By Poe's criteria, "The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids" is perhaps not a successful tale, lacking unity. Yet it is as horrific an image of man's (and woman's) fate as Poe himself created.
Questions of sexual and racial identity are taken up in more realistic terms by writers of subsequent generations, like Charles W. Chesnutt (whose "The Sheriff's Children" anticipates the obsessive father-son theme of Langston Hughes' work), Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (whose "Old Woman Magoun" anticipates radical feminist texts of our time), and Charlotte Perkins Gilman (whose "The Yellow Wallpaper," a Poe-inspired narration of lyric madness, has become in fact a celebrated feminist text of our time). Edith Wharton's unusually frank "A Journey" is a naturalistic allegory dramatizing a young wife's experience of her husband's dying; her resentment and terror of the burden his very body represents to her in death—as if she, yearning to live, will be stigmatized by his death, forced to disembark prematurely from the train (of life?). A similar moment of crisis is experienced—and transcended—by the hysterically repressed Presbyterian minister of Sherwood Anderson's "The Strength of God" (from Winesburg, Ohio): "God has appeared to me," the minister announces, "—in the person of Kate Swift, the school teacher, kneeling naked on a bed."
Arguably, most African-American writing is about racial identity: black cohesiveness and dispersion in a rapidly industrialized country; black experience (suffering, resignation, rebellion, rage, accommodation, integration, self-determination) in the face of historical white oppression. In broad theoretical images, the "white father's black son"—the unacknowledged progeny of the "white master"— is an emblem of the misbegotten and the rejected who returns as a powerful threat. The "Jesus" of William Faulkner's "That Evening Sun" is a bitter sort of savior; the degraded black man, the probable son of slaves, who revenges himself against the only victim available to him in his powerlessness—the black woman who is his wife. Faulkner's depiction of this tragedy is the more wrenching in that it is told to us obliquely, through the chattering and arguing of a self-absorbed white Mississippian family.
Striking a distinctly ominous note is Richard Wright's "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" (the black youth who is "almost" a murderer, and on his way to being one)—a story disturbing to white readers as the author's controversial Native Son, one of the seminal novels of black American experience. The young black men of Jean Toomer's "Blood-Burning Moon" and Ralph Ellison's "Battle Royal" inhabit a society divided along indisputably racist lines; Eudora Welty's "Where Is the Voice Coming From?" presents a deranged white murderer, the very voice of a retrograde Southern society of the 1960's. Only James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" ends with an image of transcendence and hope, however painfully won: "Then they all gathered around Sonny, and Sonny played. . . . Sonny's fingers filled the air with life, his life. But that life contained so many others." In a contemporary story by John Edgar Wideman, "Fever," blackness itself is perceived by whites as a contagion— "evil incarnate"—yet acquires a purposeful strength, the strength of bitterness, cunning, ironic detachment.
Among those writers with whom we associate literary Modernism (Ernest Hemingway, for instance) and those writers who are our contemporaries, questions of identity have become all-absorbing. The quintessential Hemingway hero is a paradigm for the hero (or heroine) of much twentieth-century fiction, whose predicament is: once one has stripped oneself of superfluities of identity, what remains? The terror of night?—nothingness? "Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name," is the prayer of "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"—as if God were nothing, and nothingness is God. Scott Fitzgerald's cartoonist-hero of the painfully autobiographical "An Alcoholic Case" looks into a corner of the hotel bathroom and sees death awaiting him: and nothing more. Perhaps the most extreme (and unforgettable) image of twentieth-century existential dislocation is the brutalized, tongueless American professor (of linguistics) of Paul Bowles's nightmare parable, "A Distant Episode."
In our contemporaries, the burden of history and politics as personal fate, weighing, at times, almost physically upon the shoulders of survivors and descendants, is dramatized in stories encompassing a wide range of subject matter, style, and vision—from Flannery O'Connor's mordant "A Late Encounter with the Enemy" (an aged Civil War veteran's hallucinatory descent into death, and into his identity) to Bernard Malamud's "My Son the Murderer" (generational conflict in the radicalized, despairing Sixties), Louise Erdrich's "Fleur" (a Native American "witch" resists the fate that would make her a victim) and Bharati Mukherjee's "The Management of Grief" (the surviving member of a Hindu family killed in a terrorist bombing detaches herself, through pain, from the paralysis of grief). The elliptical, poetic tales of Sandra Cisneros and the seemingly forthright, conversational "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan take for granted a dominant Caucasian world outside the family—here, such abstractions as history and politics are realized in the experience of sensitive, yet representative, adolescent girls.
Meticulous chroniclers of lives less dramatically touched by history, though yet distinctly, often disturbingly American, are such writers as John Cheever, John Updike, Alice Adams, Ursula Le Guin, Raymond Carver, among others, who have taken for their subjects the lives (and what radically differing lives, told in what radically differing voices) of what might be called mainstream Americans of the Caucasian middle class. What these writers share is their artistry; their commitment to the short story; their faith in the imaginative reconstruction of reality that constitutes literature.
As Tolstoy said, talent is the capacity to direct concentrated attention upon the subject: "the gift of seeing what others have not seen."
Though it is hardly necessary, I suggest that the reader read this volume as it is assembled, more or less chronologically. A tale will unfold, by way of numerous tales, that is uniquely and wonderfully American.
