The All-Seeing Gaze of Mrs. Freeman: Flannery O’Connor’s Good Country People from “The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor”
I was smug when I first The All-Seeing Gaze of Mrs. Freeman: Flannery O’Connor’s Good Country People from “The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor”
I was smug when I first met the gaze of Mrs. Freeman, she with her “forward expression” that was “steady and driving like the advance of a heavy truck.” (271)
Obviously, I thought, O’Connor has presented me with a mule of a character--a prideful, simple woman who “could never be brought to admit herself wrong on any point.” The story begins with this gaze and ends with this same, stubborn, unrelenting gaze as that gaze “drives” toward our bible-touting shyster, and it dawns on me: I thought I knew who saw the truth. I thought I knew what character cut through the glittery surfaces: Hulga. She with her stomping ways, her refusal to gloss over the drabness of her life, the philosopher, the nonsmiler--she is the one who truly perceives reality and is unafraid to call it out ... right?
No. I saw nothing. And it is O’Connor’s deft use of the simple details of who is looking at whom, and how, and why, that expertly misleads us as readers and then again causes the shingles to fall from our eyes. I do not feel like an idiot. O’Connor uses gaze like a magician who wants you to look at a shiny bauble while his other hand is pulling a $20 bill from your wallet. Observe the direction and intent surrounding the gaze of the three main characters--Mrs. Freeman, Mrs. Hopewell and Hulga-- in this passage:
...Mrs. Freeman would be hanging by her elbow outward from the refrigerator, looking down at the table. Hulga always put her eggs on the stove to boil and then stood over them with her arms folded, and Mrs. Hopewell would look at her--a kind of indirect gaze divided between her and Mrs. Freeman ... (273)
Note that we have already been told that Mrs. Freeman “could never be brought to admit herself wrong on any point,” (271) and that she makes other people’s business very much her own. The posture in which O’Connor places Mrs. Freeman--i.e., hanging off the refrigerator something like a vulture ready to scoop down and eat up the foibles of those around her--mixed with the fact that the woman is, apparently in character, “looking down” at the table both literally (physically) and judgmentally, add up to intentional authorial misdirections.
Hulga’s gaze is averted, and within short order we understand why: Hulga is surrounded by simpletons such as her mother, who, given her way, would paint smiley faces on all people and circumstances, believing as she does that “a smile never hurt anyone.” (276)
O’Connor repeatedly misleads us into believing that Hulga’s gaze is in fact penetrating the veil, such as when she gives Mr. Manley Pointer “one look on being introduced to him and then throughout the meal had not glanced at him again.” (280) Unlike her mother, Hulga is above the dishonesty of politeness and sees through the snake oil and the charm of “country folk” such as Pointer. So we think.
And then we have another thing entirely: The utterly deceitful and chameleon-like gaze of Pointer.
For Mrs. Hopewell, his initial mark, we see Pointer use the gaze of feigned sincerity repeatedly and with the skill of an extremely talented actor or salesman: i.e., those few in the population who have learned to control the muscles around their eyes to conceal lies. First he “[pretends:] to look puzzled but with his eyes sparkling,” (277), then he delivers “a straight earnest look” as he tells Mrs. Hopewell he has “come to speak of serious things,” (278) followed by the feigned look of a humble country man being impressed by finery as he “glanced around the room as if he were sizing her up by it.” (278). Again and again, Pointer uses gaze to misdirect, from looking down at his wringing hands when speaking of his simplicity, to glancing up into Mrs. Hopewell’s “unfriendly face” to flatter her by calling her “people like you” who don’t like to “fool with country people like me.” (278).
It is shocking that Hulga--a truth seer, O’Connor has led us to believe--is mesmerized by the gaze of this snake. But Pointer in fact uses variations on his artful gazes to swindle even this mark, this supposedly astute woman who is in fact just another dupe.
Both Hulga and Mrs. Hopewell have looked down on Pointer for what they perceive as his simple ways and his awe at their own sophistication, whether it be economical on the part of mother or intellectual on the part of daughter. Both are blinded by pride.
Finally, we have Mrs. Freeman and her all-seeing gaze. She has “seen him walk up,” and then later “I seen him walk off,” and her “slight insinuation” leaves no doubt that she understands he has less than innocent intent. She has the eye of one who has seen the fruit of the tree of knowledge itself: one who has gazed through the posturings of intellectualism and snobbishness and who looks at Hulga and sees into her heart, into the stirrings of carnality between her and Pointer, “looking at [Hulga:] as if they had a secret together.” (282)
We are left with this penetrating gaze of Mrs. Freeman, who sees all, who spots the “evil-smelling onion” (291) in the ground as well as the one walking upright on two legs and who is the only character with the ability to pierce the veil of “simple.” What goes into being “simple,” Mrs. Freeman knows, is an incredible amount of craft devoted to weaving the veil of deceit.
It is a sucker punch. O’Connor misleads us with gaze, and then she uses Mrs. Freeman’s gaze to let us know that we are in fact blind. We are dupes, and O’Connor is the snake oil salesman. It is an enormously satisfying shell game: As happens so often in literature, we enjoy being surprised by our own prejudice, which, we learn, has led us around by the nose.
