The image of a mother trying to protect her baby from most certain death is an age old story. We have seen it in The Bible with Mary and Jesus, Harry Potter, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. These are all stories we are familiar with, but in The Yares of the Black Mountains, I believe that a mother trying to protect her baby from death is used as a symbolic representation of the times.
As we discussed in class, Davis wrote The Yares of the Black Mountains a few years following the civil war and not surprisingly the country was still in a shambles. This is also the first time that we have seen a novel stepping away from the big city atmosphere and going back to the heart of America. So, with all of this being said, I would like to address Davis’ use of baby Charley to represent a sick nation and mother Denby as our heroine/lady liberty.
We know that the mother is heading south because she is hopeful a change of scenery will catapult her baby to recovery; ‘“I doubt very much whether the cloud-effects will be as good as in the White Mountains. The sky is too warm.” This was said thoughtfully. “He has one stomach-tooth almost through. The balsam-air will be such a tonic! We’ll go up if it is on foot, won’t we Charley?” And she buried her face in the roll of blanket’ (p.240). Here is this woman, a former New Yorker who is traveling with her sick baby to the south to find healing. I do not know why I did not see it sooner, but Davis’ symbolism is awfully blatant.
Finally, I found it interesting that the Yare men decided to abstain from the civil war fighting. “They were the only men anigh hyar that stood out fur the Union from first to last. They couldn’t turn agen the old flag, you see, Mistress Denby.” “They should have gone into the Federal army and helped to free the slaves,” cried the widow with rising color, for she had been a violent abolitionist in her day. “Waal, we never put much vally on the blacks, that’s the truth. We couldn’t argy or jedge whether slavery war wholesomest or not. It was out of our sight. My lads, bein’ known as extraordinar’ strong men an’ powerful bear-fighters, hed two or three offers to join Kirk’s Loyal Rangers in Tennessee. But they couldn’t shed the blood of their old neighbors” (p.260). They did not want to turn their backs on the country, but at the same time did not want to kill their neighbors. I’m not sure if I have ever seen or heard of such a scenario as people being neutral during the civil war, but it certainly does make Davis’ case to use baby Charley as a symbol of a healing nation more plausible. What a better place to nurse a sick country back to health than in one that is Confederate and Union neutral.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
All is not as it seems..... or is it?
For the first time, I am completely at a loss as to how to approach the prompt, so I will do the best that I can to adequately answer the question. The second part we read of A Whisper in the Dark reminded me very much of Jane Eyre and The Wide Sargasso Sea, which is the prequel to Jane Eyre and follows Mrs. Rochester through her life and explains why she ends up crazy and locked in her husbands attic.
Based off that statement, Sybil finding out that her crazy mother was the one pacing the floor above her room was not in the least bit surprising to me (p. 243). I initially thought, maybe it could be Guy, but I knew instantly Sybil’s mother was the one being held captive after she heard her uncle’s voice, ”But if the steps had been silent in that room, voices had not, for I heard a continuous murmur at one time: the tones of a one voice were abrupt and broken, the other low, yet resonant, and that I felt assured, belonged to my uncle” (p.242). So with her deranged mother and herself being put into this insane asylum with three of the creepiest caretakers a person could possibly conjure up, I really do not consider Sybil to be an unreliable narrator. The girl was throw into an insane asylum by her uncle so that he could take possession of her property. Dr.Karnac drugged her so that she would be easy to transport and would not put up a fuss (p. 238). I agree that Louisa May Alcott, who is best known for Little Women, has made a novel with the concept that things are “not what they seem”, which is not her forte necessarily, but I do not think she is trying to discredit our narrator by throwing her in the looney bin.
