Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Assignment 4: The Role of Women in Susan Glaspell's The Verge
Due Thursday 6/21: In The Verge, how does Glaspell use elements of setting or action to emphasize the role of women and gender issues? What lines or passages seem important? Did Shoshana Felman's article or our class discussion change your initial understanding of the play?
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Setting and actions are very important in Susan Glaspell's The Verge. Actions that are taken help us to understand the play and the character of Claire better. It is through Claire's words and actions that we understand her character and her issue of insanity, "CLAIRE: (gaily) Careful, Dick. Aren't you indiscreet? Harry will be suspecting that I am your latest strumpet." She says that comment to another man!
After our class discussion, I came to understand a bit better about why Claire babbles and focuses on odd things. She is insane. It becomes much more understandable if you look at the play from that perspective.
The setting of the play is very interesting. It takes place in a greenhouse of some sort. The other characters are semi-disturbed by that fact, but they allow it.
The play reflects upon traditional gender roles to emphasize social conformity against which Claire struggles in her peculiar mind. Page 65 presents Harry's point of view - an opinion of a man embodying the partiarchal ideals - as he outlines gender expectations: "It would be all right if [Claire would] just do what she did in the beginning - make the flowers as good as possible of their kind. That's awfully nice for a woman to do - raise flowers. But there's something about this - changing things into other things - ...it's unsettling for a woman." Needless to say, by going against these conventions, Claire is of great concern to her husband.
Additionally, as was mentioned in class, the significance of the tower as part of the setting is two-fold: on the one hand, Claire can be viewed as a shrew who, upon acting out, is locked up there. And on the other hand, she is a damsel in distress, needing help and love of someone heroic, who would save her from her insanity - a sentiment expressed in Felman's article.
The article presented an alternative way of looking at the play. Whereas I initially viewed Claire as a social rebel, whose sanity/insanity signified the bold revolt against conformity and convention, the article suggested another perspective, i.e., Claire's behavior is a cry for help. It is not a protest but a "manifestation both of cultural impotence and of political castration." In other words, it is possible that Claire is "mad" not because she chooses so, but rather because she doesn't have a choice except to be "mad".
The Verge by Susan Glaspell (1921) was written at a time when the influences of World War 1 were still being felt in the society. It was a time when lots of changes occurred in the lives of individuals and their families. The author, through action and setting emphasized the emergence of the changing role of women and gender issues.
As a result of war the men folks were either returning home seriously injured or were killed. This caused a breakdown in family life and values. Hence, in an effort to keep the family structure together there was a change from the previous role of women. They became more assertive and a dominant figure in society. There was the emergence of emphasis place on their roles in society. Several of the women became liberated and made valuable individual choices while others were caught up with the struggle for change.
In The Verge, Claire represented a woman desperately trying to initiate change. In my opinion, she was a philosopher. Her strong belief caused everyone around her to feel that she was insane. In one instance, she encouraged other women not to keep to themselves. She used the example of a plant to show them that they can bring about change within the society. She noted, “Plants do it. The big leap - its called. Explode their species – because something in them knows they’ve gone as far as they can go…So - go mad - that life may not be prisoned. Break themselves up into crazy things – into lesser things, and from the pieces – may come one silver of life with vitality to find the future. How beautiful. How brave.”
Later, when Dick, Harry and Clair were in the green house and she was pollen zing the plants, Dick asked “What is it you’re doing Claire?” She replied “I want to give fragrance to Breadth of Life – the flower I have created that is outside what flowers have been. What was gone out should bring fragrance from what it has left. But no definite fragrance, no limiting enclosing thing. I call the fragrance I am trying to create Reminiscence. Reminiscent of the rose, the violet, arbutus – but a new thing – itself. Breadth of life may be lonely out in what hasn’t been. Perhaps some day I can give it reminiscence.”
It was the class discussion that changed my initial understanding of the play. My first impression of Claire was of an individual who just spoke wildly. In other words, she seemed to be insane. However, a closer look at her lines indicated, to me, that she was a philosopher and used nature as an analogy in an attempt to initiate change within the society.
I found this reading very interesting and disturbing at the same time. One quote that really stood out was "Female sexuality is thus described as an absence (of the masculine presence), as lack, incompleteness, deficiency, envy with respect to the only sexuality which value resides. This statement is so biased I just wonder when this piece was written and how women responded to it. To say that men are the only people to whom value is given is interesting because they could not get here without being born to a woman. I guess that is of no importance because that is part of what is considered to be a woman's role.
Another quote that struck me was "What we consider "madness", whether it appears in women or men, is either the acting out of the valued female role or the total partial rejection of one's sex-role type." I guess if a woman decides that instead of playing the role of "daughter, mother, wife and decides she would rather plow the fields or just do anything outside of the "norm" for a woman then she was mad. This is exactly what Claire was going through in The Verge; because she wanted to do things outside of the box, because she wanted do something different she was thought to be mad.
In terms of setting, I enjoyed Glaspell's use of the glass house as a representation of Claire's psyche and her dilemna.
