University of Nebraska at Omaha DigitalCommons@UNO Student Work 12-2003 Constructing identity in place : Celia Thaxter and the Isles of Shoals Deborah B. Derrick University of Nebraska at Omaha Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/studentwork Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Derrick, Deborah B., "Constructing identity in place : Celia Thaxter and the Isles of Shoals" (2003). Student Work. 58. https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/studentwork/58 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Student Work by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY IN PLACE: CELIA THAXTER AND THE ISLES OF SHOALS A Thesis Presented to the Department of Communication and the Faculty of the Graduate College University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts University of Nebraska at Omaha by Deborah B. Derrick December 2003 UMI Number: EP72697 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Disssrtafioft Publishing UMI EP72697 Published by ProQuest LLC (2015). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 THESIS ACCEPTANCE Acceptance for the faculty of the Graduate College, University of Nebraska, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, University of Nebraska at Omaha. Committee /' Name Department/School 'v Chairperson Date c CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY IN PLACE: CELIA THAXTER AND THE ISLES OF SHOALS Deborah B. Derrick, MA University of Nebraska, 2003 Advisor: Dr. Michael D. Sherer This study explores rhetorical constructions of place and self in the non-fiction narratives and letters of Celia Laighton Thaxter. Thaxter was a 19th century poet, journalist and writer who grew up on the Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire. Widely published in her day, Thaxter was one of the foremothers of American nature writing. This study considers the significance of place in relation to Thaxter’s development as an individual and as a writer. The study finds that the Isles of Shoals provided a foundation for Thaxter’s personal and professional identities. Thaxter’s relationship with the Shoals was intimate and personal, taking on many of the dimensions of a human relationship. This study also emphasizes the juxtaposition of Thaxter’s island and inland lifestyles and their influence on Thaxter. Writing is found to be a vehicle through which Thaxter successfully integrated her “island self’ and “inland self.” Acknowledgements The support and assistance of my adviser, Dr. Michael Sherer, has been invaluable on this project. Dr. Sherer encouraged me to deconstruct the scholarly language in my thesis proposal in order to gain a deeper understanding of my topic. I am grateful for the advice of Dr. Chris Allen and especially to Dr. Susan Maher for her knowledge of ecocriticism and women’s studies. Dr. Warren Francke and Dr. Bing Chen provided much encouragement and inspiration throughout my graduate program. I truly appreciate the help and insight of those I met at the Isles of Shoals. Joy Thurlow and Gayle Patch Kadlik provided much assistance with the archives in Vaughn Cottage. Donna Titus and Sharon Stephan shared my enthusiasm for Celia Thaxter and pointed me to additional resource materials. Sharon and Bill Stephen put together a beautiful candlelight chapel service on Celia Thaxter that I will always remember. Fred McGill encouraged me to read Cedric Laighton’s letters to Celia to get a sense of what was important to her. Jane Vallier’s prescient, scholarly work on Celia Thaxter is respectfully acknowledged, and I look forward to our journeys together. This project has been a labor of love. I am thankful for the support of my family and, most of all, for the gift of the Shoals that I inherited from my parents. The Shoals are a part of my heritage and my sense of place. I chose to study Celia Thaxter because I love the Shoals, but I never imagined I would be so captivated by another person’s life. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to learn about Celia Thaxter and, in the process, to learn more about myself. Table of Contents Introduction 1 1. Literature Review, Statement of Purpose and Methodology 1.1. The Genre of Nature Writing 5 1.2. Ecocriticism: Theorizing and Studying Nature Writing 7 1.3. “Re-visioning” Celia Thaxter 9 1.4. Representing Place in Literature 13 1.5. Representing Self in Literature 15 1.6. Defining a Sense of Place 16 1.6.1. A Woman’s Sense of Place 19 1.6.2. Relationship: The Intersection of Self and Place 20 1.7. A Sense of Place: Psychological Dimensions 23 1.8. Statement of Purpose 25 1.9. Methodology 26 2. Celia Thaxter and the Isles of Shoals: Formative Years 29 2.1. The Laighton Family 29 2.2. The Isles of Shoals: 1600 to 1840 33 2.3. Celia Laighton Thaxter: Early Years at the Shoals 40 2.4. The Harvard Intellectuals 44 2.5. Higginson, Weiss and Thaxter 46 2.6. The Laighton-Thaxter Partnership 49 2.7. Celia’s Engagement and Marriage 51 3. Island and Inland Lives 54 3.1. Early Married Years 54 3.2. Land-Locked 59 3.3. Literary Success 65 3.4. Island and Inland Lives 70 3.5. Later Married Years 77 3.6. Golden Years at the Shoals 81 4. Among the Isles of Shoals 86 4.1. Imperfect Sketches 86 4.2. Lurking Ledges and Bitter Brine 90 4.3. Blinking Sandpipers 101 4.4. Thaxter’s Relationship to Place 103 4.5. The Dwellers on the Rock 106 4.6. Traces of Vanished Humanity 113 5. An Island Garden 116 5.1. “A Tiny Space of Tangled Bloom” 118 5.2. Cherished Treasures 121 5.3. Subtle Bonds of Sympathy 123 5.4. Legions of Enemies 124 5.5. Perfect Days 127 5.6. Bringing the Outdoors In 129 5.7. Dimensions of Relationship 130 5.8. “Strange and Remarkable Creatures” 131 6. Constructing Identity in Place 133 6.1. Different Lives, Different Selves 133 6.2. Literary and Personal Identities 140 6.3. Self in Place 143 7. The Isles of Shoals Revisited 145 Works Cited 148 Appendices Appendix A: Excerpt from Star Island Candlelight Service by Joyce Ball 158 Appendix B: Timeline of Shoals, New England and U.S. History, 1800- Early 1900s 161 Appendix C: Laighton/Thaxter Family Chronology 167 Appendix D: Celia Thaxter Letters Referenced in this Paper 173 1 Introduction Six miles from the mouth of the Piscataqua River in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, nine small islands lie bleak and barren in the frigid waters of the Atlantic Ocean. For almost four centuries, the Isles of Shoals have been a refuge and a “watering place” for drunken and boorish fishermen, pirates, tax evaders, clergymen, New England Transcendentalists, religious conferees and writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sarah Ome Jewett. Once a thriving seaport where transatlantic ships loaded and unloaded cargo, the islands supported a competitive fishing industry for more than 150 years. Famous hotel resorts said to be business models for Ellsworth Statler flourished here in the mid- to late 19th century. Colorful island flower gardens inspired one of the first artists’ colonies in the United States. Today, religious and educational conferences are held on the islands during the summer. The largest U.S. undergraduate research institute in marine biology is located on one of the islands. The forbidding granite rock, worn down by sprays of salt, is as enchanting as it is lonely, especially to those whose history is intertwined with the islands. “There is a strange charm about them,” Celia Laighton Thaxter wrote in Among the Isles of Shoals, “an indescribable influence in their atmosphere, hardly to be explained, but universally acknowledged” (7-8). Thanks to the foresight and diligence of many people, the natural and scenic beauty of the Shoals landscape remains much as Thaxter described it more than one hundred years ago. Celia Thaxter, the writer Nathaniel Hawthorne called “the island Miranda” (437), will always be connected to the islands that shaped her identity. Bom in 1835, Celia 2 moved with her family to the islands at the age of four. Her father was a lighthouse keeper who later built and operated a hotel on the islands. Married at sixteen, she and her husband, a Harvard graduate and New England “blueblood,” took up residence in the Boston area, had three sons and later moved to southern Maine. The Thaxters comfortably took their place with a literary and artists circle whose members included Hawthorne, Jewett, John G. Whittier, Thomas Higginson (Emily Dickinson’s mentor) and James and Annie Fields. But they did not have a happy marriage. Levi Thaxter’s health problems and the birth defects suffered by their first-born son strained the relationship, as did financial pressures. Intelligent and impractical, Levi was never able to find a suitable occupation. Celia did not have the help or support of female family members; she was her parents’ only daughter and had no daughters of her own. Both Celia and Levi had artistic temperaments and suffered from chronic anxiety and depression.