The Threads of Edith Wharton's Short Stories by Mónica Rodríguez

 On Edith Wharton's Short Stories

by Mónica Rodríguez

 Théobald Chartran (French, 1849 –1907), James Hazen Hyde (1876-1959), 1901. Oil on canvas. New-York Historical  Society, Gift of James Hazen Hyde, 1949.1

Source: https://www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions/beautye28099s-legacy-gilded-age-portraits-america

Edith Wharton published Tales of Men and Ghosts in 1910, following the popular trend of ghost stories started by 19^th-century American writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and Washington Irving. Henry James, whom Edith greatly admired, also wrote ghost fiction, namely, The Turn of the Screw and the novella The Jolly Corner.

Wharton writes mostly about the society she was born into, that of "The Gilded Age" so masterly –and derisively- depicted by Mark Twain in his eponymous novel. This bourgeoning world was led by the New York "aristocracy", i.e., that of the powerful patron families, ruthless and driven by appearance and status. Wharton's stories include adept character studies of the individuals living in this society: the dismissive wealthy members of highest echelons, the upstarts longing to be accepted into the circles of "old money", the "has-beens", the dilettantes in endless pursuit of public acclaim…

The four stories selected for this study have a male protagonist whereas women play a noticeable peripheral role and are often described through the somewhat distorted lens of the men in the story. Wharton does not refrain from transcribing here what she has surely heard –or even said- about certain types of "dull" women, so characteristic in the despotic and harsh New York society she knew extremely well: "At eighteen she had been pretty, and as full of enthusiasm as he. Now she was sour, trivial, insignificant—she had missed her chance of life".

As mentioned earlier, all four stories belong to the literary tradition of "ghost stories" or "ghost fiction". It is worth noting that, although there aren't any ghosts or supernatural phenomena in them, all the protagonists are "haunted" by an obsession, by an unattainable desire that might well be their undoing.

Thus, in The Bolted Door, we are presented with an aspiring playwright who craves fame and recognition but attains neither. Faced with his inability to kill himself, he resorts to confessing a crime he had committed several years earlier in hopes of being sentenced to death and embarks on a desperate quest to be believed… but only to fail again.  In this tale, we find echoes of the "psychological terror" of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories as it is highly reminiscent of some of his tales, for instance, The Tell-Tale Heart or The Black Cat: "Granice was overcome by the futility of any farther attempt to inculpate himself. He was chained to life –a 'prisoner of consciousness'… in the glaring night-hours, when his brain seemed ablaze, he was visited by a sense of his fixed identity of his irreducible, inexpungable selfness, keener, more insidious, more unescapable, than any sensation he had ever known… the feeling that something material was clinging to him, was on his hands and face, and in his throat… it was the sense of his own loathed personality that stuck to his like some thick viscous substance."

Remarkably, the themes of double identity and feelings of psychological alienation, so present is this story ("he sometimes had the mysterious sense of a living metempsycosis, a furtive passage from one identity to another") are to be found as well in Henry James' celebrated ghost story The Jolly Corner, with multiple references to the main character's "alter-ego", "adversary", "his other self" or "presence". Another common trait in both stories is the fact that houses or rooms act as a sort of echo chamber of the protagonist's state of mind: "[Granice] looked slowly about the library, and every object in it stared back at his with a stale unescapable familiarity. How sick he was of looking at that room! It was as dull as the face of a wife one has wearied of." "The long thoroughfare stretched before him, dim and deserted, like an ancient avenue of tombs. But from Denver's house a friendly beam fell on the pavement."

In His Father's Son, the main character's obsession is shown in the sublimation of his yearning for elegance, refinement and social acceptance in his son, whose "ability to do well almost equalled his gift of looking well" although he was, in his father's words, "not a genius". In this way, the coarse protagonist "vibrated exquisitely in response to every imaginative appeal… moved in an enchanted inward world people with all the figures of romance… and to see his vision of himself suddenly projected on the outer world in the shape of a brilliant popular conquering son, seemed to give to that image a belated objective reality." Once more, the alter-ego leitmotif is aptly employed to dwell on the protagonist's elusive aspirations: "He recalled the vision now; and with it came, as usual, its ghostly double: the vision of his young self bending above such a white shoulder and such shining hair."

