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REPEATING IS IN EVERY ONE:
A DISCOURSE AND LITERARY ANALYSIS OF REPETITION
IN

GERTRUDE STEIN’S THREE LIVES

 

by

Barbara Lanberts Law

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of English

1985

ABSTRACT

REPEATIM; IS IN EVERY ONE:
A DISCGJRSE AND LITERARY ANALYSIS OF REPEI‘ITION
IN

GER'I'RUDE STEIN ’s THREE LIVES

 

By
Barbara Lamberts Law

The book Three Lives, Gertrude Stein '5 first published work, marks
the beginning of her truly experimental writing. Characterized by a
simplified vocabulary, a lack of traditional narrative line, a focus on
characterization and the consistent use of repetition throughout, mfg
Mes has received either praise or condannation during the seventy-odd
years since its first printing, and although most critics have touched
upon Stein’s use of repetition, none has focused on it directly.

Stein considered repetition to be her key stylistic feature, and
used repetition deliberately to erbody her theories of determinism and
the idea that life is repetition and repetition is life. Through a
consistent repetition of both linguistic and literary features -—
words, phrases, themes, actions and emotional states -- Stein painted
the psychological portraits of three warren who were victimized by fate
and by the manipulations of others.

Until now there has been no general theory with which to analyze
repetition in literary text ; Therefore, using theories of

textlinguistics, cohesiveness in English and the phencmenological and

transactional theories of reading, I have develqaed a model for the
analysis of repetition.

Based on this theory, my interpretation of Stein is very different
fran previous interpretations. This model does not isolate certain
repetitions from the text and derive an interpretation of the entire
text based upon a part. Rather, it seeks to classify all repetitions
according to form and function and then denonstrate how these
repetitions work together in the reader ’5 mind during the evoking of

the text to arrive at a new and more canplete reading.

Copyright by
BARBARA LAMBER‘I‘S LAW
1985

Tb Ken
with love affection

and gratitude

ii

AW

I would like to thank Dr. Nancy Ainsworth, Chairperson, Dr. Linda
Wagner, Dissertation Director, Dr. James Stalker and Dr. Jay Ludwig who
served on my doctoral committee. 'I'ney were not only advisors, but they
were my friends, and I will always be grateful.

To my parents who set the example for the highest of standards.

And to my husband, who sat alone more evenings than I care to

remember, who thinks a Ph.D. is a "Poor Husband Deal," and, through it

all, provided my main cheering section.

iii

Chapter
INTRODUCTION .
I .
II .
III .
IV.
V.

CONCLUSION .

"The Good Anna"

"The Gentle Lena"

TABLE OF CONTENTS

"Melanctha" - Part 'IWo .

"Melanctha" - Part One .

iv

THEDRIFS OF REPETITION AND READING

49
71
99
179
205
213
221

INI‘RGIJCI‘ION

To say that Gertrude Stein is repetitious is to be redundant. This
is a given. Repetition has became her trademark; in fact, she is better
known for "A rose is a rose is a rose" than any other single work;
repetition with variations is a practice she employed consistently
throughout her writing career . No reader can proceed through a Stein
work without being confronted, possibly ccnfused, or even confounded by
this technique; no critic can write in any depth about her style
without commenting on it.

Her writing is also difficult, which has led to a great deal of
misunderstanding of most, if not all of her work, and, consequently, of
Stein herself. Cynthia Secor writes that "as is so often the case with
a major wuran writer, critics have been slow to read fer thoroughly and
carefully, quick to trivialize her effort and even when entirely
sympathetic and impressed, baffled as to how best to explain her
achievement."1 Secor goes on to state that two aspects of Stein are
problematic: how she means and what she means. There are no plots in
her portraits, no rhyme scheres or meter to her poems, no traditional

narrative line to works such as 'I'nree Lives or The m 9_f_ Americans.

 

Thus traditional literary criticism has made only limited progress in
illuminating Stein ’5 work. As a result, more recently, critics have

gone further afield and delved into art history, stylistics,
2

phenomenology, linguistics, and Jamesian psychologyy etc. However,

 

although recently tI'ere have been a number of significant studies of
Stein ’5 works, no major critic has yet tackled the issue of repetition.

This is, I believe, a serious error. Repetition is so pervasive
in Stein's work and so fundamental to her philosophy of both writing
and of life that lack of attention to this stylistic technique has
lead to a critical lack of understanding of what fer works are all
about, and ultimately, what trey mean. Although tl'e new approacl‘es have
all contributed significantly to understanding her style, I believe
that focusing on such matters as Jamesian influences, cubism,
antipatriarchalism, etc. without taking into account the repetition
which is central to her work has led to incomplete and even distorted
interpretations.

In tie past sate critics have implied that Stein '5 use of
repetition was eitl‘er arbitrary or capricious , with little purpose
other than her own whim. It is my contention that her use of repetition
is reither; that repetition is instead a masterful employment of words,
tie fundamental "few", which, in turn, determines tIe "what” of her
writing. I argue that repetition is tre key to unravelling many of the
secrets of her works, and to settling many old arguments as to her
meaning. I believe that a systematic analysis of repetition in one of
fer texts can provide insight into all her works and further
understanding of what she meant by what she did.

A study of Stein ’5 erployment of repetition, since it encarpasses
the entire range and scope of fer writing, would, of recessity, be an
enormous undertaking, impossible to achieve within the bounds of a
single volme. Therefore, it is appropriate to limit the focus to one
particular work. From there, once the foundations of study of her use

of repetition have been laid, one can proceed to study other texts. It
is also appropriate to start from the beginning, to focus on Stein '5
first published work, Ergo; E‘E-

Although Q_E_._D_. was written first, gage £i_V§_S_ marks the beginning
of Stein’s truly experimental writing. meg Igveg represents the first

consistent use of repetition as a stylistic device. Three Lives also

 

clearly documents the evolution of her style as she gradually moves to
more and more complex repetition. Beginning with "The Good Anna," and
increasingly through "'Ihe Gentle Lena" and "Melanctha" she employed
repetition and experimented with language more and more cmsciously and
consistently.3

It is also appropriate to study Three Lives simply because it is

 

relatively easier to arrive at an interpretation of a work when there
is still a clear storyline and sale semblance of a plot. After Luge;
_L_i_v_e§ Stein moved into her more radical stages of experimentation in
which she abandmed narrative altogether and eventually even syntax.

there are several possible reasons why critics have been reluctant
to tackle the problem of Stein ’s repetition. This reluctance is partly
due, I believe, to the carplexity of the repetition in even more

traditional works such as Three Lives which are more open to

 

traditional analytical approades. Even in this small book of three
novel las Stein employs a great variety of repetition at both linguistic
and literary levels.

Mare problematic still is tre fact that there is no adequate
theory of repetition either in linguistics or literature, much less a
tleory which could cross lines between the two. Discussions of
repetition have tended to be incorporated into other linguistic
tIeories, such as Halliday and Hasan’s and Gatwinski’s theories of

4
cohesion. Less helpful have been statements about repetition which

tell us what repetition does without telling us ham J. Hillis Miller,
for instance, asserts that repetitions within a text generate meaning.
According to Miller, a text is interpreted in part by the reader ’5
noticing recurrences. They also inhibit tl'e too easy determination of
meaning based merely on the linear sequence of the story. The reader
may identify these repetitions at a more or less conscious level ,
deliberately or not. What is important, states Miller, is that "what is
said two or more times may not be true, but tle reader is fairly safe
in assuming that it is significant."5 These staterents are not
particularly helpful because although they tell us about the what: that
a writer is foregrounding certain things by repeatedly placing them in
front of the reader '5 eyes and therefore his consciousness, tl'ey do not
tell us fl _h_<3w_ the reader notices them and what this observation does
to gererate meaning.

Another major critical problem in developing‘a theory of Stein ’5
use of repetition is due to l‘er evolution of style over the years.
Randa Dubnick and Marianne DeKoven have both documented tl'e progressim
of her style over the years. In each stage, Stein ’5 notions of
language and consequently her style differed. Thus, a theory one might
develop for Three Lives might not obtain for the portraits; a theory of

 

repetition in her narratives might not hold for her poetry. In tl'e
past, writers have referred to fer repetition as if it were the same
throughout her work. Therefore, ore must develop a tentative model
based upon what Stein does in one work, and then modify it accordingly:
inresponsetoherchangeinstyleandfocus. It istobehopedthat
sure of tl'e basic tenets set forth here will hold throughout Stein’s

writings, but this is a matter which will be settled only by close
exarmination of each period in Ier evolution of style.

Therefore, tie aim of this dissertation is essentially three-fold.
First, it is written in an atterpt to increase, through a discussion of
her repetition, an understanding of Stein '5 work.

Second, I will atterpt to develop a tleory of repetition which
draws upon discourse analysis, text-linguistics and reading theory. In
developing a theory it is necessary to examine not only current
theories on the use of repetition, but also what Stein wrote on the
subject. Stein was a writer with an overt interest in language and it
was this interest which led her to experiment with words. Stein had
fer own theories of repetition, and she used them consciously
throughout her career. Thus, I'er theories of repetition will influence
any conclusions made about her use of it. I will tlen use this theory
to provide insight into her use of repetition.

Last, I hope to produce a study which deronstrates that the
techniques of linguistic analysis can serve to illuminate the literary
content of a text. Hopefully, it will be fruitful to build ore small
bridge over tre chasm which has developed between stylists and literary
critics over the past few years. Both approacres to literature have
merit, both can contribute to one ’5 understanding of a piece of
writing . By examining content , linguistic structures and strategies
erployed by Stein in Three Lives and noticing the ways these forms and
structures work to achieve meaning and advance the aesthetic qualities
of the stories, one can more effectively read the saretimes difficult
texts.

In this dissertation I will analyze Three Lives as discourse as

 

well as literature. Approacth the text from a discourse point of view

is an important treoretical standpoint, ore which has not previously
been taken. This approach views literature as a type of cormunication,
and tie author as a person having comunicative intent, i.e. a message
which he or ske intends to communicate through writing to a reader.

Brown and Yule, in Discourse Analysis, insist that it is the

 

speaker/writer who is at the center of the process of cormmication.
They assert that it is "people who commnicate and people who
interpret. It is speakers/writers who have topics, presuppositions,
who assign information structure and who make reference. It is
hearers/readers who interpret and who draw inferences." Theirs is
primarily a functional viewpoint - an interactive model - which "seeks
to describe linguistic form, not as a static object, but as a dynamic
means of expressing intended meaning... [It] is opposed to the study of
trese issues in terms of sentences considered in isolation from
commnicetive contexts. "6 Thus this approach views text as ’process ’
instead of ’product ' -— language expressed in dynanic instead of static
terms.

In this study I will be viewing repetition as a device erployed by
Stein to comunicate meaning to be interpreted within the larger

context of the work of Three Lives. Using linguistic theory and

 

textlinguistics I will show tie ways repetition is a cohesive device
used to foreground certain elenernts which Stein considered significant
and wished her reader to perceive as such. Using the phenomenological
and transactional views of the reading process I will demstrate the
way this repetition is perceived in tie mind of tie reader during tl‘e
act of reading and the way this perception drastically alters the

interpretation of Three Lives .

 

This view of text as process and the perception of repetition
within the reading of the text is an important distinction to make
where Stein '5 work is concerned. As I will demonstrate, this approach
sheds new light on Stein '5 use of repetition. From a functional
standpoint we can answer the questions: What does she do? How does she
do it? Why does she do it? and What effect does this technique have
upon l'er reader, the recipient of her message?

At the outset we must make the assurption that all discourse
produced by Stein was intended to be meaningful. Mnetler it is
intelligible is another question altogether. In many cases it is not.
It does have meaning, if the reader is willing to work hard enough to
find it. We can also assume that it was very possible - if not probable
- that in many instances she failed in communicating.

Three Lives is a work in which she particularly succeeds. In this

 

study I will examine each of the three stories in turn. In Chapter One
I will develop a theory of repetition. In Chapter Two I will examine
"The Good Anna." Although "The Gentle Lena" is placed last in the text,
it was written first, tierefore I will examine it before "Melanctha" as
the next step in Stein ’5 evolution of style. "Melanctha," because of
its length and corplexity will be divided into two chapters, For and
Five. In the final chapter I will draw together tle different types of
repetition and show how they work across the three stories to make tre
mark a cohesive whole.

 

CHAPI'ERI
THEIRIESCFREPETITIONANDREADIM}

Che of the fundamental postulates we must make about repetitions
in literary texts is that they are intentional. They have a definite
artistic purpose; the writer has used repetition for a specific reason
to achieve a specific effect. Thus, according to Calvin S. Brown, one
of the fear authors who has treated repetition at length, the reader is
supposed to recognize repetitions and take them into account . 1

But how does one know whetl'er or not repetitions are significant?
And how does one recognize them and apply meaning to them? In order to
address this question we must first lay sore theoretical groundwork and
to do that, we need to and define several terms.

First we must define ’text'. Because Halliday and Hasan’s CoIesion
E English is by far the most corprehensive treatment of the subject of
cohesion and is considered the standard text in this area, and because
I will be relying extensively upon their theories, I propose to use
their definitions, supplenented by further insights from other
textlinguists. Halliday and Hasan define a text as "not just a string
of sentences... [It] is best thought of not as a gramatical unit at
all, but ratrer as a unit of a different kind: a senantic unit. TTe
unity that it has is a unity of meaning in context, a texture that
expresses the fact that it relates as a whole to the erwironment in

which it is placed. Being a serantic unit, a text is REALIZED in the

forrm of sentences... the expression of the serantic unity of the text
lies in tte cohesion arong the sentences of which it is composed."2 In
other words, a text is a set of sentences which have col'erence ard
sense, and are related in sore way such that a participant - a reader
or listerer perceives that taken together, they constitute a whole
which achieves closure. From a discourse point of view a text is a unit
of communication with the unity and integrity which result from the
unity of the author ’5 communicative intention. It is a single
actualized organized entity with all its diverse parts linked.3

A text must have both colerence and cohesion. Although in many
discussions these words have been used interchangeably, a useful
distinction has been made (Halliday & Hasan, Gutwinski, Ievy, Ellis).
Both words refer to tie ’connectivity’ of discourse. Both coherence and
cohesion mean "ranging together," and both work to make a series of
sentences hang together to achieve closure, but closure is achieved at
different levels. Coherence in this case means, as specified by levy,
’corprehensible. ’ "Where cohesion refers to the partionlar modernism of
structural birding, coherence connotes the mental processes that allow
a discourse to be sensible and understood by the participants."4
Mayordoro further elucidates this notion when he writes, "In order that
a linguistic product have tie character of a text, coterence must be
evident in the surface lirear manifestation by means of tte surface
mechanisms of cohesion. "5 A discourse may be coIerent with respect to a
particular there. Mayordoro asserts that a text is characterized by
having a topic underlying it. ”Every sentence of a discourse has an
underlying proposition, every sequence also has an urderlying
proposition of which those sentences partake... a text topic is the

comron denominator of the topics of the sequences.... [thus] a

lO
6

succession of sentences without coherence and sense lacks text topic."
Coherence, then, is a matter of consistency, relevancy and order.

Coherence is realized in cohesion. Coherence, according to Ellis,
"refers to the mental processes that allow a discourse to be sensible
and understood by the participants, [while] cohesion refers to the
particular mechanisms of structural binding."7 cohesion relates to the
relationships obtaining among the sentences and clauses within the
text. Halliday and Hasan state that cohesion occurs "where the
interpretation of sore elerent in the discourse is dependent on that of
another. The one presupposes the other, in the sense that it cannot be
effectively decoded except by recourse to it. When this happens a
relation of cohesion is set up."8 Cohesion ties a text together. A
retwork , patterns of meaning, is formed by certain features of the text
corresponding with or presupposing otter features . Much of our
interpretation of what happens in a text depends on the continuity of
what went before. cohesion provides, "for the text... the sort of
continuity which is achieved in units at the grammatical level...the
cohesive relations themselves are relations in meaning, and tie
continuity which they bring about is a serantic continuity. This is
what makes it possible for cohesive patterns to play the part they do
in processing of text by listener or a reader, not merely signaling the
presence and extent of text, but actually enabling hhm.to interpret and
determining how he does so. "9 To give a very simple enemple, we can see
that the pair of sentences: "Bob’s mother is an alcoholic. He doesn’t
take the dogs out in the rain," could be classified as cohesive,
because the "he" anaphorically relates to "Bob." But the two component

sentences are not truly coherent because the secord does not logically

ll

follow the first.
This important distinction must be made in studying Stein. Louise

Rosenblatt's transactional theory, in The Reader, The Text, T‘fe Poem

 

agrees with tfese theories of text wfen she writes, "As ore decodes tfe
opening lines or sentences and pages of a text, ore begins to develop a
tentative sense of a franework within which to place what will follow.
Urderlying this is the assumption that this body of words, set forth in
certain patterns ard sequences on tfe page, bears the potentiality for
a reasonably unified or integrated or at the very least, coherent,
experience."10 With Stein, however, tfere is no such assurance. One
cannot autoratically assume that the text will be either. Stein
deliberately violates the rules of appropriateness in creating many of
her works.11 There are times when she is both coherent and cohesive:
"The tradesren of Bridgepoint learred to dread the sound of ’Miss
Mathilda’, for with that name the good Anna always conquered" (TBA,
17). At otfer times Stein can be cohesive but not particularly
coherent: ""Very many are certainly being oes being living ard are
being ones going on in being living and certainly this is frightening
to sore ore."12 Then furtfer into fer obscure style, although she
displays syntactic and phonological cohesion, she is not coherent at
all: "Drinks pups drinks pups lease a sash hold, see it shire and a
bobolink fnas pins. It shows a nail."13 At her most obscure it is
difficult to see either coherence or cofesion: ”a no, a no since, a no
since wfen, a no since when since, a no since wfen since a no since
when since..."14 Thus, in the absence of eitfer cohesion or coherence
the reader must resort to different strategies to reach sore type of
satisfactory reading. One such effective method is to look for certain

points of continuity in the tert as points of reference to hold the

12

text together.

Gutwinski ard Halliday & Hasan fave outlired a taxonomy of types
of cohesive relationships which can be formally established within a
text, providing tfe cohesive ties which bind a text togetfer. They
atte'rpt to place cohesion within a theoretical framework of language
organization. Cohesion "has not been treated as a col lection of
unrelated gramratical categories but ratfer [as a] related and
integrated part of the total structure of language. "15 Repetition,
according to this categorization, is one form of lexical cohesion.
Consistently repeating words or phrases is one method of linking parts
of text togetfer. Words tfnemselves are not necessarily cofesive.
Particular lexical items do not always have a cohesive function. But
Halliday and Hasan note that "every lexical item MAY enter into a
cofesive relation, but by itself it carries no irdication whether it is
functioning cohesively or not. That can be established only by
reference to the text."16 A word is only cofesive in the context of
what care before ard what is coming afterwards. And, as Gutwinski
notes, not every word, when it is repeated, can be considered cohesive.

The reader needs to distinguish between what we might call "motivated
l7

recurrences" and "trivial recurrences . "

Gutwinski suggests that one way of distinguisfning between whetfer
repetitions are motivated and trivial is by noting whether or not tfese
words are "high frequency" words, words that have a high overall
frequency in the language, such as "look," "see," "get," "put." A word
such as "say" is not a cohesive repetition in a story which erploys a
great deal of dialogue. Ch the other hard, low frequency words easily

qualify as nontrivial. For instance, tfe word "wander" occurs a total

13

of forty-six times in "Melanctha. " This word cannot be considered a
high frequency word, and the fact that Stein enploys it continuously
renders it cofesive. This question of "frequency," notes Gntwinski, is
a relative one, and depends on the kird of text in which the item
occurs.

However, "high frequency" words can also be cohesive, if they are
reinforced by otfer factors. One of these is the overall frequency of
tfe word within tfe wfnole of the text. "Good," one of the most
prominent repetitions within all three stories of Three Lives could be
considered a "high frequency" word in tfe English language, but the
sheer number of times it is repeated in these three stories also
renders it cohesive.

Another factor can be the "density" of repetitions. Note, for

example, this paragraph from "The Gentle Iena":

Iena was a brown and pleasant creature, brown as blonde
races often have them brown, brown, not with tie yellow or tfe
red or tfe chocolate brown of sun burned countries, but brown
with the clear color laid flat on the light toned skin beneath,
the plain, spare brown that makes it right to fnave been made

with hazel eyes, and not too abundant straight, brown hair,
fair that only later deepens itself into brown from the straw
yellow of a german childhood (240).

Synonyms can also be cohesive. For instance, Stein uses the
adjectives "bad," "evil" and "wick " to describe the behavior of
Anna’s dogs. Words do not necessarily have to be the same morphological
form to be considered cofesive. Therefore, "blacken black" (T'GA, 50)

ad "Rose was never joyous with tfe earthborn, boundless joy of

14

negroes" (M, 86), can be considered cofesive, as can "Melanctha’s
wanderings after wisdom sfe always had to do in secret. . .and so though
Melanctfna wandered widely, she was really very safe with all the
wandering" (M, 97). In order to be cofesive, lexical items do not
necessarily have to be the same exact words; words formed from the same
root can display cohesive properties similar to tfose of synonyms. For
example, the words "marry, " "marriage, " ard "matrimony" can be
cohesive.

The clearest instance of lexical cohesion occurs when the same
word is fourd in succession, such as "She did it all, all of the
housework," (TGA, 28) or "Not stupid like our Sallie, Sallie would
rever learn to do a thing" (T'GA, 19). In Stein a lexical item can be
introduced in one sentence and then repeated in tfe immediately

adjacent sentence. For example, "She wondered, often, fncw sfe could go
on living when she was so blue. Melanctha told Rose one day fnow a
woran whom she knew had killed ferself because she was so blue" (M,

87).
lexical cohesion can also result when a word is repeated in two or

more sentences which, although they are not adjacent, are in close

proximity. Stein ’5 characteristic lexical cohesion deperds on the
introduction of a lexical item or pfnrase in ore sentence or clause and
tfen the repetition of the same item or pfnrase throughout the text.
Thus fer cohesion does not simply exist on the local level, but tfe
"universal" level - tfe text in its entirety.

