleep. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters hunt around the kitchen and hallways for clues to determine whether Mrs. Wright is telling the truth. The men are unable to find evidence, searching in the areas where the man of the house rules —the bedroom, barn, etc. They dismiss the wife’s sphere, including the kitchen, saying that women worry mainly about “trifles.”
The women find a dead canary, with its neck wrung, which leads them to believe that Mr. Wright killed it. That, in turn, may have led to Mrs. Wright killing her husband in a similar manner. Sympathizing with Mrs. Wright because she was an abused wife, they hide the evidence and thus spare her from punishment for killing her husband. The caged bird is a common symbol of the oppression of women.
And now, on to the play …
. . . . . . . . . .
Susan Glaspell, around 1918
. . . . . . . . . .
CAST
GEORGE HENDERSON (County Attorney)
HENRY PETERS (Sheriff)
LEWIS HALE, A neighboring farmer
MRS. PETERS
MRS. HALE
SCENE
The kitchen is the now abandoned farmhouse of JOHN WRIGHT, a gloomy kitchen, and left without having been put in order—unwashed pans under the sink, a loaf of bread outside the bread-box, a dish-towel on the table—other signs of incompleted work.
At the rear the outer door opens and the SHERIFF comes in followed by the COUNTY ATTORNEY and HALE. The SHERIFF and HALE are men in middle life, the COUNTY ATTORNEY is a young man; all are much bundled up and go at once to the stove. They are followed by the two women—the SHERIFF’s wife first; she is a slight wiry woman, a thin nervous face. MRS HALE is larger and would ordinarily be called more comfortable looking, but she is disturbed now and looks fearfully about as she enters. The women have come in slowly, and stand close together near the door.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: (rubbing his hands) This feels good. Come up to the fire, ladies.
MRS PETERS: (after taking a step forward) I’m not—cold.
SHERIFF: (unbuttoning his overcoat and stepping away from the stove as if to mark the beginning of official business) Now, Mr Hale, before we move things about, you explain to Mr Henderson just what you saw when you came here yesterday morning.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: By the way, has anything been moved? Are things just as you left them yesterday?
SHERIFF: (looking about) It’s just the same. When it dropped below zero last night I thought I’d better send Frank out this morning to make a fire for us—no use getting pneumonia with a big case on, but I told him not to touch anything except the stove—and you know Frank.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: Somebody should have been left here yesterday.
SHERIFF: Oh—yesterday. When I had to send Frank to Morris Center for that man who went crazy—I want you to know I had my hands full yesterday. I knew you could get back from Omaha by today and as long as I went over everything here myself—
COUNTY ATTORNEY: Well, Mr Hale, tell just what happened when you came here yesterday morning.
HALE: Harry and I had started to town with a load of potatoes. We came along the road from my place and as I got here I said, I’m going to see if I can’t get John Wright to go in with me on a party telephone.’ I spoke to Wright about it once before and he put me off, saying folks talked too much anyway, and all he asked was peace and quiet—I guess you know about how much he talked himself; but I thought maybe if I went to the house and talked about it before his wife, though I said to Harry that I didn’t know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John—
COUNTY ATTORNEY: Let’s talk about that later, Mr Hale. I do want to talk about that, but tell now just what happened when you got to the house.
HALE: I didn’t hear or see anything; I knocked at the door, and still it was all quiet inside. I knew they must be up, it was past eight o’clock. So I knocked again, and I thought I heard somebody say, ‘Come in.’ I wasn’t sure, I’m not sure yet, but I opened the door—this door (indicating the door by which the two women are still standing) and there in that rocker—(pointing to it) sat Mrs Wright.
(They all look at the rocker.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY: What—was she doing?
HALE: She was rockin’ back and forth. She had her apron in her hand and was kind of—pleating it.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: And how did she—look?
HALE: Well, she looked queer.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: How do you mean—queer?
HALE: Well, as if she didn’t know what she was going to do next. And kind of done up.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: How did she seem to feel about your coming?
HALE: Why, I don’t think she minded—one way or other. She didn’t pay much attention. I said, ‘How do, Mrs Wright it’s cold, ain’t it?’ And she said, ‘Is it?’—and went on kind of pleating at her apron. Well, I was surprised; she didn’t ask me to come up to the stove, or to set down, but just sat there, not even looking at me, so I said, ‘I want to see John.’
And then she—laughed. I guess you would call it a laugh. I thought of Harry and the team outside, so I said a little sharp: ‘Can’t I see John?’ ‘No’, she says, kind o’ dull like. ‘Ain’t he home?’ says I. ‘Yes’, says she, ‘he’s home’. ‘Then why can’t I see him?’ I asked her, out of patience. ”Cause he’s dead’, says she. ‘Dead?’ says I.
She just nodded her head, not getting a bit excited, but rockin’ back and forth. ‘Why—where is he?’ says I, not knowing what to say. She just pointed upstairs—like that (himself pointing to the room above) I got up, with the idea of going up there.
I walked from there to here—then I says, ‘Why, what did he die of?’ ‘He died of a rope round his neck’, says she, and just went on pleatin’ at her apron. Well, I went out and called Harry. I thought I might—need help. We went upstairs and there he was lyin’—
COUNTY ATTORNEY: I think I’d rather have you go into that upstairs, where you can point it all out. Just go on now with the rest of the story.
HALE: Well, my first thought was to get that rope off. It looked … (stops, his face twitches) … but Harry, he went up to him, and he said, ‘No, he’s dead all right, and we’d better not touch anything.’ So we went back down stairs.
