Monotonous Motherhood Leading to Madness:In Flaubert's “A Simple Heart” and Cather’s “Old Mrs. Harris”
The Mother Figure has been a struggle for feminist scholors to identify and relate with over the years. Many believe that literature, which is inherently patriarchal, lacks foundational mother figure. This phenomenon experienced by many women authors and writers is known as anxiety of authorship which Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar explore in their article “Infection in the Sentence ''. Whereas many men, whether they are writers, fathers, doctors etc have had precursores--a paternal figure. This anxiety of authorship is “a radical fear that [woman] cannot create that she can never become a ‘precursor’...[it] will isolate or destroy her '' (Gilbert and Gubar). I believe that Dickinson illustrates their point beautifully when she states “I never had a mother/ I always ran Home to Awe as a child.../ He was an awful Mother but I liked him better than none,/ a mother [was] a miracle” (Poems of Emily Dickinson). Defeated, and driven towards despair, Dickison expresses that the idea of Mother is one invented by the patriarchy. Inherently, there was nothing ‘female’ about her mother and that the concept of Mother--a true mother is nothing short of a miracle, which was torturous for the young poet who was refusing to resign to society's expectations of her. Overall Gilbert and Gubar are stating that while male authors, and men in general have a fear of being outshined by their past fathers and question whether they will be great enough; women aren’t provided a female/ motherly example, all their past mothers have failed them. A broken relationship is formed, one which never seems to mend itself, leaving women to resort to a patriarchal view of motherhood which is ultimately unfulfilling and leads to a madness which further perpetuates tension between mothers, daughter, and the preconceived notions of motherhood.
First this paper will explore Gustave Flaubert’s short story A Simple Heart and the main character The absence of a motherhood figure turns Felicite into a bland, and unexceptional woman who strives to fill the void her mother left behind by becoming mother herself. Yet, Felicite ultimately fails in her quest to become mother, mothering to the point of obsession --slowly drifting into a delusion absorbs her. Secondly this paper will examine Willa Cather’s Old Mrs. Harris and the Tempelton women, specifically Victoria and Old Mrs. Harris. Their lack of an original female mother causes both these women to fall into the patrachical trap of motherhood in which their bodies are not their own nor or their lives. Though these women wish to break free from their patricharal lives; yet they realize that they will never amount to more than motherhood. This truth drains them of happiness causing them leaving them to live lives filled with hysteria and mourning.
Throughout this paper I will explore the similarities and differences, Felicite from Flaubert’s A Simple Heart and the Templeton women from Willa Cather’s Old Mrs. Harris whose lack of a transformative mother figure caused them to fall within patriarchal views of mother, leading to monotony, and a cycle of madness.
The absence of a foundational and transformative mother figure that lies outside the patriarchal mold, traps Felicite inside the gendered norms that she so desperately wishes to escape. She wishes to become this precursor mother that she never had, her desire will ultimately lead to her downfall for she is portrayed as a bland woman with little power who is easily taken advantage which causes-- trapping her in the complete sacrifice of self. of From the opening sentence of the story, it is clear that Felicite is a diligent and dedicated worker as “for one hundred francs a year she did the cooking and the housework, sewing, washing, and ironing, she could bridle a horse, fatten up poultry, churn butter and remain faithful to her mistress” (Flaubert 3). While Felicite’s faithfulness is evident through her commitment to domesticity and her loyalty to her mistress, those around her find her quite plain and forgettable. Physically “she had a thin face and a sharp voice. At twenty-five she was taken for forty. Once past fifty she could have been taken for any age; and with her perpetual silence, straight back and deliberate gestures she looked like a wooden dummy, driven by clockwork” (Flaubert 4). This description of young Felicite is inherently cruel as it associates her with negative feminine attributes such as a thin face rather than a full face, a sharp voice rather than a melodious voice, and most obviously the drastic increase in age suggesting that she lacks an aura of youthfulness. Harmet Heep claims in his article “Degendering the Other: Objects of Desire in Flaubert’s ‘Un Coeur Simple’” that, “Felicite is able to free herself from gender expectations and norms” (70) and this degendering allows her to reach a state of self-realization (Heep). I would refute Heep’s statement that Felicite is able to free herself from gender norm, rather I would say that her attempt to seek a non-traditional female/ mother figure that is absent from her life leads ultimately to her downfall. Felicite is unable to achieve self-realization because she never fully becomes the precursor that she so desperately desires, she is unable to ‘degender’ herself as Heep suggests but rather serves patriarchal figures and followers--including women that reinforce and confine her to stereotypical gendered norms. The very position that Felicite holds is one of domesticity and the narrator describes how “at first she lived there in a state of fear and trembling brought on by ‘the kind of house’ it was and the memory of ‘Monsieur’ handing over everything” (Faubert 7). She feels the presence of ‘man’ in the house and senses that he is in control of her and thus has the power to hurt her like her father that abandoned her and Theadore her lover who followed in her father’s footsteps.
