Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Not Meant for Everyone
When I was reading Freeman's, "A New England Nun," I will admit I was very fascinated by it's plot. The story made me think of a shortened version of some of the romance novels I read, just with a much different ending. I found myself concocting a whole romantic story line in continuation of Freeman's piece; however, I realized that having a story that ends the way "A New England Nun" ends absolutely deliberate on Freeman's part. She was not trying to write a typical love story. The ending of the story, when Joe Daggat leaves Louisa after their mutual agreement to break the engagement, made me think it was the perfect time to set up for the real male lead to step in and sweep Louisa off her feet. However, such a continuation, obviously, does not happen. Also, the fact that Louisa is not sure she loves Daggat like she "thought" she did when he left fourteen years ago allows for a whole other story line that causes Joe and Louisa to fall in love again by the end. Louisa alludes to the idea that she is not fond of the idea of marrying him, but she will simply because she promised to and because she believe he loves her still: "It was not for her, whatever came to pass, to prove untrue and break is heart." Of course, in an average romance novel this would be the time that one would expect that grand thing to happen that causes Louisa and Joe to fall in love again. Yet, despite all my story alterations and extended endings the reality is that Freeman ends the story precisely at the exact time and in the exact way it must to get her point across: not every woman needs a man to survive or be happy. Louisa is clearly more comfortable on her own, and Freeman, I believe, is attempting to show her female readers that not every woman is meant to marry and be happier with a man. I like that Freeman does not go completely radical and say through her work that marriage is bad for every woman. Instead, she simply shows and supports the fact that marriage is not meant for everyone.
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And what a radical idea for the time the story is written! Even in my generation we were pressured to get married and have babies because that is what women are supposed to do. But is it? We are supposed to do laundry, we are supposed to wash dishes, clean the house, raise the babies, do the carpools, and now WORK to boot. I love Joe but was so relieved for Louisa...they both found love and happiness in their lives in their ways. A refreshing story I think!
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much of this honoring behavior of Louisa and Joe arise from the author's religious convictions. Indeed, this was a different kind of love story. I enjoyed its rather unique perspective.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the subtlety in this piece as well. The story is very smart. I do not know if I would classify this as a love story, because we do not know what happens to Lily and Joe (our true lovers). Do they find each other? Do they get married? Everything on that side is very unresolved. Louisa, on the other hand, gets her happy ending. She is a fascinating character indeed.
ReplyDeleteI would like to know what happens to both charachters after the story ends. I feel that Louisa would be happy on her own, perfectly content with what happens in her domestic life, like Kristen says. I do not think that Joe gets his happy ending though. Even though Lily Dyer says she will never love another man, she seemed to walk away to me. It seemed to me that they never look for each other again and that Joe Dagget was forever wondering What If? I have nothing to support this, but after being removed for so long, I didn't see him jumping to take charge since he is so skilled in business. He just seemed to be relationship-challenged to me.
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