Claire's desire for her very own personal space, physical and social, in which she would be free to find herself or create, is constantly thwarted by her friends and family, who represent societal conventions.
The glass house/laboratory seen in Acts 1 & 2 is Claire's haven, in which she has worked obsessively to bring about new species of flowers and plants. To create something of her own. While stage direction and setting call for blustery winter winds and snow to be seen outside, it is warm and lush inside. The doors are locked. There is a trapdoor, underneath which is stored whatever is needed to help in the creation going on in the surface. Glaspell has given us a ready symbol for Claire's creative mind. The cold, destructive winds on the outside can be either male power or societal pressures. The trapdoor and the resources beneath represent the subconscious, from which spring forth the ideas which the waking mind transforms into reality.
But this is a glass house, and is thus particularly vulnerable to outside forces. Harry forces himself and his guests inside the warm place, each opening of the door threatens the fragile plants inside. But he and his guests are entitled to their breakfast. Tom, locked outside, pounds on the glass to be let in. He is armed with a gun. Will he punch or shoot through the fragile glass to be let in? We’re made aware of the fragilty of the lab, and of the terrible waste of Claire’s time and energy that would ensue if the door is left open too long or the walls shattered.
This fragility of the glass, and its transparency, represent Claire's and women's position in society at this time. Even their most secret places would have been expected to be made visible and plain to society. All women of her station would have been expected to think and behave in a specific manner, and any deviance from the norm would have been grounds for any and all passerbys to admonish and attempt to correct the peculiarity.
Sadly, if any effort were made to maintain one's own individuality, then the fragile glass panes of one's psyche would have been poor defense against any vigorous assault by societal forces.
The setting of the tower in Act II, as mentioned by Eugenia and in the class discussion yesterday, is a clear connection to the women's issues demonstrated throughout the play. The expectation of the tower to be completely round and the fact that it seemed incomplete because it wasn't fully round, is the embodiment of social conformity. Just as the tower was expected to be a certain way and was considered "less" because it wasn't, women--namely Claire-- were also expected to fulfill a certain role and were considered "mad" if they didn't.
Also, in response to t.todd's comment about the sexist statement in Felman's article, I don't believe that quote was meant to be understood as Felman's opinion. I understood that statement to be a summation of the common rationale of the time which Felman was criticizing, not promoting. I agree with t.todd in that such statements must have outraged many woman and perhaps some men as well.
After reading the Felman article, I sympathize more with Claire's character. As Felman says on p.144 of the article (in reference to Adieu), "From the very beginning the woman in this text stands out as a problem." This can also be said of The Verge. Claire is barely given any chance to explain herself because everyone has already written her off as crazy or "queer". This is not to say that Claire acts "normal" either, but when put into the context of the extreme inequality women suffered at the time, I can't really blame her for going "mad".
When I first read The Verge, I was debating if Clair was insane or if the people surrounding her were insane. The ideals of her character are somewhat profound because they represent all great philosophers and inventors who strived for change. They were aware of the institutions that corrupted human beings, which forced them to conform to the standards of the society and they wanted to disconnect from that. She was not insane, she just wanted to think and live outside the box that was created for her. She was believed to be mad only because she was a woman, who was struggling to cross these borders. I also don’t think that she was very cruel, if anything, her responses were truthful and straight to the point. The ideal woman of her time was her sister Adelaide, who lived life not for herself but for the sake of everyone else. Clair said to her “I’m tired of what you do – you and all of you. Life – experience – values – calm - sensitive words which raise their heads as indications. And you pull them up – to decorate your stagnant little minds – and think that makes you – And because you have pulled the word from the life that grew it you won’t let one who’s honest, and aware, and troubled, try to reach though to – to what she doesn’t know is there” (page 83).
Clair was an individual who wanted to be free, who wanted to have her own personal space, away from her family or anyone who thought differently then her. That’s why she had the glass house and her tower which were continuously intruded upon by everyone who didn’t respect her or her ideals. According to the Woman and Madness reading, madness could be defined as “a manifestation both of cultural impotence and of political castration” (page 134). During such a culturally devastating time as after WWI, people either united in a weak cultural pool where they could feel safe and a part of something bigger then they are or they chose to take a chance and be different and carve their own path in life. Claire took that chance.
By using the glass house as the setting for the majority of the play, Glaspell is able to create a peaceful, tranquil environment inside a more turbelent atmosphere. Inside the glass house Claire is trying to create new, different plants, that do not resemble other known plants. This echoes the modernist convention of "making it new." This also mirrors Claire's own desire to break free from the expectations that a male-dominated society puts on her. Tom, Dick and Harry all have their own opinions of what Claire should be. They have all created an image of Claire in their minds, of how she should act, and what role she shouldd play for each of them. Claire struggles to break free from these preconceptions throughout the play. Her dissappointment with the edge vine echo the dissappointment she feels in her own life.
