Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

            Ellen Olenska is a captivating woman. Unlike May, she not afraid to speak her mind, and she frequently spends time with people that the high-class New York society might consider to be “less than desirable”. Newland Archer is intrigued by the way her mind works, and he is in love with the womanly courage she possesses. Instead of abiding the rules set for her, Countess Olenska chooses to make her own decisions, such as leaving her husband, the rich Count Olenski, even if it means facing social consequences. Her decision leads to coldness from her own family, whispering, and gossip on her “foreign” behavior. However, Ellen Olenska is not a “beautiful” or “pretty” woman in terms of the traditional standards of aesthetic beauty during that time period. When he is reintroduced to her at the opera after years and years of not seeing each other, Newland Archer views as a run-away wife that has become washed out and old in comparison to the young and vibrant May Welland. He finds her dress to be in bad taste, and the low-cut top to be scandalous. “He hated to think of May Welland's being exposed to the influence of a young women so careless of the dictates of Taste.” (Wharton) But as the story progresses and Archer increasingly gains affection toward this character, Ellen Olenska’s physical description changes. Rather than a critical analysis of her physical flaws, the narrator and Archer begin to concentrate more on her assets and her charm. That charm influences his overall view of her, and he falls in love with everything that she is and represents. Ellen represents everything that will become “new” New York society in the future, and this is reflected through the descriptions of her physical beauty which Archer might consider beautiful but does not abide to the traditional standards. In contrast, May Welland is representative of the “old” New York society. She abides to the invisible rules set for her by her parents and the older generation. She knows how to be sweet and the definition of a “perfect wife”. She is young, pretty, and vibrant. However, as Archer is exposed to Ellen Olenska’s way of looking at the high-class New York society and starts to dislike the conformity that is expected, he starts seeing the flaws in May Welland’s beauty as well. He notices that her eyes are blank, and he becomes increasingly impatient with her lack of curiosity and lack of desire for what he considers to be “freedom” for women. He also realizes that his marriage to May Welland will be nothing more than “a dull association of material and social interests" (Wharton). Therefore, Archer and the narrator’s view of her physical beauty changes as well. He describes her eyes as being "almost pale in their youthful limipidity" and her face as being “"the vacant serenity of a young marble

athlete"(Wharton). Wharton’s sudden yet subtle usage of words like “vacant” and “limpidity” goes far to describe May Welland as simply pretty and empty rather than beautiful like before. And these changing perceptions of beauty reflect Newland Archer’s changing perception of the high-class New York societies. 

The Love Song of Newland Archer

In these last chapters, Newland Archer makes his final decision to run away with Countess Olenska and live the life that he’s been meaning to live. His actions and words show increasingly more affection towards Ellen Olenska, even in front of his wife, May, and the other families. May has become much more aware of his feelings and has become somewhat frantic. For the first time, things seemed to have been going his way. Newland Archer is able to talk himself out of the so-called “business trip” that he had told May he was going on, even though he was really meaning to see Ellen. In addition, the grandmother’s health recovered enough for her to regain control and force the family to continue giving Ellen her allowance. Ellen is then able to separate from her husband, the Count Olenski, and return to Europe. Unfortunately for Archer, he is not able to join Ellen, nor is he able to give a final goodbye. He is forced to stay at home once May unveiled that she was in fact, pregnant with his child. With everyone in the family, including May, suspecting that he was having an affair with Ellen Olenska, Newland and May decide to throw their first large party as a send off for Ellen. There, Newland confirms his belief that everyone believes him to be unfaithful to May and he watches as the families all regain their warm reception of Ellen. They treat her with the utter most respect, and she is sent off with the blessing of the high-class New York society. With May being pregnant, that would have been Archer’s last chance to be with Ellen. However, he chooses to stay married to May until the day she dies. He has three children (2 boys and a girl), one of whom gets married to one of Beauford’s “bastard children”. However when his eldest son takes him to Europe and gives him the chance to meet with Ellen Olenska after all these years, Archer simply walks away from the opportunity, stating that he was “too old fashioned”.