She was still sitting that same way. ‘Has anybody been notified?’ I asked. ‘No’, says she unconcerned. ‘Who did this, Mrs Wright?’ said Harry. He said it business-like—and she stopped pleatin’ of her apron. ‘I don’t know’, she says. ‘You don’t know?’ says Harry. ‘No’, says she. ‘Weren’t you sleepin’ in the bed with him?’ says Harry.
‘Yes’, says she, ‘but I was on the inside’. ‘Somebody slipped a rope round his neck and strangled him and you didn’t wake up?’ says Harry. ‘I didn’t wake up’, she said after him. We must ‘a looked as if we didn’t see how that could be, for after a minute she said, ‘I sleep sound’.
Harry was going to ask her more questions but I said maybe we ought to let her tell her story first to the coroner, or the sheriff, so Harry went fast as he could to Rivers’ place, where there’s a telephone.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: And what did Mrs Wright do when she knew that you had gone for the coroner?
HALE: She moved from that chair to this one over here (pointing to a small chair in the corner) and just sat there with her hands held together and looking down. I got a feeling that I ought to make some conversation, so I said I had come in to see if John wanted to put in a telephone, and at that she started to laugh, and then she stopped and looked at me—scared, (the COUNTY ATTORNEY, who has had his notebook out, makes a note) I dunno, maybe it wasn’t scared. I wouldn’t like to say it was. Soon Harry got back, and then Dr Lloyd came, and you, Mr Peters, and so I guess that’s all I know that you don’t.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: (looking around) I guess we’ll go upstairs first—and then out to the barn and around there, (to the SHERIFF) You’re convinced that there was nothing important here—nothing that would point to any motive.
SHERIFF: Nothing here but kitchen things.
(The COUNTY ATTORNEY, after again looking around the kitchen, opens the door of a cupboard closet. He gets up on a chair and looks on a shelf. Pulls his hand away, sticky.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY: Here’s a nice mess.
(The women draw nearer.)
MRS PETERS: (to the other woman) Oh, her fruit; it did freeze, (to the LAWYER) She worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the fire’d go out and her jars would break.
SHERIFF: Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worryin’ about her preserves.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: I guess before we’re through she may have something more serious than preserves to worry about.
HALE: Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.
(The two women move a little closer together.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY: (with the gallantry of a young politician) And yet, for all their worries, what would we do without the ladies? (the women do not unbend. He goes to the sink, takes a dipperful of water from the pail and pouring it into a basin, washes his hands. Starts to wipe them on the roller-towel, turns it for a cleaner place) Dirty towels! (kicks his foot against the pans under the sink) Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?
MRS HALE: (stiffly) There’s a great deal of work to be done on a farm.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: To be sure. And yet (with a little bow to her) I know there are some Dickson county farmhouses which do not have such roller towels. (He gives it a pull to expose its length again.)
MRS HALE: Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men’s hands aren’t always as clean as they might be.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: Ah, loyal to your sex, I see. But you and Mrs Wright were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too.
MRS HALE: (shaking her head) I’ve not seen much of her of late years. I’ve not been in this house—it’s more than a year.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: And why was that? You didn’t like her?
MRS HALE: I liked her all well enough. Farmers’ wives have their hands full, Mr Henderson. And then—
COUNTY ATTORNEY: Yes—?
MRS HALE: (looking about) It never seemed a very cheerful place.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: No—it’s not cheerful. I shouldn’t say she had the homemaking instinct.
MRS HALE: Well, I don’t know as Wright had, either.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: You mean that they didn’t get on very well?
MRS HALE: No, I don’t mean anything. But I don’t think a place’d be any cheerfuller for John Wright’s being in it.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: I’d like to talk more of that a little later. I want to get the lay of things upstairs now. (He goes to the left, where three steps lead to a stair door.)
SHERIFF: I suppose anything Mrs Peters does’ll be all right. She was to take in some clothes for her, you know, and a few little things. We left in such a hurry yesterday.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: Yes, but I would like to see what you take, Mrs Peters, and keep an eye out for anything that might be of use to us.
MRS PETERS: Yes, Mr Henderson.
(The women listen to the men’s steps on the stairs, then look about the kitchen.)
MRS HALE: I’d hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around and criticising.
(She arranges the pans under sink which the LAWYER had shoved out of place.)
MRS PETERS: Of course it’s no more than their duty.
MRS HALE: Duty’s all right, but I guess that deputy sheriff that came out to make the fire might have got a little of this on. (gives the roller towel a pull) Wish I’d thought of that sooner. Seems mean to talk about her for not having things slicked up when she had to come away in such a hurry.
MRS PETERS: (who has gone to a small table in the left rear corner of the room, and lifted one end of a towel that covers a pan) She had bread set. (Stands still.)
MRS HALE: (eyes fixed on a loaf of bread beside the bread-box, which is on a low shelf at the other side of the room. Moves slowly toward it) She was going to put this in there. (picks up loaf, then abruptly drops it. In a manner of returning to familiar things)
It’s a shame about her fruit. I wonder if it’s all gone. (gets up on the chair and looks) I think there’s some here that’s all right, Mrs Peters. Yes—here; (holding it toward the window) this is cherries, too. (looking again) I declare I believe that’s the only one. (gets down, bottle in her hand. Goes to the sink and wipes it off on the outside) She’ll feel awful bad after all her hard work in the hot weather. I remember the afternoon I put up my cherries last summer.