In Three Lives key words or phrases often appear sporadically in

 

tfe text before they achieve any significance which alters

interpretation. But these occurrences are not always close enough

15

togetfer to warrant attention ard often tfe words display many of their
different meanings. For example, the word "good" appears throughout tfne
stories in many ways which do not relate to tfe central meaning which
it achieves through its use in regards to Anna and otfer major

cfnaracters .

"Well Molly then try and do better," answered Miss Mathilda,
keeping a good stern front... (TBA, 16).

"... that tired crewwho loved the good things Anna made to
eat (TGA, 23).
She had a fair, soft, regular, good-looking face (TGA, 29).
Anna heard a good deal of this (TGA, 56)
This place Iena had found very good (GL, 239).
Iena had good hard work all morning (GL, 239).

Iena had sucked a good deal of the green paint from her
finger (GL, 241).
Sam... got good wages (M, 88).

Melanctha... had had a good chance to live with horses (M,
91).

Stein ’5 tactic of using words in several of tfeir meanings often
createsalagbetweenthetimethewordisintroducedardtfetimethe
reader perceives that it is significant. However, when Stein is using
tfe word for emphasis, the repetitions are closely grouped ard
literally hammered into tfe reader ’5 consciousness so that tfnere is
often no chance of missing them.

A very real question which must be addressed is: few far apart
can a lexical item be ad still be said to display lexical cohesion?

Gutwinski retes that the cofesive range of an item, whether this be

16

grammatical or lexical, can vary from two adjacent sentences through
three or more to several non-adjacent sentences or groups , but wfnether
this range can be extended any farther is an enpirical question. The
reader ’3 ability to remember a word and then associate it with a
recurrenceofthesameword lateronintfetextinparthastodowith
the frequency of the recurrences. In the larger units of repetition,
such as phrases, clauses or sentences, we could postulate that
exactness of repetition is a significant factor in its cofesive force.
Stein uses a great many sentential repetitions. For instance, in "The
Good Anna," the sentence "Anna led an arduous ard troubled life," is
repeated three times within tfe space of eleven pages. The first
repetition occurs three pages after the initial sentence. The
exactness of the repetition (with the addition of "You see. . .")
inmrediately brings the sentence to the reader ’5 attention.

This discussion of lexical cohesion should not be taken as
isolating the lexicon from discourse as a whole. It is to be studied
within the realm of discourse. All language consists of simultaneously
occurring subsystems - pferelogy, morphology, syntax, serantics and
pragmatics . Stein erploys repetition in each of these subsystems
consistently. However, although I will mention repetition at the
grammatical and syntactic level etc. in my discussions of the three
stories I will largely limit my linguistic discussion to repetition at
the semantic level. This is not to say that focusing on any or each is
less interesting or less revealing, but tfese are beyond the scope of
my study.

But it is not enough to merely isolate tfe types of cohesion
available in a text. Geoffrey Leech in his study of poetry writes that

17

"in studying cofesion we pick out the patterns of meaning running
through tfe text and arrive at sore sort of linguistic account of what
tfe text is "about." In addition to types of cofnesion we can also speak
of "cofesion of foregrourding, " in which certain foregrounded features
that have been identified in isolation are related to oe arether and
to the text in its entirety. He writes, "If a single scfnere extends
over the whole text, it can itself be regarded as a form of
cohesion."18 The words, phrases, theres and patterns whicfn are
repeated, i.e. foregrounded by Stein, work to urnify the text, ard must
be examined within the context of their use. Therefore, repetition is a
form of cohesion which unifies and integrates tfe total structure of
the text.

Cohesion by repetition can also be studied on a larger scale tfan
simply lexicon. At this time, very little has been dore to investigate
repetition at tfe higfer level, such as tfnere and plot, altfnough Gut-
winski refers to this problem briefly in his study of cofesion in James
ard Hemingway. As I will deronstrate, Stein erploys repetition of not
only words, phrases, and sentences, but also tfneres, actions, patterns
of befavior and life situations within and across tfe three stories in

Three Lives. These all work togetfer to form a cohesive "wfele," a

 

densely woven intricate pattern of repetitions that create three vivid
rederings of three woren caught in their own repetitious patterns of
life from which tfey cannot escape.

However, tfe issue of the reader ’5 ability to remember and make

associations is a question in itself.

T‘feories _o_f_ Reagn._ng'

Statements made by textlinguists concerning the ways a text is

18

perceived are very similar to the phemenological theory of reading
set forth by Wolfgang Iser ard Rosenblatt’s transactioal model of
reading. Halliday ard Hasan write, "In reading or listening to text, we
process continuously ard therefore by the time any given lexical item
is taken in, its context has already been prepared; and tfe preceding
lexical environment is perhaps the most significant conponent of this
context.... tfne lexical environment of any item includes, naturally,
retcnlythewordstfatareinsorewayorotherrelatedtoit... but
also all other words in the preceding passage, and all of tfese
contribute to its specific interpret in tfe given instance. But it is
tfeoccurrenceoftfeitemINTHBWOFREIATEDlEflCALITMthat
provides cohesion ard gives to the passage the quality of text."19

Iser defires reading as an interaction between a reader and a
text, a text being " an array of sign impulses (signifiers) which are
received by the reader."20 This interaction is by nature a dynamic
process which has tfe character of an event. Tfe reader, by tfe act of
reading, realizes the text, brings it into being and responds to it
aesthetically. Reading causes a literary work to "unfold."

Because a text is realized both terporally ard spatially, the
wfnole text can never be perceived at any ore time. But reitfer is this
perception at any one moment of reading isolated and unconnected to
what fas been read and what is yet to core. It does not just flow
forward snoothly, unhindered and uncfanged. Menory and expectations
play a profound role in tfe process of selecting, synthesizing and
organizing. The reader approacfes the text with certain expectations.
Tfese expectations are verified, modified, or contradicted by what he
orshereads. Asthereaderproceedsmeroriesofwfathasbeenreadare

19

also modified because of the unfolding of the text. Each new moment in
reading stands out against the old, projected against wfat the reader
expects to core. Thus, Iser states, "the past will retain as a
background to the present, exerting influence on it, and at tfe same
time, itself being modified by the present... [so that] throughout the
reading process there is a continual interplay between modified
expectations and transformed mnenories."21 He goes on to state "every
reading moment sends out stimuli into the merory and wfat is recalled
can activate perspectives in such a way that they continually modify
ard so individualize one another... recalled segments also have a
retroactive effect, with the present transforming the past. .. tfe
present retention of a past perspective qualifies both past ard
present. It also qualifies the future, because wfatever modifications

it has brought about will immediately affect the nature of our
22

expectations."

For example, tfe word "good" in the title "The Good Anna" leads us
to expect that Anna is a good woran. Upon reading the story, however,
tfe reader gradually realizes that she is not: Anna is far from good.
The reader ’s initial acceptance of the word "good" without question
must be modified by repeated encounters wfere the meaning does ret hold
true in tfe context of the situation, ard thus his/fer expectations
concerning the word will be modified also. One is led then to suspect
possible irony in tfe use of the word and the characters Stein refers
to as being "good" as tfne word is encountered in the rest of the story,
and on through "The Gentle Iena" and "Melanctha."

Through this evocation of the text in time and space, the reader
forms a ’gestalt' of the text, in whicfn he/she groups together all tfe
different aspects of the text, or synthesizes the various parts into a

20

’whole’ or a structure which is a work of art. Iser stresses tfat a
reader is always in search of consistent pattern, tfat fe or she
requires it. "If we carnrnot find (or impose) this consistency, sooner
or later we will put the text down."23

If, as Iser, Rosenblatt and others assert, tie meaning of the text
unfolds during the reading and the processing of a text results in an
interpretation of the text, we can logically extend this theory to
assert tfat the realizing of a text will also profoundly affect the
meanings of the words in the text.

Ballmer, in Petofi, writes, "It is a fact that controlled by
longer texts, the meanings of words, phrases and sentences can be
modified considerably with respect to primary, lexicon meanings. The
same referential phrase may fnave quite different reference a meaning if
the text in which it occurs is accordingly different. It depends very
muchonwfat hasbeensaid before (and soretimesonwfatisgoingtobe
said afterwards ) how an expression in a text is interpreted... tfe
details of interpretation may deped crucially on tfe extralinguistic
context."24

This is a point of critical importance to be made in regards to
repetition in Stein. As I will deronstrate in the course of the
cfapters, it is the repetitions in varying contexts whicfn give them
their full power. One cannot make a hasty decision as to what a word
such as "suffering" means in "Melanctfa" because it is only through the
gradual accumulation of repetitions in is various contexts that tfe
word achieves a totality of meaning. It is also through tfe repetition
tfat words achieve their irony. Thus they cannot be studied in

isolation, out of context.

21

This disonssion should not be construed as arguing tfat these
various tfeoreticians would agree totally on all counts. But there are
ereugh points of contact between them and their theories of tfe process
of reading to lead to insight into the reading of a text and the
urderstanding of the effects of repetition on the reader. They assert
that a reader approacfes a text with tfe assumption tfat it will be
coherent, and that during the realization of a text a reader constructs
coference cumulatively. These theorists also believe tfat. on the
linguistic and paralirnguistic levels, every sentence contains a preview
of the next ard that wfat has been said before and wfnat is going to be
said rex't determires the interpretation of a text, in an active and
retroactive way.

The reader is instnmental in activating the text and evoking a
response. But this response is ret entirely unlimited or unrestrained.
There are restrictions and limitations upon wfat can be evoked which
are inherent in the text. One does not read Otfello and evoke Llam_l_et.
Tfe text itself constrains the reading by wfat is tfere. However, as
Iser retes, the reader selects what he or she sees and uses wfat fe or
she selects to form a gestalt for tfe text. This "selection automa-
tically involves exclusion, and that which fas been excluded retains on
the fringes as a potential range of connections. It is tfe reader wfe
unfolds the network of possible connections, and it is the reader who
then makes a selection from that network."25 And it is tfe reader who
arrives at an interpretation of tfe text. In part, it is this selection
and exclusion process which leads to different readings of a text, by
the reader ’3 focusing on different elerents within the text.

Repetition is, first, a cohesive device, a way of making
connections which is consciously chosen by tfe autfer. This repetition

22

affects tfe reader, which in turn affects the interpretation of the
text. Thus, as I will show, excluding the repetition from one ’s
interpretation, focusing attention elsewhere, ignoring the role of

repetition in Stein - ard particularly in Three Lives - can lead to

 

distorted interpretations .
In recent years, the study of literature has sfnifted its focus
from concern for the author and/or the text to a concern for the

reader. Prince, in Narratology writes, "Instead of establishing the

 

meaning of a given text in terms of an author ’5 intentions or a set of
textual patterns , for instance, students of literature have focused
more and more frequently on tfe ways in which readers, armed with
expectations and interpretive conventions , structure a text ard give it
meaning. Ideal readers, vital readers, implied readers, informed
readers, corpetent readers, experienced readers, super-readers,
archreaders , average readers , and plain old readers now abound in
literary criticism and we seem to fave entered an age in which tfe
writer, tfe writing and tfe written are less important than tfe read,
tfe reading and tfne reader."26

This metfed is a reaction against the one-sided textual emphasis
of the New Criticism, but its presence does not necessarily lead to
anarchy in the field of criticism in which any and all responses evoked
are valid, or all are equal. Nor does it in any way deny tfe importance
of the text, rer the purpose of tfe autfnor in including ard/or
foregrounding certain itens. When ore evokes and interprets a text
aesthetically, and/or investigates it critically, one must look at
which elerents in the text are potentially important. T‘fe autfnor can
deliberately point out the direction he or sfne wants the reader to

23

take. This idea of the author 's comrunicative purpose is an important
issue, particularly when we return to focus on the premise tfat
repetition is a deliberate stylistic choice on the part of Stein,
designed to acfnieve a specific erd.

One of tie primary reasons for the use of repetition is simply to
attract tfe reader ’5 attention to an idea , word or there . Rapetition
is a type of explicit signal, a red light as it were. The autfer is
foregrourding, tfnrough repetition, wfnat he or she feels is important in
tfe text, ard announcing by this foregrourding, what exactly he or she
wants tfe reader to pay attention to. Thus, because tfe repetitions,
when perceived, have a cumulative effect upon reader, they form a
different gestalt ard bring about a different interpretation of the
text than when igrered. Donald Sutherlard approacfed this idea when he
wrote, "One has to give [Stein ’5] work word by word the deliberate
attention one gives to sorething written in italics. . . the work has to
be read word by word, as a succession of single meanings accumulating
into a larger meaning." 27

He goes on to say tfat "unhappily all our training and most of our
reasons for reading are against this," and he is certainly correct.
This use of repetition can backfire on the author, and in many cases it
fas with Stein. Iser writes "the degree to which the retaining mnird
will implerent perspective connections inferent in the text depends on
a large mmmber of subjective factors: memory, interest, attention and
mental capacity," 28 He also states that tfere are limits to tfe
reader ’5 willingness to participate and "these will be exceeded if the
text makes things too clear or, on the other hard, too obscure: boredom
ard overstrain represent the two poles of tolerance, ard in eitfer case

29
the reader is likely to opt on of the game.

24

Many readers fave found both boredom and overstrain to be hazards
inherent in reading Stein’s texts. Many of fer portraits, The Making 9f
Americans, "Melanctfa" and several otter works suffer from such an
overuse of repetition tfat often the reader becones unwilling to
proceed. In many cases, if there were any promise or indication of
progress, or better yet, closure, one might be willing to continue.

But often there is no sense of gaining ground.

bany readers have been plagued by tfe repetitions in "Melanctha,"
repetitions of words, pfnrases, passages tfat are so similar that
progress is almost imperceptible. For instance, on page 136, we read,
"It was a very uncertain time, all these months, for Jeff Campbell. He
did not knew very well what it was that he really wanted." Then again
on page 149, we encounter tfe passage "Jeff was a little uncertain all
this time inside him...." On page 165, another variation on this there
appears: "All these days Jeff was uncertain in him." Tfese repetitions
are interspersed with others, such as "Now for a little time there was
not any kind of trouble between Jeff Campbell and Iblanctha Herbert"
(153) and "And new for a real long time tfere was no open trouble any
more between Jeff Campbell and Melanctfa Herbert" (161). These
repetitions occur in the midst of, seemingly edless repetitions of such
words as "certainly" and "understand" and "tfnink." The reader begins to
feel overwhelmed. Readers who encounter such a passage the third or
fourth time, think "I already read tfat." And yet no progress has been
made. Closure or resolution seems no nearer. The terptation to skim
is soretimes overpowering in a desperate atterpt to find an end or at
least to reach a point wfere the situation between Jeff and Melanctfa

faschanged.Iserpointsouttfattextscanbemoreorlesseffective

25

in eliciting and holding the interest of the reader. The repetition, in
this case, has:made for.many a hostile reader who gives up in disgust
and vows "Never again." It can also lead simply to boredbmnand lack of
interest. One’s attention can only be held so long by such repartees as
"I certainly do think you would have told me. I certainly do think I
could make you feel it right to tell me. I certainly do think all I
did wrong was to let Jane Harden tell me. I certainly do know I never
did wrong, to learn what she told me. I certainly know very well
Melanctha..." (152). Interest tends to fade in a hurry, and lead, in
many cases, to a hasty interpretation of the entire story based on what
the reader was able to focus on and maintain during the brief time when
his/her attention was actually being held.

Kawin is careful to differentiate between repetitious, by which he
means "when a word, percept, or experience is repeated with less impact
at each recurrence; repeated to no particular end, out of a failure of
invention or sloppiness of thought" and repetitive, which is "when a
word, etc. is repeated with equal or greater force at each
occurrence."30 Often, readers plowing their way through a Stein text
would agree that her repetition is the former, not the latter.

One can be fairly safe in asserting that even the most unitiated
reader of Stein is aware of her use of repetition. Thus we approach a
Stein text with the expectation that it will occur. This expectation
can affect our stance toward the text even before we turn to the first
page. FDr example, after a reader has plowed his way through "The Good
Anna" and "The Gentle Lena" he can be so tired of repetition that he
will abandon any attempts to read "Melanctha", or will approach it with
such a negative attitude tfat any response will autonatical 1y be

negative if not outright hostile.

26

Obviously, this is not the effect Stein wanted. Because she placed
so much erphasis on this repetition, she wanted a careful reader, one
who would take the time to move through the undulations of each story.
She was very aware of what she was doing, and wrote at length on her
theory of repetitions. I am well aware of the hazards of taking wfnat
she wrote in later years and applying it - if not wholesale and without
question, or even cautiously - to what she did in her early years. But
Stein did have certain notions from tfe beginning, and although some of
her styles changed, and these notions evolved, she knew the uses of
repetition early.

In the course of this dissertation I hope to demonstrate that
during the process of reading a Stein text , if the reader takes note of
tfe repetitions as they occur, and allows these repetitions to guide
rather than obstruct the evocation, he/she will achieve an altogether
different interpretation than if he/she had not. The cumulative effect
of the repetitions as they work to achieve a cohesive whole, results in
a more conplete reading of the text. An important side-effect, not
often noted in response to reading Stein, is tfat when the reader notes
the repetitions and appreciates tfeir significance in the text, he/she

can fave a singularly satisfying and delightful reading experience.

Stein '5 Theories pf Life and Repetition

 

 

Stein believed that repetition is a fundamental fact of life. She
wrote, "Repeating then is in every one, in every one tfeir being and
tfeir feeling and their way of realizing everything and every one comes

31
out of them in repeating." In "The Gradual Making of The Making pf

 

Americans" she documents how she began to listen to people '5

27

conversation and take note of the repetitions in their speech and in

their lives .

I began to get enormously interested in hearing how
everybody said the same thing over and over again with
infinite variations but over and over again until finally if
you listened with great intensity you could hear it rise and
fall and tell all that there was inside them, not so much by
the actual words they said or the thoughts they fad but the
moverent of their thoughts and words endlessly the same and
endlessly different."32
Gradually this was incorporated into her philosophy of the basic nature

of the individual . Michael Hoffman notes that:

Life to Gertrude Stein is not a convenient package with

a beginning middle and end as it was for the conventional
novelists. It consists of all the everyday existences and
of repetition not only of boring habit, but also of events
whose character is dictated by the basic nature of the

individual .

Stein was enormously influenced by William James and his philosophies
of psychology and personality. Rejecting the idea of "epiphany" ard
cfaracter cfange, Stein believed in determinism. According to this
philosophy, characters never changed. Their personalities and
circumstances were fixed. There was no escape. The claracters
depicted in her earliest works were "personalities who (were) fixed in
tfeir modes of life and who (thought and did) everything within the

34
context of inexorable circumstances." A person who is born with

28

certain characteristics or personality traits will always exhibit those
traits. One who is born into a certain social class will remain in tfat
class. One is dooned to repeat the patterns and habits and actions
again and again and again,“ without hope of changing them. As Hoffman
notes, "the nature of the individual '5 behavior, thought, and erotions
is always determined by the3class of personality, national or social

types to which he belongs." The personality was not a tabula rasa,

 

and did not become the sum of one ’5 total experiences. Instead, as
Weinstein has noted, "Stein follows James in seeing the personality in
terms of a fixed nature, a central "core", subject to alteration by
experience, but only subject to change within the limitation imposed by
the entire character structure."36

Stein accepted the idea of cfaracterology, tfat people could be

classified into character types. Her two basic types were those people
who need to love and those who need to be loved. These types, she
believed, were innate in every person. Each cfaracter fad a 'bottom
nature' which was not the "secret explanation and the driving impulse
of character; for character was a "system" of interrelated impulses of
character, and the "bottom" was simply the range of such interrelations
furthest rereved from consciousness. Ratfer tfan a single force
impelling behavior fundamentally, it was itself a "system" of inrpulses,
both reflecting and reflected in all the otfners."37

By using repetition in her writing, by beginning again and again
and using everything, Stein was attempting to comunicate the
repetition tfat is life. As Kawin writes, "repetition, the key to our
experience, may becore the key to our expression of experience."38

Stein understood tfat repetition can have a psycfelogical effect

29

on the reader as well as an aesthetic one, a fact which advertisers
today capitalize upon: by dominating the reader ’3 attention repetition
serves to focus, reinforce and strengthen an impression. Alfred lee, in

How t_o Understand Propaganda writes tfat "the surest way to maintain a

 

conpetitive advantage is to repeat a message so often it ’5 always fresh

in the mind of the consumer. . . Repetition reinforces ad strengthens
the impression made. Each time an idea is repeated, tfe impression
becomes stronger."39 Once the repetition of, for example, a particular
word has served to attract the reader ’5 attention, continued use of the
word can add to its impact . Continuous repetition of a staterent
erphasizes and drives the impression into the memory. The mere
repetition, the more enpfnasized tfe thing repeated. Thus, in the act of
evoking a text, the repetition will have a cumulative effect. It will
continually appear before the reader’s eyes and his consciousness, the
merory activating and reactivating perspectives , and influencing the
expectations of wfat will core.

And yet she denied tfat her writing contained repetition; the ternm

she preferred, rather, was ’insistence. ’

If this existence is this thing is actually existing there

can be no repetition. . . Then we have insistence insistence

tfat in its enphasis can never be repeating because

insistence is always alive and if it is alive it is never

saying anything in the sane way because enphasis can never

be the same not even when it is most the same...40
Repetition, then, for Stein, meant "identical recurrence with no
increase in force, with none of tfe slight differences in corposition

41
tfat constitute life." Instead, Stein believed in what she called

30

'continuous succession, ' a pattern similar to the effect of changing

movie frames .

