Dis-Ease, Corsetry, and Hysteria

Hello, everyone.

I offer some information regarding Victorian corsetry and "female invalidism" that may be relevant to our discussions of "Yellow Wallpaper." One source, a 1910 medical text by Robert L. Dickinson entitled Toleration of the Corset, cites a number of corset deformities, including fat pad displacement, hip creases, and unnatural elongation. While the illustrations are explicit, the theories of measurement (corrective, neutral, harmful) are interesting in themselves, and echo some physiological concerns with corsetry or tight lacing of outfits, including hysteria (although there is no definitive link between corsetry and hysteria).

A search in Godey's Lady's Book "corset" points to advertisements and articles about more comfortable alternatives to bone stays and tight lacing, beginning in the 1890s. And an etymology of hysteria (although cin the Oxford English Dictionary shows that, at least until the seventeenth century, the term tended to refer to its classical root, or to the Greek "hystera" (uterus). By the nineteenth century, medical diagnoses for hysteria began to include men.

In their critical commentary, Gilbert and Gubar contextualize late 19th-century social custom as "train[ing women] in renunciation" rather than in appropriation, growth, or development. Since the 1892 publication of Gilman's "Yellow Wallpaper," the main character's dis-ease has been attributed to several things, including post-partum depression, nervous disorder, and agoraphobia (fear of crowds). Of course, none of these diagnoses has an explicit origin in social customs like corsetry, although Gilman does allude to several customary misdiagnoses of her condition in "Why I Write 'The Yellow Wallpaper'."

-Prof. Graban

Oh, this is even worse than I thought it would be.

1. I believe there are two reasons for why Parker makes the narrator keep waltzing, one being because of the day and age in 1930, a woman is expected to accept the offer and enjoy it. Secondly, I believe the waltz is representational of life in society for women in the early half of the 20th century. The expectations of women, as we know, are extremely different today as opposed to in the past, one expectation of a woman such as the narrator would be to accept a dance from a man in a social setting to show mannerism and accomplishment. However, the cognitive story can be suggestive to the way the narrator feels suppressed in her life, “Everyone else at the table had got up to dance, except him and me. There was I, trapped. Trapped like a trap in a trap”.
2. Parker’s double voice is what I believe to be a strategy for empathy. As Ong claims a writer must fictionalize their audience, many writers have different ways of doing so. I believe Parker’s “double” voice is in direct relation to the “double” meaning of the story. It is almost as if there are two stories in one, and that Parker knew exactly who the audience would be. A piece such as “The Waltz” could have several implied audiences by the multiple methods used to relate to the readers. Parker’s ability to use comedy, boldness, societal norms, opposition, and opinions enable her to reach out to a wide variety of readers and let the reader respond in any way they wish and still be correct in their interpretation.

One Two Three, One Two Three

Question 1
I believe Parker does not allow her character to stop dancing to portray changing roles of women. It is this dance between what was originally expected of women to this new sense of freedom and identity women are experiencing. Before, women relied on men financially. When she married, her life's possessions became his, and anything she earned went straight into his pocket. Now Parker has decided to speak out in 1930. America is just emerging from the roaring twentis and women were beginning to work, attend school, and becoming independent. In "The Waltz," we have the clumsy old man representing the times when the man was always in control, expecting the woman to follow. But Parker also portrays the woman as silently objecting to the man. This allows her to voice what the woman is thinking and not blatantly denying the man, but rather show how women are slowly withdrawing from the idea of the man always being in control.

Question 2 (Parker)
Parker uses "double-voice" to show the contrast between what women are outwardly showing and what they are truthfully contemplating. Ong says, "The problem is not simply what to say but also who to say it to." (11) Parker writes the inner thoughts of the dancer to show how she truly thinks without coming outright and saying it. Parker must consider her readers and how her text will be accepted. By writing the thoughts she can appeal to women by taking them into her confidence and voicing how she truly feels. Women will appreciate the story for its frankness. But she also does not cross and boundaries because this is just what her character is thinking, not voicing. Even though she explicitly writes how much she does not want to waltz with the man, she still does. So in a way she is still conforming to the ways of society and accepting the man as the leader. This way men might be more tolerant of her thoughts and ideas.