As far as changing our previous ideas about mother/daughter relationships, the relationship between Sybil and her mother is a complete 180 degree turn from the traditional relationship we have seen in characters like Mrs. Montgomery and Ellen. At seventeen years old, Sybil has never seen her mother and it seems that she has not ever had an interest in knowing much about her mother until she sees a picture of her when she goes to live with her uncle. “I looked again, and saw a face delicate yet spirited, with dark eyes, a passionate mouth, and a head crowned with hair as plenteous and golden as my own; but the whole seemed dimmed by age, the ivory was stained, the glass cracked, and a faded ribbon fastened it. My eyes filled as I looked, and a strong desire seized me to know what had defaced this little picture of the mother whom I never knew” (p. 227). This is not the traditional mother/daughter relationship that we have seen in the past, where the daughter either has a relationship with her mother or she at least knows of her mother. It was almost as if Sybil did not really even care to know who here mother was and Alcott turned the scene of her meeting her mother for the first time, which should have been heart-warming even though her mother was dead, into a frightening encounter. “I was inured to fear now, and unwholesome craving for new terrors seemed to have grown by what it fed on: an irresistible desire led me close, nerved me to lift the cover and look below—a single glance—then with a cry as panic-stricken as that which rent the silence of the night, I fled away, for the face I saw was a pale image of my own” (p. 243). It’s almost as if Alcott is saying that as you get older, you do not need your mother like you did as a child. Therefore, relationship between mothers and daughters is not as crucial in an older character. So with all of this being said, I do believe Alcott has changed our perspective on mother/daughter relationships, but I do not feel she is trying to change what we think of the narrator because she was committed.
Based off that statement, Sybil finding out that her crazy mother was the one pacing the floor above her room was not in the least bit surprising to me (p. 243). I initially thought, maybe it could be Guy, but I knew instantly Sybil’s mother was the one being held captive after she heard her uncle’s voice, ”But if the steps had been silent in that room, voices had not, for I heard a continuous murmur at one time: the tones of a one voice were abrupt and broken, the other low, yet resonant, and that I felt assured, belonged to my uncle” (p.242). So with her deranged mother and herself being put into this insane asylum with three of the creepiest caretakers a person could possibly conjure up, I really do not consider Sybil to be an unreliable narrator. The girl was throw into an insane asylum by her uncle so that he could take possession of her property. Dr.Karnac drugged her so that she would be easy to transport and would not put up a fuss (p. 238). I agree that Louisa May Alcott, who is best known for Little Women, has made a novel with the concept that things are “not what they seem”, which is not her forte necessarily, but I do not think she is trying to discredit our narrator by throwing her in the looney bin.
As far as changing our previous ideas about mother/daughter relationships, the relationship between Sybil and her mother is a complete 180 degree turn from the traditional relationship we have seen in characters like Mrs. Montgomery and Ellen. At seventeen years old, Sybil has never seen her mother and it seems that she has not ever had an interest in knowing much about her mother until she sees a picture of her when she goes to live with her uncle. “I looked again, and saw a face delicate yet spirited, with dark eyes, a passionate mouth, and a head crowned with hair as plenteous and golden as my own; but the whole seemed dimmed by age, the ivory was stained, the glass cracked, and a faded ribbon fastened it. My eyes filled as I looked, and a strong desire seized me to know what had defaced this little picture of the mother whom I never knew” (p. 227). This is not the traditional mother/daughter relationship that we have seen in the past, where the daughter either has a relationship with her mother or she at least knows of her mother. It was almost as if Sybil did not really even care to know who here mother was and Alcott turned the scene of her meeting her mother for the first time, which should have been heart-warming even though her mother was dead, into a frightening encounter. “I was inured to fear now, and unwholesome craving for new terrors seemed to have grown by what it fed on: an irresistible desire led me close, nerved me to lift the cover and look below—a single glance—then with a cry as panic-stricken as that which rent the silence of the night, I fled away, for the face I saw was a pale image of my own” (p. 243). It’s almost as if Alcott is saying that as you get older, you do not need your mother like you did as a child. Therefore, relationship between mothers and daughters is not as crucial in an older character. So with all of this being said, I do believe Alcott has changed our perspective on mother/daughter relationships, but I do not feel she is trying to change what we think of the narrator because she was committed.
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