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.