            Newland Archer’s indecisiveness that continued until the last chapters of The Age of Innocence and his never ending thoughts of regret reminded me a lot of the poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S Eliot. Like the speaker of the poem, Newland Archer throws away an infinite amount of opportunities for him to see Countess Olenska and get out of his “pretend” marriage with May. Instead of acting upon his thoughts and desires, Archer often ponders and second-guesses his intentions until the opportunity has passed. He keeps questioning his own happiness and the shoes that the high-class New York society expects him to fill, much like the speaker in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, who keeps asking, “Is it worth it?”  The speaker also asks, “Do I dare disturb the universe?” which is similar to the hesitation that Newland Archer feels because of the society’s invisible rules that require a husband to stay with his wife, remain discreet, and above all else, to not create any disturbances. But society is not the only thing that holds Archer back. He is also afraid of the truth and possibility. At the very end of the book, Archer is given the chance to see Ellen Olenska; she had invited both him and his son, indicating that she has not forgotten them or that she still holds affection for him. However, Newland dismisses the opportunity and offer by telling his son that he is “old fashioned” and walking back to his hotel. He is afraid that Ellen Olenska might have changed, that he, himself might have changed, and that their love might have faded away. And so he tells himself, “It’s more real to me here, than if I went up”, signifying that he, like the speaker in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, would much rather dream and imagine the possibilities than to claim them and take charge of his own destiny.

"The Mental Traveler" vs. Grendel

Grendel by John Gardner and William Blake’s “Mental Traveler” both deal with the same loss of innocence and change that occurs when infants are exposed to experience. In the “Mental Traveler”, Blake states that “For there the Babe is born in joy”. The same can be said in Grendel’s case. Grendel starts off being quite content with his world; he considers himself a part of his mother, “She loved me, in some mysterious sense I understood without her speaking it. I was her creation. We were one thing, like the wall and the rock growing out from it.” (page 17, Gardner) Ignorant and without any of his own thoughts, ideas, or philosophies, Grendel in chapter 2 is virtually untouched by the world. All he knows is the pounding of his mother’s heart and the warmth of her loose skin. However, when he meets man, everything changes. The same can be said for the infant in Blake’s “Mental Traveler”. When the baby is first born, he is joyful and ignorant; he has no contact with the outside world. However, when he is given to a n old woman (aka exposed to a human), everything changes. She “nails him down upon a rock,” and “catches his shrieks in cups of gold.” It is not said explicitly whether the old woman was what caused the infant to shriek or if he was even shrieking before the encounter, but the fact that they mention this after he was passed to the old woman is significant, as if she was the cause of his sudden misery. In a sense, the old woman is much like the dragon that appears in John Gardner’s Grendel. She “Cuts his heart out at his side, / To make it feel both cold and heat”, which is somewhat equivalent to exposing the baby to the world. She is giving him the experience of cold and heat or good and evil. The dragon appears to become Grendel’s mentor for the same reasons that the woman is the one caring for the baby, to expose him to the world. Up until that point, Grendel has known two things: the shielded cave that he was born into with his mother and the idealistic, meaningful world that the Hrothgar’s tribe (human society) has created. The dragon gives him a chance to feel “cold” by exposing him to what the reader might consider “the truth”. However, like the “Mental Traveler” his transformation and maturity does not end there. Grendel constantly shifts back and forth between the dragon’s philosophies and the philosophies of the shaper just as the female and male in Blake’s poem are constantly growing old and becoming younger. It is a cycle that has no end. As Grendel dies at the end of the novel, another being will probably appear to take on his role of the “monster” in order to make the human society function, and then the dragon will probably reappear to explain the universe as he sees it, without meaning. 