The Constricting Binds of Custom and the Role of Masks

Question 1 (Parker)

Throughout the short story "The Waltz", the narrator seems to have two conflicting sides. One is her external self, which is compliant to the gentleman who wishes to dance with her, and the other is her internal voice, which is continually criticizing and belittling the man she dances with. From this we can tell she clearly doesn't wish to dance with him, so it doesn't seem to be a matter of personal choice. She expresses this after his initial invitation, "What can you say, when a man asks you to dance with him? I most certainly will not dance with you, I'll see you in hell first.... No. There was nothing for me to do, but say I'd adore to" (Parker 491). The narrator is clearly feeling some sort of societal or social pressure to say yes. Saying no isn't an acceptable option; she feels as if there's no escaping the situation. I think Parker here is using the waltz as a metaphor to the intertwined nature of men and women during her time. Men, just like the one in the story, are pursuers of "the dance", trying to find a suitable female partner. But they are always the one to choose, never the other way around. Women are to be pursued, whether they prefer it or no. This can perhaps explain why the narrator doesn't refuse the man's invitation to dance. She feels stuck in her role as the woman who, by society's standards, is there to eventually be a man's partner. Her external self must be passive to this phenomenon, although her inner dialogue reveals the anger she is not allowed to show.

Question 2 (Harper)

In "The Two Offers", Harper uses the two main characters Laura and Janette in order to contrast the benefits women receive from being educated and more independent to the potential woes of a woman who relies solely on a man for her happiness and well-being. But are there larger messages in this piece as well? One of the surprising elements of Harper's work is her ability to avoid assigning a race to her characters. Depending on the audience, these women can be visualized in a number of ways. This effectively demonstrates the masks that Ong constantly refers to in his essay "The Writer's Audience is Always a Fiction." He states, "Often in the complexities of present-day fiction, with its 'unreliable narrator' encased in layer after layer of persiflage and irony, the masks within masks defy complete identification" (Ong 20). Harper uses the concept of "the masks within masks" to obscure her characters from being pigeonholed. Her piece wouldn't be nearly as effective if it was solely directed at African-American women, when she can reach a larger audience by leaving space for the reader to interpret the piece as he or she will. While it is difficult to find direct evidence of her promotion of different social problems (excluding the one mentioned previously), it is clear the broad message she is trying to send with the contrasting characters of Laura and Janette. Ignorance and reliance solely on custom will not be the ultimate path to happiness. Harper sums it up beautifully at the end of her short story by saying, "true happiness consists not so much in the fruition of our wishes as in the regulation of desires and the full development and right culture of our whole natures" (Harper 119). This statement is far from vague but definitely open to interpretation. "Our wishes" change from person to person. What is the meant by "full development"? Who decides what is the "right culture of our whole natures"? In this slight obscuring of meaning, the reader is able to take away from the piece that he should not be satisfied with solely reaching his goals. He should be more concerned with the complex process of self-fulfillment in terms of the bettering of his soul. And that can mean a lot of different things to a wide variety of readers.

Metaphors, Context, Uplift?

In Tuesday's class, several of you offered explanations for why you did not think that race mattered in the outcome of "Two Offers" and/or why it would be difficult for us to discern whether Harper's characters, Laura and Janette, are written to be white or black. Those were very useful points to make, and they intensified my desire to think more about how such a story could impact a black woman's literary tradition. In other words, Harper was a known author, and this story was well circulated in The Anglo-African Magazine, raising the possibility that her story could empower readers by representing a northern woman's experience as, well, a woman's experience, rather than drawing marked distinctions between them.

(I discovered some information about Harper's literary activities on the Women and Social Movements database , specifically that in 1854, she was employed as a lecturer by the Maine anti-slavery society, and she may possibly have been the first black woman in the United States to be employed full time in this capacity. On the lecture circuit, her audiences wer etypically mixed. And of course, with more time, perhaps I could investigate Anglo-African Magazine, to learn more about its publication range and readership.)

This is what led me to suggest in class the possibility that perhaps Harper's story is implicitly promoting racial uplift, or at least could be argued as promoting racial uplift for African-American women, simply in the way that it conceals from us the racial identity of the characters. Janette's and Laura's portraits are complex enough, as many of you pointed out in class, simply based on the gendered expectations they must negotiate. For example, Should they marry for love or financial security? Is education for practical gains or personal fulfillment? Can they exercise passion and reason in the same being? In other words, both women already represent a kind of fusion of values that had been understood as dichotomies in other stories or literary traditions. So, what a powerful way for Harper to validate the experiences of black women in the north -- by not differentiating their experiences from those of white women in the north, and vice versa.

That said, I see several metaphors that could be extended to demonstrate how Harper's essay argues more abstractly for racial uplift. To justify this extension, I draw on Ong's claim that writing, unlike speaking, must construct a context for the reader given the absence of a circumambient actuality (Ong 10). Several of you have already noted one of Ong's most important aims in writing this article: to help us better understand the role of the reader in variuos literary and textual traditions (Ong 9). We see very few instances of Harper explicitly addressing the reader in "Two Offers": the first instance is on page 116, first column, and the second instance is on page 117, second column. Perhaps the remaining addresses are embedded in Harper's metaphors. For example, Janette's "bloom of ... girlhood had given way to a higher realm of spiritual beauty, as if some unseen hand had been polishing and refining the temple in which her lovely spirit found its habitation" (Harper 117). What could this metaphor be communicating to other readers, especially readers who were in underrepresented groups? Or, how could this metaphor help to reposition Harper's readers?

