Family Secrets, and Today's Students Rebecca Belcher-Rankin Olivet Nazarene University, Rbelcher@Olivet.Edu

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Faculty Scholarship – English English

Summer 2004 Social Spaces: Family Secrets, and Today's Students Rebecca Belcher-Rankin Olivet Nazarene University, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Belcher, Rebecca. "Social spaces: Family Secrets, and Today's Students." This Is Just to Say. Summer 2004: 1-5.

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Volume XV, Number 1 Summer2004 Social Spaces

Family Secrets, and Today's Students

Rebecca Belcher

are The conclusion of William According to modern family then every day American educators Faulkner's short story "A Rose for psychology expert 1ohn Bradshaw, at looking at classrooms whose rows are Emily" seldom fails to evoke leastthree- fourdtsof American families filled widt children affected by such astonishment among students when dysfunction. Often these children they realize that Miss Emily had become dte disruptive elements in the actually beensleeping with a dead man classroom or in society at large. can, foryears. Likewise,dte Bible salesman Teachers and should, of course, in Flannery O'Connor's "Good refer such students to proper school Country People" shocks student audtorities such as social workers and readerswidt his trickery. Such literary nurses, butmost re ferrals resultin only works draw students' attention to the a few hourly sessions outside the assroo dteme of secrecy that interferes widt cl m, with the remainder of the normal behavioral patterns in students' time being spent in the assro relationships. Not only is dtis theme cl om. Somethingthat teachers can of secrecyone that appears regularly do within the classroom is to use to in literary selections, but it is also literature as a tool educate students recognized asone of dteseminal traits about familydysfunction. Studentscan of disruptive family systems that identifywith characters whose fictional sociologists see all of dtetime in dteir lives mirror their own social spaces. exploration of today's American Sara Munson Deats and Lagretta society. Tallent Lender, in their study The The adult widt dte power in the AchingHearth: FamilyViolence in Life family coerces odter family members and Literature,argue that"our literary to remain silent about any issues or heritage may provide one of the most problems that dte family might face. valuable resources in our culture for Often dtese families appear "picture comprehending the underlying causes perfect," according to 1ohn and Linda of family violence as well as other Friel, because the dysfunction they human actions, both normal and "experienced was so subtle (covert) aberrant''(7) .Americanliterature, when dtat [dtey) couldn'teven begin to put viewed through the lenses of some of a finger on whatit wasthat happened" Zora Neale Huntoa (paaes 34) themodern critical theories, in addition (4-5). The seriousness of dtis kind of toaiding sociologistsin understanding subtle abuseis explained by Richard1. the causes of dysfunctional attitudes, Gelles and Murray A. Straus as ''the qualify for dte title of disruptive or may provide hope for dte future of our dysfunctional family(21 ). most hidden, most insidious, least society by helping students in the If these sociologists and family researched, and perhaps . . . most classroomto discover mechanisms damaging" (qtd. in Deats 224). counseling experts are to be believed,