The abundant imagery of the dichotomy between external appearance and the inner self ("the souls of short-thick men… souls thus encased do not reveal themselves to the casual scrutiny as delicate emotional instruments") echoes back another masterpiece in the Victorian supernatural genre, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

The tale Daunt Diana introduces us to an art collector, a scholar compelled to lower himself in order to survive by "expounding 'the antiquities' to cultured travellers… how it must have seared his soul!" Even when he has entered the circle of the wealthy, he regards the visitors to his newly-acquired collection with supreme disdain: "the worst of all are the ones who know… and yet wouldn't know a Phidias if it stood where they hadn't expected it."

In line with the other stories, he is also a "haunted" man, hankering for the possession of perfect beauty: "he had made himself into this delicate register of perceptions and sensations… only to find that the beauty which alone could satisfy him was unattainable—that he was never to know the last deep identifications which only possession can give." He is not only obsessed with the ideal of finding perfect beauty in art but, crucially, with possessing it, with the prerogative of exclusive enjoyment. In this sense, the kernel of this story powerfully brings to mind another one of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, The Oval Portrait, in which a painter transfers his wife's youthful beauty to her portrait ("This is indeed Life itself"), causing her untimely death in the process. As a side note, this tale has also been connected to Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.

In the last short story, The Debt, we meet a maladroit student ("an awkward lout") whom a renowned professor has taken under his wing after perceiving "his gift of accurate observation" although it is also humorously remarked that "he had never known a lad... who gave such promise of uniting an aptitude for general ideas with the plodding patience of the accumulator of facts."

This character shares some striking features with the art collector in the previous story. Thus, the biology student is depicted as "a thinking machine, a highly specialized instrument of precision, the result of a long series of 'adaptations' […] he seemed to have shed his blundering, encumbering personality and come to life as a disembodied intelligence"; interestingly enough, the art collector had undergone a similar process of autodidacticism and adaptation: "during those early years, when he had time to brood over trifles and note imperceptible differences, he gradually sharpened his instinct, […] he had made himself into this delicate register of perceptions and sensations--as far above the ordinary human faculty of appreciation as some scientific registering instrument is beyond the rough human senses."

Naturally, this character is also "haunted" by a fixation, in his case, the relentless pursuit of the scientific truth, even if that means going against the ideas upheld by his beloved mentor. In his conversation with the late professor's son, he graciously acknowledges his tremendous debt towards his protector, but he states that he must "carry on the light", noting that "Men like him [the professor] are the masters, not the servants, of their theories. They respect an idea only as long as it's of use to them, when its usefulness ends they chuck it out".

To conclude, there is a defining feature that pervades all of Edith Wharton's work, her brilliant use of ironic reversal, a tradition firmly associated with Guy the Maupassant's short stories, which Edith Wharton had eagerly read following Henry James' advice.

Irony is then used to establish a divide between what characters wish and what they finally get. This device is masterly exemplified in Daunt Diana's protagonist's predicament: "It was, in short, the old tragedy of the discrepancy between a man's wants and his power to gratify them."

The Bolted Door, a superb comic reversal of the "detective story" genre, shows a man as "ineffectual" as the sister so ungraciously referred to inasmuch as he has failed in each and every one of his life's endeavours.

His father's son also resorts to irony and reversal in presenting a comic transposition of The picture of Dorian Gray. It is fascinating to note that the protagonist's son "embodies" all his father's aspirations of beauty and refinement in a sort of enhanced version of the original self. Irony is also felt in the final twist as this son ultimately disowns his parentage by foolishly assuming that the man on the portrait is his "real" father.

In Daunt Diana and The Debt, the protagonists' driving force lies in their unflinching pursuit of the ideals of perfect beauty and knowledge, respectively. In the case of the art collector, he eventually succeeds in acquiring the coveted Daunt collection… only to realize that possession is not worthwhile without the excitement of the chase. The biology student, in turn, has attained academic recognition after succeeding his mentor and published his masterwork "The Arrival of the Fittest" (note the ironic undertones in the choice of words) but he philosophically reflects that all his endeavours are pointless as he is just meant to "carry on the light", as his master had done before him, and that both of them had always been expected to "drop and hand them on."