Existing as a human being, that is being listening and

hearing is never repetition. It is not repetition if it is

that which you are actually doing because naturally each

time the empfasis is different just as the cinera has each

time a slightly different thing to make it all be moving"42
She realized that within the flow of language, neither the word nor the
reader or hearer are ever the same. As Kawin writes, "The growth of the
work, even from one identical line to another, makes exact repetition
impossible. . Even hearing an identical phrase many times is to hear it
in the changing contexts of our reception and the ongoing progress not
only of the author ’5 consciousness but also of the work."43 Stein
herself wrote "Every time I said what they were I said it so that they
were this thing. Each time I said not tfat they were different nor
that I was, but as it was not the same morent."44 Thus when questioned
about her sentence "A rose is a rose is a rose," she could reply, "Now
listen! I’m no fool; but I think tfat in tfat line the rose is red for
the first time in English poetry for a hundred years."45

The technique of using repetition, Stein felt, was how a tool for

penetrating beneath the surface of the character:

When you cone to feel the wfele of anyone from the
beginning to the ending, all the kind of repeating there is
in them, the different ways at different times repeating
cones out of tfnem, all the kinds of tfnings and mixtures in

each one, anyone can see then by looking hard at any one

31

living near them that a history of every one must be a long
one... slowly it cones out from them from their beginning to
tfeir ending, slowly you can see it in them the nature ad
the mixtures in them, slowly everything cores out from each
one in the kind of repeating each one does in the different
parts and kinds of living they have in them, slowly then any
one wfe looks well at any one will have tfe history of the
whole of that one. Slowly the history of each one comes out
of each one.. .. More and more then every one cores to be

46
clear to sore one."

Three Lives

 

Three Lives embodies these ideas of determinism, of fixed

 

personalities, of the importance of repetition in one '5 life. In this
text Stein attempted to paint the psychological portraits of three
woren, woren, as Mellow writes, "wfno were acted upon in life and who
seened incapable of understanding, much less mastering their personal
fatesjn They did not make things happen, life happened to them and they

were unable to control their own destinies.

The epigraph for Three Lives , ostensibly the words of the

 

symbolist poet Jules IaForgue provided the frane for the work:"Donc je
suis un malheureux et ce n’est ni ma faute ni celle de la vie:"
"Therefore, I an an unfortunate person, and it is neither my fault nor
that of life."48

None of the tfnree stories is technically a "portrait", as the
definition by Steiner will attest.49 Neither are they novellas in the

typical rfetorical style of the nineteenth century. The narrative

32

action does not rise and fall. Instead, the stories are episodic -
attenpts, through series of scenes in each characters life, none more
important than the other - to paint total pictures of the woren’s
consciousnesses. Henry James, in his comrentary on the work of
Trollope, in 1883, wrote that "character is action, action is plot, and
any plot which hangs together. . . plays upon our enotion, our suspense
by means of personal references. We care what happens to people only
in proportion as we knew what people are."50 Stein believed tfat the
reality of her characters would not be revealed by plot and movement,
but by the representative sanplings of their lives and "through the
self-revealing perception of their enetions as they struggle to
articulate their thoughts. "51 Thus her narrative choices were the
repeated rhythms of their speech and their lives, through which she
felt she could capture the essence of their identities.

She used repetition of words, actions, enotional states,
relationships, thenes, life patterns in order to do just that - capture
the essence of their identities. It is through a close examination of
these repetitions that the reader will attain a complete picture of
each of the three women.

But it is not enough to state simply tfat Stein used repetition.
Repetition can occur at many levels and scales, tfe smaller scale being
the lexical, the gramnatical levels; the larger scale consisting of
units such as the phrase, sentence, paragraph; and, still larger, at
tfe thematic, structural level, events and scenes which can occur
within as well as across stories, works and entire bodies of work. Thus
an attenpt must be made to classify Stein ’5 repetition systenatically.

One method of studying repetition is simply to investigate the

forms and types of constructions they manifest, enumerating tfe various

33
52

ways in which words are put together and repeated. These can be
noted on the different levels of repetition, the small scale and the
large. The form method of classification simply arranges lexical
repetitions in an ascending order fromnsimple to complex. The simplest
form of repetition is the successive repetition of the same word; then
one would consider double repetitions of different words, then triple
repetitions and so on.

Several of cases of single successive repetitions have already
been discussed in terms of their cohesives properties. Stein
occasionally uses what is termed non—consecutive repetition, a
practice in which one word is repeated often in a single sentence, or
across several adjacent sentences, such as: "She saved and saved and
always saved;" "she worked and worked;" "a girl was a girl and should
always act like a girl;" "Sorrow upon sorrow" and "Disgrace, Lena
talking about disgrace! It was a disgrace... Disgrace to have him go
away and leave her."

One can also note the repetitions of various gramnatical fornrs,
such as repetitions of noun phrases, verb phrases, sentence structure,
etc. Stein consistently enploys the SVO word order and at times begins
a whole series of sentences and clauses with simdlar subjects. For
example, in her descriptions of Anna, Stein begins each sentence with a
particular feature and the personal pronoun "her": "Her face was worn,
her cheeks were thin, her mouth drawn and firm» and her light blue eyes
were very bright... Her voice was a pleasant one, when she told the
histories of bad Peter and of Baby and of little Rags. Her voice was a
high and piercing one when she called to the teamsters... her strained

voice and her glittering eyes and her queer piercing german english

34

first made them afraid and then ashamed" (14).
Stein also consistently uses the coordinating conjunction "and" to

string together series of adjectives, adverbs, and irdepedent clauses

to create immense sentences

"Mathilda was an overgrown, slow, flabby, blonde, stupid,
fat girl, just beginning as a woman; thick in her speech and
dull and simple in her mind, and very jealous of all her
family and of other girls, and proud tfat she could have
good-dresses and new hats and learn music, and hating very

badly to have a cousin who was a comnon servant" (248).

However, this method of merely cataloguing repetitions is limited in
its utility, because although it can give one a detailed account of
wfat occurs when and how many repetitions of one word or phrase exists
within the story, this listing does not contribute to an understanding
of why these repetitions are where they are, wfat their function is ,
and how they contribute to the overall meaning of tfe story. Word
counts, in and of therselves, are useless in contributing to an
understanding of the aesthetic effects of linguistic features.

A‘more fruitful way to examine repetitions is to classify them
according to function. Although this type of classification does not
fold the key to understanding all the uses of repetition in Stein, it
does help deronstrate how they work and how they contribute to the
structure of each story .

Calvin S. Brown, in his study Repetition Q Zola 's Novels examined

 

 

formal repetitions ranging from significant single words to phrases,
sentences and larger passages which were repeated eitfer identically or

with variation. Brown classified and named tfe types, ad altfnough

35

they were not designed as a general system applicable to all literary

repetitions, many of these types also occur in Three Lives. Thus, his

 

systen'n is invaluable as a starting point for studying Stein '5 methods.
The first type of repetition he notes is one of the simplest, and
occurs often in both "The Good Anna" and "The Gentle Iena." Stein
makes considerable use of phrases, groups of one, two or perhaps three
words , repeated throughout passages and soretimes the entire text,
attached to names or objects, for exarple, "old Katy" "naughty Peter,"
and "jolly little Rags." Brown calls this ’the tag. ' This is a "word
or phrase, usually brief, serving to describe or characterize a person
or thing, or to represent a characteristic trait or habit."53 Thus, we
see "good" attached to Anna and "gentle" to Iena, in the titles, as if

these are fundamental characteristics of these women. We are "set up"

from the outset to expect these traits to be true and therefore to
expect all actions and interactions to be motivated by these
characteristics, and thus judge the characters accordingly. However,
Brown cautions that the descriptive tag, "which at first sight seems to
be merely physical will usually turn out to fave sore (ironic
applicability."54 In many, cases, as tfe story progresses, ’tags' begin
to display ironic overtones which at the beginning they did not fave.
Equally comron and striking to tfe reader are complex intricate

cumulative repetitions. Throughout Three Lives Stein erploys the

 

technique of using polyadjectival strings, noun phrases corposed of a
head noun and a long string of modifying elerents, to develop corplete,
descriptions of her characters. This practice involves not merely
increrental repetition in which sfne adds one new adjective to each

successive description. Rather, it is an addition, subtraction,

36

variation on a there.

For example, in "The Good Anna," Stein introduces Anna as a "stall
spare, german wonan... her face was worn, her cheeks were thin" (13).
On page 31, she describes Anna again, almost as if we had net been
given a description before. "Anna was a medium sized, thin, hard
working worrying woran." Again, on page 32 we are told "she was always
thin and worn." On page 38 and 46 the adjectives used to describe Anna
as a whole, shift to her face in particular: "her worn, thin, lined
determined face" and "her lined, worn, thin, pale yellow face." The
adjective "determnined" is replaced by "pale yellow," but the
adjectives, "worn," ad "thin," rerain. As Anna begins to go downhill
toward her death, we are told "she always grew more tired, more pale,
yellow and in her face more thin and worn ad worried" (80).

Stein also uses this technique to describe minor characters, such
as Miss Mary Wadsmith, who was a "large fair helpless woman...large,
docile, helpless Miss Mary Wadsmith... always large, helpless,
gentle..." and Mrs. Haydon, "short, stout, hard built, german... all a
compact and well hardened mass... a good ard generous woran."

The simple technique of inundating the reader with tfese
particular descriptive adjectives serves to keep them continuously in
the foreground of the reader '5 mind. Each word fas been carefully
cfnosen to capture a facet of the character, and repeated so tfat the
reader will pay attention. Stein does not state simply that Anna is
tfnin and tired and worn, or Iena is gentle and patient and Melanctha is
intelligent, corplex and desiring, and leave it at tfat. She returns
again and again to reassert these facts. This repetition forces tfe
reader to react at more tfan a surface level, to visualize and

internalize these cfaracteristics. With each repetition Stein is making

37

the character fresh in the mind of the reader.

This technique of continually repeating certain traits also serves
to further Stein '5 theory of determinism by enphasizing the
unchangingness of the cfaracter of each individual. The personalities
they were given by fate do not change and in the end seal the
character ’5 fate. Anna retains thin, worn and worrying, only to become
more thin and worn until she wears out and dies. Iena's passive
gentleness does not change, rendering her helpless in the face of the
troubles she encounters. Helanctha’s conplex desires force her
continually to seek love which is not satisfied and eventually leads to
her sad and lonely death. 1

Another type of repetition Brown has defined is called the ’key
passage, ' a "relatively long repetition embodying in a striking and
memorable fornm, one of the fundamental ideas of a book or soretimnes the
single idea on which the entire work is based. The key—passage is often
used to indicate a fixed idea or obsession in the mind of a
character."55 Brown notes tfat because of its length and importance tfe
repetition is more likely to be exact. As will be deronstrated in the
discussion of each story, Stein used this important technique of
foregrounding critical themes and ideas in all three of tfe stories. By
repeating a passage verbatim, often with the interjections "Rernenber"
and "you see" to draw our attention even more specifically to it, Stein
indicates tfat these passages are significant, fundamental to our
understanding of the stories .

Stein also relies heavily on scattered repetitions, certain key

words which appear continuously throughout either the whole text or

certain passages. Brown appropriately calls these ’hamrer’ words, words

38

used extensively and intensively "in order to erpfasize an acting or
situation, driving it hone by repeated blows... (the hammer) indicates
a strong or exclusive preoccupation with any single idea."58 Each story
has its own ’hammer’ words, although sore carry over from "The Good
Anrna" to "The Gentle Iena" and on to "Helanctfa" which, as I will show,
makes a very important difference in our interpretation of all three.
The most striking example of this type of repetition is, of course, the
word "certainly," which appears 433 times in "Melanctha." In the face
of this intensive use of a single word, one cannot ignore it, nor the
fact that, if repeated so often, it must be significant, and yet, many,
if not most critics fave.

It must be noted that these classifications necessarily overlap,
since Brown used form, function and content in deciding upon ways to
classify each type. For instance, "good" is part of the tag for "the
good Anna", but it is also a ’hammer' word used throughout the three
stories. It will also be necessary to decide in tfe course of the study
whether a particular sentence, repeated verbatim, is a key-passage or
net, and this will, naturally, make a difference in the interpretation
of the story.

This metfed of classifying repetitions takes us furtfer. toward an
understanding of wfat Stein was attempting to accorplish in M
gm. But Brown extracted each of these types of repetition and
studied them out of context.57 In order to achieve a corplete reading
of these stories, one must examine them in context, as they appear.

Examining repetitions in context is a crucial difference,
especially in the light of wfat Ballmer fas written concerning the
cfanging of meanings within the referential context of the text as a

whole. This is also, as I see it, the major error critics fave made in

39

reading Three Lives. Readers have had a tendency to focus on the

 

repetition of one word or another or a repeated phrase or action. They
use this focus to decide upon an interpretation of the character or the
story. For instance, in his discussion of the problems Jeff and
Nelanctha experience in their relationship, Frederick Hoffman focuses
on the word "trouble." He writes, "Perhaps the key word is "trouble";
it suggests a.cnmmutment to experience without a full understanding of
it.58 Hilfer, on the other hand, notices:most of the key terms in
"Melanctha" but he too chooses to single out the word "trouble" to
interpret Jeff's problems. He cites the sentence "Jeff campbell had
never yet in his life had trouble" (p. 111) and crows, "Clearly this is
what is wrong with himl Personally and socially vibrant and joyous,
Jeff exhibits, nevertheless, a lack of depth and full reality... his
ethical control over relationships is a shield against real experience.
Needing real trouble in his life, he finds Melanctha."59 Similarly,
DeKoven tends to oversimpflify when she writes that "’the good Anna’
dies of her goodness,’[and that] the gentle Lena' dies of her
gentleness."60

These inadequate readings, as I will show, result in distorted
pictures. Taken out of context.words or phrases elicit a certain
response. Taken in context, however, when a certain repetition appears
in the course of a story that repetition can change its meaning, and
thus one’s interpretation of that repetition, and ultimately of the
story as a whole is changed. Key words or phrases often appear
sporadically in the text before they are used as ’hammer words’ or 'key
passages’ Therefore, there is often a lag between the time the word is

introduced and the time the reader perceives that it is significant.

40

Thus the reader’s retrospection, as Iser notes, plays a significant
part in recognizing the significance of any particular element.
Therefore, it is necessary to proceed through each work separately in
order to evoke a new reading of each, and, ultimately of all three
taken together. It is only by reading through the stories that the
richness of each, and the repetitions in all their various shades of
meanings, can be appreciated. As Iser writes, "Aesthetic experiences
can only take place because they are communicated and the way they are
experienced must depend on the way in which they are presented."61 In
my study of the three stories I will note the various types of
repetition as they appear in the context of the story and show how the
cumulative affect of these results in a different interpretation
altogether.

One important effect of repetition in Stein's stories is to
establish an ironic View of superficially sympathetic characters.
Brinnin writes that Stein "set about to encompass the meanings of the
lives of ’The Gentle Lena,’ ’The Good Anna' and 'Melanctha’ not with
irony, but with a magnified, slow-moving and sympathetic realism."62 I
can agree with this statement only to a certain extent. Stein does
treat the three women with deep sympathy and.cnmpassion, but not
‘without irony. And her irony, especially when it is not levelled at
her three main characters is often bitter and biting.

Stein establishes the irony through the use of an unreliable
narrator. Dekoven has documented this use in detail. She notes that
Stein uses the "omniscient third" but that the narrator is obtuse
nonetheless: "There is a discrepancy, sometimes to the point of

contradiction, between the tone of the narrative voice ad the content

of the narrative. Sate such discrepancy is. . . ctaracteristic of

41

fiction where irony, understaterent or a conflict of conscious and
unconscious creation so often generates a complex vision. But in _T‘hrg
L_i1e§ the discrepancy is so extreme that the narrator seems at times
entirely blind to the import of what she narrates. While the narrator
of Three Lives is consistently innocent, straightforward, mildly jolly

63
ad approving, the content is often grotesque, sinister, ridiculous. "

 

This simple childish narrative voice serves to distance the language
ironically from the content and heighten the discrepancy. For example,
in the first scene in "Melanctha, describing the death of Rose ’3 baby,
Stein writes, "Rose Johnson had liked the baby well enough and perlaps
she just forgot it for awhile, anyway the child was dead... [ard]
neither of than thought about it very long" (85). Anyway. The death is
shrugged off. It is a fact of life in the negro carmunity of
Bridgeport, ard whether or not it was Rose ’5 fault doesn't seem to
matter. Sam ard Rose don ’t care.

Irony is also established through repetition. Throughout the three
stories we are exposed to the continuous repetitions of people ’3
thoughts and words. Each perSon’s words, and alternatively, Stein '5

words to describe them, render, what Weinstein calls the unique
64

"rhythm, density, continuity, speed, quantity" of consciousness.
However, as will be demonstrated, what one says one is, or thinks one
is, or wfat Stein tells the reader a person is, is very seldan what
tl'at character actually turns out to be. The effect of the repetitions
in context sharply contradicts what the words themselves, if realized
without remembering, have stated. In Stein ’5 fiction, actions belie
wlat words have insisted.

Another issue is the general misunderstanding of Stein ’5 use of

42

the continuous present. Many writers assumed that Three Lives was

 

written in this form. This assumption is incorrect. Three Lives does

 

mark the beginning of her use of the ’continuous present; ' however, it
has not yet evolved to the extent in which it was used later as in The

Making g the Americans ard her portraits. Here, she uses wl'at she

 

termed the ’prolonged present. ’ In "Carposition as Explaration’ Stein

wrote 3

In beginning writing I wrote a book called Three Lives
this was written in 1905. I wrote a negro story called
"Melanctha. " In tfat there was a constant recurring ard
beginning there was a marked direction in the direction of
being in the present although natural 1y I had been accustomed
to past present ard future, and why, because the carposition
forming around me was a prolonged present. A carposition of
a prolonged present is a natural carposition in the world as
it has been these thirty years it was more and more a
prolonged present . I created then a prolonged present
natural 1y I knew nothing of a continuous present but it came
naturally to me to make one, it was simple it was clear to
meandnobodyknewwhy itwas done like flat, Ididnot
myself although naturally to me it was ratural... In the
first book there was a groping for a continuous present ard
for using everything by beginning again ard again. There
was a groping for using everything ard there ms an inevita-
ble beginning6c5>f beginning again and again and again. I lost

myself in it.

In Three Lives Stein severely limits her vocabulary. This, critics

 

43

agree, was a deliberate attempt to reflect the dialects of the
characters themselves: Anra ard Iena with their German English and
Melanctla with her "Negro" dialects. At times, as Walker las pointed
out, Stein does use words such as "coquetry" and "repressed" that are
far removed fram the lexicon of the characters, but generally she
restricted her vocabulary to words which she felt would be in the
lexicon of secord language or non-stardard dialect speakers.

I would accept the view that this limited vocabulary is an atterpt
to reflect the speech of the characters. However, it seems that many
critics such as Hoffman ard Walker have mistaken simplicity of speech
with simplemindedness of character. Michael Hoffman writes, "[The
narrator] not only reflects the dialect of the characters, but he
expresses the inarticulate thoughts of the claracters in the very

language that they would use were they able to express their thoughts
for themselves."66 Walker, in the same tone, writes of "the narrowly
restricted linguistic universe that confines the speech ard thoughts of
simple uneducated characters. "67 According to Walker, Stein was
exploring "the role of language in shaping the thoughts ard the lives
of characters whose imperfect camard of English makes self-expression
an arduous labor." She believes tlat each of the three warren were
"verbal ly impotent, [lacking] the verbal and conceptual resources
provided by their class and educational backgrourd," and that this
’verbal impotence’ - the "confines of [their] language - shape and,
finally, impede their understanding."68 In Walker ’5 opinim, Anna's
inability to express herself in an awkward situation is due to the
"inadequacy" of her language; Iena’s victimization is the result of her

limited camard of English and lack of "resources to deferd herself

44

adequately against the verbal barrages to which she is constantly
subjected;" Jeff '5 "struggle to urderstand Melanctha and his own
awakening passion dramatizes the extent to which his language shapes
and confines his thoughts."69

This is nothing short of linguistic chauvinism, due largely to a
misunderstading of the elasticity and capacity of language to express
anything that needs to be expressed in however simple terms. Both
Hoffman and Walker are confusing simplicity with inadequacy. Frederick
Hoffman was nearer the mark when he wrote that Stein '5 technique
suggested a broadening of perspective in the functions and uses of
cfaracter analysis. "Its application to the minds of relatively
'unlettered ' persons pointed away fram the clumsy assumptions of
contemporary raturalists who seemed to think that subconsciously a
person ’s emotional status was as complex as his background and social
level dictated."70 I will demonstrate in the course of the chapters,
neither Anna nor melanctha are inarticulate, but are quite capable of
expressing themselves well, Anna even with her so-called ’broken
English. ’ Iena, I would agree is inarticulate, but I feel the reasons
for this inability to express herself lie elsewhere.

I believe that Williams James’ theory of knowledge influenced
Stein ’3 choice of characters. James felt that there were two types of
knowledge ard made a clear distinction these types. He called the first
’knowledge of acquaintance ’ ard the second ’knowledge-about. ’
’Knowledge of aoquaintance’ is an elerentary kird of knowledge which is
vaguely intuited; in other words, "knowledge immediately obtained ard
thus recognized but without the ability to be communicated to others,
who must themselves became acquainted with whatever is known in this

way. Included in this incarmunicable way of mere acquaintance are ’all

45

the elerentary natures of the world, its highest genera, the simple
qualities of matter ard mind, together with the kinds of relation that
subsist between them. .. ." ’Knowledge-about’ is a more sophisticated
grasp of the nature of things. It implies a selection of details, a
making sense out of the chaos of the world arourd one. 'Knowledge-
about ' a thing means "a conceptual grasp of its relations, whereas
acquaintance with it is limited to a bare impression of the thing while
being vaguely aware of a ’fringe’ of unarticulated affinities"?1 This
theory has important implications for Anna, Iena and Melanctha. The
spheres of their lives were limited, and thus their knowledge of the
world. This did not make them stupid or inarticulate, merely narrow in
focus, limited in their the world view'and concept of it.