The moment that Felicite is introduced to the children she falls deeply in love with them and strong maternal feelings wash over her. Awed, the narrator describes how it “seemed to her [Felicite] [that they had] to be made out of some precious material; she would give them rides on her back like a horse,””nded when Madame Aubain, the acting mother figure tells her to stop showing so much affection to the children. It is almost as if by loving the children, Felicite is able to love herself. She is able to create a protective barrier around her, her past traumas, and her lack of a maternal presence; therefore, she feels robbed and deeply hurt when Madame Aubain commands her to cease showing such adoration for the children. Winfred Woolhurd suggests in his article “Configurations of the Family in Un Coeur Simple, that Felicite’s social status causes tension in her relationship with the children. He states: “the tension between Mdm Aubain and Felicite in this context [parenting] registers, at the same time, the instability within was gradually becoming defined as ‘normal’ mothering...” (Woolhurd 149). Felicite is a servant, and she is dependent upon Madame Aubain for her income--she is reminded that these aren’t truly her children and that despite her love for them she is not their mother and cannot fulfill that role in their life. Yet, this all changes when she meets her nephew.
Felicity gives her entire being to her nephew in an attempt to become the precursor mother that she desired to have and in hopes of being the perfect mother, this will ultimately destroy and islote her as Gilbert and Gubar suggest. Within the moment of meeting her biological sister and nephew she “became very fond of them” (Flaubert 13) and showered her nephew with gifts. After the departure of both Paul and Virgine Felicite asks permission from both Madame Aubain and her sister if Victor can come and visit her--a continually reminder that she is not truly ‘mother’ within the patriarchal sense of the word. James Mall in his article “Flaubert's 'Un Coeur Simple' Myth and the Genealogy of Religion” states that, “ Felicite is a strong matriarchal figure victimized by the patriarchal cultural principal” (Mall 45). I agree that Felicite desires to be a strong matriarchal figure; however, as Mall states she falls victim to the patriarchal culture and definition of what a matriarch or mother should be, therefore, she is unsuccessful in truly becoming an invulnerable or revolutionary mother figure. This is obvious in how she minimizes herself for him and is unaware that he, alongside her sister are taking advantage of her. During lunch she would “eat as little as possible…[and] fill him up with so much food he would fall asleep”, likewise Victor’s “parents always told them to get something out of her, a packet of brown sugar...sometimes even money” (Flaubert 17). Felicite’s desire to be ‘mother’ is so strong that she allows herself to fall victim to the bousigue and patriarch culture becoming a female sacrifice for people that don’t truly love or respect her. In her desperation after Victor’s death when she admits that his “parents had treated him with inhumanity” also inferencing that they had treated her with inhumanity and descared her maternal love for their son--she retreats into herself and transfers her love onto Loulou her parret an object that will she will always be able to mother if it is alive or death. Giving herself fully to him talking about him as if he were her child saying frantically “You haven’t by chance seen my parrot?” (Flaubert 30). The narrator suggests that Felicite “had difficulty getting over [her] experience[s], or rather she never got over [them]” (Flaubert 30) and thus in her quest to motherhood is ultimately led into madness.
