Necessary illusions in Kate Chopin's "Athénaïse"

Re1·ista de Estudios Norteamericanos, 11 . " 5 ( 1997). pp. 75 -82 NECESSARY ILLUSIONS IN KATE CHO PIN' S «ATHÉNAiSE» DANIEL CANDEL BORMANN Universidad de Alcalá de Henares Thcre seems to be a certain naiveness and simplicity in Kate Chopin 's fiction which often lulls her reader's critica) faculty and makes for a child-like, inno cent cnjoyment of her short stories. But at its core, this naiveness is a cheeky one; Kate Chopin delights in making a fool of us readers; she exploits our gullibility to lead the plot whercver she wishes. Following an inferential conception of communication, I shall first analyse «Athéna!se,» one of her short stories, to establish whether this imprcssion of naiveness is not ultimately deliberate. On the one h and I will try to argue that in this short story, Kate Chopin rcvcls in giving us a certain picture of her charactcrs, only to substitute it later for another. To make such radical changes without alienatíng her readers, Chopin has to guide our sympathies; in doin g so she always operatcs on the borderline bctw ceen what is permissible in terms of presenting a story and what amounts to falsifying facts. On thc other hand, I will also try to argue that by deceiving us, Chopin ultimately runs the risk of fooling he rself and thus of diminishing thc quality of her fiction. In «Athéna·ise» her t echn i ca l bravado leads her to obscure wider social issucs -specifically problcms of marriage-which the text initially addresses; this devaluates the potential quality of the story. Nowadays linguistics works with different models of comm unication. In Relevance: Communication and Cognition, the traditional codc modcl, according to which the speaker encades information in to language and passes it over toan addressee who decodes the message, is substituted for what Sperber and Wilson ca ll the inferential modcl. According to this model, communication is achieved by th e audienc c' s recognition of the communicator's informative intention (23). The code model 's conc e ption of communicat ion is that the informa tion provided by the speaker is the same as that rece iv ed by the addressee. The inferential 76 Daniel Conde/ Bor111a11n modcl, howev cr . works in a differe nt way. bccausc it is hased on Grice's co-operative principie. According to G1ice, what the addrcsscc expects of the speaker is to Make [hisl convcrsational contribution such as is rcquired, at th e stage al wh ich it occurs, by thc accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which [he is 1 engaged. (Cole and Morgan 45) Once the ad dr essee thinks he knows the informativc in tcntio n of th e speaker, he wi ll gear the decodification of thc message in the direction of th is in te ntion, so that information that does not su pport the addressee 's accepted infonnativ e intention of th e speaker has a high probability of not be in g taken into consi deration . It is not a question of rejecting onc commu nicativc rno del for thc othcr; bo th ha ve their sharc of truth. Thc intercsting thing here is that a pproach ing Kate Chopin 's fí c ti on from an infcrcntial modcl of communication is extremely rewarding. Kate Chopin dclig ht s in playing with her reader s' infcrcnccs, and thercforc exploits thc fact that readers genera ll y do nol question Gricc 's co-operativc principie. They readily be li eve that the narrator makes his or her conversational contribution s uch as is required, at che stagc at w hi ch it occ ur s. etc. Using th e referential model a nd taking as case-st udy «Athéna·ise» 's presentation of Caz ea u in «chapter 1» as opp ose d to the rest of the story, I will try to sh ow how masterf ully Chopin often fo ols the rcader, exploiting hi s b elief in the writer's co-operalion. The st ory starts by introducing Cazeau, th e main chara cter 's husband, who ha s just been a ba ndon ed by her , to the reader: thc first thing we hear about hi m is that He did not worry mu ch about Athéna'ise, who, he susp ec ted , was rcsting only too content in the bo som of her family; his chief solicitude was manifestly for the pony she had ridden ... This misgiving Caz ea u comrnunicated to his se rv ant, old Félicité . .. ( 103) The trus ti ng reader logically infers from this that Cazeau is a brute who dcserves no better than being abandoned by his wife; Cazeau obviously do es not rate his wife vcry hi ghly whcn h is mind rests on his pony rath er than her, and he discusses his marital probl cms with his se rvan!. There follows a mai nl y physical dcscription of Cazcau, which is a curious mixture of wildness, softness, clumsiness and respectability: He was ta ll , sinewy, swar thy, and