(She puts the bottle on the big kitchen table, center of the room. With a sigh, is about to sit down in the rocking-chair. Before she is seated realizes what chair it is; with a slow look at it, steps back. The chair which she has touched rocks back and forth.)
MRS PETERS: Well, I must get those things from the front room closet, (she goes to the door at the right, but after looking into the other room, steps back) You coming with me, Mrs Hale? You could help me carry them.
(They go in the other room; reappear, MRS PETERS carrying a dress and skirt, MRS HALE following with a pair of shoes.)
MRS PETERS: My, it’s cold in there.
(She puts the clothes on the big table, and hurries to the stove.)
MRS HALE: (examining the skirt) Wright was close. I think maybe that’s why she kept so much to herself. She didn’t even belong to the Ladies Aid. I suppose she felt she couldn’t do her part, and then you don’t enjoy things when you feel shabby. She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in the choir. But that—oh, that was thirty years ago. This all you was to take in?
MRS PETERS: She said she wanted an apron. Funny thing to want, for there isn’t much to get you dirty in jail, goodness knows. But I suppose just to make her feel more natural. She said they was in the top drawer in this cupboard. Yes, here. And then her little shawl that always hung behind the door. (opens stair door and looks) Yes, here it is.
(Quickly shuts door leading upstairs.)
MRS HALE: (abruptly moving toward her) Mrs Peters?
MRS PETERS: Yes, Mrs Hale?
MRS HALE: Do you think she did it?
MRS PETERS: (in a frightened voice) Oh, I don’t know.
MRS HALE: Well, I don’t think she did. Asking for an apron and her little shawl. Worrying about her fruit.
MRS PETERS: (starts to speak, glances up, where footsteps are heard in the room above. In a low voice) Mr Peters says it looks bad for her. Mr Henderson is awful sarcastic in a speech and he’ll make fun of her sayin’ she didn’t wake up.
MRS HALE: Well, I guess John Wright didn’t wake when they was slipping that rope under his neck.
MRS PETERS: No, it’s strange. It must have been done awful crafty and still. They say it was such a—funny way to kill a man, rigging it all up like that.
MRS HALE: That’s just what Mr Hale said. There was a gun in the house. He says that’s what he can’t understand.
MRS PETERS: Mr Henderson said coming out that what was needed for the case was a motive; something to show anger, or—sudden feeling.
MRS HALE: (who is standing by the table) Well, I don’t see any signs of anger around here, (she puts her hand on the dish towel which lies on the table, stands looking down at table, one half of which is clean, the other half messy) It’s wiped to here, (makes a move as if to finish work, then turns and looks at loaf of bread outside the breadbox. Drops towel. In that voice of coming back to familiar things.) Wonder how they are finding things upstairs. I hope she had it a little more red-up up there. You know, it seems kind of sneaking. Locking her up in town and then coming out here and trying to get her own house to turn against her!
MRS PETERS: But Mrs Hale, the law is the law.
MRS HALE: I s’pose ’tis, (unbuttoning her coat) Better loosen up your things, Mrs Peters. You won’t feel them when you go out.
(MRS PETERS takes off her fur tippet, goes to hang it on hook at back of room, stands looking at the under part of the small corner table.)
MRS PETERS: She was piecing a quilt. (She brings the large sewing basket and they look at the bright pieces.)
MRS HALE: It’s log cabin pattern. Pretty, isn’t it? I wonder if she was goin’ to quilt it or just knot it?
(Footsteps have been heard coming down the stairs. The SHERIFF enters followed by HALE and the COUNTY ATTORNEY.)
SHERIFF: They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it! (The men laugh, the women look abashed.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY: (rubbing his hands over the stove) Frank’s fire didn’t do much up there, did it? Well, let’s go out to the barn and get that cleared up. (The men go outside.)
MRS HALE: (resentfully) I don’t know as there’s anything so strange, our takin’ up our time with little things while we’re waiting for them to get the evidence. (she sits down at the big table smoothing out a block with decision) I don’t see as it’s anything to laugh about.
MRS PETERS: (apologetically) Of course they’ve got awful important things on their minds.
(Pulls up a chair and joins MRS HALE at the table.)
MRS HALE: (examining another block) Mrs Peters, look at this one. Here, this is the one she was working on, and look at the sewing! All the rest of it has been so nice and even. And look at this! It’s all over the place! Why, it looks as if she didn’t know what she was about!
(After she has said this they look at each other, then start to glance back at the door. After an instant MRS HALE has pulled at a knot and ripped the sewing.)
MRS PETERS: Oh, what are you doing, Mrs Hale?
MRS HALE: (mildly) Just pulling out a stitch or two that’s not sewed very good. (threading a needle) Bad sewing always made me fidgety.
MRS PETERS: (nervously) I don’t think we ought to touch things.
MRS HALE: I’ll just finish up this end. (suddenly stopping and leaning forward) Mrs Peters?
MRS PETERS: Yes, Mrs Hale?
MRS HALE: What do you suppose she was so nervous about?
MRS PETERS: Oh—I don’t know. I don’t know as she was nervous. I sometimes sew awful queer when I’m just tired. (MRS HALE starts to say something, looks at MRS PETERS, then goes on sewing) Well I must get these things wrapped up. They may be through sooner than we think, (putting apron and other things together) I wonder where I can find a piece of paper, and string.
MRS HALE: In that cupboard, maybe.
MRS PETERS: (looking in cupboard) Why, here’s a bird-cage, (holds it up) Did she have a bird, Mrs Hale?
