A Feminist Analysis of Aunt Georgiana in A Wagner Matinee

李子

东北师范大学外国语学院 130024

Ⅰ lntroduction

Willa Cather (1873-1947) is an outstanding female writer in the first half of the 20th century in America. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992, and she was once entitled as “Mother of Pioneers”, for she is good at portraying women and the early pioneering life of American immigrants. As a productive writer,Cather wrote 17 novels and 55 short stories in her life time. “She was a good artist, and all true art is provincial in the most realistic sense.” (Porter 92) Her works attracted great attention of critics,and were analyzed from different perspectives:biographical criticism, southern heritage, feminism,eco-criticism, cultural aspect and so on. Although A Wagner Matinee did not catch as much attention as some other works, it is also very popular and still well worth reading. Its exquisite portrait of Aunt Georgiana is very successful. This paper is going to analyze Aunt Georgiana from the perspective of feminism, which will give a more comprehensive understanding of this short story. Aunt Georgiana suffers great from the oppression of patriarchal ideology, but she is awakened by Wagner’s music at the end of the story.

Ⅱ The oppression of patriarchal ideology on Aunt Georgiana

Gerda Lerner defines patriarchy as “the manifestation and institutionalization of male dominance over women and children in the family and extension of male dominance over women in society and everything in nature in general.” (Lerner 239)In a patriarchal society, men are in the dominant position while women are subordinate to men, so women are supposed to be inferior to men. “As patriarchy had constructed the spirit of men and women, women will remain subservient to men； unless they can be liberated in spirit like men and not bound by the thought of that woman cannot be equal with man.”(Kalpana 99) As a woman, she is expected to be a good wife as well as a devoted mother by the patriarchal society, and the patriarchal ideology is rooted in the mind of men as well as women. It is not only men that think women are inferior to men but also women consider themselves as the accessories of their husband.

In A Wagner Matinee, before going to the concert,Aunt Georgiana is one of those women who do not even realize that they are suffering from the patriarchal oppression. She once was a music teacher at the Boston Conservatory, but she gave up her job and eloped with the handsome country boy Howard Carpenter to the Nebraska frontier. She becomes a housewife now, and devotes herself to the family. What she does all day is cooking meals, taking care of her six children and all kinds of housework. When she comes to in Boston where she spent her youth, “she questioned me absently about various changes in the city, but she was chiefly concerned that she had forgotten to leave instructions about feeding halfskimmed milk to a certain weakling calf.” (Cather 238) It seems that doing housework has become an inseparable part of her life, so even she comes to Boston far away from Nebraska, but she is still thinking about her housework. She is fettered by the duties which are expected of her by the patriarchal society. In order to perform the duties, she has to sacrifice herself. All her activities were related to her family, and she knows nothing outside home, so her horizon is narrowed and her life experiences are limited.

“My poor aunt’s figure, however, would have presented astonishing difficulties to any dressmaker.Originally stooped, her shoulders were now almost bent together over her sunken chest... and her skin was as yellow as a Mogolian’s from constant exposure to a pitiless wind and to the alkaline water which hardens the most transparent cuticle into a sort of flexible leather.” (op.cit. 236) The portrait of the appearance of Aunt Georgiana indicates that she lives a hard life in the Nebraska frontier,which is utterly different from the life of being a music teacher in Boston. However, she has to live such a life, for she should follow her husband, and should stay where her husband stays. “The case of women is now the only case in which to rebel against established rule is still looked upon with the same eyes as was formerly a subject’s claim to the right of rebelling against his king.”(Stuart 20) Aunt Georgiana is not able to rebel the established rules,instead she has to endure them. She does the heavy housework that she is supposed to do day after day.Even though it makes her body out of shape, her skin yellow and her hands rough, what she can do is to remain silent and be shaped.

“My aunt, after cooking the three mealsthe first of which was ready at six o’clock in the morning－and putting the six children to bed,would often stand until midnight at her ironingborad.”(op.cit. 236) Aunt Georgiana is still ironing until midnight, but she earns no money by doing so much housework. She has to financially depend on her husband. Her economic subordination causes her inferiority. She becomes a prostitute within marriage. “It is merely a question of degree whether she sells herself to one, in or out of marriage,or to many men.” (Goldman 20) Emma Goldman thinks that a married women who has no job is just like a prostitute, because she sells herself to her husband,and lives on her husband’s money. Goldman suggests that the paid prostitution offers some advantages over the unpaid sexual and domestic labour of marriage, for a professional prostitute can earn money herself and have sex with different men while a married women should devote herself to her husband.