-Prof. Graban

Angel Voices

Question One (Parker):
In Dorothy Parker’s “The Waltz,” the narrator, who is simultaneously the main character, accepts a man’s request to waltz and dances with him even though she does not want to. She makes this clear when she says, “I don’t want to dance with him. I don’t want to dance with anybody. And even if I did, it wouldn’t be him.” To refuse his offer, however, would have been impossible. She is obliged to accept because such were the social norms of the time. She knows this. She says, with a mixture of self-deprecating humor and irony, “What can you say, when a man asks you to dance with him?...There was nothing for me to do, but say I’d adore to.” And while she accepts his invitation politely and assures him that she is having a delightful time throughout the whole dance, she thinks to herself, “Ah, now why did he have to come around me, with his low requests? Why can’t he let me lead my own life?...There was I trapped. Trapped like a trap in a trap.” This shows that she feels entrapped by the social conventions that strip away her identity and force her to be led through her own life. When she states, “And here I’ve locked in his noxious embrace for the thirty-five years this waltz has lasted,” it becomes clear that the waltz is representing more than just a dance; it is representing marriage. It is representing life. In both, the male is given the leading role. The woman must passively follow. She has no control over anything, not even her own life, and there is nothing she can do about it because that was just the way things were. To attempt to break this pattern would have earned her the title of being unreasonable, radical, unstable. Parker’s own life lacked stability and control; she married and divorced multiple times and relied heavily on alcohol. Towards the end, when the orchestra is finally finishing up, she has in her ears “a silence like the sound of angel voices”—indicating that Parker believes the only release for the pains of being a woman during this time period is death. This idea is supported by the fact that she was, in fact, suicidal.

Question Two (Parker):
In “The Writer’s Audience Is Always a Fiction,” Walter Ong states that writers must fictionalize their audience and give their readers specific roles. He says a reader “has a well-marked role assigned him.” This is true in Parker’s work. Her readers are “cast in the role of a close companion of the writer…The writer needs only to point, for what he wants to tell you about is not the scene at all but his feelings.” This applies to “The Waltz,” which lays a heavy focus on the reflections, feelings and emotions the narrator goes through during the dance. Parker uses a double-voice throughout her story. Her first voice is that of a polite, obedient, conformed woman who does and says everything she is supposed to. This is the voice she presents to the outside world, where she must hide her true self in order to survive. The second voice is much more personal. It reveals her true persona, and is reserved only for her readers. This usage of double-voice gives the reader a sense of intimacy with the narrator. It also makes it easy for the reader to identify, understand and sympathize with her. The fact that she can get readers to empathize with the narrator is of critical importance. This would mean that were men to read the story, they would find themselves understanding and siding with the narrator—a woman. It would allow them to see just how few rights women really have and how cruel it is for them to be so limited. Her use of double-voice allows her to create a very sympathetic character who is clearly intelligent enough to feel her misery and pain and knows she can’t do anything about it. This seems to be one of the main reasons why Parker wrote this story and why she chose to give her narrator a double voice.

Hesitation Waltz

Question One

Parker’s female character doesn’t stop waltzing as society would deem it improper and rude to refuse. Throughout the text, Parker’s narrator continually acts against her own desires in order to conform to expectations put upon her by social rules. This is conveyed as the woman states, “I don’t want to dance with him. I don’t want to dance with anybody,” (pg.490), yet she dances continually throughout the passage. The writer employs the female character to demonstrate a lack of control women had upon their lives, as the narrator is “waltzed” through life, not stopping to fulfill her own desires, but merely being whisked along by a man, existing for his purposes and doing as he wishes, simply because she is expected to. Despite the narrator’s wish not to dance, she cannot refuse, stating that is she was to say no, she’d “see you in hell first,” (pg.491). In accepting the man’s invitation, she became “trapped” in the waltz, a waltz that Parker uses to symbolize the narrators “thirty-five years,” (pg.493) of marriage. Parker describes the “obscene travesty” of being “chained” to a creature she hates (pg.493), unable to escape as the “music is never going to stop playing,” (pg.493). The continuity of the waltz and notion of the unhappy female trapped in a desperate situation sees Parker make a strong statement regarding women’s limited role within a male dominated society.