MRS HALE: Why, I don’t know whether she did or not—I’ve not been here for so long. There was a man around last year selling canaries cheap, but I don’t know as she took one; maybe she did. She used to sing real pretty herself.
MRS PETERS: (glancing around) Seems funny to think of a bird here. But she must have had one, or why would she have a cage? I wonder what happened to it.
MRS HALE: I s’pose maybe the cat got it.
MRS PETERS: No, she didn’t have a cat. She’s got that feeling some people have about cats—being afraid of them. My cat got in her room and she was real upset and asked me to take it out.
MRS HALE: My sister Bessie was like that. Queer, ain’t it?
MRS PETERS: (examining the cage) Why, look at this door. It’s broke. One hinge is pulled apart.
MRS HALE: (looking too) Looks as if someone must have been rough with it.
MRS PETERS: Why, yes.
(She brings the cage forward and puts it on the table.)
MRS HALE: I wish if they’re going to find any evidence they’d be about it. I don’t like this place.
MRS PETERS: But I’m awful glad you came with me, Mrs Hale. It would be lonesome for me sitting here alone.
MRS HALE: It would, wouldn’t it? (dropping her sewing) But I tell you what I do wish, Mrs Peters. I wish I had come over sometimes when she was here. I—(looking around the room)—wish I had.
MRS PETERS: But of course you were awful busy, Mrs Hale—your house and your children.
MRS HALE: I could’ve come. I stayed away because it weren’t cheerful—and that’s why I ought to have come. I—I’ve never liked this place. Maybe because it’s down in a hollow and you don’t see the road. I dunno what it is, but it’s a lonesome place and always was. I wish I had come over to see Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now—(shakes her head)
MRS PETERS: Well, you mustn’t reproach yourself, Mrs Hale. Somehow we just don’t see how it is with other folks until—something comes up.
MRS HALE: Not having children makes less work—but it makes a quiet house, and Wright out to work all day, and no company when he did come in. Did you know John Wright, Mrs Peters?
MRS PETERS: Not to know him; I’ve seen him in town. They say he was a good man.
MRS HALE: Yes—good; he didn’t drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him—(shivers) Like a raw wind that gets to the bone, (pauses, her eye falling on the cage) I should think she would ‘a wanted a bird. But what do you suppose went with it?
MRS PETERS: I don’t know, unless it got sick and died.
(She reaches over and swings the broken door, swings it again, both women watch it.)
MRS HALE: You weren’t raised round here, were you? (MRS PETERS shakes her head) You didn’t know—her?
MRS PETERS: Not till they brought her yesterday.
MRS HALE: She—come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself—real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery. How—she—did—change. (silence; then as if struck by a happy thought and relieved to get back to everyday things) Tell you what, Mrs Peters, why don’t you take the quilt in with you? It might take up her mind.
MRS PETERS: Why, I think that’s a real nice idea, Mrs Hale. There couldn’t possibly be any objection to it, could there? Now, just what would I take? I wonder if her patches are in here—and her things.
(They look in the sewing basket.)
MRS HALE: Here’s some red. I expect this has got sewing things in it. (brings out a fancy box) What a pretty box. Looks like something somebody would give you. Maybe her scissors are in here. (Opens box. Suddenly puts her hand to her nose) Why—(MRS PETERS bends nearer, then turns her face away) There’s something wrapped up in this piece of silk.
MRS PETERS: Why, this isn’t her scissors.
MRS HALE: (lifting the silk) Oh, Mrs Peters—it’s—
(MRS PETERS bends closer.)
MRS PETERS: It’s the bird.
MRS HALE: (jumping up) But, Mrs Peters—look at it! It’s neck! Look at its neck!
It’s all—other side to.
MRS PETERS: Somebody—wrung—its—neck.
(Their eyes meet. A look of growing comprehension, of horror. Steps are heard outside. MRS HALE slips box under quilt pieces, and sinks into her chair. Enter SHERIFF and COUNTY ATTORNEY. MRS PETERS rises.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY: (as one turning from serious things to little pleasantries) Well ladies, have you decided whether she was going to quilt it or knot it?
MRS PETERS: We think she was going to—knot it.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: Well, that’s interesting, I’m sure. (seeing the birdcage) Has the bird flown?
MRS HALE: (putting more quilt pieces over the box) We think the—cat got it.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: (preoccupied) Is there a cat?
(MRS HALE glances in a quick covert way at MRS PETERS.)
MRS PETERS: Well, not now. They’re superstitious, you know. They leave.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: (to SHERIFF PETERS, continuing an interrupted conversation) No sign at all of anyone having come from the outside. Their own rope. Now let’s go up again and go over it piece by piece. (they start upstairs) It would have to have been someone who knew just the—
(MRS PETERS sits down. The two women sit there not looking at one another, but as if peering into something and at the same time holding back. When they talk now it is in the manner of feeling their way over strange ground, as if afraid of what they are saying, but as if they can not help saying it.)
MRS HALE: She liked the bird. She was going to bury it in that pretty box.
MRS PETERS: (in a whisper) When I was a girl—my kitten—there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes—and before I could get there—(covers her face an instant) If they hadn’t held me back I would have—(catches herself, looks upstairs where steps are heard, falters weakly)—hurt him.
MRS HALE: (with a slow look around her) I wonder how it would seem never to have had any children around, (pause) No, Wright wouldn’t like the bird—a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too.
MRS PETERS: (moving uneasily) We don’t know who killed the bird.