Be careful what you wish for,

you might get it later in life.

James Joyce

Edith Wharton's "His Father's Son" by Belén Tizón

FATHER AND SON RAMBLING IN SOCIETY 

by Belén Tizón

Source for image here

"His Father’s Son" depicts Wharton’s detachment from social expectations about economic status and social constraints.

On one hand, we see a father who has no other aspiration than to increase the success of his company (“outwardly devoting his life to the manufacture and dissemination of Grew’s Secure Suspender Buckle” p. 2). On the other hand, Mr Grew exerts control over his child to prevent him from reproducing roles. His inner struggles make him dream of a son triumphing in society in all contexts.

Wharton is an author who constantly denounces the expected social status of people and how devastating it could be for a person. In this short story, Mr Grew despises his mediocrity, and social complex and remains hopeful in his heir (“Ronald in fact constituted his father’s one escape from the impenetrable element of mediocrity” p.2)

Her obstinate refusal to social constraints is also represented in the cities mentioned in the short story. While Wingfield seems to be a dull, not prosperous place (cf. description at the beginning of the novel), Brooklyn is a city close to New York, giving him the chance to have a livelier social life in theatres and also the kind of “society” the people living there constitute, a different standard (“had found their manners simpler, their voices more agreeable, their views more consonant with his own…”). 

In the relationship between father and son, we can see the conflict between tradition and change, the father urges his son’s change and celebrates any performance contrary to stagnation (“Mr G. always affirmed to himself that the boy was not a genius [..] he had managed to be several things at once-writing poetry in the college magazine, playing delightfully..”). Criticism of tradition and passivity is also transmitted through the figure of the mother, nonetheless, we can appreciate some kind of female irony judging the role of women in the American society of the time.

"The Bolted Door" by Edith Wharton

 The Abyss inside

Edith Wharton’s “The Bolted Door”

“Have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the senses?” (“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Alan Poe).

Edith Wharton’s “The Bolted Door” unspins memories of other literary works: “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde, “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Alan Poe, and “Faust” by Goethe. The abyss inside and the social gestures outside of the first; madness as an acute perception of the senses in Poe’s short story, or the search for a contractual destructive bond which resonates with Goethe’s “Faust.” These might be some compelling threads to bring these works together.

Hear the chiming of the clock, the thud of the bolted door in the asylum, the throbbing of the heart, and the creaking wood, consider Hubert’s spasmodic shoulders, the old man’s eye …. the pungency of sounds entangled, mental and physical reverberate in both stories Edith Wharton’s “The Bolted Door” and Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.”.

Let us examine the openings of Edith’s short story “The Bolted Door” and Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”:

1.”In exactly three minutes Mr. Peter Ascham, of the eminent legal firm of Ascham and Pettilow, would have his punctual hand on the doorbell of the flat. It was a comfort to reflect that Ascham was so punctual—the suspense was beginning to make his host nervous. And the sound of the doorbell would be the beginning of the end—after that, there’d be no going back, by God—no going back! “ (“The Bolted Door” by Edith Wharton)

2.”True! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses — not destroyed — not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?” (“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Alan Poe)

Both appeal to a feeling of restlessness and disquietness which has to do with the senses. Words like “Irritably, nervous, spasmodic” pepper the opening, paralleling Hubert’s nerve-wracking feelings with those of Poe’s narrator in the “Tell-Tale Heart.”

Hubert Granice’s life ennui, “his abyss inside,” his feeling of failure, and purposelessness drive him into a spiral of self-destruction and a distraught nervous system.

“It was not recovered pleasure in life that he felt, but only a deeper withdrawal into himself. It was easier to go on automatically with the social gestures than to uncover to any human eye the abyss within him”

In a frustrated attempt to perpetrate his death, he requests, in a Faustian-like way, his lawyer, Peter Ascham, to do it for him. Ascham has settled his will, as well as supervised his thespian contracts but, now, he is asked to be part of a life and death deal which he refuses and does not take seriously. The question of Hubert’s insanity starts to take shape. He claims that he has killed Joseph Lenman, his mother’s cousin, to appropriate the money that already by inheritance belongs to him. 