I like that the Glass House is supposed to be Claire's secret place, yet it is completely transparent. Also9 for the correct conditions for the plants, everything in the glass house must be perfect. The light must be just right. The heat must be just right. It's almost as if Glaspell is saying that a woman cannot have any secrets, or cannot have a place of her own in this society without just the right conditions. When the men get angry for sitting around a cold kitchen table because Claire diverted the heat to the glass house, it is mirroring how men feel when Claire does not meet up to the image that they have of her. They do not want to let Claire have those perfect conditions, and they enforce their own will on Claire's plans and desires.
Glaspell convery these gender issues through the character Claire. Glaspell put it in a form of madness. The whole fact that everyone is unaware of what's going on in society. Just because she does not conform to society's norms. Her husband and her friends don't hear her. Her sister can't hear her and she is a woman figure too. She is lost, just like Elizabeth. Both of them are educated by society and in a prison like state of mind. They are unware. I guesss Glaspell is trying to say that some women are imprisoned and when they try to get out or escape this is what happens. There minds are in a prison like state. claire does not want to be in prison again after she has tried to escape. they look at her as if she is insan, because she chooses not to conform to society. On page 81, Claire's sister says, why do you shut yourself out from us? and Claire responds by saying Because I dont want to be shut in with you. According to the Felman article, pg134 "It is clear that for a woman to be healthy she must adjust to and accept the behavioral norms for her sex even thought these kinds of behavior are generally regarded as less socially desirable. The men are the ones who are not insane. They conform. They are the dominant power in society.
I agree with anastasia: were claire a woman, we and the play's character's would be much less likely to read her as 'insane'. Yet, as she insists upon deviated from a typical feminine schema, her friends dismiss her before listening to her closely. Her smashing of Tom's egg early on in the play symbolizes her transgression of gender norms -- she is not going to be a fertility symbol or a naturing, baby-producing machine.
I alsoo agree the glass symbolizes fragility, but it also brings to mind a line from Strindberg's Ghost Sonata, when the Daughter remarks that only mad people say everything that is on their minds. Similarly Claire (whose name sounds near to Clarity and literaly means 'clear') speaks her mind completely, choosing not to censor anything that others might interpret as 'queer' or mad. Her flowing speech paterns call to mind a stream of consciousness, while their cutting sharpness and jaggeded fragmentations suggest shattered glass. The greenhouse represents Claire's mind, a mind made of glass.
eugenia brings to attention what i believe is an important exhibition of a collective thought toward women at the time, the line:
"it would be alright if claire would do what she did in the beginning, make the flowers as good as possible..."
what is being reveled here reminds me of a situation in swift's gulliver's travels book IV- when the honorable houyhnhnm tells gulliver that it is preposterous that a woman be held responsible to raise children when the english demands of her no more than to raise the child. she will have had no experience in the way of propriety, education, benevolence, and the other values that shape a morally formidable person, if the woman (mother) was learned in a wholly different type of institution than a man.
something other-
the discussion in class yesterday, although i forget what prompted it, affected in me an idea that i see obvious in the play dealing with sanity and insanity: what we often presume to be an insane personality in a person, because it deviates so far from the prescribed notions of society, often becomes a virtuous and brave thing in the future. literary figures, scientists, and the like were often considered quite insane, but now their manner of thinking is considered revolutionary and if it did not directs contribute to a movement into a new genre, likely anticipated it.
I personally do not find Claire to be insane (or maybe both Claire and I are insane). She just feels limited, and wants to break away from the traditions that she's used to. Althoug Claire feels like she is imprisoned, Adelaide tells her on page 80, that she imprisons herself. Even though, Adelaide makes this reference to her, I feel that Claire has a point, because society has an expected role of her that she may not want to conform to. Claire is just distorted by the sociatal "norm."
When I read The Verge I interpreted Claire’s actions as a rebellion against societal norms and men; she was breaking away from a system that she didn’t fit in and was going off on her own. As Eugina pointed out, Shoshana Feldman claims that, “far from being a form of consternation, ‘mental illness’ is a request for help.” Claire wasn’t trying to break away from social norms but she was in fact crying out for some help. All she wanted was for someone to give her the time of day and except her with love.
I am forced to disagree with Eugina’s and Shoshana Feldman’s interpretation of madness – at least in this case. A cry for help is when someone is unhappy with what they are and they’re asking for someone to help them change. There are nine characters in the play and all of them were understanding of her madness and tried to help her. One could make the argument that Harry wasn’t supportive because he was always fighting with her and seemed to be disregarding her feelings but when he invites Dr Emmons over for supper he doesn’t try to hide who he is and what his intentions are, instead he is the sweetest, most honest man when he says, “He is a neurologist, and I want him to see you. I’m perfectly honest with you – cards on the table, you know that.” No secrets, no animosity, no forcefulness, just niceness – he is providing her with the help Shoshana claims she wants and yet, what does Claire do? She pushes Dr Emmons away; she doesn’t want his help.
To say that her madness is a cry for help is discrediting her message. She wants to break boundaries, leave dominating men in the dust, and stomp on social norms; she doesn’t want to be fixed, accepted, and socially proper. Her madness is a cry for freedom.
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