MRS HALE: I knew John Wright.
MRS PETERS: It was an awful thing was done in this house that night, Mrs Hale. Killing a man while he slept, slipping a rope around his neck that choked the life out of him.
MRS HALE: His neck. Choked the life out of him.
(Her hand goes out and rests on the bird-cage.)
MRS PETERS: (with rising voice) We don’t know who killed him. We don’t know.
MRS HALE: (her own feeling not interrupted) If there’d been years and years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful—still, after the bird was still.
MRS PETERS: (something within her speaking) I know what stillness is. When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died—after he was two years old, and me with no other then—
MRS HALE: (moving) How soon do you suppose they’ll be through, looking for the evidence?
MRS PETERS: I know what stillness is. (pulling herself back) The law has got to punish crime, Mrs Hale.
MRS HALE: (not as if answering that) I wish you’d seen Minnie Foster when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the choir and sang. (a look around the room) Oh, I wish I’d come over here once in a while! That was a crime! That was a crime! Who’s going to punish that?
MRS PETERS: (looking upstairs) We mustn’t—take on.
MRS HALE: I might have known she needed help! I know how things can be—for women. I tell you, it’s queer, Mrs Peters. We live close together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things—it’s all just a different kind of the same thing, (brushes her eyes, noticing the bottle of fruit, reaches out for it) If I was you, I wouldn’t tell her her fruit was gone. Tell her it ain’t. Tell her it’s all right. Take this in to prove it to her. She—she may never know whether it was broke or not.
MRS PETERS: (takes the bottle, looks about for something to wrap it in; takes petticoat from the clothes brought from the other room, very nervously begins winding this around the bottle. In a false voice) My, it’s a good thing the men couldn’t hear us. Wouldn’t they just laugh! Getting all stirred up over a little thing like a—dead canary. As if that could have anything to do with—with—wouldn’t they laugh!
(The men are heard coming down stairs.)
MRS HALE: (under her breath) Maybe they would—maybe they wouldn’t.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: No, Peters, it’s all perfectly clear except a reason for doing it. But you know juries when it comes to women. If there was some definite thing. Something to show—something to make a story about—a thing that would connect up with this strange way of doing it—
(The women’s eyes meet for an instant. Enter HALE from outer door.)
HALE: Well, I’ve got the team around. Pretty cold out there.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: I’m going to stay here a while by myself, (to the SHERIFF) You can send Frank out for me, can’t you? I want to go over everything. I’m not satisfied that we can’t do better.
SHERIFF: Do you want to see what Mrs Peters is going to take in?
(The LAWYER goes to the table, picks up the apron, laughs.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY: Oh, I guess they’re not very dangerous things the ladies have picked out. (Moves a few things about, disturbing the quilt pieces which cover the box. Steps back) No, Mrs Peters doesn’t need supervising. For that matter, a sheriff’s wife is married to the law. Ever think of it that way, Mrs Peters?
MRS PETERS: Not—just that way.
SHERIFF: (chuckling) Married to the law. (moves toward the other room) I just want you to come in here a minute, George. We ought to take a look at these windows.
COUNTY ATTORNEY: (scoffingly) Oh, windows!
SHERIFF: We’ll be right out, Mr Hale.
(HALE goes outside. The SHERIFF follows the COUNTY ATTORNEY into the other room. Then MRS HALE rises, hands tight together, looking intensely at MRS PETERS, whose eyes make a slow turn, finally meeting MRS HALE‘s. A moment MRS HALE holds her, then her own eyes point the way to where the box is concealed. Suddenly MRS PETERS throws back quilt pieces and tries to put the box in the bag she is wearing. It is too big. She opens box, starts to take bird out, cannot touch it, goes to pieces, stands there helpless. Sound of a knob turning in the other room. MRS HALE snatches the box and puts it in the pocket of her big coat. Enter COUNTY ATTORNEY and SHERIFF.)
COUNTY ATTORNEY: (facetiously) Well, Henry, at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was going to—what is it you call it, ladies?
MRS HALE: (her hand against her pocket) We call it—knot it, Mr Henderson.
(CURTAIN)
More about Trifles by Susan Glaspell Wikipedia Reader discussion on Goodreads Further analysis on ThoughtCoThe post Trifles by Susan Glaspell (full text of the 1916 one-act play) appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
May 30, 2019
Early Poems of Sara Teasdale: 9 Sonnets to Duse (1907)
Sara Teasdale (1884 – 1933) was well known in her time for lyric poetry that celebrated the beautiful things in life, even as she herself struggled with perpetual illness and loneliness. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she was the daughter of wealthy parents.
In her young adult years in St. Louis, she was part of a group of creative, talented young women who called themselves the Potters. They hand-printed a magazine called The Potter’s Wheel, where Sara’s early poems were first published. This led to the publication of her first book, Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems in 1907. She was twenty-three at the time of its publication.
The title refers to Eleanora Duse (who is pictured throughout this post, beginning with the photo at upper right), an Italian actress who was quite famous at the time and who often went simply by the name of Duse. Sara never got to meet her, but was apparently quite taken with her, if not infatuated.
Why she chose to write this suite of sonnets to the actress isn’t clear. But her references to Sappho and Lesbos hint at an erotic interest, though Sara wasn’t known to have had liaisons with women in her love life. Here are the sonnets to Duse by Sara Teasdale, the poet’s chosen entryway into the literary world.
. . . . . . . .