THIS IS JUST TO SAY for recovery at work in the fictional charactersof right-to protection-and that obligated themto obey area good literature. (8). Especially in one major of life, women were orderedto remain silent male infidelity. Ladies' morality One of the richest areas for exploring the books, according to Marjorie Stratford Mendenhall, dysfunctional systems in American family life is "advised the wife to conceal from everyone her literatureofthe post-Civil War South, which yields many knowledge ofber husband's infidelities"and reported examplesof dysfunction,especially the idea of keeping thaithe man would chide his wifefor pryinginto secrets family secrets, a practice that many of today's high thatwould cause pain (121-22). school students know only too well. Teachers can use Perhaps the greatest problem associated with the such nineteenth century literature, which revealed the silence imposed upon the southern woman by the system of secrets and silences imposed on everyone southern white male in the post-war era was the fact but the white male. The hierarchical formof patriarchy thai silence was an act of collusion. Such collusion lasted longer in the South than elsewhere, probably can be seen in Langston Hughes' poem "Silhouette," becauseof itsformer rigid social hierarchyin which the where be echoes the social code imposed upon the rich white man had more power than the poor white "southerngentle lady" (2230). Inthe poem, the woman man,who, in turn,more bad power thanthe black male must not react negatively to the lynching of a black slave. Society viewed almost all women andchildren, man. The woman, by keeping silent, was bound into both white and black, as powerless individuals.After submission; she not only non-verbally accepted the the Civil War the only shift in the powerstructure was horrific act, but she also became the agent of such thaithe term "black male slave" changed to "blackman." repression. "Silence ultimately reinforces the In late nineteenth centuryliterature, the southern patriarchy,"says Gina Michelle Collins in her study of white male was able to command silence by preserving feminism and the southern tradition, because women themythological "woman on the pedestal." Southern internalize the hierarchical structure (77) and thus society"officially worshipped womanhood" as a way collude with society in furthering the social structure of diverting "attention from problems of slavery and of abusive power. Such collusion did not end in the racism," says Louise Westling (3, 8). Guion Griffis home; itspilled over into the literary efforts of southern !' Johnson, writing of the ante-bellum South, says thai women. The ofthisbackdrop sociological theory shows Victorian characteristics (docile, quiet, submissive, fl how literary works can be 'studied for a better j': understanding of the oppressive conditions that Silence was an act of collnsion. contribute to unhealthy relations and thebreakdown I! of familystructure . Early twentieth century southern writer Ellen J! pious behavior) were typical before 1837; Johnson Glasgow in The ShelteredLife demonstrates theharm illustrates this point, citing the male president of the thatcomes to an individual whensecrecy is demanded. University ofNorthCarolina who in 1810 badpraised a GeorgeBirdsong, a trustedclose and filmily friend, tells j! woman for "maidenly delicacy" when she refused to the ten-year-old Jenny Blair that they should keep read a particularbook sbebelieved contained an impure secret the factthai they have been at the house of his thought( 140).Likewise, Anne Goodwyn Jones includes colored mistress Memoria. Jenny, of course, not denial of self, silent suffering, sexual purity, piety, realizing the significance of this white man's visit to deference to external authority, and contentment in the colored neighborhood, agrees eagerly to keep the staying in the home as characteristics of the southern secretshe because believes that "she [will] have a part woman (4). These traditionally female characteristics in thaimysterious world where grownuppersons hide entrenched southern men in their patriarchal structure the things they do not wish children to know'' (S 1). By because those men, according to Johnson, "wanted theend of the story,Jenny findsherself embroiled in a their women keptin cages, peripheral, submissive, inert" passionate love affair withGeorge and admitsthai her (20). This attitude surfaced in both white and black men obsession with him began when be rescued her at who played at being men of leisure and kept their Memoria's. Apparently, sbebas no conscious sense women emotionallybound (Rubin 27-28). of George'ssexual indiscretion, nor is she consciously Moreover, southernwomen viewed these mandates awarethai her own actionsbring about George's death as socially acceptable doctrine. From the time of the asher frustratedwife andangry kills him. Her collusion southern colonies, according to Julia Cherry Spruill, and the bond of secrecy undermine her own sense of obedience was a key word to describe the attitude of responsibility. Similarstories that frame irresponsible the southern wife. She reports that one wife thought behaviors and consequences provide a springboard sheshould "read oftenthe matrimonialservice andnot for examining the adverse effects of secrecy in overlook the word OBEY," and that she should be "submissive from Choice and obedient from responsible relationships; questions based on the