But while she has chosen to reduce the vocabulary itself, Stein
expands the range of meanings of many words ard this exasperating
"slipperiness" of words has been a major problem in interpreting these
three stories, particularly "Melanctha." Ambiguity, the use of syntax
to simultaneously present more than one contextually appropriate
serantic unit, is a claracteristic feature of Stein, and repetition of
words in various contexts makes it difficult to pin down and make a
definitive statetent about what Stein meant by a particular word.
Bridgman theorizes that Stein restricted her vocabulary in part because
of the subject matters she was exploring. Vague irdirect statements ard
euphemisms "in part reflect "the verbally puritanic milieu about which
she was writing in Three Lives but it was also personally useful for

72
Gertrude Stein since it permitted the broaching of taboo subjects."

 

For instance, in "The Good Anna" Mrs. Lehntman's frierd was an evil ard

mysterious man who "got into trouble doing things tfat were not right

46

to do (64). It is quite clear tfat this man is involved with performing
abortions, but Stein does not explicitly say.

In "Melanctha" Stein displays her retarkable sense of humor and
ear for language with her double enterdres and euphemisms: "Hullo, sis,
do you want to sit on my engine?" (98); "Hi there, you yaller girl,
core here ard we'll take you sailin... Do you think you would make a
nice jelly?" (101-102); "It was not from men that Melanctra learned her
wisdom" (108); "Melanctha loved it the way Jem knew how to do it"
(218).

An outstanding example of her expansion of meanings of simple
words in varying contexts is the word "wander," in "Melanctha. " This
word is especially interesting precisely because of its repetition -
the manner it which it warders through the text, appearing ard
reappearing in an artless, and, at first glance, indiscrimirate manner.
The word "wandering" implies moverent without direction, a vague going
nowhere in particular, movement for movement's sake. The word is
introduced in the description of Melanctha’s mother, who "had always
been a little wandering ard mysterious ard uncertain in her ways" (90).
In this context the words means vague ard perhaps slightly crazy,
sweet, but unable to focus thoughts or energies. "Wardering" next
appears when Melanctha begins to "wander after wisdom." In this
context "wardering," means a quest for knowledge, Melanctla's seeking
to learn about the world, searching for answers to her question about
sex, men and life. "Wandering" appears again when Melanctha and Jane
warder together. This use expressly implies promiscuity, although it
is not men from whom Melanctha learns wisdom. After her breakup with
Jane, Melanctla begins to warder again, ard in this context wander

undoubtedly means promiscuity, because the sentence "Melanctha these

47

days wardered very widely" is followed immediately by "Melanctha tried
a great many men, in these days before she was really suited" (108).
After she meets Jeff she never warders except with him, ard this
context returns us to the original meaning of movement for the sake of
movement, Jeff and Melanctha engaging in directionless meandering,
engrossed more in being together tl'an where they are going or where
they will end up. As the relationship begins to dissolve, Melanctha
resumes her wardering, returning both to indiscriminate promiscuity ad
to a desperate search for comfort ard friendship beyond Jeff. Stein
refers directly to this slading of meanings on page 216 when she writes
"One day Melanctha had been very busy with the different kirds of ways
she wardered. "

The manner in which Stein plays with words, I feel, is where she

particularly demonstrates her virtuosity and genius. The manner in

which she makes words resonate and single words take on a variety of
meanings and display overtones which bring into being many of the
nuances of the word at once is a marvelous display of power which has
generally been overlooked.

It will be necessary to discuss sore of the variois critical

readings of Three Lives in order to show, in. the course of the

 

discussion, how exactly interpretations are incorplete. But, rather
than focus on the criticism as a whole, I will mention the various
readings in the context of my own interpretation of each of the three
stories ard deronstrate how a study of the repetition in each either
clarifies, corroborates or contradicts what has previously been written
on the subject.

Three Lives, because it seems to be one of the simplest of Stein '5

48

works to read ard urderstand, las been grossly underestimated. Over
the years, the criticism of this work l'as been equally divided between
praise and condemration. Stein deliberately used a very limited lexicon
and a spare style which has mislead readers ard critics alike to
construe her simplicity as being simplistic. I hope to show, in the
course of this dissertation tlat these stories are worthy of praise,
ard tfat they were actually extraordinarily corplex disguised under the

seeming simplicity of restricted vocabulary and incessant repetition.

CHAPTER'ND

Of the three novellas in Three Lives, "The Good Anna" was written

 

first. As has been documented by Walker, Michael Hoffman, Carolyn
Copeland and others, "The Good Anna" was directly influenced by
Flaubert's "Un Coeur Simple." Both are simple stories of servant woten
who,"because of their social position, the course of their lives is the
by-product of the actions of others."1 Anna is a feisty German-
American of lower middle-class stock who works her way through a series
of erployers and finally dies at a relatively young age.

For such a simple story, the critical literature surrounding it is
surprisingly contradictory. Anna has been labelled everything from
slow-witted, inarticulate and simple-mirded to crafty, tyrannical ard
overbearing. Sote critics have been sympathetic, others decidedly
negative. One tells us that Anna is domineering, another has told us
tfat Anna has been dominated by woven her entire life.

For instance, Marilyn Gaddis Rose calls Anra a self-elected
martyr. She states that "Anna is overbearing, imposing her rigid yet
inconsistent standards without reflection or self-awareness. . . To the
extent tfat Anna emerges as a "real" fictional character, it is a
generally pitiable person whose domestic capabilities barely counteract
her self-righteous domineering. " She states flat the repetition of the

sentence: "Anra led an arduous ard troubled life" reveals tfat the

50

distresses Anxa suffers are paradigmatic, and tlat "the petty looms as
large as the serious [and] her martyrdom, regardless of the triviality
of see of its causes, will be real." Her summation of Anna is tlat
"Stein las shown how "good" her Anna is - an efficient house manager
ard friend to animals - but simultaneously cruel, tyrannical, childish,
cantankerous ragging and crafty. "2

In contrast Bridgman _writes that "The Good Anna" "describes the
scoldings and mutterings of a loyal servant who is clearly intended to
be erdearing."3

Marianne DeKoven concurs with Bridgman, stating that Anna is a
"generous, hard working, stubborn, managing German immigrant [who]
works herself to death for a series of selfish etployers and frierds
who take all she offers, allow her to run their lives (the only
repayment she exacts,) then desert her when she has outlived her
usefulness or when they are tired of her rigid control."4

Frederick Hoffman writes that the 'goodness ’ of Anna appears often
to be wasted on lazy mistresses, or to rave the contrary effect of
"spoiling" the men whom she favors as masters; but goodness is in
itself a conventioi tlat has many particular forms of expression ard
the values of Anra's goodness are realized with a full appreciation of
their pathos, occasional eccentricity ard ultimate soundness."5

In this crapter I will demonstrate through a close study of the
repetitions which occur throughout "The Good Anna" tl'at these different
interpretations of Anna , contradictory though they might be, are
accurate descriptions of Anna. I will show that Anna is a very cmplex
person who displays all of these traits, but that the repetitions
reveal a cfaracter who is all of these ard yet different from any one

interpretation which has been given her yet . My interpretation most

51

closely agrees with Carl Wbod, who writes that Anna is a "petty and
incorrigible domestic tyrant..." However, he notes, due to the
shifting perspectives of the story, as the reader lives through Anna’s
life with her, her character becomes sympathetic and her actions
defensible. He writes that Stein "has presented the reader with
conflicting views of Anna which cannot be resolved to form a neat,
coherent estimate of her character. At the end of the story we are
forced to the paradoxical awareness that Anna is both the triumphant
domestic tyrant of Part I and a pitiful, basically unhappy
irdividual."6 -

Although Wbod focuses on several of the key repetitions in "The
Good Anna and although he is concerned with how the reading-through of
the text changes the reader’s interpretation, he does not go far enough
in recognizing hOW'the various repetitions work together with the
shifting perspectives to render the character of Anna. As the reader
progresses, the key repetitive patterns of words, phrase and actions
begin to shape the narrative and, consequently, the reader's
interpretation. Using the classifications formulated by Calvin Brown we
can impose order on these different types of repetition ard draw
conclusions about the character of Anna. I will first isolate these
different types and then demonstrate how they work together in the
context of the story.

The reader will notice immediately that the word "house" is an
oft-repeated.word: "Anna managed the whole little house... it was a
funny little house, one of a whole row... they were funny little
houses... This one little house was always very full with Miss

.Mathilda, an under servant, stray dogs and cats and Anna's voice..."

52

(ll). This sets the stage for the scenes which unfold. The house
represents Anna's universe, the whole of her life, the environment in
which she exists and from which she takes her identity. She lives in
and through and for the households she runs. Anna '5 ’knowledge—about'
is strictly of the households. Her knowledge of the world beyond is
'knowledge of acquaintance. ’ But she does not care. The house is her
universe and beyord what she needs to know to run it, nothing matters.

Stein ’5 irony begins immediately. The fourth sentence of the
story is set off as a separate paragraph as though it were a
significant ard important thought: "Anna led an arduous life." This
staterent is juxtaposed against descriptions of Anna bargaining for
lower prices in one store with the threat of getting groceries for a
little less "by Lindheimns; Anna’s arguments with Sallie over the
butcher boy; her confrontations with the teamsters and other "wicked
men" and her shouting at her dogs for their misbel‘avior. This same
sentence is repeated again, after the sad mishap of Peter '5
philandering. The "arduousness" of her life, set in opposition to these
trivial incidents, is rendered slightly ridiculous.

In "The Good Anra" Stein makes use of certain phrases, consisting
of two or three or more words , repeated within sentences and sonetimes
throughout the entire text. These often take the form of descriptive
adjectives modifying certain claracters or objects: for example, "Old
Katy," and "funny little house." As noted in Chapter One, Brown's
classification lables these modifiers ’tags. ' These tags serve to
characterize a person or thing or to represent a character trait or
habit. "The most frequent function of the tag is state or imply, with
one or two brief strokes, the essentials of a person 's ctaracter or

7
function." Thus we see "naughty Peter", "jolly little Rags" and, most

53

importantly, "the good Ama," recur throughout the story. Anna is not
simply Anna - she is the 993d Anna. In the beginning it is reasonable
to accept this tag at face value. It is only further readins, viewing
this tag in context that first impressions will be modified. At first
the reader need only assume tfat Anna is just tfat - good.

Stein also uses certain conplex and intricate repetitions of
phrases. In her descriptions, particularly of Anna, Miss Mary Wadsmith
and Miss Mathilda, she uses her characteristic polyadjectival strings
attached to a head noun. Stein begins with a descriptive statenent: The
good Anna was a small spare, german woman... her face was worn, her
cheeks were thin" (13). On page 31, she writes, "Anra was a medium
sized, thin, hard working worrying wonan. " an the next page she repeats
these ctaracteristics: "She was always thin ard worn" (32). The

repetitions continue:

Her worn, thin, lined determined face... (38).

Her spare, thin, awkward body and her worn, pale yellow
face (40).
Her lined, worn, thin, pale yellow face (46).

She always grew more tired, more pale, yellow and in

her face more thin ard worn and worried. (80).

Thus we are presented continually with a picture of Anna throughout the
text which does not orange except that the thinness and wornness becore
more pronounced and exaggerated as she grows older .

We are also given an extensive description of Miss Mary

Wadsmith which is in direct contrast to Anra:

A large fair helpless wonan (25).

54

large, docile, helpless, Miss Mary Wadsmnith (27).
She sat there always, large, helpless, gentle (29).
Like all large and helpless wonen, Miss Mary’s heart beat

weakly in the soft ard helpless mass it had to govern ( 29).

The next type of repetition found in "Anra" is the ’key passage. ’
We will recall that this is a "relatively long repetition enbodying in
a striking and merorable form, one of the furdamental ideas of a book
or sonetimes the single idea on which the entire work is based."8
"The Good Anna" has two major key-passages. The first is: "Mrs. Lehnman
was the only romance Anna ever knew." This sentence is repeated
verbatim five times, (30, 34, 52, 54, 55) and then in a variation when
Anra’s friendship with Mrs. Lehntman builds again slowly after their
long falling out: "Mrs. Lehntman could never be again the ronance in
the good Anna's life, but they could be friends again" (70).

The secord key passage is: "Anna led an arduous and troubled life"
(ll, 13, 21). This passage is also repeated verbatim. With both, Stein
uses the interjections "Remember" ard "you see" , to draw our attention
even more specifically to them, a device which indicates tfat she is
foregrourding these passages as significant and fundamental to an
urderstarding of the life of the good Anra.

In this story Stein also relies on scattered repetitions of
certain key words which appear extensively throughout the text. The
most notable of these words are "good," "bad," "work," "worry," "poor,"
and "scold."

A careful analysis of these different types of repetitions, the
hammer words in relation to the key-passages, will begin to reveal

exactly wlat it is that Stein is trying to tell tre reader about Anna.

55

The most striking hannmer in "The Good Anna" is, of course, the
word "good." "Good" is used as an adjective in many of the different
senses of the word. For example, Stein writes of the "good looking"
Peter, and Anna's "good natured" brother. We find many other uses

throughout the text:

Never going to come to any good (50).
...honest, decent, good, hard working, foolish girls who were
in trouble (52).
It will be a good place (53).
Anna heard a good deal of this (56).
Anna saw Mrs. Lehntman a good deal now (71).
...they all knew how well Anna could take care of people and

their clothes and goods (77).
Many of these uses relate to Anna herself:

...and you so good to them Anna (50).
You are so good Anna (51).
Anna's life went on, taking care of Miss Mathilda... and

being good to everyone that asked or seemed to need her help (70).

The most notable use of "good" is the tag in the phrase "the good
Anna." The reader is literally barraged; the phrase "good Anna"
appears a total of 84 times, with the variations "the good Anna," "our
good Anna," and "a good and german Anna." Fach increment of the
repetition serves ostensibly to hammer hone the fact tfat Anna is good.
But, unlike the factual descriptive adjectives, "good" is an evaluative

adjective. At first, the repetition reinforces the idea that Anna is a

56

good person, but with its insistence, it sets up doubts. In the face of
the trivial ironic situations Stein has placed Anna in the reader is
forced to question, to suspect possible irony, to re-evaluate Anna, and
finally to revise his or her appraisal. This insistence does not allow
one the luxury of taking the word at face value, because, as the
reader proceeds through the text it becomes evident that the word
"good" is often used in an inconsistent way with her behavior.

Anna does do good things. She takes in stray dogs; she helps the
poor girls in trouble, takes care of old Katy, gives away her savings
for this charity or that person in trouble, bails out Mrs. Lehntman
whenever she needs money. Anna is, in many cases, a good person. But
she also lies, gets rid of Molly when Molly won’t knuckle under, and
manipulates everyone around her - interfering, bossing, grumbling and
scolding. In fact,:most of.Anna's life is taken up with scolding and
pushing other people around.

This trait is especially evident in her work relationships.

During her life Anna works for Miss Mary wadsmith, Miss Mathilda and
Dr. Shonjen; her last position is that of a boarding house keeper.
Throughout her life, Annnna is very particular about whom she works for.
"Anna ’5 superiors must be always these large helpless woren, or be
men, for none others could give themselves to be made so comfortable
and free." (25) "Most wonen were interfering in their ways... She did
not like them thin and small and active and always looking and always
prying." (58). If the reader will return to the physical description of
Anna herself, as a small thin, spare, woman.who is always working hard
and worrying, s/he can deduce that Anna does not like to work fornwzman
who are too much like herself. Anna also does not like little girls,

because of the "subtle opposition showing so early always in a young

57

girl’s nature." (25)

In the beginning of the story Anna is managing Miss Mathilda ’5
house. There is a succession of under-servants. Melancholy Molly is
sent away because she will not obey Anna. Molly goes to work in a
factory, her health fails, and when she finally breaks down Anna takes
charge again of her life and dictates the way Molly should be cared
for. As long as Anna is in control, it is a "rappy family all there
together in the kitchen" (19).

Under Miss Mary Wadsmith, Anna has a serious encounter with Miss
Jane over the blue dressings, and Anna threatens to leave unless she is
given absolute power to make all the decisions. When Miss Jane
marries, Anna leaves because "she could not live as her Miss Mary’s
girl, in a house where Miss Jane would be the head." (33).

Anna also leaves the service of Dr. Shonjen when he marries. She
will not go back to Miss Mary because she dreads "Miss Jane 's
interfering ways" (57). She is happy with Miss Mathilda, and when Miss
Mathilda goes abroad, Anna cannot bring herself to be under any more
people because "no one could ever again freely let her do it all" (77).
So she begins taking in boarders. only men. She will not take in
wonen. She loves to work for men. Once they ’ve eaten and are content,
they "let her do whatever she thought best" (37) . She is once again
nappy working and scolding and taking care of people.

It becomes evident tfat the word "power" is a key word in Anna's
life. She must have control over everyone - Dr. Shonjen, Miss Mary,
Miss mmilda, Miss Jane and even Mrs. Lehntman. It is important to
note, however, tl'at although the word "power" is used eight times in the

story, four occur when Anna has lost power. These four uses occur in

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connection with an episode with Mrs. Lehntman and the argunent over her
new house. Mrs. Lehntman wins the argunment and for Anna, the loss is a

great defeat.

SothegoodAnnagrewalwaysweakerinherpowerto
control (54).

In friendship power always has its downward curve (54).

There is always danger of a break or of a stronger power
coming in between (55).

Poor Anna had no power to say no (55).

Mrs. Lehntman is the ronance of Anna’s life. She is a woman other wonen
love, the one person Anna cannot control. "Mrs. Lehntm'an was the only
one who had any power over Anna" (31). In turn, the only person who has
power over Mrs. Lehntman is the evil doctor. Onne can only speculate
whether this inability to control is part of Anna's fascination and
obsession with the midwife. When they break off, the affair is "too
sacred and grievous" to ever be told to anyone, not even to Mrs.
Drehten.

The depth of feeling Annna las doesn't mean tlat she doesn't try to
take control: "Anna gradually had cone to lead" (42) in the
relationship. But not really lid. Mrs. Lehntman has a devious way of
not hearing, of saying she will do things and yet not doing them, of
ignoring Anna's advice. She also has a way of manipulating Annnna in
order to get Anna to do what she wants. She uses up Anna’s savings to
buy the house and to help girls who are in trouble, and to help Julia
get started when she marries. A key factor in this relationship is
tnatalthoughMrs. LehnntmanneedsAnna justasmuchasAnnaneedsher,

Mrs. Lehn’aman is "ready to risk Anna’s loss" (54). Anna las power in

59

superficial things such as dictating how the house should be done over,
but her strength of control is less; Mrs. Iehntman "could always hold
out longer" (55). So Anna is defeated. This romance, which Stein
tells us is "the ideal in one ’5 life" (55) is crucial to Anna’s
happiness. Stein goes on to write "it is very lonely living with (the
ronance) lost" (55). Wood speculates that Anna’s insistent manath
and tyranny over others is part of her struggle to cope with the loss
of Mrs. Lehntman’s friendship. However, he fails to notice tnat Anna's
tendency to take over is consistent throughout her life, and tnat Anna
has also tried with Mrs. Lehntman. Wood also fails to notice tlat Anna
does find happiness in each of her positions, and that, although the
brilliance and ronance is gone from their friendship, Anna and Mrs.
Lehntman do re-establish their relationship. However, when the
friendship collapses, it is a terrible blow for Anna.

Another word consistenly used is the word “poor." Anna is poor in
several ways. She is monetarily poor. She is continually giving up
her savings to others. "She saved and saved and always saved, and then
here and there, to this friend and flat, to one in her troubles and to
the other in her joy, in sickness, death, and weddings, or to make
young people happy, it always want, the hard earned money she had
saved" (54). "Of course, it was the good Anna’s savings tnat came in
randy" (71). She is also poor in‘the sense of being an unfortunate
victim. Poor Anna. She is forced to pretend love for the relatives
she does not love. Poor Anna. She is defeated by Mrs. Iehntman. Poor
Anna. She is forced to resign because the doctor has married and Anna
cannnot suffer being overruled by his haughty arrogant wife. Poor Anna.
Miss Mathilda goes off to another country for good. Sorrow upon

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sorrow. "Dark were these days and much she had to suffer (57).

Two other hammer words used consistently with respect to Anna are
"work" and "worry. "In the cumulative repetition of her characteristics
In the polyadjectival strings describing Anna, we are told she is
medium sized, hard working and worrying. If her life is not taken up

in scolding, it is consumed by working and worrying.

You know I work myself sick for you (29).
She worked away her appetite , her health and strength
and always for the sake of those who begged her not to
work so hard (32).
Anna endured the operation. . . but when she was once more at
work all the good effect of the several months of rest
were soon worked and worried well away (32).

Anna worked and seed hard... worked so all the time (33).
She worked and worked all day.. . and with all the work
she just managed to keep living (79).
Anna worked and thought and saved and scolded (80).
Anna could never take a rest. She must work hard through

the summer as well as through the winter (81).

There is never an end to Anna’s effort. Finally she literally works
herself to death. "The good Anna with her strong, strained, worn-out
body died" (82). It becones clear tl'at Anna is, as Gaddis asserts, a
martyr. "I gave her better things to eat tlann I had for myself," she
tells Miss Mathilda of old Katy (18). "I do everything I can and you
know I work myself sick for you," she tells Miss Mary in the fight over
the blue dressings.

The question that the reader must ask is why? _Why does Annna work

61

so hand? If power is the key and she is happiest when she is scolding
and bullying, why is her life so difficult and why does she drive
herself, slaving, as she puts it, for others? Why is her life so
arduous and troubled? This key-passage, used to introduce Anna, has
served to make her appear ridiculous when juxtaposed against the
description of her life with Miss Mathilda, the dogs, the under-
servants. On the surface it appears to be a good life, relatively free
of worries, and with "troubles" that are relatively minor and
inconsequential.

Close examination of Stein’s patterns of repetition, however,

reveal that the key to this question is the word "right:" "the right

 

thing," "the gighg way." Anna is of South German catholic stock and has
very strong ideas about what is good and what is had. "She did try so
hard to do the best she knew" (58). This word "right" is repeated again
and again, both by Stein in describing Anna’s behavior and by Anna

herself:

Anna always had a finm old world sense of what was the right
way for a girl to do (24).