In Willa Cather’s short story Old Mrs, Harris the Tempelton women experience the disappointment and strain of mother-daughter relationships. Upon first glance, this seems most apparent with Mrs. Harris given that she is old and has seemingly given up her life and partly her identity for her daughter to have a good life. The narrator notes the drastic life differences between Victoria and her mother. While Victoria, the belle of the ball “had persuaded her husband to take her downtown ice cream parlor” (Cather 49) Mrs. Harris is left behind to complete the house work. Furthermore, the narrator notes that “Grandmother’s room, between the kitchen and the dining room, was rather like a passage-way” and her bed “ had no springs only a thin cotton mattress between her and the wooden slates” (Cather 49-50). Victoria is seemingly oblivious to her mother’s quiet suffering and self-sacrifice. This tension and disconnection between mother and daughters is once again expressed in a poem by Hayan Charara entitled Mothers and Daughters. Sinking into a lake in their car the two exchange their last words and melancholy state: “ I wanted to be a good mother, the mother says/ Sometimes you weren’t, the daughter says./Sometimes you weren't’ a good daughter either, the mother says and the daughter says, I wanted to be good” (Charara). I believe that this echos the Templetons relationship beautifully. Mrs. Harris and Victoria want nothing more than to be good mothers; yet they have both failed in that aspect. Mrs. Harris spoiled Victoria and raised her with unrealistic expectations of the world--she didn’t give her a backbone and never learned to stand up to Victoria or have Victoria stand up for herself. Likewise, Victoria dismisses her children wanting little to do with them, wishing that “she could run away back to Tennesse and lead a free, gay life” (Cather 98) . She felt that “she had been the belle of the town in Tennessee and here she was not very popular no matter how many pretty dresses she wore, she couldn’t bear it. She felt as if ….and her mother must be somehow to blame…” (Cather 69). The two live in a continual state of combat and disappointment. Borrowing thinking from Gilbert and Gubar the two women do not recognize how the foremother, and current mother struggled in isolation and alienation to overcome what I am calling the anxiety of motherhood (relating back to anxiety of authorship) which was endemic to the domestic sphere. (Gilbert and Gubar 13)
The disappointment experienced by the Templeton women is due to their lack of a precursor mother figure. Both Old Mrs. Harris and Victoria live by traditional patriarchal standards. Grandmother Harris believes that “that every young married woman in good circumstance had an older woman in house a mother, or mother-in law...who managed the household economics and directed the help” (Cather 70). In stark modern contrast to that is Mrs. Rosen who “managed to be mistress in any situation” (Cather 72) having broken out of that patriarchal mode and more importantly not being imprisoned by motherhood she is free to be in charge of herself and her household. It is the trappings of motherhood that separate the women as though Mrs. Harris desired to stay in Tennessee, Victora “had never thought it possible that Ma should not go wherever she and the children went” (Cather 51). Gilbert and Gubar state that “inevitably women [are] reared for, and conditioned to, lives of privacy, reticence, [and] domesticity…” (Gilbert and Gubar 15) once more illustrating the circular trappings of motherhood which Old Mrs. Harris has already experienced and Victoria experiences in finality when she becomes pregnant at the end. The narrator describes how “she was still young, still handsome; why must she be shut up in a little cluttered house with children and fresh babies and an old woman…” (Cather 98). She finally comes to grips with the realities of motherhood that once you become mother and never have had a revolutionary mother you end up alone, and you yourself vanish. This concept is echoed in one of the last lines of the story “they will come closer and closer to Grandma Harris” (Cather 104). Victoria, Vickie and all women after them will become trapped in this circle of motherhood--it is how the patriarchal world has defined them. Unknowingly it is how they have defined themselves, and they each will wish that they would have been the foremother that they never had.
The lack of precursors mother figures is evident throughout Flaubert’s A Simple Heart and Cather’s Old Mrs. Harris. Both authors explore themes of motherhood and how past surface level, motherhood can be quite destructive to the female if as defined by the patriarchy. All the women in these stories either seek motherhood or have it thrust upon them and in their naitive they allow themselves to be fully absorbed by mother ultimately tarnishing the mother-child bond and causing animosity within the mother-daughter or the mother-child relationship. Cather and Flaubert make us question is the ideal mother can ever truly exist or if we need to redefine the definition of mother in order to free women, mothers and to improve our relationship with our future mothers.
-Originally Written February 2020
Works Cited
Cather, Willa. “Old Mrs. Harris .” Obscure Destinies, by Willa Cather, Oxford City Press, 2010, pp. 39–105.
Flaubert , Gustave. “A Simple Heart .” Three Tales, by Gustave Flaubert and A. J. Krailsheimer, Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 3–40
Gilbert , Sandra, and Susan Gubar . “Infection in the Sentence .” Feminisms Redux: an Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism, by Robyn R. Warhol and Diane Price Herndl, Rutgers University Press, 2009, pp. 9–20.
Heep, Hartmut. “Degendering the Other: Objects of Desire in Flaubert's ‘Un Cœur Simple.’” Dalhousie French Studies, vol. 36, 1996, pp. 69–77. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40836440. Accessed 26 Feb. 2020.
JAMES P. MALL (1977) FLAUBERT’S ‘UN COEUR SIMPLE’, MYTH AND THE GENEALOGY OF RELIGION, Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association, 47:1, 39-48,
Woodhull, Winifred. “Configurations of the Family in ‘Un Coeur Simple.’” Comparative Literature, vol. 39, no. 2, 1987, pp. 139–161. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1770539. Accessed 5 Mar. 2020.