Question Two (Parker)

Parker’s text is riddled with humor as the narrator invites the reader to act as her mind’s companion. Parker use of a double-voice allows the reader to see the situation from two perspectives: a public perspective in which the reader sees what the narrator outwardly says and does; and a private perspective, where the character shares her intimate thoughts and feelings with the audience. This relates to Ong’s theory in which the “reader has to play the role in which the author has cast him,” (Ong, pg.12). In Parker’s text, the reader plays two roles, one of an observer, and the other as the narrator’s ‘confident.’ As the private ears to the narrator’s thoughts, Parker has created an intimate role for the audience to play, allowing the writer to draw the reader in, and empathize with the narrator’s situation and feelings. Parker’s employs a conversational and comic tone throughout the text which enables her to somewhat disguise the seriousness of her argument- portraying women’s social injustice in a more subtle manner. Through this the writer creates a more likable character in the narrator, as the reader isn’t put off, or made to feel uncomfortable by an overbearing statement against society.

Swept Up: Dances and Marriage

Question 1

Throughout the story, Parker makes it perfectly clear to the reader that the narrator does not want to be waltzing. The narrator compares waltzing to obviously painful experiences when she says: “I’d love to waltz with you. I’d love to have my tonsils out. I’d love to be in a midnight fire at sea” (Parker, 491). The statement is thick with irony, further emphasizing her desire to be doing almost anything but waltz. The fact that Parker makes the narrator continue the waltz throughout the duration of the story could echo a woman’s inability to discontinue undesirable patterns in her life as a result of societal expectations. In the waltz, a man whisks woman around the dance floor. In the dance, the man has the control, while the woman is a passenger to the dance and thereby unable to change the pattern in the steps. Alluding to this concept of leading the dance, the narrator asks, “Why can’t he let me lead my own life?” (Parker, 491). The narrator’s desire to lead the dance, as well as her life, is insubstantial when compared to how powerless she is against societal norms. These societal expectations are expressed in the narrator’s disbelief that she has any choice in the matter of dancing: “There was nothing for me to do, but say I’d adore to” (Parker, 491). The contrast between what the narrator is thinking and what she actually says continues throughout the story, creating obvious discourse between reality and desire.

Question Two: Harper

Harper’s story evokes several different interpretations from readers. In many ways, I think that the story encourages women to consider the advantages of remaining unmarried and independent of men. The story could call for women to liberate themselves from the binding social customs that, until that point, trapped women. However, after considering that this story was first published in The Anglo-African Magazine, I started to think that there might be more meaning behind the main characters in the story. Laura’s life is wrought with obstacles, which are described as: “Turning, with an earnest and shattered spirit, to life’s duties and trails, she found a calmness and strength that she had only imagined I her dreams…” (Harper, 117). Through interpretation, Laura’s description of her trials could not only represent the trials women faced, but also the repression that African American’s experienced in slavery. Janette is characterized by having a life of “conquest, victory, and accomplishments” as well as having the intellect of a “genius [that] had won her a position in the literary world” (Harper, 116). Janette could represent the racial uplift that was starting to take hold in the country at the time this text was written because she represented a minority that was overcoming societal expectations by being an accomplished and well known literary woman. Harper’s story is open for interpretation and can be seen in many different ways depending on how the audience “fictionalizes itself” (Ong, 12). Ong points out that despite who the author intends as the audience of his writing, “the reader must play the role in which the author has cast him.” Depending on how the reader fits into the role the author intends, the reader can grasp a different meaning and interpretation from the text.

Dancing, Marriage, Happiness?

Question 1

I believe that Parker was using the Waltz as a metaphor for marriage. The narrator had no choice but to accept the offer to dance with the man, as women in that time had to accept an offer of marriage, unless she wanted to be seen in a negative way by society. The narrator says "Ah, now why did he have to come around to me, with his low requests? Why can't he let me lead my own life?"(491). This could be Parker's way of wondering why women could not live out their own lives without a husband. Why were they basically forced to take a husband they didn't want, just because that is what was expected?

To allow the characters to stop waltzing would have, going with this metaphor, been the equivalent of a woman choosing to leave a marriage simply because she didn't really like her husband. Near the end of the story, the narrator says "And the music will never stop playing, and we're going on like this... for eternity."(493). This quote could be taken in two ways. It could simply be the narrator imagining her future as a wife. It could also be a message from Parker to women. She could be interpreted as saying 'These societal beliefs are going to go on forever.' Maybe it is a warning to women that they need to vocalize the internal thoughts rather than keeping quiet and being made unhappy.