She never compromised herself...in what was the right thing
for a girl to wear (40).

To her thinking, in her stubborn, faithful, german soul,
this was the right way for a girl to do (32).
She ain’t got no sense what’s the right way to do (43).
It ain't right, Mrs. Iehntman, to do so (44).

The young people nowadays have no sense at all of what's
the right way for them to do (54).

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Anna has fixed in her mind what _s_h_gn_i_l_d_ be and she will not be swayed.
"Anna was, as usual, determined for the right" (42). She also believes
it is her duty to entrench this idea in the minds of others. "Now it
was not only other girls and the colored man, and dogs, and cats, and
horses and her parrot, but her cheery master, jolly Dr. Shonjen, whom
she could guide and constantly rebuke to his own good" (37).

The firmness and fervour with which Anna holds to these principles

are enphasized by Stein in her subtle and ironic use of Biblical plays

on words:

The new owners were certain that this Foxy had knownn no dog
since she was in their care (12).

Not tlat Julia Lehntman was pleasant in the good Anna’s
sight (39).

The brother ’s wife had not found favour in our good Anna's
sight (49).

Her daughters were well trained, quiet, obedient, well
dressed girls, and yet our good Anna loved them not,
nor their mother, nor any of their ways (49).

The good Annna did not weep for poor old Baby. Nay, she
lad not time even to feel lonely, for with the good Anna it

was sorrow upon sorrow (75).

By using these Biblical references, Stein is entrenching the strength
and fervour of Anna’s beliefs into the reader ’5 mind. She is also, at
a subliminal level, attenpting to hook the reader into accepting that,
in her fervour, Anna is in the right.

At this point, we must return to the use of the word "good" as a

tag. "Good," as noted, seemed to be used indiscrinminately, and in places

63

when Anna is not being good. We find the "good Anna" when she is lying
about Peter, when she is having her troubles trying to dominate Miss
Mathilda, when she is favoring the children of Mrs. Drehten over her
own nieces, when she is disobeying her religion to visit the medium.

But closer examination reveals a pattern in the way "good" is used
throughout the text . In Chapter One , we are introduced to Anna when she
is working for Miss Mathilda. Then in Cl'apter Two, we are taken back in
time to Anna’s emigration from Germany and her first position with Miss
Mary. The tag "good" appears only twice while Anna is working for Miss
nary until Anna’s first operation, when she has worked and slaved and
worried herself to the bone so that she is never really well again. As
she grows older and works l'arder and becones more and more set in her
ways, the use of the word "9 " appears more and more insistently.
Most of the uses of "good" occur in the latter half of Anna’s life.

In direct opposition to the word "g " we find the word "bad.
"Bad" primarily occurs in reference to others in the story, to their

actions and their situations in life:

"You bad dog, " Anna said to Peter tl'at night. "You bad dog"
(11).
Molly had a bad tenper and always said ugly dreadful swear

words (14).

Sallie ’s chief badness... was the butcher boy (19).

She spent the evenings when Anna was away, in conpany with
this bad boy (20).
This was as bad as it could be (44).

Mrs. Drehten who with her clnief trouble, her bad husband...(80).

64

Anna does do a few "bad" things, such as bargaining snarply to get
things at "a little less," or not going to mass. And then things tend
to go wrong for her. But she also deceives people "for their good" and
when she tells Dr. Shonjen wfat she las done her deed is not really a
sin anymore and she doesn't have to confess to the father and do
penance.

"Bad" is used in one significant episode in relation to Anna
herself. This instance, which refers directly to Anna's behavior,
occurs during Anna’s visit to the fortune teller. "It was very bad to
go to a wonann who tells fortunes...the german priest. ..always said tnat
it was very bad to do things so..." (58). But this enphasis is
countered by "But wnat else now could the good Anna do? She was so
mixed and bothered in her mind, and so troubled with this life that was
all wrong, though she did try so hard to do the best she knew" (58).

The 'badness' of her action is rationalized away with the excuse that
Anna is terribly mixed up and does not know where to turn. Tnerefore,

we are led to assune that it is excusable, and not her fault.

William James, in his book, Psychology wrote:

 

An act has no ethical quality wfatever unless it be
chosen out of several all equally possible. To sustain
theargunents forthegoodcourseandkeepthemeverbefore
us, to stifle our longing for more flowery ways, to keep
the foot unflinchingly on the arduous path, these are
characteristic ethical energies. But more tlan these;

for these but deal with the means of conpassing interests
9
already felt by them to be suprene.

Jannes ’ words bring us back to Stein '5 key-passage, "Anna led an arduous

64

65

and troubled life." Her choice of the word "arduous" when we keep in
mind the profound influence William James had upon her life, cannot
have been merely coincidental . Goodness and doing the right thing are,
to Anna, suprene. She is struggling to do wfat she feels is right,
forever working to keep her feet and those of others unflinchingly on
the gigfi path.

In order to understand Annna fully, we must also examine Stein’s
use of repetition on a larger scale. Stein '8 idea that history repeats
itself in this type of deternmined character, and that nothing changes
is embodied in Anna’s history. Anna’s life does not change measurably,
nor do her circumstances. Thin, tired, worn, she becomes only
progressively more thin, more tired, and more worn until she is worn
out and dies. She moves from one servant situation to another, each one
a nearly exact repetition of the fornner. Her history repeats itself
again and again until her death.

Not only does she not believe, neither does she even conceive
that she might better herself or change her life or go anywhere beyond
her servant status. She was born of lower middle class south German
stock and tfat is where she will stay. So ingrained is her sense of her
’place' she will never sit in the parlor evenings, not even when the
snnell of new paint in the kitchen makes her sick. She always stands
up while she talks with Miss Mathilda. Anna’s and other characters
accept their fate witnout question. This blind acceptance permeates the

story :

It was a family life the good Annna very much approved...
with a german’s feeling for the masterhood in men, she was

docile to the surly father and rarely rubbed him the wrong

66

way (46).

It is only in such a close tie such as marriage that
influence can mount and grow always stronger with the
years and never meet with a decline. It can only happen
so when there is no way to escape. (54).

Mrs. Drehten was a large, worn, patient gernnan woman, with
a soft face, lined, yellow brown in color and with the
look tlat cones from a german husband to obey. (69).

It is wonderful how poor people love to take advice from
people do are friendly and above them, from people who
read in books and who are good. (70).

Ben in her dress, Anna "knew so well the kind of ugliness

appropriate to each rank in life" (40).

She knows her place, and does not aspire to better it. Hers is a
recurring lifestyle with no way out. The essence of Anna, ner being and
her state in life, do not change.

By using Stein ’5 repetitions as a guide to tfe cfaracter of Anna,
we derive a totally different picture of the good Anna. We find tlat
the criticism is not wholly wrong, but neither is it correct in tne
sense tfat the critics have failed to capture the character of who Anna
is. Yes, she is domineering and manipulative - because sne feels tlat
this behavior is her duty She is also a victim of manipulation,
because she is so genuinely concerned with what is right for others.
Mrs. Lehntman, and everybody else know that "Anna (has) a feeling
heart" and they have no shame in taking everything she has. Had she
lived to be old, her fear of dying in poverty would probably have been
realized.

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Stein’s narrator in "The Good Anna" has been cal led an unobtrusive
narrator. But she actually is obtruding, blatantly so, not only with
the occasional "you see" and "remember," she is subtly and deliberately
forcing, thrusting, her opinion onto the reader. "Good" is a value
judgment. It is literally pounded into tl'e reader’s head and not only
when Anna is being good. Altl'ough it does not appear so, because she
uses the third person narrator, Stein las in effect entered the mind of
her character. She is seeing life through Anna's eyes, as it looks to
Anna.

Stein also reinforces the effect of seeing life through Anna’s
eyes at a subtle level by enploying a syntax which has been manipulated
to simulate German immigrant speech patterns. The syntax has been
rearranged to sound as if the syntactic rules of German are still

prevalent in Anna’s speech. For exannple:

Miss Mathilda every day put off the scolding (15).

Boys love always better to be done for and be made comfortable
and full of eating (25).

Mrs. Lehntman in her work loved best to deliver young girls
(31).
Edgar had now been for some years away from hone (32).
Andyou sogoodtothemAnnaall thetime (50).

She had every day her busy time. .. and every night she lad
her happy time (51).
Doctor got married now very soon (57).
Then they did the operation (82) .

These examples are in addition to Anna's speech, which is structured to

68

reflect interference from German syntactic formation:

Miss Mary. Of course I go help you to get settled and
then I think I cone back and stay right here in Bridgepoint. You
know my brother he is here and all his family, and I think it
would be not right to go away from them so far, and you know you
don 't want me now so much Miss Mary when you are all together

there in Curden (35);

We must digress for a moment to confront the issue of Anna’s
alleged "inarticulateness." The incidents Walker cite are when Anna
must confront Miss Mary, first, with the issue of the blue dressings
from the bedroom and then with the news that Anna will not continue to
work for Miss Mary after Jane marries. In the second situation she
relies on Mrs. Lehntnman to help her through this tennse scene. "Anna’s
words had not the strength of meaning they were meant to have." Walker
focuses on this statenent and the "gramnnatical errors" in Anna’s speech
to denonstrate the inadequacy of Annnna ’3 language to express herself,
ignoring the sentence tnat "even courageous Mrs. Lehntnnan, efficient,
impulsive and conplacent as sl'e was and not deeply concerned in tne
event, felt awkward, abashed and almost guilty in that mild, helpless
presence" (34). It it not Anna’s inability to express herself so much
as her anxiety caused by the situation rather than the linguistic
impotence to which Walker attributes it. The "errors" in Anna ’5 speech
are not "errors," but the interference of her first language as she
uses her second. She is using English words with German syntax. In
other situations Annna uses language to her own advantage very
effectively. Anna is certainly able to manipulate the tradesmen to give

her bargains; she is able to same and strike fear in the hearts of the

69

teamsters over their treatnnent of animals. Most of the descriptions of
Anna are her talking, complaining, teasing, scolding. She is an
extrenely verbal person. This is not linguistic impotence at all.

The story is full of exanmples of Anna's verbosity:

But she truly loved it best when she could scold (37).

like all who had to do with the good Anna, Mrs.

Lehntman dreaded her f irnm cfaracter, her vigorous judgments

and the bitter fervour of her tongue (42) .

Then Anna would tell these histories to her doctor.. .And the
good Anna full of the coquetry of pleasing would bridle with

her angular, thin, spinster body, straining her stories and

herself to please (38).

The boy was easier to scold, for scoldings never sank in

very deep, and indeed he liked them very well for they brought

with them. .. lively teasing, and good jokes (39).

And then he would listen and laugh so loud, as she told him

stories of wfat had happened on that day (51).

The different devices of "German" syntax, the cumulative
insistence of "good" and the technique of making the reader see tfe
world through Anna ’5 eyes, work together to denonstrate that the
"goodness" in Anna is in Anna’s mind. Not that Anna is so good, but
that she is struggling unflinchingly along the arduous path to 5 good
and do what is right, and she sees herself as being good.

Seen in this light, Anna is not an overbearinng, tedious, miserable
cfaracter, but rather a tragic figure. Caught in a life from which sl'e
cannot escape, struggling to gain sane control over her circumstances,

she is living tle best life she knows how. She does good. She is of

70

the type Stein categorized as "needing to love." The people she works
for and takes care of are happy. All her manipulating is done in the
best interest of others.

The word "hard" also appears continually throughout the story.
Anna is a harddworking person slaving to get by. The only thing that
is easy in her life is her death. "Miss Annie died easy" .(83). She
lived and she died. And that was all.

I have mentioned before the issue of irony. Certainly, Stein has
been ironic in sone instances, as indicated above. But we must look
beneath the surface irony of Anna's character. There is some irony.
But not irony that provokes ridicule; irony that promotes, instead,
compassion. As seen by others, Annnna is a slightly ridiculous figure.
But when one is inside looking'out, the view is different. There is no

irony, just hard work and worry and finally, an easy death to end it
all.

CHAPTERTHREE

"THE GENTLE LENA"

Of the three stories in Three Lives "The Gentle Iena" has been

 

passed over in the critical literature in favor of the more conplex and
interesting Melanctha or the more strident Annnna. "The Gentle Lena"
appears on the surface to be a simple, albeit tragic story. The
bareness of the prose, the deliberate understatement, and again, the
innocent narrative voice have distracted all but the most careful of
readers from the intricate web, woven by the repetitions, which reveal
the claracters in great depth and a complexity of structure tnat make
this as technically acconplished a piece of writing as the other two.
Few critics have afforded Lena more than a passing glance and find
little to say, summing up the story in a sentence or two. Again, the
criticism is divided as to how to interpret tne story.

For example, Richard Bridgnnan writes tnat the story "describes a
simple creature who desires only the kindness of others. She is
manipulated, notably by an aunt wlo makes a marriage match for her. . .
After Iena and her fiance marry, they have a reasonably contented
relationship until she dies in childbirth."1

Frederick Hoffman, on the other hand, reaches a much less cheerful
interpretation when he writes that this story is "almost pure patios.
[Iena] suffers experience witnout really understanding wfat is

happening to her. The manners of her world require of her decisions

72

tnat she is scarcely able to conprehend... Lena’s patnos cores from her
immaturity, her inability to appreciate any crisis personally; she dies
witnout really understanding why she has lived. She is passively a
victim of the failure of persons to respond to a convention and to live
within it."2

DeKoven focuses on Lena's "gentleness": "Iena dies of her
gentleness. She is passive, dreanmy, absent, slow witted, out of touch
with her feelings."3 Walker turns her attention to Lena’s silence in
the face of the manipulations of all those who have authority over her,
concluding that Iena "lacks the resources to defend herself adequately
against the verbal barrages to which she is constantly subjected.
Consequently, she becomes the passive victim of the desires, and the
discourse of others. . . . For her, marriage and children only increase
her isolation and alienation."

My own reading, based on a careful study of the repetitions in
"Lena" leads me to agree most closely with Frederick Hoffman and his
sympathetic reading of the story. I will show in the course of the
study that Lena's married life is definitely not contented, and that
tnere is more to her passive acceptance of her fate than mere
gentleness or linguistic innpotence.

Stein's style has evolved; "The Gentle Iena" is much different
from "The Good Anna." The irony has a bitter quality; the tone is less
jolly; the narrator is still innocent and straightforward, but no
longer cheerful. There is little to like in this story. Few of the
claracters are sympathetic or even likable except the cook, wlo is the
only one wno really cares for Iena.

In the title "The Gentle Lena," Stein gives Iena the ’tag’

"gentle." Stein sets up the same expectations with this word'qentle"in

73

the title as she did with "good" in "The Good Anna" and critics have
characteristically conplied by focusing on this ’tag' and taking the
word at face value as Lena’s most salient character trait. However,
the experienced reader who has caught the irony in "good" approaches
"The Gentle Lena" with the idea tlat this ’tag’ might also be either
ironic or possibly be used in a contradictory sense.

Contrary to "The Good Anna," Stein does not immediately create
irony by showing the reader Iena in situations which contradict the
’tag. ’ Instead, she reinforces the impression of "gentleness" by her
choice of words and scenes which enhance the image of a gentle sweet
wonann. Stein crystallizes the essence of Iena in the first paragraph.
"Iena was patient, gentle, sweet and gernnan." With the gradual
accumulation of adjectives, Stein rounds out the character over the

next few pages:

She stood in the hallway. . . in her unexpectant and unsuffering
german patience. . . (239)
all liked the simple, gentle, gernnan Iena very well (240).
Lena was a brown and pleasant creature (240) .
. Iena had the flat chest... of the patient and enduring
working wonan... and the eyes, simple and hunan, with tl'e

earth patience of the working, gentle, german wonan (240-241).

Use of the word "the" in the sentence "the working, gentle, gernman

woman" suggests tnat these traits characterize a certain type of wonan.

Stein ’5 description of Lena is very similar to tnat of Mrs. Drehten win

was "a mild, worn, unaggressive nature tl'at never cared to influence or

to lead... a large, worn, patient german wonan, with a soft face,

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lined, yellow brown in color" (69). Both wonen are in subservient
positions, Mrs. Drehten to her husband and many sons, Iena to a
pleasant unexacting mistress. Altl'ough Mrs. Drehten's life is painted
as sheer drudgery "with a german husband to obey, and seven solid girls
and boys to bear and rear" conpared to Lena’s relatively easy job of
caring for several small children, the similarity of descriptions
suggest that both belong to one of Stein ’5 types of personalities --
tnat being an old-world german working wonan is synonynnous with being
patient and enduring in the face of life, never questioning, never
conplaining.

As in "The Good Annna," this story begins during a time when Lena's
life is happy. Her life is as sinnple and pleasant as she is. She las a
pleasant enployer, a surrogate mother in the cook who scolds her for
her own good, and friends who take great pleasure in teasing and
confusing her.

Stein enphasizes the happiness of her life by repetitions of the
words "pleasant" and "peaceful." "It was pleasant, all this life for
Iena." "It was all a peaceful life for Iena, almost as peaceful as a
pleasant leisure." In the third repetition: "Yes it was all a peaceful
life for Lena" the affirnnative "Yes," is added to even further
enphasize the goodnness of Lena’s life.

Many of the verbs describing Lena’s life are in the passive voice
or the modal: "Iena had been brought from Germany;" "she was sent out
into the park;" "Iena had to soothe her... Lena had to pick it up and
hold it." Other verbs are simply stative: "Lena was patient;" "Iena was
a brown and pleasant creature;" Iena had the flat clest.. of the

patient and eduring working woman. " In contrast to Anna, wlo was

always doing -- scolding, grumbling, cooking, joking, managing,

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shouting -- we rarely see Iena doing more tlan standing in a hallway
placidly calling the children awake or sitting on a park bench
listening to her friends talk and allowing them to tease her. The verbs
in this introduction accentuate this sense of passivity and the placid
peacefulness of both Lena herself and her existence. '

Stein singles out one incident from the four years of Lena’s
service. Lena has gotten sone green paint on her finger, which she
tastes. Her teasing friend Mary tells her seriously tfat it is poison.
Iena becones "a little troubled" and wonders whetner it actually is
poison, but rubbing her finger on her dress and wondering is the extent
of the action she takes. All their teasing only makes a 'gentle Stir'
within her. Because of Stein '5 empl'asis on this event, and the fact
that she singles it out for the telling, she is shifting the reader ’5
attention from Lena’s placid gentleness to the fact tlat Iena is also
slow, perhaps a little dim-witted.

But still, people like Iena, she does her work well and cares for
the children conscientiously and kindly. The tag "gentle" is an
appropriate one .

Stein chooses to tell us tnat Lena’s pleasant life was all made
possible by her aunt, Mrs. Haydon, who rescued her from a "harsh and
dreary" existence in Germany, where tle people were "not gentle and tl'e
men when tley were glad were very boisterous and would lay hold of her
and roughly tease her" (246).

The word ’german’ is also included within the tag for Mrs. Haydon,
but her description sharply contrasts with Iena ’5. Instead of being

passive and gentle, she is firm and hard and forceful, a different

type:

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This aunt... was a hard, ambitious, well meaning, german wonan
(242).
[She] was a short, stout, hard built, german wonan... all a
conpact and well hardened mass... (243).
[She] was a good and generous woman (244).

Mrs. Haydon was a real, good, gernman wonan (259).

Stein conments tfat ’she always hit the ground very firmly and
conpactly as she walked" and this vivid phrase symbolizes the way she
conducts life as a whole. Her children (with the exception of her son
whom she has spoiled and "who was not honest") have been brought up
firnmly. Her manner reminds the reader of that of Anna, dictating to
others "for their own good." When Mrs. Haydon returns to Germany for a
visit she feels herself very grand and important and patronizes her
relatives, managing, directing and advising. Since she is so "wealthy
and important" she is allowed to take charge. She decides it would be a
fine thing to take one of her brother’s children to America and give
her a new life. "Mrs. Haydon with all her hardness had wisdom" (245),
and so, in her wisdom, chooses Lena.

Her choice is based upon several factors: "Lena's age just suited
Mrs. Haydon ’s purpose... Iena was so still and docile, she would never
want to do things her own way. And then too, Mrs. Haydon. . could feel
the rarer strain there was in Iena" (245). The reader, in retrospect,
will notice tlat Stein has used this odd turn of phrase several pages
earlier in her description of Iena: "The rarer feeling tl'at there was
with Iena, shoed in all the even quiet of her body movenents, but in
all it was the strongest in the patient, old world ignorance, and earth

made pureness of her brown, flat, soft featured face" (241). In a

77

characteristic manner, Stein does not explain wfat she means by this
phrase "rarer feeling," but leaves it for the reader to discover. At
this point in the narrative we have no clues except perhaps to
conjecture tfat it is Lena’s extrene docility and passivity, which is
in direct contrast to coarseness and ungentleness of the people of
Gernnany, the dictatorial manner of Mrs. Haydon and the unpleasant
arrogance of the two daughters Bertha ananathilda. This idea is
further reinforced by the action Lena’s family takes. In a group
decision, the family decides they will send Iena to American since she
is "not an important daughter in the family" (245).

Once hone in Annerica, Mrs. Haydon finds Iena a position as servant
and then sets about finding a husband for her. This is all in Lena’s
best interest. "Mrs. Haydon was a real, good, german wonan and she did
really mean to do well by her niece Lena " (259). It will be a good
marriage.

The man she chooses is fromna family who is very similar to hers.
"The elder Kreders... were hard, good german people" (251). Hernnan, wno
is good, and like his father, thrifty, careful and "very saving," is
also like Iena. Best of all, he is obedient. "Both Lena and Herman
were saving and good workers and neither of them ever wanted their own
way."

At this point Stein sets up the word "gentle" as a tag for Herman

also, which she continues to enploy throughout the story:

He was a gentle soul (251).
He was gentle and he never said much (254).
He always had a gentle, teder way when he held (his children)

(278).