To Eleonora Duse (I)Oh beauty that is filled so full of tears,
Where every passing anguish left its trace,
I pray you grant to me this depth of grace:
That I may see before it disappears,
Blown through the gateway of our hopes and fears
To death’s insatiable last embrace,
The glory and the sadness of your face,
Its longing unappeased through all the years.
No bitterness beneath your sorrow clings;
Within the wild dark falling of your hair
There lies a strength that ever soars and sings;
Your mouth’s mute weariness is not despair.
Perhaps among us craven earth-born things
God loves its silence better than a prayer.
. . . . . . . .
Portrait of Eleanora Duse in Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems by Sara Teasdale
. . . . . . . . . .
Your beauty lives in mystic melodies,
And all the light about you breathes a song.
Your voice awakes the dreaming airs that throng
Within our music-haunted memories:
The sirens’ strain that sank within the seas
When men forgot to listen, floats along
Your voice’s undercurrent soft and strong.
Sicilian shepherds pipe beneath the trees;
Along the purple hills of drifted sand,
A lone Egyptian plays an ancient flute;
At dawn the Memnon gives his old salute
Beside the Nile, by desert breezes fanned.
The music faints about you as you stand,
And with the Orphean lay it trembles mute.
To Eleonora Duse in “The Dead City”
Were you a Greek when all the world was young,
Before the weary years that pass and pass,
Had scattered all the temples on the grass,
Before the moss to marble columns clung?
I think your snowy tunic must have hung
As now your gown does—wave on wave a mass
Of woven water. As within a glass
I see your face when Homer’s tales were sung.
Alcaeus kissed your mouth and found it sweet,
And Sappho’s hand has lingered in your hand.
You half remember Lesbos as you stand
Where all the times and countries mix and meet,
And lay your weight of beauty at our feet,
A garland gathered in a distant land.
To a Picture of Eleonora Duse in “The Dead City” (I)
Your face is set against a fervent sky,
Before the thirsty hills that sevenfold
Return the sun’s hot glory, gold on gold,
Where Agamemnon and Cassandra lie.
Your eyes are blind whose light shall never die,
And all the tears the closèd eyelids hold,
And all the longing that the eyes have told,
Is gathered in the lips that make no cry.
Yea, like a flower within a desert place,
Whose petals fold and fade for lack of rain,
Are these, your eyes, where joy of sight was slain,
And in the silence of your lifted face,
The cloud is rent that hides a sleeping race,
And vanished Grecian beauty lives again.
. . . . . . . . . .
Portrait of Eleanora Duse in Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems by Sara Teasdale
. . . . . . . . .
Carved in the silence by the hand of Pain,
And made more perfect by the gift of Peace,
Than if Delight had bid your sorrow cease,
And brought the dawn to where the dark has lain,
And set a smile upon your lips again;
Oh strong and noble! Tho’ your woes increase,
The gods shall hear no crying for release,
Nor see the tremble that your lips restrain.
Alone as all the chosen are alone,
Yet one with all the beauty of the past;
A sister to the noblest that we know,
The Venus carved in Melos long ago,
Yea, speak to her, and at your lightest tone,
Her lips will part and words will come at last.
. . . . . . . . . .
Learn more about Sara Teasdale
. . . . . . . . . .
Oh flower-sweet face and bended flower-like head!
Oh violet whose purple cannot pale,
Or forest fragrance ever faint or fail,
Or breath and beauty pass among the dead!
Yea, very truly has the poet said,
No mist of years or might of death avail
To darken beauty—brighter thro’ the veil
We see the glimmer of its wings outspread.
Oh face embowered and shadowed by thy hair,
Some lotus blossom on a darkened stream!
If ever I have pictured in a dream
My guardian angel, she is like to this,
Her eyes know joy, yet sorrow lingers there,
And on her lips the shadow of a kiss.
To a Picture of Eleonora Duse
Was ever any face like this before—
So light a veiling for the soul within,
So pure and yet so pitiful for sin?
They say the soul will pass the Heavy Door,
And yearning upward, learn creation’s lore—
The body buried ‘neath the earthly din.
But thine shall live forever, it hath been
So near the soul, and shall be evermore.
Oh eyes that see so far thro’ misted tears,
Oh Death, behold, these eyes can never die!
Yea, tho’ your kiss shall rob these lips of breath,
Their faint, sad smile will still elude thee, Death.
Behold the perfect flower this neck uprears,
And bow thy head and pass the wonder by.
To a Picture of Eleonora Duse with the Greek Fire,
in “Francesca da Rimini”
Francesca’s life that was a limpid flame
Agleam against the shimmer of a sword,
Which falling, quenched the flame in blood outpoured
To free the house of Rimino from shame—
Francesca’s death that blazed aloft her name
In guilty fadeless glory, hurling toward
The windy darkness where the tempest roared,
Her spirit burdened by the weight of blame—
Francesca’s life and death are mirrored here
Forever, on the face of her who stands
Illumined and intent beside the blaze,
Grown one with it, and reading without fear
That they shall fare upon the selfsame ways,
Plucked forth and cast away by bloody hands.
A Song to Eleonora Duse in “Francesca da Rimini”
Oh would I were the roses, that lie against her hands,
The heavy burning roses she touches as she stands!
Dear hands that hold the roses, where mine would love to be,
Oh leave, oh leave the roses, and hold the hands of me!
She draws the heart from out them, she draws away their breath,—
Oh would that I might perish and find so sweet a death!
. . . . . . . . . .
Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems by Sara Teasdale on Amazon
. . . . . . . . . .