Question 2 (Harper)

While reading Harper's The Two Offers, it is never clear what race the characters are, nor does it seem important. Harper seems to be writing to all women as a whole, not a single race. She sees the importance women be allowed to choose to not marry if that is what they want. By having Janette, the woman who never married, who supported herself, come out in the end as the happier of the two women, Harper demonstrates that marriage does not always come hand in hand with happiness.

It Takes Two to ... Waltz?

Question 1:
On the surface, I found 'The Waltz' a slightly comical piece of literature. The narrator is incapable of declining to dance despite the fact that it becomes increasingly obvious that she has little or no desire to do so such thing. However, as the story progresses and the narrator's contemptuous dialog becomes increasingly blatant, we come to the realization that the waltz represents something much greater than a silly dance. What was comical gradually became frustrating as I realized that the dance was a metaphor for all the demands put on women of her time-by men. Just as it would have been improper for the narrator to refuse a dance with an obliging partner, it was unacceptable for a woman to refuse any a man's request or demand. As the narrator, the nameless narrator, was trapped on the dance floor, forced to repeatedly and drudgingly dance the steps of the waltz at the request of a man, all women were trapped, forced to succumb to the societal demands and gender roles placed upon them. The fact that it take two persons (a male and a female) to perform he waltz further supports the lack of independence women had.

Question 2:
When observed from various, nonliteral angles, many fictional literary works are interpreted as acting as a bases for a broader commentary on society, culture, politics, gender roles, or any of a number of other issues. Thus it is likely that the content, themes and significance of Harper's The Two Offers, a commentary on the stereotypes and expectations of women, would be applicable in considering slavery, racial uplift, promotion of black culture and more. Though, as Ong would claim, Harper has oriented her work through particular writing conventions, her audience is fictionalized, opening her work to more abstract interpretation. Ong also claims, however, that it is perhaps more important to focus on the problem(s) than the fictionalization of the audience. It is safe to venture, then, that the problem--the suffering women endure to meet social standards and gender roles--can be generalized to the suffering any group of people endure because of what society has made of them.

Out of Step, Out of Time

The narrator does not stop dancing because she does not believe she has a choice. Parker begins to establish this understanding when the narrator wishes her partner would have refrained from inviting her to dance, and later says, "There was I, trapped. Trapped like a trap in a trap" (Parker 491). The narrator could have refused the man's request for a dance and sat down alone, but she felt compelled for some reason to do otherwise---to go against her own desires to appease a man's. As the story continues the reader is able to see that Parker is not simply writing about a woman who does not want to dance with a particular man, but rather it resonates more personally (and powerfully) with readers. The narrator tells us, "And here I've been locked in his noxious embrace for the thirty-five years this waltz has lasted" (Parker 493).She is not experiencing a dance, but rather a marriage (or other significant relationship), using the waltz to possibly symbolize the life of women in the day and age in which Parker is writing. Deciding whether to marry or not was not much of a decision at all for many women during the early 20th century; deciding to remain unattached would have been a move towards becoming a social outcast. A woman's purpose in life, her desire, was supposed to be to get married and have a family. Failing to conform to this norm, for middle and upper class women at least, would have been unacceptable.

Parker's use of double-voicing helps the reader see how her thoughts and actual desires are masked by social conformity and politeness. She is able to make the reader laugh by showing how absurd it was for women to silence their desires (and in this case her pain as well!) and to obey what men ask of them, even when the man is wrong. The man in this story does not waltz properly, embarrassing the narrator, but instead of explaining his errors or finding a new partner, the narrator uses self deprecation in order to massage his ego. She takes responsibility for him kicking her in the shin even though her thoughts clearly show he was the one out of step.

By letting us see the narrator's inner thoughts, we are able to not only get comic relief but also see how unhappy she is. The double-voicing creates a stark dichotomy in the way the action is being addressed, creating a linguistic mask for the narrator. Her speech makes her seem like a perfectly well-conformed and obedient woman, but it is when she removes her "mask" that the readers are able to see how damaging these expectations are on her. She is a sympathetic character, in part, because of the successful way she manages her mask. "I should say I am not tired. I'm dead," the narrator tells us after the orchestra begins an encore (493). She is playing the part of the obedient woman perfectly, and in doing so the readers see how detrimental this is to her well-being. The outcome of the pairing an idea that would normally illicit happy imagery (a waltz) with a terrible dancer and a reluctant dance partner is possibly the climate some couples found themselves in when married. It is through the successful use of double-voicing and Ong's idea of masking that create a compelling and poignant look into the experience of the narrator.

"The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing..."