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But, in sharp contrast to the gentle placid pleasantness of her
early life, Lena’s marriage is a disaster, and she steadily declines
from being a person wno was "always clean and decent in her clothes and
in her person" (268), to soneone who "just dragged around and was
careless with her clothes and all lifeless, and she acted always and
lived on just as if she had no feeling" (276). She steadily fades into
nonexistence and finally dies, although she has been dead in spirit
long before. And after she is gone, life goes on as before. No one even
misses her except the good german cock. She has lived a totally
inconsequential life. She was there and then she was gone, hardly
causing a ripple or stir in anyone else's life.

It is Lena’s passiveness and unwillingness or inability to assert
herself or make her own decisions that forms the central focus of the
story. She alway§_gives way, without question, to a stronger
character’s will. Again, there is no rising action or plot per se;
Stein’s narrative consists of a simple series of episodes that mark the
monotonous life, decline and final demise of Lena. It is this
passivity, this lack of control, this helplessness on which Stein
focuses her attention and here again she uses repetition to pound this
idea relentlessly into the reader’s mind.

As in."The Good Anna," Stein employs ’hammer' words, words used
extensively to foreground certain ideas and enphasize eitner actions or
situations.

One of tle most noticeable lexical repetitions is the word
"scold." This word occurs thirty-five times throughout the text and
Lena is on the receiving end of most of the scoldings. There are

obviously different types and degrees of scolding. The cook scolds her

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a great deal, but, as Stein asserts, "The good incessant wonan really
only scolded so for Lena's good" (239). Mrs. Haydon scolds ner, often
and hard, and not necessarily kindly, but Stein is quick to add "but
then she was very good to Iena" (253), and, of course, in her mind at
least, this is also for Lena's own good. It is Mrs. Kreder’s scolding,
however, tlat is so vicious, destructive and awful. "The only real
trouble that came to Lena with their living all four together, was the
way old Mrs. Kreder scolded. Iena had always been used to being
scolding, but this scolding of old Mrs. Kreder was very different from
the way she ever before had had to endure it" (269). It is Mrs.
Kreder 's unrelenting and nasty scolding tl'at contributes to Iena 's
downfall.

By far the most prevalent ’hammer’ is the word "good." In sheer
quantity it outweighs all the other repetitions, occurring ninety-seven
times through forty pages of text. In a noticeable repetition of "The

Good Anna,"‘good'is used as a tag in reference to several characters,

the cook, for example:

The good cook sonetimes made Iena cone to see her. Iena
wouldconewithher baby andwatchthegoodwonancooking,

and listen to her sonetimes a little, the way she used to, while

the good german wonan scolded her (277).

It is also used in reference to the Kreders: "The Kreders, everybody
knnew, had saved up all their monney, and they were rard, good gernnan
people..." (251).

The use of "good" is literally hannmered in with reference to Mrs.

Haydon, not only as a tag, but as as adjective describing the good

80

things she does for Iena and also describing the manner in which she

treats her niece:

Mrs. Haydon was a good and generous wonan, and she patronized
her parents grandly (244).

Then, too, Mathilda would get very mad when her mother had
Iena at their parties, and when she talked about how good Iena was
to certain german mothers in wnose sons, pernaps, Mrs. Haydon
might find Lena a good husband (248).

Mrs. Haydon felt more and more every year that she had done
right to bring Iena back with her, for it was all coming
out just as she had expected. Iena was good and never wanted her
own way, she was learning English and saving all her wages, and

soon Mrs. Haydon would get her a good husband (250).

As in "The Good Anna" it becones immediately apparent that "good,"
especially when describing Mrs. Haydon is used ironically. The
"goodness" of Mrs. Haydon is primarily in her own estimation of
herself. In fact, as Dekoven has pointed out, Mrs. Haydon is actually a
monster, and it is her "goodness" and her belief that she has "done the
right thing" for Lena that actually leads to Lena's destruction.5
Note, in particular, her self-righteous little speech when she is

berating Lena after Herman has jilted her:

Did Lena think it gave Mrs. Haydon any pleasure to work so
hard to make Iena happy and get her a good husband, and
then Lena was so tlankless and never did anything tl'at
anybody wanted.. .(Her husband) always said she was too

good and nobody every thanked her for it, and there Iena

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was always standing stupid and not answering anything
anybody wanted. Iena. . . who never did anything for her
except to take away her money and here was her aunt who
tried so hard and was so good to her and treated her just

like one of her own children... (256).

Stein is stressing -- hammering, in fa -- the point that Lena oes
everything to her kindness and charity. And all witlout any thanks. Her
stress on Lena's tnanklessness implies that she has extended herself
above and beyond the call of duty on Lena’s belalf, which only serves
to enphasize the irony. Mrs. Haydon derives great sel f-righteous
satisfaction in taking charge and appearing to be the "grande dame"
from Anmerica.

Only the kind cook sees through the self-righteous exterior to the
real Mrs. Haydon, and she tells Lena so when she says that "people who
always thought they were so much never did really do things right for
anybody" (259).

This repetition of "good" is even more sinister when used in
reference to Herman because superficially Herman does appear to be
good. Even Bridgnnan is apparently deceived by Herman 's "goodness,"
when he remarks tfat Herman’s marriage to Iena is "reasonably
contented." "Good" is not in general used as part of Herman’s 'tag. ’ It
is more often used in reference to Iena as being a good wife for him
and the marriage being good for him. But Herman's 'goodness’ is given
great weight in his sister ’5 opinion of him and also what he should do:

She liked it that he was so good...She tlought it would do

him lots of good to get married...He was good, her brother
Hernman, and it would surely do hinm good to get married (265).

82

Wtenn Hernnan runs away from hone to this sister in New York, she uses
the word repeatedly to coax him to go back and marry Iena. In her

speech to him she tells him:

"Your manna she is thinnking only what is good for you
to have... and she talks always about how happy she will
be, when she sees her Herman married to a nice girl, and
then when she fixed it all up so good for you... It do
you good really Herman to get married... It do you good
Hernman to get married. .. You always been good to me
Hernnan and I know you always be good to that Lena..."(264-

266) .

The word "good" carries several of its different meanings in this
context. When describing Herman it implies honorable, decent, worthy,
reliable, kind. Herman’s sister believes that Herman has those
qualities and will be kind and honorable to his wife Iena. The marriage
will also be good f3 him, in the sense tfat it will be beneficial to
him. His life will be the better for the marriage.

His sister is right. The marriage does turn out to be good for
him. When his children are born he really comes alive and becones the
person he had the potential of becoming. He is happy and content.

Unfortunately, the marriage is definitely not good for Iena. "These
were really bad days for poor Lena" (275). Browbeaten by her mother-in-
law, she starts to sink. Stein ’s language here is understated to the
extrene. Stein tells us very little about wfat actually lappens except
for clues slipped in when she mentions the scoldings, "the awful way"
Mrs. Kreder treats Iena, and the cook’s repeated renarks about how

83

Iena spends so much time crying. We read tfat Hernman, of course, is
"always was real good to her" (275). In actuality, hoever, he does
very little to help her. He is worried and sees what his mother is
doing to poor Iena, but it is more important to avoid struggle than to
stand up for Iena.
"Herman really did not knnow very well how he could do to

help Iena to understand it. He could never answer his

mother back to help Iena, that never would make things any

better for her, and he never could feel in himself any way

to comfort Lena, to make her strong not to hear his mother,

in all the awful ways she always scolded. It just worried

Herman to have it like tfat all the time around him" (270).

And so he does very little. Until the baby is born. Then he makes a
nominal attenpt to help Iena by moving to a house next door and taking
over most of the housework and care of the babies, but it is clear this
is not out of love for Iena. "Herman never really cared about his wife,
Iena. The only things Hernman ever really cared for were his babies"
(275). And by the time he moves Iena, it is already too late. "This did
not seem to make much change now for Lena.. . she just dragged around
...all lifeless" (276). Finally she dies. Gentle Herman, on the other
hand, is thriving. As Iena progressively becones more lifeless he grows
happier, more conpetent and content with his children. Once Iena is
dead his life is very regular and peaceful.

It is significant that Stein drops the ’tag' "gentle" for Iena on
the third page of the story. In these first three pages "gentle"
appears six times. It is used as an adjective in the 'tag' describing

Iena, twice to describe the reaction she l'as to the teasing of her

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friends once to describe her voice as she wakens the little ones each
morning. "Gentle" is discontinued after this page and is only used
once more on page 247, and does not occur in reference to Iena until
page 277, immediately before Iena’s death: "Sonetimes Iena would wake
up a little and get back into her face her old, gentle, patient, and
unsuffering sweetness..." Then "gentle" is used once more, as the good
german cook remembers Lena as she was before her marriage: "how nice
Iena had looked.. . and how her voice had been so gentle and sweet
sounding..."(279). Of the sixteen occurrences of the word "gentle" in
"The Gentle Iena," only nine refer to Iena. "Gentle" instead shifts to
the description of Herman and, when it does, it is replaced for Iena by
the use of "stupid." This adjective "stupid"is used a total of sixteen
times throughout the story, eleven referring to Iena. It is
particularly hammered in in Mrs. Haydon ’5 speech to Iena when she is

arranging the marriage with Hernnan:

’Why you stand there so stupid. . . ’ Mrs. Haydon was furious
with this stupid Iena. .. ’You stand there so stupid and don’t
answer... Answer me, Iena, don’t you like Hernman Kreder?

He is a fine young fellow, almost too good for you, Iena,

when you stand there so stupid and don’t make no answer. ’
(252).

This phrase "standing there so stupid,"is repeated four times in as
many pages. Iena’s bovine acceptance of raving her life ordered for her
is driven hone to the reader by Lena’s answer to the charge: "I didn’t
know you wanted me to say nothing. I do wfatever you tell me it ’5 right
for me to do" (253).

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"Stupid" is dropped just as abruptly as "gentle" was and is
replaced on page 269, by the adjective "lifeless" to describe Lena's
state, occurring seven times in the last four pages. "Lifeless" is also
used in conjunction with several others as ’hammer' words: "dull" and

"careless" to repeatedly emphasize the downward spiral Lena is on:

And so they began all four to live in the Kreder house
together and Lena began soon with it to look careless and
a little dirty and to be more lifeless with it. (269)

She was scared and still and lifeless... she could only sit

still and be scared, and dull, and lifeless...(276).

She just dragged around and was careless with her clothes
and all lifeless...(276).

She was always careless, and dirty and a little dazed, and
lifeless (277).

But mostly Iena just lived along and was careless in her
clothes, and dull and lifeless (278).

Iena has deteriorated from a pleasant, reasonably contented girl
to a dirty, slovenly spiritless shadow'who cries constantly. Finally,
she is literally lifeless, dying in childbirth. "When the baby was come
out at last, it was like its mother lifeless... When it was all over
Lena had died too, and nobody knew just how it had happened to her"
(279).

Gentle Herman lives on, happily.

It has become increasingly clear that one must not only note the
repetitions as they refer to Lena, but also as they refer to Herman. A
closer exanmination will slow the ways Stein juxtaposes Herman with Iena

for a vivid picture of both. I will first discuss several of the key

86

repetitions enployed to describe Iena, and then return to slow how they
directly contrast with the descriptions enployed for Herman.

It will be recalled that the 'key-passage’ is "a relatively long
repetition embodying... one of the fundamental ideas of [the work]" and
tfat "the repetition is likely to be more exact tlnann in sone other
types because of its length and importance."6 In "The Gentle Iena"
there are several sentences which we could possibly consider to be a
key passage due to their importance to our understanding of Lena 's
cfaracter. The exact repetitions of these phrases alert us to their
significance.

The first occurs four times (245, 246, 262, 268) in the story:
"She was always sort of dreamy and not there. " .

Lena's dreaminess and ’absence’, as it were, contribute to her
death through her lack of control over her own life. The sense in which
this sentence is used does not so much suggest an other-wordliness as a
glazed-eyed simple ignorance about not only what is happening to her,
but life in general.

This impression is driven in by two other near-exact repetitions
tl'at occur again and again througl‘out the story:

"She did not think..."

"She did not know. . ."

The phrase "she did not know" appeared first during the incident
with the paint. Iena lad sucked her finger a good deal, and was then
told it was poison, which troubled her. Stein began to clue us to the
extent of Lena’s stupidity when she wrote, "And Iena never knew for
certain whether it was really poison." The next repetition occurred

during Mrs. Haydon 's trip to Germany. Stein proceeded, through a triple

87

repetition to reiterate just how dinm-witted Iena really was:

Iena did not really know that she did not like [her life
in Germany] She did not know that she was always dreanmy
and not there. She did not think whether it would be
different for her away off there in Bridgepoint. Mrs.
Haydon took her and got her different kinds of dresses
andthentookherwiththemtothesteanner. Lenadid
not really know what it was that had happened to her" (246).

The second occurrence of this phrase occurred during the trip across

the ocean to America. Lena was very seasick, and absolutely helpless.

"Poor Lena had no poer to be strong in such trouble. She
did not know how to yield to her sicknness nor endure. She lost
all her little sense of being in her suffering. She
was so scared, and then at her best, Iena, Mo was patient,
sweet and quiet, lad not self-control, nor any active courage"

(247).

The word "trouble" was used to describe such a trivial situation that
at this point, Iena was almost contenptible. The word "stupid" had not
been introduced yet into the story, but by this time even the most
sympathetic reader could not help but wonder at the dullness of a girl
wrodidnotevenknowhowtotakecareof herself. men, atthebottom
of the sanne page, the reader encountered Mr. Haydon 's sunnmation of
her, "she was for hinm stupid, and a little simple, and very dull and
sure sone day to need help and to be in trouble" (247), it was not
difficult to agree.

The repetitions continued:

Lena never knew that she did not like [the Haydon girls]
either. She did not knnow tfat she was only happy with the
other quicker girls (248).

[She] never really knew that she was slighted (249).
Lena did not know how all the Haydons felt (249).
She did not know really what [getting married] was (254).

...yet she did not really know wl‘at it was, this tnat was
about to happen to her. (254)

Iena did not know wfat is was that she had done, only she
was not going to be married... (257).

Iena never had any sense of how she should make people stand
round for her (260).

She never did know how to show herself off for wfat she was
really (260).

(she) did not know how to save things right (270).

The only time Iena does know anything is after her disgrace at being
left at the altar. "She knew very well how Mary meant is all... Iena
knew very well that her aunt was right" (261), and when her aunt calls
her back on Sunday, it is "easy, even for Iena, to see that her aunt
was not really angry with her" (261). But tnat is the extent of her
'knowing' or being aware of anything that is going on. We can see that
Frederick Hoffman is correct in his interpretation of Iena. Iena does
not understand anything that nappens to her. She seems to live in a dim
haze failing to make sense of what is going on around her. Her
understanding of life is limited to James’ ’knowledge of acquaintance'
-- an elenentary, vaguely intuited, limited grasp of the world around
her. Perhaps this is the "rarer feeling" that Mrs. Haydon sensed in her

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- an utter naivete, the "little sense of being" (247), the pure
unspoiled nature, "the patient, old world ignorance, and earth.made
pureness" (241) which would make her putty in the hands of a wonan who
gained a feeling of power fromnmanipulating and directing.

In the light of the incidents Stein has chosen to relate to us,
Lena's gentleness and stupidity could almost make one sympathetic to
Mrs. Haydon. Soneone has to take her in hand. The innpact of the word
“stupid“is heightened by the pounding repetition that Lena does not know
how to do anything. And on top of that, she does not think at all.

Ever, it seems.

She did not think whether it would be different for her...
in Bridgepoint (246).
She never thought of any way to spend (her wages) (249).

Lena always saved her wages, for she never thought to spend
themn(250).
She did not think.much about Herman Kreder (252).

She did not think.much about what it meant for her to be
married (262)
She never had thought how to use (her own money) (268)

Lena had been... always clean and decent in her clothes and
in her person, but it was not because she ever thought
about it... (268).

She did not think about (the Kreders) being stingy dirty
people (269).

She never thought to take (the baby) out or to do anything
she didn't have to (277).

90

But as these phrases are continued throughout her life, as she is used
and manipulated and then abused and ignored, these repetitions begin to
take on a singular brutality, particularly when juxtaposed against the
other ’key passage’ "she did not know": "and Lena began soon.with it to
look careless and a little dirty, and to be more lifeless with it, and
nobody ever noticed much what Lena wanted, and she never really knew
herself what she needed" (269). And never thought to ask.

In the face of these two key repetitions, the word "trouble" which
wasnmitigated and given ironic overtones fromnthe trivial circumstances
in which it was used, now takes on a bitter and tragic quality.

These three phrases: "she was always dreamy and not there," "she did
not know" and "she did not think" are the key passages in Lena’s life
serving to capture the key facets of Lena’s personality.

Now it is necessary to digress and examine the ’key passages’ in
Herman’s life, which.directly contrast.with Lena’s.

As I pointed out above, the word "gentle" is used as a
descriptive ’tag’ for both Lena and Herman, although its use shifted
from the description of Iena to tfat of Herman. As the story continues
it is clear that there are other similarities between them.

calvin Brown writes that "according to any deterministic point of
view, the sanne causes will inevitably produce the same effects. As a
corollary it must follow that an author who gives consistently
objective accounts of his situations and characters will report
identical or similar happenings in identical or similar words.7 He
goes on to state that these parallels will bring the identity or
similarity between characters forcibly to the reader’s attention. These
parallels have two different purposes: either to enptasize the

similarity of the subjects or to point out the basic similarities with

91

significant differences. By virtue of their being set in repetitions,
the differences or the similarities will stand out sharply.

The most striking of these parallel repetitions which describe
both Iena and Herman’s life patterns is, of course, the repeated phrase
that both Iena and Herman do everything flat the cook, Mrs. Haydon, Mr.
and Mrs. Kreder, in short, everyone has ever told them to do.

Variant phrases of this idea occur seven times with respect to
Iena. Mrs. Haydon chooses Lena to cone to Annerica precisely because
"Iena was so still and docile, she would never want to do things her
own way" (245). And Iena obediently cones to sped every Sunday with
her aunt even when she would rather spend it with her friends because
it "never canne to (her)... to do sonething different from wfat was

expected of her, just because she would like it tlat way better." (247)
Mrs. Haydon feels she has done right to bring Lena to America because

"Iena was good and never wanted her own way" (250). When Mrs. Haydon
berates her for standing there so stupid and not annswering, Lena
replies, "I didn’t hear you say you wanted I should say anything to
you. I didn’t know you wanted me to say nothing. I do whatever you
tell me it’s right for me to do" (253).

She does not question this marriage at all because she "always did
whatever her aunt said and expected" (264) .

In his speech cajoling Herman to go back and marry Iena, Hernnan’s
father points this out as one of the most important and marriageable
characteristics any wife could have. In fact, this is the extent of
what he sees in Lena - her docility and tnerefore her usefulness as a
wife. He and Mrs. Kreder want to Herman to marry a nice girl, one like

"Iena Mainz wro is always just so quiet and always saves up all her

92

wages, and she never wanting her own way at all like sone girls are
always all the time to have it"(264).

The phrase "always did wfatever (they) wanted" is repeated in
near-exact phrases eleven times with respect to Herman. This is, in
fact, how he is introduced into the story, the phrase tacked onto the

end of the list of his merits as if saving the best for last:

The man Mrs. Haydon wanted for Iena was a young german
american tailor, who worked with his- father. He was good and
all the fanmily were very saving, and Mrs. Haydon was sure
that this would be just right for Iena, and then too, this
young tailor always did whatever his father and his mother

wanted (250).

A variation of this phrase, "he was obedient" follows twice in the

next paragraph. The repetitions continue to the end of the story, even

through his marriage. Stein here displays her delightful sense of humor
in Mary’s speech to Iena after Herman has run off. Mary is very ’lot, ’
and gives her own version of how Hernnan is. "And poor Iena, sne was so
stupid to be sorry for losing that gawky fool who didn’t ever know what
he wanted and just said "ja" to his name and papa, like a baby" (260).
Again, it is the cook who sees through to the real Hernnan when she
says, "he is just tne way always his mother wants him, he ain’t got no
spirit in him, and so I don’t really see no help for tfat poor Iena."
(274). The real irony here, hoever, is that he does not do wfatever
they want. In his first act of disobedience, he gets "notions" and runs
off to New York to avoid this marriage. It is only after much coaxing
by both fatter and sister (with the pronise tlat new flat he will love
"sonebody [he] can boss around" (265), does he allow himself to be

93

brought back. For a while he is as he always was. "Hernnan was now again
just like he always lad been, sullen and very good, and very quiet, and
always ready to do whatever his mother and his father wanted." (267)

In direct contrast to the three phrases which claracterize Iena:
"she was always dreamy and not there," "she did not know" and "she did
not thinnk," three similar phrases are used to capture the essence of

Herman ’5 character:

"Herman knew well..."
"Herman did not know..."

"Herman had never cared. . ."

On tne one hand, Herman is portrayed as being knnowing and worldly-
wise about certain matters. Herman knows very well wl'at it means to get
married (254), that he has to bow to his parents and marry Iena (262),
and that his predictions about how this marriage was going to turn out -
have cone true (270). He also knows wlat his mother is like and how to
deal with her by working hard all day and simply not listening to her
scolding (270).