In the manuscript found in his drawer next to the revolver with which he tries to attempt against his life, we know of his being rejected as a playwright for lack of drama: “My dear Mr Granice….the play won’t do, it isn’t the poetry that scares her—or me either. We both want to do all we can to help along the poetic drama---….the fact is that there isn’t enough drama in your play to the allowance of poetry."

The irony is that Hubert’s own story provides the drama his play lacks, and in a nested narrative /framed story narrative technique, the script unfolds parading a series of characters that seem to impersonate different roles: from detectives, to lawyers, journalists, and doctors that play detectives. He desperately looks for endorsement that will grant his much-desired death.  Ironically, he has perpetrated the “perfect crime,” with no loose ends nor evidence that can incriminate him.

As nobody believes him, he is finally confined to an asylum in which he is constantly trying to rewrite, and reenact statements that may compromise him. There is only a faded hint at the end of an already a-missed sanity.  McCarren states: “I did it get a clue ….it wasn’t a delusion ...I tumbled on the truth by the merest accident ...I couldn’t hang the poor devil ...but I am glad when they collared him, and had him stowed away safe in here.”

At the end, he is stowed away physically in an asylum and mentally in the eternal torment of his unproven thoughts.

And the door was bolted

"The English Patient" by Michael Ondaatje

 

"The English Patient"_ Reading Club: Books Up! de Ana María Sánchez Mosquera

Underwood Typewriter, a story by Carlos Mota

A Velvet Sofa and an Underwood Typewriter

by Carlos Mota

Link to Krzystof Pelc’s Story

After reading Green Velvet, by Krzysztof Pelc, the son of an Iranian émigré, I couldn’t help but reflect on the lives of so many migrants whose dreams have been deferred—or even irreversibly devastated—by Trump’s infamous and cruel executive order to deport them. The story’s themes resonated deeply, echoing the shattered hopes of millions who have sought a better life in a country that now turns its back on them.

I was reminded of an old Underwood typewriter my brother found on the streets of Manhattan shortly after he arrived in New York from Venezuela in 1970. He cleaned it and placed it prominently in the home he and his wife purchased eight years later. Though it was in perfect working order, he never typed a word with it. Instead, it became an object of beauty, sitting on a wooden pedestal in the middle of their living room, a small but potent symbol of transformation and pride.

My brother now lives in South Carolina in a smaller home purchased with the proceeds from selling his New York property and a South Carolina apartment he once owned. I imagine the typewriter still commands its place of honor in his new living room, a quiet reminder of how far he has come.

His two sons, who were born and live in New York, exemplify the opportunities once accessible to migrants and their children. His older son holds an MBA, while the younger one, a talented artist with several exhibitions to his name, earned a PhD in psychology. Their accomplishments evince the incredible contributions migrants and their descendants can make when given the chance.

The typewriter and the velvet sofa could symbolize the promise of America: opportunities seemingly lying on the street, waiting to be claimed by those who dare to dream and work for them. Yet, for so many today, that promise has been shattered. The country that once embraced its identity as a land of opportunity has erected barriers, shutting out the very people who continue to enrich it.

This reality is not unique to the United States. Watching a woman on Spanish television express her fears about menas—unaccompanied migrant minors—I was struck by how her concerns mirrored the prejudice and exclusion present across the Atlantic. She claimed these children threatened her community and would drain local resources, an argument that has long been used to justify exclusion, both in Spain and in America.

Possibly, in the eyes of Trump, his German grandfather and his Slovenian wife bypass the concept of unacceptable foreigners, much like unaccompanied Ukrainian children in Spain manage to avert the moniker of menas and are instead welcomed, supported, and provided with opportunities to thrive, opportunities that could just as easily be extended to others, yet are denied because of prejudice.

The Underwood typewriter and my brother’s life serve as reminders of what is possible when opportunities are accessible to all. But they also underscore the tragedy of shutting the door on those who come seeking that same promise. The green velvet sofa reminded me of the lives caught in this tension—those whose potential is stifled by systems that see them as “other.”