Question 1:

I think one reason why Parker has her character keep dancing is because if she says "no" then there would be no story. Another reason she had them keep dancing was because in the time this was written a woman was expected to dance when a man asked her to. It would have looked like she was really odd if she just left and sat by herself at a table. She is writing about society and showing how women have to respond to social situations. She is saying through her sarcasm that she is trapped not only in this dance but in this social world that required her to dance with this idiot. I think that it was interesting when she says that of course she can't tell him that she does not want to dance with him. It seems like she is also making a reference to the fact that she cannot go against the social norms. It's also interesting to me that the dance she chose was a waltz which is very formal and graceful. I think it would seem like a different story if she would have chosen any other popular dance of that era such as the Charleston. I think this reiterates the point of structure.

Question 2: (For the Harper Group)

I think that Harper does not mention race because it's not the main problem she is trying to address. I think she is saying that women as a whole need to rise up from the idea that to be happy and successful they need to be someone's wife. She represents through Janette someone who can still have a happy life, full of love without waiting around for a husband. I think by having Laura die without her husband shows that in the end you only have yourself and that should be enough. I think she is also commenting on temperance with this story. Laura's husband is not with her because he drinks a lot. This can be a representation of how drinking can break up families and change people for the worse.

Numbers

Question One:

The waltz is traditionally danced in a repeating pattern of 3; often the dance is taught by actually speaking aloud the numbers “1,2,3,” as seen in the popular movie The King and I. The pattern of the music never diverts from the set of 3, nor do the steps vary in length: everything is always the same number of parts. I think this speaks very much to the reason why Parker does not allow the narrator to stop waltzing; there is but one pattern, one option, and other options are simply unacceptable. Take, for instance, if the dancer were to try and do a step with four parts to music grouped in three parts- it would be possible, but would appear awkward and not acceptable as an appropriate choice for the waltz. In a sense, it was like when the narrator felt, “trapped in a trap in a trap,”(491) a trap also in three parts, in more ways than one. The first trap she is in is that of social custom. “Everyone else at the table had got up to dance, except him and me.” (491) All the other guests, which here symbolize the people of society in general, had chosen, or like her, had been forced, to join the “dance,” which symbolizes the modern lifestyle. Because of this, she being the last to be left not following lead, seems to have been left with no other option than to join the rest of society; her only other choice, “brooding over all my sorrows”(491) alone at the table, would have been choosing to ostracize herself from society. Within the trap of social custom she encounters the next trap, that of social expectation. She says to her partner after he missteps, “It didn’t hurt the least little bit. And anyway it was my fault. Really it was. Truly. Well, you’re just being sweet to say that. It really was all my fault.” (491) Not only is she expected to comply with social custom and join the dance, one in it she is in it she is expected to act a certain way, specifically as pleasing and praising to the man leading her. She denies the truth in order not to cause her partner any embarrassment, which is what society expects her to do; to degrade her abilities in order to ensure that the ability of the man accompanying her are not outshone by her own. She is expected, also, to have a sort of grace about her in doing so, which is why she calls her partner “sweet” to try and apologize, which she clearly is expected to not allow him to do. It is because of her presence in these two traps that she becomes victim to the third trap; that of intentionally continuing her presence therein. She lies to her partner about who committed the misstep, and thereafter continues to lie and say things such as, “It’s the loveliest waltz. Isn’t it? Oh, I think it’s lovely, too,” (492) and “Tired? I should say I’m not tired. I’d like to go on like this forever.” (493) She becomes so entangled in the lies she is forced to tell within the first two traps that she ends up trapping herself in the web further by continuing to tell lies about her true feelings even when she has the chance to leave the trap, to leave the dance. These, therefore, the web of lies, the trap within a trap within a trap, this set of threes, are why Parker does not and cannot allow her narrator to stop waltzing.

Question 3:

Ong’s most basic premise, “the roles imposed on the reader by a written or printed text are not imposed by spoken utterance,” (9) is largely important to the understanding of “The Waltz.” Parker is aware that this situation could have, and might have, actually occurred in real life, and been retold woman to woman by spoken word. In that sense, she attempts to make her writing sound as much like spoken word, writing to a fictionalized audience of women in whom she trusts to confide, in order to make the story funny. Ong points out that the author has to, ‘ write a book real people will buy and read,” (10) and while this is not so much a book as a short story, the same idea still applies; Parker writes for an audience she has imagined to actually exist by relating an incident that could have actually happened to that audience. The humor, therefore, is created by the authenticity of what she is relating; often people say other than what they are thinking. These fictionalized readers are, as Ong would say, Parker’s “companions in arms,” (14) who parker has, like Defoe, created, “author-reader intimacy,” (14) in other words, a special one-on-one connection between the two. Parker’s discrepancy between what she tells her fictionalized audience she really feels and what she actually tells her partner is what creates that intimacy; the audience is able to access some hidden knowledge though the feeling of one-to-one companionship that the partner cannot. This intimacy, therefore, this ability to share one thought and say another is what allows the humor to work in the piece. She communicates the truth, though humorously, within the boundaries of the social norms; she would never actually break from social expectation, but she sure will tell everyone what she’s thinking to make the social norm look as ridiculous as possible.