WASHINGTON IRVING (1783-1859)
Born in New York City on April 3, 1783, the last of eleven children of a wealthy Scottish merchant and an Englishwoman, Washington Irving is our first American writer to achieve a distinguished international reputation; the first to become a "classic" during his own lifetime. Well educated, cosmopolitan, imbued with a deep admiration for English literature and an interest in adapting such seemingly primitive forms as the ballad and the folklore for serious literary purposes, Irving strikes us as a highly conscious, even rather scholarly craftsman—an "imitator," as Melville would characterize him, rather than a "creative genius." Yet, so vividly rendered are certain of his fictitious characters (notably Rip Van Winkle and Ichabod Crane, of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"), so deeply imprinted have they become in the popular imagination, they strike us as mythopoetic figures—timeless, archetypal, transcending the circumstances of their own creation.
Rip Van Winkle and Ichabod Crane spring from the pages of The Sketch Book (1820), Irving's most famous title, published under the pseudonym "Geoffrey Crayon." In an earlier phase of his long career, Irving had achieved remarkable celebrity, aged twenty-five, as "Diedrich Knickerbocker," the comically pedantic author of A History of New York (1809). Irving was a writer of sketches rather than fully realized stories, and his characters, like the luckless Rip Van Winkle, have an emblematic quality, illuminated by the hearty glare of comedy. He was a superb stylist, not a psychologist, for whom, as he said, a story is "merely a frame on which to sketch my materials."
But what rich materials, and how elegantly constructed a frame.
Rip Van Winkle
A Posthumous Writing of Diedrich Knickerbocker
By Woden, God of Saxons,
From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday,
Truth is a thing that ever 1 will keep
Unto thylke day in which I creep into
My sepulchre—"
CARTWRIGHT
WHOEVER has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over
the surrounding country. Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but, sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory.
At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle-roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists, in the early times of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the good Peter Stuyvesant, (may he rest in peace!) and there were some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weather-cocks.
In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and weather-beaten), there lived many years since, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, a simple good-natured fellow of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege of Fort Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the martial character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple, good-natured man; he was, moreover, a kind neighbor, and an obedient, hen-pecked husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him such universal popularity; for those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation; and a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering. A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects, be considered a tolerable blessing; and if so, Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed.
Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all the good wives of the village, who, as usual, with the amiable sex, took his part in all family squabbles; and never failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their evening gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and Indians. Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was surrounded by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, clambering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks on him with impunity; and not a dog would bark at him throughout the neighborhood.
The great error in Rip's composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling-piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone fences; the women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging husbands would not do for them. In a word Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible.
In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm; it was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole country; everything about it went wrong, and would go wrong, in spite of him. His fences were continually falling to pieces; his cow would either go astray, or get among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere else; the rain always made a point of setting in just as he had some out-door work to do; so that though his patrimonial estate had dwindled away under his management, acre by acre, until there was little more left than a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, yet it was the worst conditioned farm in the neighborhood.
His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to nobody. His son Rip, an urchin begotten in his own likeness, promised to inherit the habits, with the old clothes of his father. He was generally seen trooping like a colt at his mother's heels, equipped in a pair of his father's cast-off galligaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with one hand, as a fine lady does her train in bad weather.
Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather starve on a penny than work for a pound. If left to himself, he would have whistled life away in perfect contentment; but his wife kept continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night, her tongue was incessantly going, and everything he said or did was sure to produce a torrent of household eloquence. Rip had but one way of replying to all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use, had grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said nothing. This, however, always provoked a fresh volley from his wife; so that he was fain to draw off his forces, and take to the outside of the house—the only side which, in truth, belongs to a hen-pecked husband.
Rip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much hen-pecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of his master's going so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit befitting an honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever scoured the woods—but what courage can withstand the ever-during and all-be-setting terrors of a woman's tongue? The moment Wolf entered the house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle, he would fly to the door with yelping precipitation.
Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony rolled on; a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long while he used to console himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village; which held its sessions on a bench before a small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of His Majesty George the Third. Here they used to sit in the shade through a long lazy summer's day, talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy stories about nothing. But it would have been worth any statesman's money to have heard the profound discussions that sometimes took place, when by chance an old newspaper fell into their hands from some passing traveller. How solemnly they would listen to the contents, as drawled out by Derrick Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, a dapper learned little man, who was not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in the dictionary; and how sagely they would deliberate upon the public events some months after they had taken place.
The opinions of this junto were completely controlled by Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the door of which he took his seat from morning till night, just moving sufficiently to avoid the sun and keep in the shade of a large tree; so that the neighbors could tell the hour by his movements as accurately as by a sun-dial. It is true he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe incessantly. His adherents, however (for every great man has his adherents), perfe
ctly understood him, and knew how to gather his opinions. When any thing that was read or related displeased him, he was observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth short, frequent and angry puffs; but when pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds; and sometimes, taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant vapor curl about his nose, would gravely nod his head in token of perfect approbation.
From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquillity of the assemblage and call the members all to naught; nor was that august personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible virago, who charged him outright with encouraging her husband in habits of idleness.
Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only alternative, to escape from the labor of the farm and clamor of his wife, was to take gun in hand and stroll away into the woods. Here he would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a fellow-sufferer in persecution. "Poor Wolf," he would say, "thy mistress leads thee a dog's life of it; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live thou shalt never want a friend to stand by thee!" Wolf would wag his tail, look wistfully in his master's face, and if dogs can feel pity I verily believe he reciprocated the sentiment with all his heart.