But on tne other hand, tnere are important things that Herman does
notknnowhowtodo. WlatHermandoes notknowislowtofighthis
mother to help Iena. "Herman did not knnow much about now a man could
make a struggle with a mother, to do much to keep l'er quiet, and indeed
Hernman never knew much how to make a struggle against anyone do really
wanted to nave anything badly" (270). He does try to "keep his mother
off her, with the awful way sne always scolded" (275), but in tfe face
of the repetition "Herman l'ad never cared much about his wife, Iena"

(275, 278), eleven repetitions of "Hernnan did everything his motler

 

 

-——-

94

and father wanted," and tie statenent tnat "Hernnan all his life never
wanted anything so badly, that he would really make a struggle against
any one to get it," (271) one must wonder how hard he actually tried.
At first, the reader was given the impression that Herman is as
passive. and malleable as Lena is. But here is where the similarity
ends. With the coming of his first child, Herman finds the strength to
break from his parents and take control of his own life. When Lena
becomes pregnant Herman really cones to life. Now he "even sonetimes

tried to stop his mother from scolding Iena." In one brief passage
Stein describes the total reversal that the prospect of becoming a

father makes on Hernnan:

Herman was getting really strong to struggle, for he could
see tlat Iena with tnat baby working hard inside her,
really could not stand it any longer with his mother and
the awful way she scolded. It was a new feeling Herman now
had inside him tlat made him feel he was strong to make a
struggle. It was new for Hernman Kreder really to be wanting
sonething, but Herman wanted strongly now to be a father,
and he wanted badly tnat his baby snould be a boy and
realthy. Hernnan never had cared really very much about his
father and his mother, trough always, all his life, he'nad
done everything just as they wanted, and he led never really
cared much about his wife Iena, trough he always had been
very good to her, and had always tried to keep his mother
off her, with the awful way she always scolded, but to be
really a father of a little baby, that feeling took told

of Herman very deeply. He was almost ready, so as to save

95

his baby from all trouble, to really make a strong struggle
with his mother and his fatter too, if he would not help

him to control his mother (275).

Embedded in the passage are the key issues which have directed his
life until now. Herman had never cared much for anyone or anything, he
had always done everything he was told, and up until now he did not
knnow how to struggle against his parents. But now there is a _ne_w
feeling in him. The negatives "always" and "never" which ctaracterized
him before l'ave disappeared. The words "wanted," "struggle," and
"strong" accentuate the remarkable .clange tlat takes place in the
formerly passive, sullen, obedient "gawky fool." The new life of his
own child literally brings him to life, while, in contrast, Iena
becones steadily more and more lifeless.

Hernnan takes control of his life. Lena never does. Whereas
Herman’s disobedience is the beginning of life for him, marriage is the
beginning of the end for Iena. She dies because of her passiveness and
helplessness in tne face of more doninant personalities. The
repetitions of the "unexpectant and unsuffering" nature of Lena take on
a gross irony in the face of the suffering she actually endures.

As I mentioned in Ctapter One, Jayne Walker las interpreted Iena ’s

helplessness in linguistic ternms. She writes:

In "The Gentle Iena," the central claracter suffers as a
result of her linguistic inadequacy. A recent immigrant
from Gernmany with a limited command of English, she lacks
the resources to defend herself adequately against the
verbal barrages to which she is constantly subjected.

Consequently, she becones the passive victim of the desires

96

and the discourse of others. Her aunt arranges a marriage

for her, which neither sne nor tfe prospective husband

desires, but Iena can never voice her feelings: "Mrs. Haydon

spoke to Iena about it very often. Iena never answered

anything at all."8
Walker interprets Lena’s failure to speak for herself and her own
rights as "linguistic helplessness, Lena’s total subjugation to the
discourse that dominates her." She writes tfat both Iena and Hernman are
unable to articulate their reasons for opposing tle social nornms which
their families are foisting upon them, but tfat Lena’s only defense is
silence.

But Iena’s helplessness goes deeper than simply victimization by
language and l'er own verbal impotence. Even though Walker focuses on
the repetition of such words as "stupid" and Lena’s reply, "I didn’t
know you wanted me to say nothing," she is missing the point of those
repetitions. It is true that Stein concentrates on tl'e speech of
otlers, and tlat Lena speaks only twice in the entire story, the first
in her acquiescence to Mrs. Haydon, the second on the street car,
coring hone from her postponed wedding. Hoever, our previous
discussion of the key words and phrases denonstrate that this
helplessness is not just linguistic. There is more to it tl'an tfat. It
is total helplessness of being, a belief tnat she has no control over
her life and must bow to the wishes of others tfat underlie Lena’s
inability and unwillingness to defend herself or stand up for her own
rights.

As in "The Good Anna," Stein enploys the word "power." In "Tne

Gentle Lena" she uses it only twice, but Iena’s reactions to situations

are exactly the same both times, and the phrases used to describe these
are repeated almost verbatim. Lena is very sick on the voyage over from
Germany. She is so sick she is afraid she will die, and she cannot do

anything , neither eat, nor moan nor move nor even help herself.

"She was just blank and scared, and sure that evermeinute
she would die... Poor Lena had no power to be strong in such
trouble... She lost all her little sense of being in her
suffering. She was so scared, and then at her best, Lena,
who was patient, sweet and quiet, had not self-control, nor

any active courage (246-247).

The second repetition of Lena’s total helplessness and lack of control
occurs during her first pregnancy. Stein even brings our attention to
this repetition by stating, "She was scared the way she had been when
she was so sick on the water" and we must take this referral to mean
that Stein considers the similarity important. She goes on with the

near—exact repetition:

She was scared and still and lifeless, and sure that every
minute she would die. Lena had no power to be strong in this
kind of trouble, she could only sit still and be scared, and
dull, and lifeless and sure tnat every minute she would die
(276).

Lena hag_ggypgg§£; This is key to Lena, the central core fromn
which all her actions and reactions are structured and dictated. She is
acted upon. Life happens to her. She has no control, does not even

believe that she possibly can have control. Determinism. Her fate is

98

sealed from the beginning.

In light of the other repetitions the "gentle" we encounter in the
title takes on a singularly grim brutality. Iena is like a cow, docile,
willing to be led, never wanting her own way, to be wed, bred and then
slaughtered when she is of no use to anyone anymore .

Hoffman is right. This is sheer pathos, a story unrelieved with
more tfan an occasional show of goodness in characters or happiness in
tle life of the central character. The one time Iena comes out of her
haze is a brief period before her wedding. "Iena was nervous these
days. . . She always did wfatever her aunt said and expected, but sne was
always nervous when she saw the Kreders with their Herman. She was
excited and she liked her new hats" (254). After the excitenent of
Herman’s disappearance "Iena now fell back into the way she always had
of being always dreamy and not there, the way she always had been,
except for the few days she was so excited..." (262). The one thing
Stein singles out to enphasize that Iena really likes is l'er new hats.
Tlat a girl can find such pleasure in sonething so insignificant only
heightens tle terrible tragedy of the way she is treated, and again
adds impact to the monstrosity of the characters of Mrs. Haydon, Mrs.
Kreder and her dear gentle husband Herman .

Gentle Herman lives on, peaceful and content, "with every day just
like the next one, always alone now with his three good, gentle
children" (279).

mm

"WA" - Part One

Of the three histories in Three Lives, "Melanctha" has been the

 

most extensively studied and perhaps the most misunderstood.
"Melanctha" is usually considered to be Stein’s masterpiece. And yet on
the one hand, Weinstein can write, "I consider "Melanctha" of the
greatest hunnan and artistic importance because of the unrelenting
depiction of the harm personality falling in and out of love,"1 while
on the other hand Russell can cement on its "puerile repetitiveness"
and dismiss it as "an account of a headstrong mulatto girl who rejects
one lover, is rejected by another and witlout apparent motivation dies
at the end of the story."2 There is very little agreenent as to what
happens, how it happens and why.

The story itself is simple, a tale of sorrow, a tragic rendering
of a woman caught in ever recurring cycles of activities , enotional
states, and relationships, from which she cannot escape. Woven through
the story are cycles of repetitions, both lexical and thenatic. An
examination of these repetitions will provide new insights into the
character of both Melanctha and her story.

But while the story is simple enough, the manner in which it is
told is not. Stein has changed her tactics again. Progress is slow and

painful and at times almost imperceptible. It proceeds in undulating

’waves. ’ The reader gets the impression tnat he has covered the same

100

3
ground twice, if not more often. Jeff and Melanctha seem to make

progress toward falling in love and yet in their conversations they
cover the same issues over and over again. Hoever, sonehow movenent
does take place. Their relationship builds and develops and then it
declines and dissolves totally. It is difficult to determine when and
where progress las been made, but the reader _in retrospect will find
flat the love affair between Jeff and Melanctla has evolved. DeKoven in

conmenting on this strange circular style writes:

Like a fixated, blocked mind struggling to free itself by
going over and over the ternms of its fixation until it has
mastered them, Stein’s narrator runninates over Jeff ’5
feelings and the dynamics of his relationship with Melanctha,
pushing the story slowly forward, gradually achieving a
full statenent of her vision.. . Each time the narrator

rethinks the situation, she both re-covers tle sanme

ground and adds a little new territory, so tnat the picture

slowly becones both larger and clearer.4

As I will denonstrate, tne idea that Stein is re-covering old
ground is actually an illusion, created by the syntactic distortion of
the sentences reader to a virtual crawl , and the near-exact repetition
of scenes , and conversations which overlay the repetitions of words and
phrases. Stein does not repeat any scene twice. Each one is new and
different, revealing the perceptions of Jeff and Melanctha within the
context of the evolution of tneir relationship. Stein is revealing in
moredepthandconplexitythesamethenesheexploredinfineGood
Anna" and "The Gentle Iena" - claracters trapped by tleir personalities

and situations to endless repetition of tneir life patterns.

101

Because of the length and the overwhelming conplexity of
repetition, examining the repetitions as they appear within tie text as
a whole becones an impossibly conplex task. Therefore, the strategies
for analyzing them must be altered. In an attenpt to impose order on
this conplexity it is appropriate to divide and conquer, to examine
"Melanctha" as if it were comprised of several sections and layers.
These divisions are necessarily arbitrary, but the reader will see tfat
the story divides itself naturally into sections. Stein deliberately
marks each section with tie repetition of certain key words and
phrases. In this chapter, I will examine these lexical repetitions and
several of the repetitious phrases as they appear chronologically
through tle text. I will also exanmine tle patterns of befavior as they
are repeated from the beginning of the story until Mélanctna’s final
break with Jeff. In Chapter Five, I will proceed through the larger
units of repetition - such 'as key paragraphs , phrases and incidents .
Then I will denonstrate tie larger cycles of repetition which overlay
the entire story. Through this method of analysis I will attenpt to
show low the repetitions work togetl'er to achieve an altogether
different interpretation of "Melanctha" tfan tnose which have resulted
from approaches not taking these repetitions into account.

Stein helps her reader by enploying the device of summing up
sections - by stepping out of the narrative mode and eitfer repeating
characteristics of a person or introducing a new person. In "Melanctha"
this is often a welcone change, offering a "breatrer," as it were from
the conplexity of the cycles. This device also serves to orient the

reader sharply with respect to new claracters and situations .

l 02
FAQ QED.
Introduction

"Melanctha," like "The Good Anna" and "The Gentle Iena," begins in
media res, but, unlike the previous stories, it does not begin during a
period of happiness in Melanctha’s life. It begins, instead, altlough
we do not know this until the very end of the book, during Melanctha’s
period of decline, when she has already broken off with Jeff and quite
soon before her death.

Stein spends tle first eight pages introducing her ctaracters,
giving us a glimpse of Melanctha’s past, and a detailed description of
her cfaracter by recounting three separate periods in l'er early life,
before bringing the reader to the present. Stein builds her case, and
her character carefully.

"Melanctha" is a study in contrasts. As in "The Gentle Iena," one
of Stein’s primary devices for delineating a cfaracter in "Melanctha"
is by placing [it in juxtaposition with anotler. She does this by
conparing Melanctha to her friend Rose, her motler and her father. This
metnod gives us a rounded, full image of the type of person sle is. In
this story Stein does not use the device of tne ’tag’ for Melanctra as
she did with "good" for Anna and "gentle" for. Iena. Instead, she relies
strictly on the cumulative effect of polyadjectival strings. Stein
begins the accumulation of adjectives to describe Melanctra by first
making a conparison between Melanctha and Rose. Rose is a coardly,
selfish, careless and negligent wonan who fusses, howls and makes
"lerself to be an abomination and like a simple beast"(88). Melanctna,
in contrast, is "patient, subnissive, soothing and untiring" (89). Rose

is sullen, stupid, childlike, coarse, real black, good looking,

103

shiftless, immoral and promiscuous. Melanctha, on the other hand, is
subtle, half white, pale yellow, intelligent [and] attractive. This
first set of descriptive adjectives gives us a very positive picture of
Melanctna. Each adjective is set in direct opposition to Rose. We
gather tlat she is a sensitive, caring, giving person who is willing to
suppress'her own wants for the needs of another.

Stein tlen tells us that Melanctla is also subject to fits of
despair during which she considers killing herself, whereas Rose finds
this very stupid. She’d kill soneone else before she killed herself.

Stein goes on to add the adjectives "conplex", "desiring,"
combining the two for a third phrase that subtly alters the meaning of
tie words as separate meanings: "conplex with desire," suggesting tlat
her conplexity is further conplicated by the conflicting desires she
finds in her.

Stein clarifies this idea of Melanctha’s conplexity by
backtracking in time to when the two wonen meet. Unlike Rose,
Melanctna has not made her life simple. Her life, and the adjectives
and verbs Stein cl'ooses to describe it, imply erratic, spontaneous
movenent - leaving and being left by others, loving too hard, and too
often. "She was always full with mystery and subtle movenents and
denials and vague distrust and conplicated disillusions. Then
Melanctra would be sudden and impulsive and unbounded in sone faith,
and tnen she would suffer and be strong in her repression" (89).

Stein then tantalizes the reader with the question: "Why did the
subtle, intelligent, attractive, half white girl Nelanctta Herbert love
and do for and denean herself in service to this coarse, decent,

sullen, ordinary, black childish Rose, and why was this umoral,

104

proniscuous, shiftless Rose married, and that ’s not so conmon either,
to a good man of the negroes, while Melanctta with her white blood and
attraction and her desire for a right position had not yet been really
married" (86) . But she does not answer the question. She goes on to
another subject, leaving the reader to guess.

Stein turns even further back in time to Melanctta ’s childtood.
Here again, our understanding of Melanctha’s ctaracter is furthered by
contrast with her parents. She is an odd conbination of tte traits of
both her mother, who is "pleasant, sweet-appearing, pale yellow,
mysterious, and uncertain and wandering in her ways," (90) and her
"poerful, loose built, hardhanded, black, angry" fatter. Melanctha,
with her "break neck courage" is much closer in feeling to her father,
although she does not love either of them.

Several words appear at the end of Part One: "trouble" and

"suffering." "It was never Melanctta’s way, even in the midst of her

worst trouble to conplain to any one of wtat happened to her, but
nevertheless sonehow every one who knew Melanctta always knew how much
ste suffered" (92). When one encounters tte word "trouble" six times on
page 92 and 93, and suffer three times, one is led to ask, wtat kind of
trouble has she gotten into and how has ste suffered? fly is she so
vulnerable to fits of despair?

These two words, as I will denonstrate, are key words to the
entire story, and alttough we are offered clues in these beginning
pages, we cannot attenpt a corplete definition of eitter "trouble" or
"suffering" until Stein has explored through Melanctha ’s experiences
many of tte subtle nuances and different meanings of the words.

Stein’s first clues do not altogetter satisfy the need to define
ttese words, but they do offer insight into tte trouble and suffering

105

Melanctta has experienced. "All her youth was bitter to remember...[Her
parents] tad found it very troublesone to tave her" (90). From
descriptions of Melanctta’s heavy handed, fierce father, and statenents
such as Melanctta "was a most disturbing child to manage... [with] a
tongue ttat could be very nasty" (91), one can deduce that the
relationship between the two was extrenely volatile and often
unpleasant. The bloody fight with John the coactman graphically
denonstrates her father’s fierce violent tenper, and Melanctta, who
wields her nasty tongue with great dexterity, obviously takes great
satisfaction in provoking him. By the time she is twelve he has given
up trying to cope with her, and rages at her mother, denanding "Where’s
ttat Melanctta girl of yours. .. Why don’t you see to ttat girl better
you, you’re her motter!" (94), as if he has renounced having such a
difficult child for a daughter.

Thus, before tte story itself has actually begun, Steinhas given
us a vivid picture of Melanctha. At this point, it is much different
ttan the person we were introduced to in the opening paragraphs. Now it
is not an altogetter synnpathetic picture. Melanctta is a person with a
passionate nature, generous and patient, but filled with conflicting
enotions and yearnings, wto has an unpleasant relationship with both
fatter and mother, and is capable of inflicting much pain with her

tongue.
PE .172

Learning Understanding

 

On page 93, Stein begins tte body of the story, by relating the

altercation between Melanctha’s father and John, the coacl'lman. This

106

incident marks the beginning of Melanctta ’s journey into adulthood
because it awakens her interest and knowledge of her growing sexuality.

On page 90, the word "power" appeared twice: "the real power in
Melanctta’s nature came through her... father;" and "she loved very
well the poer in herself ttat came through him. " What kind of poer
this is is only suggested until page 93, when John the coactman begins
to feel strong the "poer in her of a wonan." This is the poer of
sexual attraction, which at twelve, Melanctha is just beginning to feel
strongly, and which has been inherited from her father. She knew very
early. that she has it within her. Now, awakened by this fight which was
instigated by both men ’s awareness of her budding sexuality, Melanctha
becomes consumed by interest in her "power. ""Melanctha began to know
her power, the power she had so often felt stirring within her and

which she now knew she could use to make her stronger" (95). It begins

to occupy the whole of her consciousness. She is driven by the need to
know the ways of men and understand wtatever poer she has over them.
She begins to search the streets to learn and to know. She begins to
wander "after wisdom." Melanctta spends most of her time wandering,
searching for this wisdom, but she does not knnow what it is, or really
where she will find it.

The hammer words in this period of Melanctta’s life appear:
"poer," "learn," "wander" and "wisdom," used singly or in
conjunction.

In these next years Melanctha learned many ways ttat lead
to wisdom. She learned the ways and dimly in the distance

she saw wisdom (96).

She wandered, always seeking, but never more ttan very dimly

107

seeing wisdom (97).
Melanctha tried to learn the ways ttat lead to wisdom (102).

I lave already discussed the various meanings of "warden"
similarly,"learning" has also changed its meaning, but very subtly. As
a child, "Melanctha went to school and was very quick in all the
learning, and sheknewverywell howtouse this knnowledge toannnnoyher
parents wto knew nothing" (91). Nelanctta had one type of education -
"book learning" -butnowttat learning isnotthetypeof learningste
needs to know the natures of men and "the ways the lead to wisdom."
This is another type altogether, a more elenental instinctive learning.
"Wisdom" in this context very clearly means sexual knowledge and an
understanding of tow to use tte power that her sexuality would give
her.

If we return to William Jannes’s theory of two kinds of knowledge
we can see ttat at this point in her life, Melanctta tas sone
’knnowledge-abolt’ tte world which she has acquired in sctool. But her
vague understanding of her "power" and of the "wisdom" she is seeking
is an unarticulated undefined ’knnowledge of acquaintance. ’ She sets out
to learn.

The verbs in this section are active verbs. This is a period of
movenent in Melanctha’s life: seeking, searching, attenpting to
understand. But it is also a period of stasis, because she does not
move forward, she does not learn. Stein tells us ttat she does not
"learn to know" - and we can assune also ttat "know" here means "know"
in the Biblical sense -- because "with all her break neck courage
Melanctha here was a coward, and so she could not learn to really

understand" (97).

108

But Stein also notes that Melanctta does not actually step into
this ’world of wisdom’ because "for her it all tad no real value" (97).
She knows ttat this is not the way to get wtat it is she really wants,
and so she backs away and "escapes" from an actual sexual encounter
each time. Stein does not define exactly wtat it is ttat Melanctha
wants, leaving ttat as undefined in our minds as it is in Melanctta’s.

Stein sunns up and marks the end of this period:

And so this was the way Melanctha lived the four years of
her beginning as a wonan. And many things happened to
Melanctta, but she knew very well that nnone of them tad led

her on the right way, that certain way ttat was to lead her

to world wisdom (103).

Knowig

Melanctha moves into another period of her life. She meets Jane
Harden. The key words in this section are tte same as in the first:
"poer," "learn," "wander," "wisdom," but in this period she is not
searching, she is finding. She is sixteen when she meets Jane, who at
twenty-three, has had much experience and who is "not afraid to
understand." They begin to wander togetter, only now, for Melanctha it
is different, because ste is "with a wonan who had wisdom, and dimly
she began to see wlat it was that she stould understand" (104). Jane
has tte wisdom of "knowledge about" tte world. She is worldly wise,
street-snart.

At first Jane and Melanctha wander together, and still ttey play
' the same game: tte "knowing of [men] and the always just escaping"

(104). Then Jane and Melanctha becone attracted to each other and stop

109

wandering and engage in a lesbian love affair which lasts for two
years. The honosexuality of this relationship is only alluded to, but,
knowing Stein’s penctant for "elastic" words, we can read between the
lines. "She would be with other people and with men and with Melanctha,
and she would make Melanctha understand what everybody wanted, and wtat
one did with poer when one had it...In every way she got it from Jane
Harden. Ttere was nothing good or bad in doing, feeling, thinking or in
talking, that Jane spared her" (106). 7

Melanctha learns a great deal from Jane. She learns knowledge of
the world, men, human nature. She also learns to love. Thisword "love"
gradually, through cumulative action achieves status of a ’hammer word ’
for this period of Melanctta’s life. Until now, this verb was used

primarily in the negative: "[she] had not loved herself in childhood...
[she] had not loved her father and mother." (90). In fact, she had
hated them. She had loved instead, horses and doing "wild things" and
the poor ttat had cone to her through her father. Now she learns to
love deeply. As in the first section, tte word "love" appears in
conjunction with "suffering" as though the two are directly linked and
one cannot occur without the other. As Hilfer writes, "there can be no
learning unacconpanied by pain,"5 but this too is in direct contrast to
the suffering ste endured under her motter and father. Instead of
suffering enotional pain, and instead of fighting against it, here she
gives in to tte suffering of real love and edures it. This period in
her life is very tumultuous, but she finally begins not only to
understandwtatotterpeoplewant, buthowtouseherpoertogetwhat
she wants. She has gained the wisdom she sought. She l'as progressed
from: "slowly ste began to see clear before her oe certain way ttat

would be sure to lead to wisdom" to "she had cone to be very certain,

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what it is that gives the world its wisdom" (105) to finally, "[Jane]
had taught Melanctha what it is that gives many people in the world
their wisdom" (106).