Polite Dance Songs and One Man Drinking Games.

First question!
"Why doesn't Parker allow the narrator to stop waltzing?"
I believe that Parker doesn't let her character stop waltzing because it would have been offensive to the man who had asked, but most importantly it was a man she had been rude to. Behavior like that was against the norms of the time. Parker is writing about the woman's role in society at this time. Not dancing with the gentleman would have gone against the norms and social ideals of what women should do and how they should act. If Parker had allowed her narrator to say No, hell no, as someone might do today, to the man asking her to dance even though she really doesn't want to she would probably lower herself in the eyes of society. She doesn't want to dance with anybody but society at the time will not let her control her own affairs. She must dance with a man if he asked. Women at this time are trapped by their gender, in the eyes of society they are inferior to men, and their voices go unheard because they are not allowed to say that they really would not like to dance, society would not approve.
The way Parker writes the story gives in life. the narrator is funny, her eternal dialogue is what really gives the story life. By writing a story like this she's opening society to the idea that women don't love every second of balls and all of them don't like what society believes they should like. This story also lets women know that its is okay to think these things. that maybe if you don't wanna dance you shouldn't.

Second Question!!
"For the Harper group."
For this question, i really had to think about it. I think that though she doesn't give the characters in her story a race, she doesn't need too. she speaking to all women about there it doesn't have anything to do with what the color of your skin is. This was a really bad time in America when a lot of men were drinking a lot. Edgar Allen Poe, drank so much that his fiance Sarah Helen Whitman refused to marry him if he didn't give it up, he didn't so she canceled their wedding. In this story its the drinking that drives Lauras husband from her. He leaves her, a broken empty bottle, to find himself a new full one, and this ones not a women that would manage your house, take care of your kids it's just the liqueur, a liquid, an uncaring, burning draft that in the end always leaves you. but i'm getting carried away. There was a movement called the Temperance movement that was making movements to reduce alcoholism and promote abstinence. This could be her "Imaginary Audience" that shes writing to as Ong would say. She would also be writing to women, who think that there is not another option besides getting married.

Let Me Be a Dancin' Fool

Question 1:

Parker does not allow her characters to stop waltzing because to stop waltzing would have been uncouth for the time period. The narrator is very caught up in this idea of how one should behave in society. While she may not agree with it, as we see in her rather cynical soliloquies, she is a woman and society expects her to behave a certain way. There are time-honored traditions that have been set up that this narrator cannot necessarily go against. This is in fact how the waltz starts in the first place. While the narrator begins by stalwartly stating that she doesn’t “want to dance with him. I don’t want to dance with anybody. And even if I did, it wouldn’t be him” she realizes that she cannot go against the social norms of the time and that she is trapped (Parker 491). Still with a zest in her syntax the narrator explores this idea: “What can you, when a man asks you to dance with him? I most certainly will not dance with you, I’ll see you in hell first. Why, thank you, I’d like to awfully, but I’m having labor pains…No. There was nothing much for me to do, but say I’d adore to…All right Cannonball, let’s run out on the field. You won the toss; you can lead” (Parker 491). Despite serious objection and serious consideration of saying no to the man, the narrator know that society will not allow her to say her true feelings. Tradition was programmed her to only be able to say yes to men. It is for these reasons that the flattery continues and the dancing does not stop. Parker is demonstrating just how trapped women are in societal values—how the ideals that the masses follow truly ensnare women. As the text progresses she even goes so far as to say that women will be trapped like this until their dying day, and that the waltz eventually becomes a “danse macabre”. While morbid, the narrator’s cynicism drives the wit of this piece to make it both amusing to read and poignant.

Question 2 (Parker):

The narrator’s “double-voice” present in the text allows Parker to expose her points about being trapped by society in a way that would not have been otherwise possible, and also in a comedic fashion. Using the double voice shows the dichotomy of what the narrator really wants to say, and what she has to say. It quite explicitly tells the audience what it may have been like back in those times; it makes us relate to that woman. This concept draws in a bit of Ong as he talks about the difficulty in relaying messages to audience members over a wide span of time and distance. Well, through Parker’s “double-voice” she brings her audience into the scene and immerses us in exactly what it would have been like in the 1930s. The humor that the “double-voice” provides in the text allows the audience to see how ridiculous a scenario as such is. It shows the audience that it is actually comical how radically different the narrator’s feelings are from her spoken words, and this gives everyone a grasp on the “moral” of the prose. The humor makes us question if the way society functions is actually the best way and forces us to realize the change is necessary because the current stylings are outrageous.