Inclination" (113). Similarly, Jones quotes George themeof responsibility cangenerate interesting reader Fritzbugh who stated in 1854 that women had one response assignments for students that connect !I 2 THIS IS JUST TO SAY I literature to sociological environment. openness, according to Jacques Lacan, can be Katherine Anne Porter shows a different aspect of attributed to shifts inlanguage. He addresses the notion the harmfulness of secrecy in her story ''The Grave." The of a shifting of meanings in the language system as an narrator and main character, Miranda, exemplifies how incessant sliding of the signified under the signifier repression deprives her consciousness of her female (1296). Because the meaning can alwaysbe moving or identity. She recalls a childhood incident when she and changing, it can have a meaning separate from an her brother Peter had discovered a dead mother rabbit existing ideological system; thus a piece of literature with its unborn babies. Her brother had told her not to can explore socialspaces in ways other thanthat of the recount this experience: "Now you listen to me, anddon't existing paradigm. Patriarchy, family secrets, and ever forget.Don't you ever tell a living soul that you saw repression of identity canbe challenged when literature this" (55). Miranda had obeyed him blindly, never allows readersto make sociological and psychological reflectingupon the femaleness she sharedwith the mother discoveries. rabbit. When she does recall the incident, she still does One southernwriter whose work allows for such not reflect upon the secrecy forced upon her, but rather challenge to existing paradigms is Eudora Welty who upon the strength of her brother. According to Judith takes a unique stance in creating the main female Kegan Gardiner, "The story ends, apparently with the character Laurel McKelva Hand in The Optimist's renewedrepression of the memory of female body" asshe Daughter. Nowhere is Laurel told to keep a secret,yet admires the controlling voice of her brother (267). The she haskept secretsfrom herself for years, adheringto childhood loyalty to her brother still would not allow a code of repression. Only after her father's death is Mirandato ownthe scope ofherfemale sexuality. Using a Laurel willing to examine her feelings concerning the story such as "The Grave" in the classroom can show death of her mother and her husband. Her inner voice students connections between family secrets and saysthat she"gone had on living withthe old perfection psychological repression of sexual identity. Character undisturbed and wtdisturbing," by locking away the analysis of Mirandaprovides an excellent opportunityto memoriesof thepast (154). Onone particular cold, dark, express andanalyze the theme of psychologicalrepression stormy night,however, Laurel opensher memory to the in the larger context of today's society. firelight andwann thof her old nurseryand, thereby, to The endings of both Glasgow's and Porter's books all herpast life. She thinks, "Memory lived not in initial canbe disappointing to a feministwho would like tosee a possessionbut in the freedhands, pardoned andfreed, female character break out of a repressive patriarchal and in the heart that can empty but fill again, in the power structure which binds the woman to secrecy and patterns restored by dreams" (179). Thus, Welty's subservient role. Jenny and Miranda were unable to femalecharacter is able torecognize the secrecy of her envision a world in which women could actfreely instead past, which has bound her and is able to move beyond of reacting submissively to the men around them; it to a new life. "She comes to wear the pastlightly," nonetheless, becauseof their internalorientation and their according to Ruth D. Weston, "to accept humaneness psychologicallimitations, they can provide enlightenment gracefully, to redefine heroism as something more for today's students who live in a dysfunctional world flexible and unpretentious than tradition had taught" and who need to recognize the damage resulting from (75). As a twentiethcentury writer, Welty was able to behaviors of avoidance and denial. access a new freedom which allows her character to break the chain of repression and male dominion. In doing so, she escapes both the prevailing coastraints She escap es both the of patriarchy and matriarchy and transcends the traditional southern womangentility (Weston 77, 87). prevailing constraints of Such a character can be a sign of hope for students who may recognizetheir own dysfunctional families in Welty's descriptions. patriarchyand matriarchy Another southern writer who empowers her characterto break the chain of male dominion is Zora and transcends the Neale Hurston, who published Their Eyes Were WatchingGodin 1937. The main cbaracterofthe novel, tradit ional souther n Janie, is kept silent first by her grandmother, then by her first husband, and then by her second husband woman gentility. Jody. Inresponse to a requestthat Janie should speak, Jody says, "[M]ab wife don't know nothin' 'bout no speech-makin.'Ab never marr ied her for nothin'lak dat." (40-1). At this point, Janie appears to be as firmly Incontrast, there are many pieces of twentiethcentury entrenched in the patriarchal order as the female feminist literature that aptly portray characters who are characters of Glasgowor Porter,but by the mid-point not afraidto break social codes. In linguistic theory, this of the novel, Janie openly confronts Jody about his