The Helpless/MIA Mother Trope

I picked up on the lack of a mother figure in the teenage protagonists’ lives in the fifth grade. Disney Channel’s show, Hannah Montana was “the biggest thing” in my class back when Miley Cyrus could still be tamed. I suppose the show followed the typical Disney format: a girl and her best friend, a dorky father, a close guy friend (and potential romantic interest), and a MIA mother. When I picked up on the detail that Hannah Montana’s mother never showed up on set (they implied that she died), I started noticing it in other movies, TV shows, and books too. Snow White, Cinderella, Peter Pan, The Sound of Music, Harry Potter (both of Harry’s parents died, but Luna’s missing a mother too), The Golden Compass, To Kill A Mockingbird… the list is endless, but what’s most notable is this trope seems to appear most frequently in stories that are aimed toward teenagers. The mother is not always dead, sometimes she has simply disappeared without any explanation at all or she is present but hardly mentioned other than when she is being criticized. And this “helpless mother trope” is most notable in the two most talked about book series by teenage girls in the last couple years: The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins and the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. While the mothers are somewhat present within the story, appearing every so once in a while, the only thing the protagonists, Bella Swan and Katniss Everdeen, have to offer their mothers is pity. It is clear that the female protagonists in the two series feel that they are more mature, dignified, and stronger than their mothers. In fact, the role of parent and child reverses within the story so that the protagonists are constantly taking care of/looking out for their mothers. Their attitudes toward their mothers are not subtle in any way at all; in fact, the pity mixed in with a good dose of teenage arrogance appears within the first chapter of both series. Within The Hunger Games it appears on the first page, “In sleep, my mother looks younger, still worn but not so beaten-down. Prim’s face is as fresh as a raindrop, as lovely as the primrose for which she was named. My mother was very beautiful once, too. Or so they tell me.” (Collins) While Katniss’s commentary on her mother’s beauty might not seem like much, but historically, beauty has been a key aspect in a female’s worth. While The Hunger Games is a more contemporary piece of work, in this quote, Katniss’s commentary on beauty is about more than aesthetics. She is subtly showing disapproval and disappointment in her mother’s lack of vitality and pity in her growing age and helplessness. Her attitude towards her mother is far harsher than her attitude towards Prim, and this is confirmed a few pages later. Her mother is helpless and clueless, dependent upon her children as shown on page 11, “They’re not our kids, of course. But they might as well be. Ale’s two little brothers and a sister. Prim. And you may as well throw in our mothers, too, because how would they live without us? Who would fill those mouths that are always asking for more?” (Collins) In Twilight, Bella views her mother in a more positive light. She doesn't hold any past grudges or much criticism in her parenting in comparison to Katniss, but she treats her mother like a child. She is concerned for her well being, and it is implied that the mother cannot take-care of herself, “How could I leave my loving, erratic, hair-brained mother to fend for herself? Of course she had Phil now, so the bills would probably get paid, there would be food in the refrigerator, gas in her car, and someone to call when she got lost, but still...” (Meyer). This helpless/MIA mother trope that is used over and over again within teen series has one important job, and that is to force the protagonists to act beyond their age and be portrayed as being much more heroic, responsible, and caring than they actually are. Despite their intentions and actions within the present, the trope gives the reader a kind of assurance that “Yes, the protagonist is a good person. She is a hero”. But the truth is, if the writer spent more time developing the protagonist and less time assuring that the reader that the character is likable, we might end up with mothers that are substantial characters and more than skimpy placeholders held up by a trope.  And this is one of the many reasons why I can’t approve the usage of this particular trope wholeheartedly; it seems that the majority of the time when it is being used, the author is simply getting lazy in their character development. 

How Do I Love Thee?

How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. 
I love thee to the level of every day's 
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; 
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. 
I love with a passion put to use 
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. 
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 
With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath, 
Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose, 
I shall but love thee better after death. 

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee?” illustrates an undying love that lasts for the ages. Formatted in a Petrarchan Iambic Pentameter form, the poem follows the traditional expectations of a Petrarchan sonnet. Made famous by the Italian poet, Petrarch, the Petrarchan sonnet which gained immense popularity in the Romanicism period often deals with the subject of love. Like the classic Petrarchan sonnet, Browning reveals that her love for her husband is equally timeless. Thus, she ends the sonnet with the line, “I shall but love thee better after death” reiterating the point that this love is not just a passing feeling but one that will last for eternity, even after death. Browning attempts to do the impossible: counting exactly how many different ways she loves her husband. She uses many comparisons to do this, particularly emphasizing how her love reflects the nature of man. “I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;/ I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise” in lines 7-8 focuses on the nature of man and his existence throughout the ages. By doing so, Browning is making a statement that her love is instinctual, ever-lasting, and predestined as man’s existence has been. She loves “with a passion put to use/ in my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.” (lines 9-10) which is a reference to the innocence and unhindered passion that only exists in childhood. She trusts her lover with blind faith-“my childhood’s faith” (line 10). A child’s faith is undying just as her loyalty to her lover is. Line 11, in which Browning states, “I love thee with a love I seemed to lose” conveys that this love is untainted by her past experiences. Like the childhood faith, the experience that comes with growing older often leads to disappointments and let downs. Browning hints that she too has been disappointed, betrayed, and hurt by others that she has loved in the past by including this line. However, she is not bitter about the experience. Instead she seems to have turned around those unpleasant experiences, putting them to good use as a way to compare how she feels about her lover now. So instead of using malicious language or cool indifference to reference the others that have caused her to lose her love in the first place, she calls them “lost saints”. These “lost saints” can be an allusion to Milton’s Paradise Lost or the biblical story of how Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden. Like Adam and Eve before their fall, the ones that she had loved seemed to be harmless and possibly “saint-like”. However, after the experience that opened up her eyes to betrayal, hurt, and disappointment, their saint-like image was lost. So although they are the same people, with the acquirement of this new knowledge and experience with love that leads to Browning’s lost love, these “saints” are metaphorically banned from Browning’s own Garden of Eden. Finally, as a bold conclusion, Browning ends her sonnet by pledging to give her life for this love if God so chooses because her lover is “smiles, tears, of all” her life (line13). 

