When I last wrote, I was about to get caught up in a storm of annoyances, mostly work-related: my department chair was leaning heavily on me to do her work for her, new committees were trying to seduce me into joining, and too many student essays awaited grading. As a result, the blog took a hit. Then intertia set in. Then–most damming (not damning)–was the thought that if I returned to writing after a hiatus I’d have to explain it, and I hate that; it just seemed easier not to write. So here I am, years later, explaining why I stopped.
I have a good reason now to resume writing, though, and it is a pretty good reason. On December 21st, I turned in my grades for the fall semester, signaling the beginning of nine months off. My sabbatical–delayed a year because of other commitments–officially starts with the new semester in the middle of January, but it really starts now. During the sabbatical I hope to put in a lot of miles on my bike, but, more importantly, there is a book that is more or less patiently waiting to get written. I know that it helps lubricate the writing machine to post some things on here, where the stakes are much lower and book editors are not casting a jaded, critical eye on my words. I will talk more about the project in future posts, and maybe, if you’re all very good, I’ll even tell you the proposed title.
However, I want to start with a story that I just read and want to include in my analysis later. The story perplexes me in some ways, and I want to try to play with some ideas and see how they do. Throw things at the wall and see what sticks.
Madelene Yale Wynne (1847-1918) is hardly remembered today except for those of us who look into the dusty corners of nineteenth-century literature, and even I, a veteran dusty corner looker, had never encountered her before I picked up Alfred Bendixen’s anthology, Haunted Women. Wynne is the daughter of the man who invented the Yale lock, and her largest accomplishment and source of recognition during her life was her talent for arts and crafts, especially metal working; she apparently wished to get other women invested in artistic production. She seems to be a sort of female version of William Morris.
Wynne’s short story “The Little Room” was the most popular thing she wrote and first appeared in Harper’s Magazine. Later stories did not satisfy her audience as much as this eerie little gem did. Bendixen calls it “one of the most effective ‘puzzle stories’ ever written.”
The story is told entirely in dialogue and opens with a young woman talking to her new husband, Roger. The young Mrs. Grant tells, with a mixture of fondness and the slightest foreboding, of her Aunt Hannah, who is “New England…boiled down.” Mrs. Grant’s mother had recalled a small room in Aunt Hannah’s house, a perfect little room with a comfortable couch and small bookcase. However, when she visted Aunt Hannah again, the room wasn’t there; in its place was a china closet filled with gilt-edged china. Moreover, Aunt Hannah claimed there never had been a little room her niece had described–the china closet had been a part of the house for as long as the house had stood.
The little room and the china closet take turns appearing in the house. Whatever room is currently in existence is the one that Aunt Hannah insists is the eternal room, and she vehemently disavows any knowledge of any contrary room. When young Mrs. Grant appears with her husband, the little room she remembered as a child was gone, replaced by the china closet. A few years later she enlists the help of a pair of friends, Rita and Nan, to find out the truth. The two friends visit at different times and each sees a different room. When the two discover their experiences with the rooms differ, they immediately set out to settle things once and for all. Upon arriving at the town where Aunt Hannah lives, however, they learn that the house has burned down.
It is an odd, haunting little story that lodges itself in your brain much the way the memory of the little room takes up housekeeping in Mrs. Grant’s mind. It did not occur to me until writing down the synopsis that the reason the house had to burn down is because the two women who had had opposite experiences of the room were going to arrive at the same time: the room would have to have two opposite appearances at the same time, and that would never work. Solution? Fire.
More to the point, though, the rooms’ characters appear different to women who are at different stages of their lives. Mrs. Grant fondly remembers the little room from her childhood, but that memory is overlayed by the altered reality after her marriage. When she is no longer a little girl, the young niece, but is a grown, married woman, the room becomes a china closet, an emblem of domesticity. Furthermore, the china occupying the closet is gilt, indicating the false, glittering promise of adulthood that, when scratched, is only a thin veneer that looks much richer than it really is. The little room, on the other hand, shows the allure of imagination (through the books) and travel (a piece of cloth with exotic provenance, a large sea shell), neither of which are the “proper” concern of a married woman.
This short analysis scarcely shows the depth of the story. There are many other elements that I will have to consider more closely in my more formal study: the books, for example, all have brown leather bindings save for one bright red volume. If you are interested, the story can be found in Bendixen’s anthology, mentioned above, or you can find it online here.
Leave a comment