THIS IS JUST TO SAY 3 impotence. At Jody's death, the narrator relates that "sliding signified" and"floating signifier" through Janie"sent her face to Joe's ftmeral, and herself went changing connotations and meanings of words in new rollicking with the springtime across the world" (84). social contexts appears in the conclusion of TheColor She then embarkson a love affair with Tea Cake, a man Purplein 1982. who fulfills her romantic daydreams but whom she In Hurston's work, Hite says that "female voices must kill in self-defense. Not only does Janie findher have the power to dismantle hierarchical oppositions voice, but she also finds her ability to live her life as she wishes. After Janie kills Tea Cake, she is able to return to her hometown andmaintain her individuality, no longer surrendering to the community's pressures Selected works of literature in defming her ownidentity. ...give readen an opportunity to "Asshe [ZoraNeale Hurston] did in herown life," work within a plausible system saysNellie McKay, "she permitted her heroine the independence to make decisions, achieve voice, and of social spaces that break out of speak her life as an individual distinct from her abusive power relations. community(57). Hurston'sworks show thatthe black female, doubly disenfranchised by being both black and woman,had less to lose eitherby ignoring or by resisting the prevailing society. As a voice of the that ultimately oppress everyone and to create a new southern renaissance, Hurstonwas able to rejectthe order" in which conventional theories about male and hierarchicalcontrol and develop a voice distinct from femalevanish (266). Coventional theories about race also her male counterparts. While Richard Wright and vanish when African Americans such as Walker and LangstonHughes portray the repressed condition of Hurstonwrite of womenwho defiedthe ofcodes silence the black male, Hurston celebrates the independence that were imposed not just by white men, but also by of the black female. A woman like Hurston felt the black men. freedom of "sliding" meanings under a "floating" Walker, Hurston,and Welty can be studied as three signifier. The floating aspect of the meaning of her authors who, by resistingthe abusive patriarchal order stories gives voiceto viewpointsthat were previously of secrecy andrepression, have been able to modelthe ignoredin literature. Such a woman couldbring hope value of societal change. According to Raymond to students in today's English classroom as students Williams, the power of the ruling ideology, such as a engage in activities designed to develop their own patriarchal order is subjectto change;therefore, "[m ]any voices thrnugb literarydi scussion andcreative writing of the active values of'literature' have then to be seen, assignments. not as tied to the concept . . . but as elements of a With the passage of time, freedom to access the continuing and changing practice which already feminine consciousness became easier for southern substantially, and now at the level of theoretical women writers.A prime example is the work of Alice redefinition, is moving beyond itsold forms" (1575). Walker, who was born in 1945, in Eatonton, Georgia. Selectedworks of literature,such as Walker's, Hurston's, She published the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The and Welty's give readers an opportunity to work within Color PUI'plein 1982. The book beginswith the voice a plausible system of social spaces that break out of of Celie's father who commands her to conceal his abusive powerrelations. Their works canhelp students incest and sexualabuse towards her, "You better not to understand the causes of dysftmctional homes and never tell nobody but God. It'd kill your mammy"(I). to discover ways of creating new orders that aim to Her life, according to Collins, has the "outward confront and eradicate racial andgender hierarchies. appearance of docility''(82) but suffers from internal What seems to be true in the progression of repression. She lives witha brutalman, who beats her southern voices in literature throughout the twentieth and who is concerned with what people say. She is century is that the abusive aspect of the hierarchical even beaten by her stepson,who latersays , "A woman order has given wayto a more egalitarian culture. The can't get a man if peoples talk"(208). But she finally languageof female writers has becomeboth more direct fmds her voice in order to tell her story to Shug, her and defmitive in describing changes within the culture lover, and to Nettie, her sister, and to God, her first andmore urgent in calling for reformof social structures listener. to betteraccommodate all racesand both genders. Such Authors such asWalker and,therefore, characters piecesof literature,then, indeed are appropriate vehicles like her Celie "realizethat silence does not, ultimately for promoting sociological health in our students. ensure even their own survival," so their voices get Teachers need to search for appropriate literary stronger as they suffer abuse, says criticSallie L. Kitch selections that will bring understanding and (77). An even stronger sign that the modern southern encouragementto today'sstudents who areoften caught woman writer has advanced into the realm of Lacan's in disruptive familysystems of secrecy and repression.