altogether severe looking. His thick black hair waved, and it gleamed like the breast of a crow. The sw eep of his moustache, which was not so black, outlined the broad contour of the mouth. Beneath thc under lip gr ew a small tuft w hi ch he was much given to twisti ng , and which he permittcd to grow, apparently for no othcr purpose. Cazeau 's eyes wcre dark Nccessarv ll/11sions i11 Kme Clwpi11's «ilthé11aúen 77 blue, narrow and ovcrshadowcd. His hands were coarsc and stiff frorn close an1uaintance with farming tools and implements, and he handled bis fork and knife clumsily. But he was distinguished loo king, and succedcd in commanding a good deal of rcspect. ( 103) This description does not effect in tbc rcad er a cbange of attitude towards Cazeau 's moral status. He may be a good-looking fellow indeed, but mere physical traits are not in themsclves significant in moral terms, they do not sufficicntly change our ju dgement of fictional charactcrs. Un less stronger, moral evidence is produccd, Cazcau is and rcmains a brute. Moreover, the ensuing description of Cazeau 's surroundings re inforces the impression of wildness we bad gained by t he description of bis physical traits: we have a «big room, with its bare floor and buge raftcrs, and its heavy pieces of furniture» (103). But wildness is hcre associated with darkncss - tbe floor raftcrs and fumiture «l oomed dimly in the gloom» (103), Félicité is a «rest less shadow» (103) -and lonclincss-«He ate his supper alone, by thc light of a single coal-oil lamp» ( 103 ). Although Chopin is here already dirccting thc reader's feelings, tbe reader does not feel imposed on, mainly because nearly ali scmantic qualities attributed here to Cazeau are of a physical. not moral character. Cazeau 's loneliness is latcr cmphasised by « There [ being] nothing el se bcforc him bcside the bread and butter and the bottlc of red wine on the table» (103-104 ); and bis brutishness is fu11her stressed by the fact tb at it is not him but Félici té who was occupied by her mistress's absence, and kept rcve11ing to it after he had cxpressed his solicitude about the pony ... Cazcau shrugged bis shoulders for answcr . .. Félícité might have known better than to suppose that he cared. He lold her she was a fool. It soundcd like a compl imen t in bis modulated, caressing voice. (104) Furt ber evidence is givcn about Cazeau 's hardness: Cazeau had man y thin gs to attend to bcfore bed-time; so many things that there was not left to him a moment in which to think of Atbéna"ise. He felt her absence, though, like a dull, insistent pain. (104) And again: The marriage had been a blundcr; he had only to look into her eyes to fecl lhat, to discover her growing aversion. But it was nota thing ... to be undone. He was ... prepared to make the best of i t, and expccted no less on her par t. He would find mcans to kcep her at home hereafter. (104-105) If I bavc quoted at l eng th bere, it is because I have tried to rcconstruct for the reader the pattern according to which Kate Chopin played a trick on me during my first 78 Daniel Conde/ Bormann r ea ding of «Athéna "i se.» I want thc rcadcr to relivc my first re action to «A th é na"isc ,» which was to idcntify Cazeau as thc baddy or thc story. I have not only quoted all thc evidence I could find for condernning Cazeau, but have al so included th e eviden ce Chopin can later fall back on to justi fy the way she startcd her story off , once th e r ca der has changed his rnind about Cazeau and might wa nt to accu sc the author of falsifying data in her first chapter. If the rcader 's rcaction is not similar to mine, this cssay has failed to provc its point. unlcss the reader already knows thc story. In that case he would know that in the end Cazcau is not such abad chap after ali; the reader's fe elings migh t alrcady ha ve been rcdirccted according to Kate Chopin 's wishes. I shall now follow the story as it progresses, and return to «chaptcr I» cvery ti me I feel Chopin intends the reader's impression of Cazeau to change. to see if thcse changes can be justificd by what the first chapter actually says. The second chap te r starts with Cazcau sctting out to gct his wifc back, not out of !ove, but because «among the many urgcnt calls upon him, the task of br inging his wifo back to a sensc of duty secmed to him for the moment paramounl» ( 105). As Cazeau is confin nin g th e reader's negative attitude towards him. the reader will obviously look for sume o th er po siti ve charactcrs in «A théna"is e»: Athénai"sc hcrself and her family. thc Michés, are th e obvious ca ndidates for such a bestowing of his affections. In «C hapter JI» th crc follows a description of