This post contains affiliate links. If the product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
The post Early Poems of Sara Teasdale: 9 Sonnets to Duse (1907) appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
May 27, 2019
Sara Teasdale
Sara Teasdale (August 8, 1884 – January 29, 1933) was an American poet known for her deceptively simple lyric poetry that emphasized life’s beauty. Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, she was the youngest of four children of wealthy parents. In delicate health throughout her childhood, she was tutored at home until the age of ten.
Despite her privileged background, and being spoiled and petted Sara’s childhood was often lonely. She lived in a separate suite in her family’s grand homes, often left alone. The ill health of her childhood followed her throughout much of her adult life, and she often had to have a nurse-companion.
She described her fragility as “a flower in a toiling world.” Reared to believe that she was fragile and helpless, this was the attitude that dogged her throughout her life.
A slew of early successes and a Pulitzer Prize
Sara was a member of The Potters in St Louis, a group of young female artists led by Lillie Rose Ernst, from the years 1904 to 1907. The group printed their original poetry, prose, and art in The Potter’s Wheel, a monthly magazine.
In 1907, Sara’s first collection, Sonnets to Duse, and Other Poems was published; she was 23 years old at the time. Duse was a well-known actress who Sara idolized, though she never got to meet her. Sara’s second, collection, Helen of Troy and Other Poems, was published in 1911. Both were praised by critics, who noted her mastery of the lyrical style.
Her third collection of poetry, Rivers to the Sea, established itself quickly as one of her most popular works. Love Songs came out in 1917 and earned Sara the Pulitzer Prize the following year, though it was then called the Columbia Poetry Prize.
. . . . . . . .
Sara Teasdale in 1907
. . . . . . . . . .
Sara had several suitors while in her twenties. The poet Vachel Lindsay was very much in love with her, but she didn’t think he could keep her in the style to which she was accustomed. He was crushed by the rejection.
In 1914 she married Ernst Filsinger, a businessman who had long admired her poetry. Soon after they married, the couple moved to New York City where they took up residence in an apartment on Central Park West.
Filsinger had to travel a great deal for business, leaving Sara alone and lonely, echoing her childhood. Despite the fact that he was generally a faithful and loving husband, her own illnesses and depressions made it difficult for her to sustain a relationship. In 1929, she moved to another state for three months in order to meet the legal criterion for divorce, without her husband’s knowledge. He was completely taken by surprise.
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
A complex personalityDespite her successes and the accolades that came with them, Sara was plagued with a lack of confidence and constant worries about her health. In A Study Guide for Sara Teasdale’s There Will be Soft Rains (2002) she’s described like this:
“She was the youngest child of a prim family who grew up believing she was a fragile, helpless girl, vulnerable to a variety of illnesses, both physical and emotional. Her perceived frailty resulted in lifelong bouts of nervous exhaustion and chronic weakness, and she remained dependent upon her parents until she married at age thirty.
… Her fondness for music was reflected in the lyric poems she wrote, most very rhythmic and many of which ended up being set to musical scores. Her work at the time centered primarily on love from a woman’s perspective, and its childlike innocence was widely acclaimed, being published in major poetry journals in Chicago, New York, and Europe.
As well-liked as Teasdale’s poetry was, the poet herself became just as admired, and she was welcomed into the circles of America’s most esteemed early twentieth-century writers. But in spite of the popularity, Teasdale was her own worst enemy. She often lapsed into depression without a definable cause and suffered a consistent lack of self-confidence, believing she would never be independent or able to live on her own.”
. . . . . . . . .
Sara Teasdale page on Amazon
. . . . . . . . .
Once the divorce was final, Sara moved back to New York City. Beset with chronic pneumonia, Sara became disillusioned and depressed. No longer able to enjoy the beauty that she expressed in her poetry, she took her own life in 1933 by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. She was 49 years old.
In all, Sara Teasdale had seven books of poetry published in her lifetime. Her finely crafted lyrical poetry was admired, especially by the public. Like the work of many female poets of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, hers has been somewhat forgotten.
Still, her female-centric work, with themes of love, death, and beauty earned her major accolades and prizes, some critics were a bit dismissive of her earlier work. For example, Rivers to the Sea, which earned her the first Columbia Poetry Prize in 1918 (later renamed the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) was deemed by the New York Times Book Review contributor deemed the book “a little volume of joyous and unstudied song,” and concluded, “Miss Teasdale is first, last, and always a singer.” None of her biographies describe her as a singer, so this assertion is quite curious.
Her later works, including Flame and Shadow (1920), Dark of the Moon (1926), and Stars To-Night (1930) earned her more serious considerations, with reviewers praising the development of her lyric poetry and the artistry in her craft. Strange Victory, her last collection, was published shortly after her death by suicide in 1933 and praised as one of her most significant works.
Some contemporary scholars have argued that Sara’s body of work has been unjustly neglected over the years. For example, Carol B. Schoen, author of the 1986 critical biography, Sara Teasdale, considered her one of the most important lyric poets, yet long overlooked “in favor of more controversial or militant female poets.” This attitude prevailed despite even Sara’s anti-war poetry during World War I.
Sara Teasdale is an intriguing American poet whose work seems ripe for reconsideration.