The Ever Changing Cinderella

The first “Cinderella story” that I had been told came from my mother. It was a big fat lie, at least in the eye of my preschool-aged self who found a great many differences in the story I had been told and the “real” story that everyone else had known. For one thing, my Cinderella was a doctor. She never married the prince, never sought help from a fairy godmother, nor did she ever seek out wealth through romance. In contrast, Disney’s Cinderella (the one everyone but I was familiar with) kept kindness and beauty close to her heart. She was graceful and seemed to have the magical ability to talk to animals. Everyone loved her, except for her evil stepmother and stepsisters who were simply jealous of her lack of personality. Looking back, I should have found my mother’s retelling of Cinderella much more appealing. The girl saved her village from an infectious disease by building a hospital and becoming a doctor; she single-handedly convinced the prince to give funding to the hospital by winning her over with her charms, wit, and intelligence. She stood out from the other girls because she was more than a pretty face. In contrast, the Disney’s Cinderella seeks romance and a night of fun at most, and her prince falls in love with her beauty, completely disregarding everything else about her. But the classic Cinderella story has evolved over time, reflecting our society’s view of women. In the third grade, Disney’s shallow, objectified, helpless, and simply-a-princess-out-of-sheer-luck Cinderella redeemed herself in the book, Ella Enchanted. She kept all the magical elements of the original story and all of the more historical “kingdom” elements. However, compared to the Perrault version, published in 1697, and the Brothers’ Grimm version, there is a drastic change in the expectations and values in women. Ella in Ella Enchanted may have a fairy godmother and an evil stepmother but she wins over the prince with her sense of wit, humor, and bravery in addition to her natural beauty. Her main focus in this story is not to marry the prince, but to gain her independence. She refuses his marriage proposal by saying, “No, I won't marry you. I won't do it. No one can force me.” (Levine) as an act of disobedience. At the same time, Ella is not untouched by the traditional gender roles imposed upon her. When the prince chooses to dance with her out of all the other ladies at the ball, she feels honored. Although she seeks her own freedom, her desire for marriage, romance, and status is undeniable, as shown by this passage, “‘would you favor me with a dance?’ Over all the others I was his choice! I curtsied, and he took my hand. Our hands knew each other. Char looked at me, startled. ‘Have we met before, Lady?’” (Levine) As society itself changes the perception of women and their values, the classic story of Cinderella is retold to reflect those changes. The more modern retellings add wit, humor, and intelligence to the list of characteristics that Cinderella is known for rather than sticking to the original “kindness of heart” and beauty only. 

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

           

I have never understood the use of parentheses in poetry. Frequently they can be used “wrong”. One might assume that since it’s poetry, anything goes, but that is not the case. Poetry, while often shorter and harder to decipher than prose does have rules to a certain extent. Throwing around parentheses within the lines of your poetry might give the poem an air of sophistically, a look that is “edgy” and modern. But a “good” poem (which is of course relative to the reader) concerns itself not only with its appearance but with the meaning being conveyed. And what makes a poem successful is its ability to convey the meaning effectively. For years, I had thought e.e. cummings merely threw around grammatical mistakes and strange formatting to “defy the system”, but I was wrong. There is a clear purpose to his unusual style if only one would take the time to look just a bit deeper. His poem, “[i carry your heart with me(I carry it in]” reads as two poems.  

Here is the poem excluding the section in parentheses:

i carry your heart with me

i am never without it

                       

                        I fear

no fate I want

no world

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart

Here is the poem exclusively with the section in parentheses:

(i carry it in

My heart)  (anywhere

i go you go my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing my darling)

(for you are my fate,my sweet)

(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

And the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

Higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

(I carry it in my heart)

The phrase “i carry it in my heart” repeats a few times within the course of the poem. But every single time it appears, it appears within a set of parentheses e.e. cummings plays with his formatting, giving it a visual element as well. The parentheses represents the cavity of his heart, and by doing so (and keeping it consistent throughout the poem ) e.e. cummings paints a picture in his reader’s mind not only through his words but through formatting. He’s able to convey two messages, one being an intimate confession of love and the other being about the life he carries in his heart.