t hc Michés 's housc: if Cazeau 's home is «huge» am i «bare» (1 03 ). thc Mich és's is «large» and «bare» (105). But at the Michés's onc can «dance, meet amiable indulgence.» a nd taste «Madame Miché's gumbo file al midnight, . .. pkasurcs not to be neglectcd or dcspised, unless by such seri ous souls as Cazeau» ( 105 ): so the narrator tells us. Cazeau does not seem to be improving one bit; thc Michés might he thc a lt c rn ative the r ead er is looking for. But from this point onwards sorne changes occur: Mad ame Miché and her son Montéclin are short of stature -whereas Cazeau is ta ll -and Montéclin appears to be a sornewhat dislikcablc fell ow. His main rcason for hating Cazeau is that at sorne time in the past Cazeau did n ot lend him sorne mo ney ( 106); moreovcr, as the narrator assures us, Montéclin might be tclling the truth about his siste r's dislike of Cazcau, when he faces the outraged husband demanding his wife back. but «his taste in the ma n ne r a nd choi ce of time and place in saying it were not of thc best» ( 107). Suddenly the physical contras! tall/short gains a moral dimension in favour of Cazcau. Fu rther instances confirm our bad impression of Monréclin, who is thus ruled out as Cazeau 's good alter ego.1 1. However, one has to give Chopin the cr ed it of having e nd owed Montéclin not only with dislik ea ble katu res: we are told that Athé na"ise had never been so glad to see Montéclín before; not even the day when he had taken her out of th e convent. against her parents' wíshes, because she had expresscd a desire to r ema in th ere no longer. (1 14) Montéclin might be a cowa rd, a gambler andan impudent fe llow. but t ha t does not mean he docs not love hís sister. Necessary ll/usions in Kate Chopin's «Athénai"se» 79 The readcr will now probably look for Athéna!se to provide h im with the innocence and goodness all the othcr charactcrs lack, but the narrator quickly dismisses this possibility. The reader feels her rcasons for marrying Cazeau to be completely inadcquate: they seem to havc been custom, comfort anda mere lik in g for his wild and stormy wooing of her ( 107). Her position seems to be somewhcre in betwcen Cazeau and her family: we are told that she is «tall» -like Cazeau and unli ke Mon téclin - b ut she is not «robust.» and the narrator deems it necessary to tell us herself that «about her fcatures and expression lurked a softness, a pretiness, a dew iness, that we re perhaps too childlikc, that savored of immatur it y» ( l 09). Athénalse has to grow to decide between Cazca u and Montéclin. Here we are retrospectively told of her dismissal of th e state of marriage as being hateful because she «can 't stand to live with a man; to have h im always ther e; his coats an' pantaloons htmging in my room; his ugly barc feet-washing them in my tub, befo' my very eyes, ugh! !» ( 108). We could sympathisc with such feelings, we re it not for thc fact th at Athénai'se is slill a child and cannot really be uuste d. Up to here our judgement of Cazeau has improved, but not because of any inhercnt quality of his; it is rather a mattcr of the other characters not having provcd to be up to scratch. The fact rcmains that neither Cazeau nor Montéclin are anything near perfcction. However, Cazeau will apparently change to the better and this change is one of Chopin 's mastcrstrokes in fooling the readcr. Th e fooling occurs in part thrce and covers two moments: the first instancc takes place during a discussion between the Miché's as to what we nt wrong with Athénalse's education: ... shc woultl not continue to enact the role of wife to Cazeau. lf she had had a rcason! as Madame Miclzé lamented; but it cou ld not be discovered that she had any sane one. He had never scolded, or called her names, or deprivcd her of comforts, or been guilty of any of the many reprehensible acts commonly attributed to objectionable husbands. He did not slig ht nor neglect her. lndeed, Cazea11's c hie/ offense seemed to he that he !ored her, and Athéna·ise was not the woman to be loved against her will. ( 11 1) (my italics) Here Chopin achicvcs a vcry skillful gradation: It might be Madame Miché who Jaments, but «Cazeau 's chief offense» -lov ecomes so long aftcr the narrator 's admission that it is Madame Miché who is uttering this passage, that thc clause is invested with the narrator's authority. no t Madame Miché's. This represents a very skillful transition to the seco nd instance that definitely redeems Cazeau, when a page Jat er he himsclf states that «I married you because 1 loved you; because you we re the woman 1 wanted to marry an' thc only one. 1 reckon I tole you that befo'» (p. l 12). Well, he might have