4 THIS IS JUST TO SAY Works Cited McKay,Nellie. "'CrayonEnlargements ofLife': Zora Neale Hurston's TheirEyes ere Watching Bradshaw, John. Bradshaw On: The Family:A God as Autobiography." In Ed. Michael Revolutionary Way of Self-Discovery. Awkward. NewEssays on Their Eyes Were DeerfieldBeach, FL:Health Communications, WatchingGod. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988. 1990. Collins,Gina Michelle. "The Color Purple: What Mendenhall, MarjorieStratford. "Southern Women Feminism Canfrom Learn a Southern of a 'Lost Generation."' South Tradition." Southern Literature and Literary AtlanticQuarterly 33 (1934): 334-53. Rpt in Scott91-110. Theory.Ed. Jefferson Humphries. Anne. Athens:U ofGeorgiaP,199 0.74-89. Porter,Katherine "The Grave." TheOld Order. Harc Deats,Sara Munson and LagrettaTallent Lender . The 1958. SanDiego: ourtBrace, AchingHearth: FamilyViolence Rubin, Louis D. The Writer in the South. Athens:U In Lifoand Literature. New York: Plenum, 1991. ofGeorgiaP,I972. Friel, John andLinda Friel. An Adult Child�Guide to Scott,Anne Firor, ed.Unheard Voices: TheFirst What�N ormal. Deerfield Hi3toriansa/Southern Women. 1972. Beach,FL: Health Communications,1990. Spruill, Julia Cherry.'"Conjugal Felicity' and Domes Gardiner,Judith Kegan. "The Grave,' 'OnNot Shooting tic Discord." Chapter8. Women'sLife and SittingBirds,' andthe Female Work in theSouthern Colonies. ChapelHill: Esthetic."Studies in Short Fiction 20(1983): U ofNotthCarolinaP, 26S..70. 1938. 163-84.Rpt. in Scott111-32. & Glasgow,Ellen. TheSheltered Lifo. 1932. CharlottesviUe, Walker,A lice. TheColor Purple.New York:Simon Schuster, VA:UP ofVu:ginia,1994. 1982. Hite,Molly. "Romance,Marginality, Matrilineage: Alice Welty, Eudora. TheOptimut:. Daughter. New York: Walker's The Color Purple and RandomHouse,1972. Sacred ZoraNeale Hurston's TheirEyes Were Watch Westling,Louise. Groves andRovaged ing God." Novel: A Forum on Gardens: TheFiction of Eudora Welty, Fiction22(1989): 257·73. Carson McCullen, and Flannery Hughes, Langston. "Silhouette."Norton Anthology of O'Connor.Athens:U ofGeorgiaP, 1985. AmericanLiterature. Ed. Nina Weston,Ruth D. "The Feminine andFeminist Texts of :r Baym. Shorter6"ed. New York: W W. Norton, Eudora Welty's TheOptimi3t 2003.2230. Daughter." South CentralReview4.4 (1987): Hurston, ZoraNeale. TheirEyes Were Watching God. 74-91. Marxism 1937.New York: Harper& Row, Williams,Raymond. "From andLiterature." Leitch 1990. 1567·7 Johnson,Guion Grift's. "Family Life." Chapter8. Ante 13 Bellum North Carolina: A Social Rebecca Belcher professor of Engli3h at Olivet Hi3tory. ChapelHiU: U ofNorthCarolina P, Nazarene University, a small liberal arts-oriented 1937. Rpt.in Scott133-67. university located in Bourbonnais, Illinois. Prior to her Jones, AnneGoodwyn. TomorrowIs Another Day: The appointment as professor of English, Dr. Belcher Woman Writer in the South, taught at the high school /eve/ for over twenty years in /859-/936. BatonRouge: Louisiana UP, 1981. the public schools of Ohio, Missouri, Georgia. and Kitch,Sally L. "Gender and Language:Dialect, Silence, Tennessee. Although her main focus is American and the Disruption of literature, she is heovily involved in the preparation Discourse."Women:OStudies4(1981): 65-78. of secondary teachers, currently teaching a critical Lacan, Jacques. "from TheAgency of theLener in the strategies course for ONU:rMasters of Artsin English Unconscious."Leitch 1290-1302. Education program. Leitch, Vincent B., ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Critic/3m.New York: Norton,2001.

ZoraNeale Hurston's pictureis a reproductionof a 1935 photograph appearing in Wrapped in Rainbows, a Lisa Drew Book, 2004.

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