Audience Construction in Harper and Parker

Hello, everyone.

As promised, I'm taking today's class discussion on Harper, Parker, and Ong to the course blog! Throughout the semester, some blog posts will be mediated by questions, as is this one, and others will be more open-ended, inviting you to exchange opinions about or expand on issues raised in our course readings. All posts will be evaluated on the "plus" system, and factored into the blogs and quizzes portion of your course grade. Generally speaking, here are some guidelines for our participation:

1. Please refer clearly to whatever text(s) you are discussing, not only for the benefit of readers outside of this class, but also to ensure that we see what you want us to see in what you read. Even if your blog post is a response to a question I pose, you are still writing that response to make a point or forward a claim. It will help for us to know authors, titles, and the particular passages you discuss.
2. Please title your posts creatively, according to the point you wish to make, rather than redundantly, according to the assignment name ("Blog 1, Blog 2, etc.").
3. At times, I may ask you to formally respond to your classmates' posts, although you should always feel free to do this, even if I don't prompt you to do it. Please be respectful and courteous, especially if you disagree with their interpretation of a text, but do not hesitate to question or challenge them. We need to be willing to question and challenge each other.
4. Finally, as you would in any piece of writing, if you refer to any published text, please mention the source, include page number(s), and even insert a hyperlink to it, if possible.

For your first "official" blog post of the semester, please respond to the following questions.

Question One:
The question I posed to the Parker discussion group today was "Why doesn't Parker allow the narrator to stop waltzing?" I'd love for you to pose your own theory here, but as you do, please consider building a unified theory. In other words, be prepared to back up your theory by tying it to what you see as the principal aims of her story, the principal strategies she uses in writing it, and the principal outcomes that story could have on a particular audience. Please do not be satisfied with making simple generalizations about the time or the text.

Question Two (for the Harper Group):
We already identified some of the allusions and metaphors Harper uses in order to suggest a more complex portrait of "woman" in the late nineteenth century. Could we justify any of these as metaphors for more abstract social problems, i.e., slavery, racial uplift, promotion of black culture, etc.? Draw explicitly on one of Ong's key claims about how writers fictionalize certain audiences, in order to help you justify how certain allusions or metaphors in Harper's essay may be speaking to a broader audience about a more abstract problem.

Question Two (for the Parker Group):
You began to identify certain comedic devices that Parker uses, and several of you even noted some possible "double-voice" in her story. Draw explicitly on one of Ong's key claims about how writers fictionalize certain audiences, in order to discuss in more detail what you think are Parker's most salient vocalizing or comedic devices. In other words, if you noted "double-voice" (or something else), how does it function in her story and what could be its purpose? What does such a strategy allow the narrator to do (or not do)? How could it enable a reader to respond (or not respond)?

Please make a "New Post" for your responses, and feel free to combine both questions into one longer prose response, if that makes more sense for you. Posts should be completed by our next class (11:15 a.m. on Thursday 1/27).

I am accepting my own homework assignment, so I will post, too. Have fun with this!

-Professor Graban

From Polemics to Wit

Hello, everyone.

As requested, I post here the results of the polemics grid we constructed today. For Tuesday, please bring Wollstonecraft's Vindication to class again. I would like to devote the first 10 minutes to a textual interactions quiz on Vindication, much like the practice quiz we discussed on Makin's Essay to Revive the Antient Education. (I will offer extra credit to anyone who thinks they can articulate the principal characteristic, quality, or convention that allows us to justify Vindication as the "standard feminist polemic" for the turn of the nineteenth century. I believe our grid represents some nice examples -- but how can we synthesize them?)

Tuesday's class will be devoted to a discussion of Walter Ong's notion of "fictionalized audience" and a consideration of how that notion helps us to notice explicit audience construction in Harper's "The Two Offers" or Parker's "The Waltz." Ong's essay is long -- please take it in chunks and allow yourself time to look up unfamiliar terms in the OED. Although we are moving from polemics to wit, Ong's essay may help us to trace the evolution of several ideas in Harper's and Parker's texts, including the usefulness of moral virtue, the role of rational thinking, and the coexistence of passion and intellect in the same being.

Enjoy the readings!

-Professor Graban

Welcome to ENG L207

Welcome to English L207 for the Spring 2011 semester! This dedicated blog space will host announcements, updates to our course calendar, gateways for assignments, and a forum for conversation as we embark on our reading, writing, and research. Feel free to browse the links at right to preview (or review) any of our course documents.

-Professor Graban