More about Sara TeasdaleMajor works
Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems (1907)Helen of Troy and Other Poems (1911)Rivers to the Sea (1915)Love Songs (1917)Flame and Shadow (1920)Dark of the Moon (1926)Stars To-night (1930)Strange Victory (1933)Biographies
Sara Teasdale by Carol Schoen (1986)Sara Teasdale: Woman and Poet by William Drake (1989)Sara Teasdale: A Biography by Margaret Haley Carpenter (2011)Read and listen online
Audio recordings on Librivox Project GutenbergMore information and sources
Wikipedia Poetry Foundation Britannica American Literature (contains a great selection of her poetry)Poem HunterReader discussion on Goodreads
. . . . . . . .
Discover more great women poets and their works on this site
This post contains affiliate links. If the product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
The post Sara Teasdale appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
May 24, 2019
The Tory Lover by Sarah Orne Jewett (1901)
The Tory Lover by Sarah Orne Jewett is a 1901 novel by this esteemed New England author best known for The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896). The story is partly set in Berwick, Maine, where Jewett grew up and spent much of her life, and takes place during the Revolutionary period. Roger Wallingford, a gentleman of Tory ancestry joins the cause of the Patriots through his love for the beautiful Mary Hamilton.
Mary urges Captain Paul Jones, a compatriot of her brother, to give a commission to Wallingford. A nefarious shipmate contrives to have Wallingford arrested for treachery and desertion, and he virtually disappears. Mary believes that the charges are false, so she and his mother set sail for England to find him and clear his name.
This novel, so very different from Jewett’s other works, mainly sketches of the ordinary people of her time and place in Maine, nevertheless was warmly received. Here is one such review from 1901.
A 1901 Review of The Tory Lover by Sarah Orne Jewett
From the original review in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 27, 1901: The Tory Lover by Sarah Orne Jewett will be read with interest by anyone familiar with her Country of the Pointed Firs, Deephaven, and other novels and short stories.
The Tory Lover is a romance with a historical setting. The period is the Revolutionary era, and the action takes place partly in New England and partly in England. Captain Paul Jones is one of the characters of the story, but her figures in it in a different light from that in which he appears in other novels.
. . . . . . . . . .
Randomly spotted in a historic home in the Hudson Valley
. . . . . . . . . .
A revolutionary era tale
Colonial Portsmouth, 1777, is when the story opens. The heroine is Mary Hamilton, the lovely daughter of an opulent house, devoted to the American cause. The Tory lover is Roger Wallingford, whose love for Mary has won him from his loyalist proclivities. To show his devotion to the patriot cause, he takes service under Captain Paul Jones, on the Ranger.
It is at Mary Hamilton’s behest that the Ranger’s commander enlists the young man. He knows that she looks on him as an old and trusted friend, and that his love is a hopeless passion. He has no time to court her but loves her nonetheless.
An enemy on board, and imprisonment
Roger sails on the Ranger and does good service on board. He has an enemy on the ship, however, named Dickson, who is a traitor to the American cause as well. In a night raid on the town of Whitehaven, in England, in which Wallingford and Dickson are concerned, the latter sees his opportunity for revenge. He betrays Wallingford into the hands of the British.
Returning to the ship, Dickson is able to spread a false report about Wallingford, and Paul Jones and his comrades believe that he had returned to his Loyalist sentiments and had played the part of a spy and a traitor.
Wallingford is taken to prison and the news of his captivity at last reaches his home in New England. His mother, who is known as a Loyalist, starts out to secure his release and Mary Hamilton accompanies her. She has not the slightest doubt of her lover’s fidelity to the American cause.
Shifting scene to Bristol, England
The story then shifts scene to Bristol, where the two women find good friends and are able to bring their influence to bear to secure a pardon for the young lieutenant. But when they go to the prison they are met with the news that Wallingford, with one or two others, has just escaped, and no one knows where they are.
Paul Jones, going ashore in disguise, encounters Mary Hamilton in Bristol, and there gathers intelligence that leads him to think that Dickson is a traitor. The end of the story is worked out with a great deal of dramatic skill and the ending is sure to satisfy the reader.
. . . . . . . . . .
You may also enjoy:
The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett
. . . . . . . . . .
A well sustained story with stellar characters
So much for the outline of the tale. The reader will note that while the story has a historical setting, it is not a historical novel. We don’t know that any of the incidents, same some phases of the Ranger’s cruise, figure at all in actual history or tradition. It’s not necessary for the scheme that the author had in mind. The Tory Lover is a romance, pure and simple, but it is one portrayed with a fine touch.
Wallingford is a fine young fellow, but one feels more interest in Mary Hamilton. She’s drawn with a delicate touch, and even the ideal portrait of this charming heroine, painted by Marcia O.Woodbury, which serves as a frontispiece to the book, hardly does her justice.
Paul Jones as a lover shines in a positive new light. He’s much more than just the dashing rover in this story; he’s a gallant and tender gentleman. When Mary looks him straight in the eyes and tells him of her faith in her lover’s honeys and loyalty to the cause he served on the Ranger, Paul Jones receives this evidence of love for another as a loyal gentleman should.
The scene in the little inn where Dickson’s treachery is made clear is also a strong bit of work. Miss Jewett has a reputation for excellence, but she has never done better than The Tory Lover. The story is well sustained throughout, but her pass aren’t overcrowded with action. The love story is subtle, charming in every line, while the literary quality of the story is top notch.
. . . . . . . . . .
Sarah Orne Jewett page on Amazon
. . . . . . . . .
*This post contains affiliate links. If the product is purchased by linking through, Literary Ladies Guide receives a modest commission, which helps maintain our site and helps it to continue growing!
The post The Tory Lover by Sarah Orne Jewett (1901) appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.