We especially enjoy it given that our wallets are left intact. ...more
Another annotation from the MFA/CW work at Goddard:
Tiny Bricks Build an Exquisite Structure: The Effects of Teensy Chapters in Evan S. Connell’s “Mrs.Another annotation from the MFA/CW work at Goddard:
Tiny Bricks Build an Exquisite Structure: The Effects of Teensy Chapters in Evan S. Connell’s “Mrs. Bridge”
Writers use lots of words. Sometimes too many. What a contrast, what a pleasure and relief, to read the work of Evan S. Connell in “Mrs. Bridge,” built as it is with the tiniest of bricks -- microchapters of anything from a few paragraphs to a few pages, at most -- each of which is as exquisite as a good joke or a tight poem. The format of tiny chapters serves to render these surgical slices of Mrs. Bridge’s life without the need for extended exposition or authorial commentary. Each scene delivered in Connell’s microchapters presents so few elements that the elements that do make it into a given chapter shine upon each other with deep resonance, much as the elements in a poem or a joke, thanks in great part to their close proximity. The resonance builds fast in such tight quarters, with the result that the final line of each microchapter is typically either funny or heart-wrenching or both. Take, for example, Chapter 30, “The Search for Love,” in which Mrs. Bridge acts out of character: She requests a declaration of love from Mr. Bridge. Unsurprisingly, what she gets is a grunt. When she becomes embarrassed and shifts in her seat, she accidentally trips the buzzer for the maid, Harriet, who “appeared in the doorway to see what it was that Mrs. Bridge desired.” (69) Harriet’s appearance is nothing out of the ordinary, and Connell’s description of it would be banal if it weren’t for the fact that in the tight confines of this microchapter, the only elements we’re given are 1) Mrs. Bridge’s “terrifying, inarticulate need” (68) to be desired, 2) a symbolic wedge created by her own hands in the form of the floral centerpiece that separates her from her husband, and 3) his own utter lack of acknowledgement of her need. Were these elements to be spread out across the span of a longer chapter length, it’s easy to envision them becoming diluted. Yet in the confines of Connell’s microchapter, the banality of Harriet appearing to see what her mistress wants is pathetic and ironic. Mrs. Bridge wants something desperately, yet she can’t get it from Harriett, the person whose sole function is to cater to the family’s needs. The simple banality of Harriett showing up to ask what Mrs. Bridge wants throbs with heartache because its description comes as the tail end of a terse selection of important elements. It reverberates in importance because it is one of the few things allowed to appear in the chapter. Another of many examples of a terminal line reverberating with heartache in the cage of a microchapter is found in Chapter 69, “Non Capisco.” In this chapter, only two things happen: Mr. and Mrs. Bridge visit Ruth before departing for their European vacation, and Mrs. Bridge encounters a woman in “vast despair” who cannot speak English. Again Connell structures a microchapter that stacks a narratively important scene -- i.e., a brief glimpse of mother-daughter unhappiness -- with an everyday scene of no major consequence, and concludes with a line that reverberates with sadness: “‘I’m awfully sorry,’ Mrs. Bridge said helplessly. ‘I wish I knew what to do, but I just don’t understand.’” (149) What is there that’s remarkable about this last line? Nothing, on the surface. It would seem trivial were it located at the end of a long chapter with other elements separating it from the image of Mrs. Bridge, baffled at her estranged daughter, Ruth, who has just turned on her mother “a look of implacable defiance.” (149) Because the two encounters are juxtaposed so closely in this microchapter, we have a seemingly irrelevant encounter able to illuminate the sadness of the far more important element: Mrs. Bridge’s inability to understand Ruth’s antipathy. When they’re not heartbreaking, Connell’s terminal chapter lines are funny. He sets the tone for his funny microchapters as early as Chapter 2, “Children,” which wraps up the telling of Mrs. and Mr. Bridge’s child-bearing strategy with the conclusion that “Even if the third had also been a girl they would have let it go at that; there would have been no sense in continuing what would soon become amusing to other people.” (3) This line accomplishes its funniness in a few ways: First, it characterizes Mr. and Mrs. Bridge as a couple so adverse to nonconformity that they would allow even such a momentous decision as childbearing to be influenced by others. The primness of this sentiment in this context is so startling that it’s funny. The funniness of the terminal line also relies on the brevity of this three-paragraph chapter; we’re conditioned to expect a punch line at the end of such a short passage, and Connell doesn’t disappoint. This is not to say that Connell isn’t funny when he’s heartbreaking or heartbreaking when he’s funny. Chapter 76, “Telegram,” is a prime, two-paragraph example of heartbreaking wit. After receiving a surreal, imaginative telegraph from Douglas congratulating Mrs. and Mr. Bridge on their “MEMORABLE OCCASION AND IN BEHALF ENTIRE COMPANY EXPRESS HOPE YOUR CONTINUED SUCCESS,” (163) a la the stereotypical butchered English of a fortune cookie, Mrs. Bridge thanks him for the telegram but misses the joke entirely: “... I do think the American Express company must have gotten their messages mixed up...” (163) Do we laugh or cry at her cluelessness? We do both, throughout the book, grateful for the rhythm set up by this gifted mosaicist who, to steal from e.e. cummings, rattles like angry candy within the boxes of these exquisite microchapters. ...more
The toss of a silver coin determines whom a boy should marry, but a sparrow shows the boy that in his next life he will marry a sparrow. A vision is had, and something that might be considered a lesson or generalization about human existence is imparted—i.e., don’t worry about marrying the girl, because in your next life you’ll marry a loving sparrow who’s got your back even now. So perhaps the moral is, maybe, don’t worry in general, because you’re going to die anyway, and then you’ll be in another world ... maybe? (64)
It’s hard to say. It’s often hard to say. What exactly are these Palm-of-the-Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata? Fairy tales? Koans? Allegories? One could take them as a hybrid form of fairy tale or allegory, given their concluding morals, their simple narration and the magical images that Kawabata invokes: the talking sparrow in "The Sparrow’s Matchmaking" (62), the man in a distant land who was tormented by the sounds of his abandoned wife and daughter in "Love Suicides" (53), and the image of the woman-as-frog climbing down a rock face to induce fertility in "The Sliding Rock" (38) are only a few of many examples.