told her, but surely Chopin did n ot give us any such hints in the preceeding chapters. Or did she? When at the beginning Cazeau is shown to worry more about his pon y than about Athéna·ise 's welfarc, we are told that «This misgivi ng 80 Da11iel Cowlcl B orm a nn Cazeau comm unicated to his servant. old Félicité»( !03 ). This is no t th e same as say in g that th is was wha t he actua ll y thought. In a way we are herc obli qucly told t hat Cazeau 's wo r ds might n ot necessarily have to co rresp ond with his t hough t s. Also, th e narrat or tells us that «Félicité might have known better than to sup posc that he !Cazeaul care d. He tol<l her that she was a fool. lt sound ed like a compliment in his modulated. caressing voice» ( 104 ). Now here again we have «he to ld her,» not «he thoug hl.» Besides. who is «she.» the fool he is refcrring to '? Félicité is thc p crso n physica lly next to Cazeau. so it might be her he mcans. But if h is wife really is as imp011ant to Caze au as he claims he r to be in «chapter IIL» «she» might ve ry we ll refer to Athéna"ise. ln lhis case Cazeau 's «modulatcd. care ssing voicc» wo uld not just imply a physü:al pec uliar it y of h is vo ca l organs. as thc initial. me rcly physical dcsc ri p ti on of Cazeau ( 1 03) might make us he li evc; rath er il would cxpress thc feeling he harbours for Athéna'isc. mo st probably re prcssed and unconscious. ror he feels her absence likc a «<l ull. insisten! pain» ( 104 ). But a first rcading of th e story will prohably n ot result in an awaren ess of these co nnection s. for the readcr's expectations wi ll be geared towards Cazeau's 'ba<lness' aftcr the narrator has initially dismissed him as aba d husband because he prefers his horse to his wife.2 ow the reader feels c he way to be pave<l for a displ ay of Cazcau's goodness. Kate Chop in has Cazeau wr ite Athénai'sc a lettcr in which he leaves to her the decision to com e back whcnever she wishcs. but out of her free will. Th is acce pt ance of h er fr eedom closes the frame open ed at the end of «C hapter l. » in which Cazeau promised himsel f' to «find mea ns to kecp her al ho me hereafter» ( 105 ). Cho pin has found a way to changc Cazcau without lctting thc r eader pa 1t icipate in the proccss. So much does t he narrator idcntify with Cazeau now. that he bccomes her mouth piece when he tells Montéclin that «Ath én a 'ise is nothing but a chile in character» ( 116). The rcadcr gcts the fcc li ng that it is now Athéna 'is e 's tum to grow up, ami when she f' inally does. thc story conclu<lcs in a happy cnd. But this happy end is a fak e. Certain social issues pointed out in th e story have not changed: what Chopin has done is identify th cm as problems. and then forgct about thcm to mcrcly concentratc on thc traditional «battlc between the scxes.» Th e only way in which Cazeau has ch angcd-an d with no apparent effort un his part-is in that he does not want lo force Athéna·ise to l ive wi th him. But this is just one of the man y probl ems statcd throughoul the stor y. In «C hapter l» Cazeau «had too many t hi ngs to attcnd to bcforc bcdti mc: so many things that there was no t left to h im a moment in which to think of Athéna'ise» (p.104 ). At the end of the story Chopin has not given us any clue 2. At this p oin t one must be aware that we are entering. the rcalm of interpretation: as Todorov tells us «cvcry book requir cs a cer tain amo unt of causality: thc na rr ator and the read er su pp ly it betwcen them, their efforts bei ng inversely proportional» (46). Here the narrator d oes n ot provide us with causal links between different passages: rhey are just conriguous: thus it is the reader who is l efl wi th the task of providing these link s. In a sen se the reader has to invest the t cxt with somcth in g no t to be found in thc tcxt, and has to do so at his or h er peri !. Neces. mry !llusiom in Kate Chopin's «Atliénafae» 81 that this issue has bcen resolved. Moreover, at the end of «cha pter III,» after A th énaYse and Cazeau have had their marital discussion, he wa lk s out to wo rk and she heard him mount his horse and ri de away. A hundred things would distraet h im a nd engage his attention duri ng the day. S hc fel t thal he had perhaps put her and her grievance from his thoug ht s when he crosse d the threshold; whilst she . . (113) As a result, Athénai'se hands the house-keys to her servant and «refused to t ake further account of the menage» (1I3). Because of thc inequalities between male and fcmale, AthénaYse rejects h er position in society as a married woman. Again, the issue is addressed and thcn forgotten. «Athénai'se» resembles the 'and-t hey-lived-happily-ever-aftcr-s tor