In a patriarchal society, it is the duty of women to do the unpaid housework, and it is regarded as reasonable. Without any money, Aunt Georgiana cannot buy things she wants. “She taught me my scales and exercises, too－on the little parlour organ,which her husband had bought her after fifteen years, during which she had not so much as seen any instrument.”(Cather 237) Aunt Georgiana receives good musical education and she loves music so much,but she has not a musical instrument, because she has no money. She has to expect her husband to buy one for her, but it is for fifteen year that she has waited. If she had a job and earned money herself,she could buy something she wants. However, the reality is that the housework she does is unpaid.“Don’t love it so well, Clark, or it may be taken from you.” (op. cit. 237) Aunt Georgiana warns the narrator Clark not to love music so much, for it may be taken away from him. The reason why she thinks so is that music is taken away from her by her marriage and the duties. She has to sacrifice her dream and repress the passion for music to be a so called qualified housewife. In her condition, she neither has money nor energy to develop her potential because of the housework she has to do and the duties she has to perform.

Ⅱ The awakening of Aunt Georgiana

Aunt Georgiana loves music so much. “She had been a good pianist in her day I knew, and her musical education had been broader than that of most music teachers of a quarter of a century ago. She had often told me of Mozart’s operas and Meyerbeer’s.” (op.cit. 239) However, the fire of the passion for art in her seems to be put out by the oppressive duties over years. Aunt Georgiana seems not to be the same woman as before, and what she chiefly concerns now is her housework, so the narrator Clark is afraid that his aunt would not enjoy Wagner’s music which has been taken away from her so many years. “I began to think it would have been best to get her back to Red Willow Country without waking her, and regretted having suggested the concert.”(op. cit. 238) However, the narrator’s worry is unnecessary, for Aunt Georgiana not only enjoys the concert very much, but even does not want to leave when the concert is over. The whole concert for Aunt Georgiana is a process of awakening.

“When the horns drew out the first strain of the Pilgrim’s chorus, my Aunt Georgiana clutched my coat sleeve.”(op. cit. 239) For her this chorus breaks a silence of thirty years. The music is like a gust of wind, it rekindles the spark ash of nearly smothered fire of the passion for music. When the overture is closed, she says nothing but just stares at the orchestra. It seems to be so sudden for her to enjoy a concert. Aunt Georgiana concentrates herself on the music, and her fingers unconsciously play the piano score on her dress. She may be recalling the wonderful feeling of playing piano. With the nurture of Wagner’s music, the rekindled ash grows into a tongue of flame in her body. As the “Prize Song” is playing, the tongue of flame becomes more and more strong. She begins to realize the suppression she suffers over years. Her restrained desire for music is released. She weeps quietly through the second half of the programme. “The concert was over... She burst into tears and sobbed pleadingly. ‘I don’t want to go, Clark, I don’t want to go!’”(op. cit.241) The tongue of flame grows into big fire burning in her body. She is awakened. She does not want to leave, because she knows what kind of life is waiting for her out of the concert. It is the life in which there is no music but the endless housework,no desire of herself but sacrifice, no vigor but dullness. She regains her self-awareness, and knows what she wants and what she disgusts.

Ⅲ Conclusion

Feminism provides a perspective to analyze this short story, and it can help to have a better understanding of the character Aunt Georgianan. She suffers from the oppression of patriarchal ideology.She sacrifices her dream and her passion for art to become a qualified wife and a selfless mother in a patriarchal society. She does the unpaid housework,so she has no money herself to develop her potential.What she can do is just to keep silent. However, when she is brought to the concert by the narrator, the restrained passion for music is released in her body.She is awakened by music. She does not want to leave the concert, for she has realized the suppression she suffers over years. She does not want to live a life like that again.

Works Cited

Cather, Willa. A Wagner Matinee. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2009. Print.

Kalpana, R.J. Feminism and Family. New Delhi:Prestige Books, 2005. 99. Print.

Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Patriarchy.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. 239. Print.

Porter, Katherine Anne. Lesbian and Bisexual Fiction Writers (Women Writers of English & Their Works). Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publications, 1997, 92.

Stuart, Mill and John Stuart. The Subjection of Women. Ed. Edward Alexander. New Brunswick:Transaction Publishers, 2001. 20. Print.

Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens. London: Orion Publishing Co, 2005. Print.