But fairy tales or allegories don’t, as a rule, have morals that are as slippery as eels to decipher. Kawabata’s tales are like koans masquerading as fairy tales, and often his use of a talisman—i.e., an object that is laden with meaning, if not something producing apparently magical or miraculous effects—is the only clue he gives to unlock these fairytale enigmas.
"Riding Clothes," (208) with Kawabata’s use of riding clothes to represent a girl’s only happy memory of childhood as she rode through the country with her uncle and cousin, is one of the easier talismans to decipher. Many other stories in Kawabata’s collection are far more difficult to decipher, but the deceptive clarity of his simple narratives cause a reader to go cross-eyed trying to figure out the moral, and that’s why the talismans stand out in stark relief: We grasp at them like drowning people clutching at rocks, trying to grab a foothold onto a given tale’s meaning. In so doing, we are forced to read slowly. And reread. And delve deeper, making the experience more profound than any simple fairy tale.
Take, for example, "The Neighbors." In this story, Kawabata gives great emphasis to two talismans: the necklace of beads given to Yukiko by her father and the pair of kites being fed by hand by the deaf, old couple living in a separate wing of the house into which Yukiko and her husband have just moved. The necklace as a talisman isn’t hard to decipher, per se: Kawabata writes that “As her father’s prized curious, these dragonfly jewels symbolized for Yukiko the emotion of parting from her parents” (202).
Extending the import of this talisman, after her bridal night, Yukiko’s husband embraces her, and the thread binding these precious beads snaps. The newlyweds then work together to restring the beads, given that Yukiko doesn’t remember how she and her father originally strung them. A tie to her father is broken, and a new tie with her husband has been forged with the restringing.
If it ended there, the story would be easy to decipher. And simplistic. But Kawabata then shows the newlyweds interrupting the old couple’s feeding of the kites, as their approach startles the birds into flying off. And it is clearly an interruption: The old couple were “not even trying to hear” as the newlyweds spoke to them (204). The old man’s greeting is scarcely welcoming and could be rightly interpreted as meaning “we’re fine, just leave us alone:” “Old deaf folks like us—you can think of us as not being here. But we like to see young people. We won’t make any trouble for you, but we won’t hide ourselves away” (204).
The story ends with the newlyweds leaving so as to let the kites finish their breakfast. It is clearly the newlyweds who are “in [the:] way,” not the old couple, who have said quite plainly that they like to see young people but seem to have no inclination to socialize with them.
The feeding of kites is pregnant with social interplay. The stringing of a necklace is another talisman that speaks to the ties between old and young at different stages in their lives. What do the two talismans say about each other, and about the story’s moral? In the story’s beginning, the old couple’s son tells the newlyweds that their youth will be a tonic to his parents: “It’ll be like a flower suddenly blooming alongside the old folks,” he says. “...both the old house and the old folks will be bathed in the sunshine of your youth” (201).
Or not. The old folks are just fine without splashing about in a youth bath. They’re sitting and sunning themselves and feeding ham omelette to kites. Is the necklace, then, a talisman meant to underscore the fact that youth must sever its ties to age, and that age can also live a full life without attachment to youth?
Or what about the house under construction in "Bamboo-Leaf Boats" (188)? Is the house a talisman that stands for the “obstinate” nature of the family Akiko had almost married into, with “no gentleness about it?” (188) Its construction had been stopped during the war, just as the war might have stopped Akiko’s marriage, due perhaps to her fiance dying in the war or a cessation of the “wartime sentimentality” that might have caused him to marry a polio-inflicted cripple (188).
He doesn’t give up meaning easily, this Kawabata. He gives his readers’ brains a workout. In the end, the meaning of these types of koans masquerading as fairy tales are rarely clear-cut, but because Kawabata has given us such rich talismans to chew on, his readers are given tiny stories that are thick with potential—perhaps even multiple—meaning. They are maddening, and they are satisfying. ...more
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