y,' but in the real life of Chopin 's time it was a fact that while men had a public life and recognition to attend to, t he role of women was restrictcd to s taying at home and waiting for their husbands to return home. When facing marital trouble, the Cazeaus would mount their horses and ride away to bu ry themselves in their work , while the Athénai'ses would havc to stay at home to mull over their problems. In « At hénai'se» the question of social inequality arises o nl y to be swept quictly under thc carpe!. There is anot her passage, this time in «Chapt er 11, » which states the problem in an even more unmistakea bl e way. It takes pla ce when Athénai'se appears in front of he r husband to be taken home by hirn, after her 'elopem ent' to her parents ho use: whatcver he might feel, Cazeau knew only one way to act toward a woman. «Athéna'ise, you are not rcady?» he asked in his quiet tones. « lt 's getting late; we havn' any time to lose.» She kn ew that Montéclin had spoken out, and she h ad hoped for a wordy interview, a stormy scene ... But s he had no weapon with which to combar subtlet y. H er husbands looks, his tone, his mere presence brought to her a sudden sense ofho pelessness, an instinctive realisation of the futility of rcbcllion against a social and sacred institution. (108-109) (my italics) «Cazeau knew only one way»; we are here reminded of Cazeau 's clumsiness, and th is s qu ares with our previous view of him. But sud denly his clumsiness becomes «subtlcty.» Unlike other passages, this is no mer e fooling of th e r ea der on Chopin 's part: to understand wh at happens here wc have to reali se th at Chopin is worki ng at two lcvels, the individual a nd the social. In terms of the individual Cazeau 's answer might very well be clumsy, bu t in tem1s ofthe social it is ex. tremely subtle: behind Cazeau's way of th in ki ng Chopin recognises a patriarchal society that seeks to perpetuare itself and therefore posits its truth as the only possible one. The structures inhcrcnt in this patriarchal socie ty are so deeply engrained in their members that the latter feel th em to be th e way the world is struc tu red. This is why forman -for which Cazeau is here a representativc-there 82 Daniel Conde/ Bormann is only one way to act towards a woman; for Cazcau this way is part of the natural order of thing s. For a split second, Athéna·ise and Kate Chop in are able to see the world for what it is, in the light of ali it s injustice and lies. But this truth is too awful to be constantly bom in mind. ancl so for Athén ai:se as for Chopin it relapses into oblivion. Thus at a personal leve! AthénaYse's lot seems to improve. But ata social l evel her plight remains the unchanged: the patriarchal society on which her marriage is based remains untouched; for this neither she nor Cazeau are ultimately responsible. But what about Katc Chopin? Should we indict her for shirking her responsibilities by providing a happy cnd to this story where according to the evidence put forward thcrc cannot be one? l believe we should not be too harsh on h er. First of all, this is just one of her many stories, and one only has toread, say, «T he Story of an Hour,» to rcalise that Chopin can be more critica] with her society than in «A th éna·ise.» And sccondly, while il is true that in this sto ry she ultimately shuns the socia l implications of the marriage problem, it is also true that what is felt to be insufficient at one point in history can be an act ofbravery at another. In our socicty feminist issucs are our daily bread, so much so that in the history of literary criticism the eighties and nineties will probably be remembered as decades of feminism. In th ese tcrms Chopin 's society was a much more repressed one, so much so that, as the lntroduction to Porrraits s tr esses, R.W. Gildcr, the influential editor of the national magaz.ine Century, refused to publish « The Story of an Hour,» «A Night in Acadie» and «Athénalse» beca use he felt they were unethical. (viii) Thus, while for our twentieth-century mentality it might seem as though Kate Chopin had ultimately shunned vital social issues in her short fiction, in fact stories like «A thénalse» c.:onstituted a manifest challcnge to her society. WORKS CITED CHOP IN , KATE. «Athéna1se.» Portraits. London: The Women 's Press, 1979. GRICE, H.P. ( 1975) «Logic and Conversation.» Syntax a11d Semantics, Vol. 3 of Speech Act s. Eds. P. Cole and J .L. Morgan. New York: Acadcmic Press, 1975. 41-58. SPERBER , DAN AND DEIRDRE WILSON . Relevance: Comm1mication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986. TODOROV, TZVETAN. /ntroduction to Poetics. Brighton: The Harvester Press, l 98 l.