The transition from this period begins on page 106. ”Then slowly,
between then, it began to be all different." Because of Jane '5 decline
into alcoholism, the strength that she once 'had is now Melanctha’s and
they begin to drift apart. Gradually.

This, I believe, is the point where Stein actually begins her use
of the ’prolonged present, ’ with the sentence, "Melanctha began to
really understand" on page 106. She is not understanding yet, but
Having slowly in that direction. There has been slow movement, a
plodding sense of progress hitherto, but page 107 is the first the use
of the word "now" to convey the sense of scmetlu'ng happening n_ow_ not
only as it unfolds in time for the character, .but also for the reader.
These events happen gradual ly, but they are introduced H, as
Melanctha and Jane are discovering them. The world is alwaysiin the
present. The oontinued use of the word "now" gives the reader a $3158
of immediacy, particularly when it is repeated hammer-like through the

passages of transition.

Slowly now between them it was Melanctha Herbert, who was
stronger. Slowly now between them. slowly now they began
to drift apart. .. Melanctha now sometimes quarreled with
Jane... Melanctha began now to feel that she had always had
world wisdon... now [Jane] was weakened... Now it was
Melanctha who was stronger... Melanctha from now on saw very

little of Jane (107).

111

Stein has already begun using the progressive tense whiCh later
characterizes what she termed the "continuous present, " in her

portraits, The Making of Americans, but she does not use it

 

consistently yet. However, this tense is used deliberately in nany
instances to denonstrate the ongoing nature of the action or state, not
yet finished, or still in the process of evolving. For instance, on
page 95, Stein writes of Melanctha’s adolescence as "Melanctha now
really was beginning as a wonan," in the present participle in order to
demonstrate that this is a process which is not yet completed. The use
of this tense implies rrovenent and evolution which use of the simple
past, "Melanctha had begun to grow up" or the stative verb "Melanctha
was now a young wonan" does not. Similarly, "the strength in her of not

really knowing" carries with it the overtones of the incorpleteness of
her knowing which will one day be fulfilled, but has not yet. In one of

their first conversations Melanctha tells Jeff, "I certainly did wonder
how you could be so live, and knowing everything, and everybody, and
talking so big always about everything, and everybody always liking yon
so much and you always looking as if you was thinking, and yet really
was never knowing about anybody and certainly not being really very
understanding. " The progressive tense can be used to imply that a state
of affairs will continue indefinitely, and juxtaposed against the
"everybody liking" Jeff, Melanctha is implying that this "never
knowing" and "not understanding" will continue too. The sentence
"Melanctha was liking Jefferson Campbell better every day, and .
Jefferson was beginning to know that Melanctha certainly had a good
mind, and he was beginning to feel a little her real meetmess" (126)
also demonstrates the ongoing evolution, the cmtinuing progress M
a relationship more clearly than "Melanctha began to like Jeff better

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and Jeff realized that she had a good mind," would. Used with the
adverb "always" it also shows the decline of the relationship, "Now
things were always getting worse between them" (188) . The progressive
tense can also suggest repetition in certain cases, that sonething has
been happening again and again, "You know Melanctta, sometimes I think
a whole lot about what you like to say so much about being game and
never doing any hol lering" (179) .b The progressive tense in "Melanctha"
manages to capture these implications throughout the story,
furthering this sense of novement and constant change.

Jane and Melanctha drift apart. The word "power" is abandoned
after its use on page 106, and the word "wander," which has not been
used since Jane and Melanctha began to be involved only with each

other, reappears as Melanctha begins to drift away from Jane.
Searching for Some Thing

The next period of Melanctha's life is alternately movenent versus
stasis. Again, movenent is marked by the "now", and the stasis by its
absence.

First there is movenent. Melanctha goes on alone. There is a

change in her perspective on life. She finds that she has learned
wisdom, but tlat it is not enough. She is now searching for something
else, sonething more. "It was now sonething realler that Melanctha
wanted, sonething that would move her very deeply, sonething that would
fill her fully with the wisdom that was planted now within her, and
that she wanted badly, shoild really wholly fill her" (108). Stein uses
the indefinite pronoun "something" to denonstrate how ill-defined is
this "thing" that Melanctha is searching for. She is not sure what it

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is. However, casual relationships are not enough. She has experienced
one total involvement with another person and does not find

satisfaction with anything less:

She met them, she was much with them, she left then, she
would think perhaps this next time it would be more exciting
and always she found that for her it all had no real
meaning. She could now do everything she wanted, she knew
now everything tnat everybody wanted, and yet~ it all had no
excitenent for her. With these men she knew she could learn

nothing (109).

At this point, Stein inserts a "summing up" passage. She
introduces Jeff Campbell, encapsulates who he is, gives a brief sumuary
of his opinion of Melanctha, and then returns to the topic of Melanctha
and her search for a relationship.

We have arrived at a period of stasis. Stein’s description does not
use the word "now", because there is no progression, in tine or in
relationships. Stein is dwelling on Jeff and circling back to review
what las already been brought out about'Jane and Melanctha and
Melanctl'a’s past life. Stein tells us that Melanctha’s mother is dying
and that Melanctha is a kind and competent nurse, then returns to the
issue of Jeff, who he is and what he wants out of life. "Power,"
"wisdom," "learning," and "wandering" have virtually disappeared except
for references showing Jeff ’s awareness of what Melanctha and Jane are
like. "He knew a little too of Jane Harden, and he was sure that this
Melanctha Herbert, who was her friend and who wandered, would never
cone to any good" (110). He does not like Melanctha. He has already
formed an opinion of her from his talks with Jane. The strength with

114

which he holds onto his opinion is evident in the sentence "he did not
think that she would ever cone to any good" which is repeated with
variations four times.

hoverent begins again on page 114, with the reappearance of "now. "
Gradually Jeff ’5 opinion of Melanctha evolves as he sees her more often
while caring for her mother and gets to know her better. Then, during
the night they spend watching together, waiting for ’Mis ’ Herbert to
die, as they sit on the steps talking quietly, he finds tnat he does
enjoy Melanctha's company and conversation and his opinion of her
begins to change. He thinks tl'at perhaps she does have a good mind
after all. On page 125, Stein recapitulates the slow evolution of his
thinking: "at first he had not cared to know Melanctha and when he did
begintoknowherhehadnot likedherverywell, andhehadnot

thought that she would ever cone to any good" (125).

PARTTHREE

 

Soretimes 3 Beginning Feeling

Stein has finally reached the cenntral conflict of the story: the
relationship between Jeff and Melanctha. Until page 199, when Stein
returns again to Rose, her attention is focussed on the evolution,
decline and final dissolution of their relationship. Part Three, which
occupies nearly two-thirds of the story, consists of a series of
rhythmic cycles in the affair.

Several pairs of words, set in opposition to each other,
predominate in this relationship. The word "good" is juxtaposed against
its antonym "bad;" "coward" against "brave" and "courageous:" "think"

against the word "feel." The positive words "certain," honest,"

115

"know, " and "understand" are juxtaposed against their negative
counterparts, "uncertain," "not honest," "not knowing," and "not
understanding." These pairs of words, as I will denonstrate, are the
key to understanding this relationship and why it finally eds. The
words which are important to each character are predominant in how they
view and conduct their lives, and consequently, how their thought
processes move. As the relationship builds, Stein uses these words to
establish the characters and their personalities in opposition to each
other. Each of these words is used during the initial conversations
between Jeff and Melanctha, but as before, only gradually do'they
achieve any significance.

The first of these pairs of words, "good" occurred early in the
text, used with many of its different meanings, "Rose was a good
looking negress (86), John in his good nature (92), "there had been a
good deal of drinking" (93). But "good" now takes on particular
significance with reference to Melanctha, to Jeff and to their opinion
of each other.

We have noted that Stein has given us two sides to Melanctha. On
the one hand, in a male-dominated world, as seen through the mirror of
male values, Melanctha is certainly not good. She is terpestuous,
outspoken, inrpulsive and headstrong. She is also a fallen woman, a
wonan who has spent her time down on the docks, in the railroad yards
and on construction sites consorting with all types and classes and
colors of men. She has tried everything. She has sacrificed proper
conduct on the altar of experience. Good or bad, she has tried it. And
worse, she has engaged in a lesbian love affair. Unforgivable sins

according to society and the mores of any fine upstanding man who is

116

looking for a mother for his children. One can see a double irony
here, in that Stein is being ironic in terms of the general mores of
society, but she is also being ironic about these mores as a wtole,
precisely because she herself was a lesbian and therefore ontside the
pale of what society considers good and decent.

Hoever, Stein has also shown us that Melanctha is a good person
in many ways. She is kind and giving and patient to others, especially

to her mother:

She was. .. always good and pleasant and always ready to do
things for people (106)

It was Melanctha who was very good now to her mother. It
was always Melanctha’s way to be good to any one in trouble.

Melanctha took very good care of her notler (llO).

Stein also uses "good" to describe Jeff. She tells us that Jeff is
"a serious, earnest, good younng joyous doctor... [his mother] loved
hard her good, earnest, cheery, hard working doctor boy... Jefferson
was very good" (111). He believes very strongly in proper conduct and
the correct way to live, which is, of course, directly opposite to the
life Melanctha has lived. His philosophy of life is particularly
evident in his choice of career - to be a physician who spends his days
helping his people, living a life of service, dedicated to improving
the quality of life of others.

After the bitterly ironic use of "good" in the previons two
stories , the reader has a right to be suspicious of its use in
"Melanctha? Stein is again insisting on the "goodness" of Dr. Jefferson
Campbell. We are led through past experience to expect irony.

In Jeff and Melanctha’s discussions, it is clear that Jeff is

117

extrenely opinionated about what is good and what is bad in life. He
speaks often and at great length on this subject of being good and
regular in life, and not having excitenents all the time. Jeff thinks
that "wanting excitenent" all the time is bad. Decent colored people
don ’t, and he tells her enphatically that he certainly doesn’t like to
get excited. He firmly believes he is living life the way it should be
lived.

Melanctha and Jeff ’5 opinion of each other differs sharply from
the way they View themselves.

At first Melanctha's opinion of Jeff is very low. She doesn't
think much of his ideas or his brand of goodness. Instead she feels
scorn for his overblown ideas. Very adroitly, she throws his words
back in his face, mocking him and his ideas and ridiculing his ideas of

the right way to live:

"You ain’t a bit like good people Dr. Campbell, like

the good people you are always saying are just like you. I
know good people Dr. Campbell, and you ain't a bit like men
who are good and got religion... I know you mean honest, Dr.
Campbell, and I am always trying to believe you, but I can’t
sayas I see justwhatyoumeanwhenyousayyouwanttobe
good an real pious because I anm very certain Dr. Campbell
that you ain't that kind of man at all (120).

However, as Jeff and Melanctha begin to see each other and know
each other more, her attitude begins to change. She begins to believe
in this goodness and kindness. In this section, tfe word "power"

abruptly shifts to Jeff - his "power" begins to attract her, and she

118

is drawn to him. Jeff ’3 power is not sexual, it is instead the power of
his uprightness and goodness. Immediately before "power" is transferred
to Jeff, Stein writes, "And tlen Jefferson Campbell was so very gentle.
Jefferson never did sore things like other men, things tnat now were
beginning to be ugly, for Melanctha" (125). She believes that Jeff is
unlike the men she has been with previously. He is a good man and will
not abuse her. Gradually Melanctha cones to believe that "Jefferson
Campbell was all the things that [she] had ever wanted" (125). She
tells him, "You are certainly a very good man.... I certainly do know,
Dr. Campbell, you are a good man, and if you say you will be frieds
with me, you certainly never will go back on me, the way so many kinds
of them do to every girl they ever get to like them" (127).

Jeff '5 opinion, however, does not change as radically. His

opinion of Melanctha focuses around three key issues:

He never believed that ste was any good (110).
He did not think that she would ever cone to any good (112).
He never found that he believed much in her having a good

mind (114).

Jeff knows what Jane Harden is like and does not approve of her
lifestyle, but he has "found a great many strong good things in her,
that still made him like her" (113). But, guilt by association makes
him pre-judge Melanctha and class her as a bad woman and believe she
will always be so. Jane has told Jeff Melanctta has a good mind, and as
he talks to her, it is her probing questions and rer ability to listen
that change his opinion of her. It is Melanctha’s "good mind" which he
values and which begins to attract him to her. She makes him think hard

about his beliefs. He values her intellect, at any rate. He has not

119

changed his opinion of her character. He thinks she has a good mind,
but "Itwasnotherbeinggood, hewantedtofind inher. Heknewvery
well Jane Harden was right, when she said Melanctha was always being
good to everybody but that did not make Melanctta any better for fer"
(125). But because of her past, she is not good eough. However, in
spite of his principles, he is drawn to her, attracted by the power -
the sexual power - she has learned to use. What he thinks he should do
and what his enotions tell him are in conflict.

T‘te word "thinking" appears often in their conversations. Jeff
spends a great deal of his time thinking. Thinking is juxtaposed
against the word "feeling." It becones clear that Melanctha is the one
who "feels" and Jeff is tfe one who thinks. At one point after
Melanctna has made a move toward him physically and he hasn’t
responded, she asks sadly, "Don’t you every stop with your thinking
long enough ever to have any feeling Jeff Campbell?"(132).

Jeff replies, "No, I don ’t stop thinking much Miss Melanctha and
if I can’t ever feel without stopping thinking, I certainly am very
much afraid Miss Melanctha that I never will do much with tfat kind of
feeling" (132).

Her reply is witty and pointed. "I anm certainly afraid I don 't
think much of your kind of feeling, Dr. Campbell" (132). Trey are on
opposite poles in tre way the relate to the world.

The issue of "knowing" is also a focal point of both their
troughts. But they are preoccupied with different types of knowledge.
The excitenent which Jeff condemns is what Melanctha's life has been
all about. Jeff speaks of having experience, but this is not the sort
Melanctha has had. She retains unimpressed by his position, education

120
or ’book learning. ' She tells him:

I certainly did wonder how you could be so live, and
knowing everything, and everybody, and talking so big always
about everything, and everybody always liking you so much
and you always looking as if you was thinking, and yet yon
really was never knnowing about anybody and certainly not

being really very understanding" (124).

Melanctha's knowledge, as I have shown, has been the knnowledge of
experience. Sl'e has gone searching for wisdom on the streets, the
docks, the railyards. It is ’knowledge—about' - the knowledge of what
people want, and what to do with the power within her. Her experience
is more real than Jeff '3 and therefore more valuable. Jeff ’3
knowledge, on the otter hand, is strictly cerebral. He enjoys reading,
gaining knowledge from books. His relationships, especially with women
are without passion, like a brother, and he has never becone seriously

involved with anyone:

"Wonen liked .him, l'e was so strong, and good, and
understanding, and innocent, and firm, and gentle.
Sonetimes they seened to want very much he snould be with
them. When they go so, trey always had made Campbell very
tired. Sonetimes he would play a little with them, but he

never had had any strong feeling for them" (129).

Jeff '5 knowledge of wonen, passion, feelings is a 'knowledge of
acquaintance. ’ He knnows very little and does not want to know. One gets
tne impression that he reroves himself and holds himself above life,
much as he cares about doing what ’5 best for his people. "He loved his

121

people and he always did everything they wanted and that he could to
please them, but he really loved best science and experimenting and to
learn things... Jefferson studied hard, he went to a colored college,
and then he learnt to be a doctor" (lll). Stein is building in her
irony of Jeff gradually by undercutting the statements she made about
him when he is introduced. He has an superior and patronizing attitude
toward black people -- "his" people. He also has an extrenely high
opinion of his own goodness his love for these his people, and yet he
loves science and experimenting more - science removed from everyday
humanity more than being a physician of people. He also loves learning
and knows a great deal about what is in books and how to heal people.
But there is no sense of really knowing with the heart. It is
passionless and renote. With Jeff, thinking is tied to knowledge and is
superior to feeling.

But then he suddenly encounters Melanctha and finds he knows
nothing. He awakens to the fact that he does not know very much, that
his knowledge of life is only a very diml'knowledge of acquaintance.’
"Jefferson always had thought he knew sonething about women. Now he
found that really he knew nothing.' He did not know the least bit about
Melanctha" (130). He becones preoccupied with what he doesn’t know and
the vast chasm between the two types of experience. He recognizes their
polarity and this distance which separates their philosophies of life
and says, "I certainly do wonder, if we know very right, you and me,
what each other is really thinking. I certainly do wonder, Miss
Melanctha, if we know at all really what each other means by what we
are always saying...I don’t like to say to you what I don't know for

very sure, and I certainly don 't know for sure I know just all what you

122

mean by wfat you are always saying to me" (128-9). He "was not sure
that he knew here just what he wanted. He was not sure he knew just
what it was that Melanctha wanted." (130). But he thinks he wants very
badly to understand.

We notice that many of Jeff ’5 thoughts and sentences are couched
in the negative: "I don’t like..." "I don’t know..." "He was not
sure...." We discover tfat he is very indecisive. He is very certain
about himnself, his opinions and his hitherto untested ideals. Jeff uses
the word "certainly" consistently, mostly wl'en he is trying to
establish just how sure he is of himself and his ideas. He says, "I
want to see tle colored people being good and careful and always honest
and living always just as regular as can be, and I am sure Miss
Melanctha, that that way everybody can have a good time and be happy
and keep right and be busy, and not always have to be doing bad things
for new ways to get excited. Yes, Miss Melanctha, I certainly do like
everything to be good, and quiet, and I certainly do think that is the
best way for all us colored people." (121). His ideals about tfe right
way people "should" live are very definite. But his thought patterns
and words paint a different picture tnan he would have Melanctha
believe. There is actually very little he is sure of . He says "Why you
see I just can’t say that right out tnat way to yon... I can’t say
things like that right out to everybody till I know really more for
certain all about you..." (128). when Melanctha pushes him toward a
relationship he hides behind the excuse that he is "slow-minded" (128,
129, 133).

There is none of this indecision in Melanctha. The word
"certainly" figures significantly in "belanctna," especially in

Melanctha’s speech. It occurs a total of 433 times in tle text,

123

sonetimes as often as 17 times per page. It is used particularly by
Melanctha, who is very emphatic in her words and her ideas. Whatever
she is feeling, she is absolutely certain about that rightness of her
feelings. She knows for certain what is and what isn't. Ste declares.
"I certainly do understand you when you talk so Dr. Campbell. I
certainly do understand now what you mean by what you was always saying
to me....I certainly do see that very clear" (122-123).

Altnough it is Jeff who speaks of honesty as an important part of
leading a good life, honesty is also a characteristic that is
important to Melanctha. As her opinion of Jeff changes she tells him,
"I certainly do adnmire you for talking honest to me, Jeff Campbell"
(128), to which he replies, "Oh I am always honest, Miss Melanctha.
It’s easy enough for me always to be honest, Miss Melanctha. All I got
to do is always just to say right out what I am thinking. I certainly
never have got any real reason for not saying it right out like that to
anybody." He is declaring himself, promising that there will never be
lies between them.

Melanctha has realized that there is a difference between his
thoughts and his words from tne beginning. She says very early in tfeir
conversations, "You seem to be thinking what you are doing is just like
what you are always saying..." (120). She thinks she has hit upon the

reasons . She declares:

You certainly are just too scared Dr. Campbell to really
feel things way down in you. All you are always wanting...
is just to talk about being good, and to play with people to
have a good-time, and yet always to certainly keep yourself

out of trouble.. . you certainly are awful scared about

124

really feeling things way down in you..." (123).

In one sense, Melanctha is right. He is afraid. He won ’t admit it
though. He has a different set of reasons for his actions. In his

opinion it is only prudent to go slowly and carefully into anything.

I certainly don 't think I can’t feel things very deep in
though I do say I certainly do like to have things nice and
quiet, but I don ’t see harm in keeping out of danger Miss
Melanctha, wlen a man knows he certainly don't want to
get killed in it, and I don 't know anything tlat's more
awful dangerous Miss Melanctta than being strong in
love with sorebody (123).

He is preoccupied with thinking. He cannot allow himself to feel. He
is unable to make a decision about whether to get involved with

Melanctha or not. He proceeds to think himself out of involvenent. But
we have seen there is more to his reluctance tl‘an just thinking or
being afraid.

Melanctha is also aware that there are other reasons for his
reluctance to get involved. In her conplexity, she is able to recognize
conplex reasons for actions in otters. At the point where Jeff wonders
aloud whether they can really know what the other person means by Met
they are saying, she flasl'es out, "That certainly do mean, by Met you
say, that you think I am a bad one, Jeff Campbell" (128). From the way
she blurts this statenent out after a relatively innocuous statenent on
Jeff ’5 part, it is clear trat she is sensitive abolt fer past - at
least as far as Jeff is concerned. It made no difference to her who

she was with or wfat she did before. But Jeff is preoccupied with

125

goodness, and, attracted to him as she is, she wants to appear in the
best light.

She understands that if goodness is an issue with Jeff, then her
past will also be an issue. Melanctha's past is definitely on Jeff ’5
mnind as he vascillates, thinking first this and tlen that. Is she
"playing" with him, or is it real? If it is only play, tl'at he does
not want any part of this relationship. But he is stung by her
accusation tfat he is a coward and pushes forward.

Unfortunately Melanctha does not realize the depth of his
attitudes toward her. Impulsive and courageous, she allows herself to
fall in love with him and try to make it work.

' So, we have another set of contrasts: Jeff, cerebral, puritanical,
obsessed with goodness, thinking; Melanctta, elenental, obsessed with
experience, feeling. Stein fas built an image of Melanctta as a conplex
wonan - rash, outspoken, one who does what she pleases without thought
of the consequences, but kind and generous. She has also painted a
portrait of Jeff. If we accept him at face value, he is good, he is
steady, he does not like excitenent, he is steadfast, if a little slow,
but honest and caring and kind. He is the quintessential country
doctor.

Gradually, over the duration of ’Mis’ Herbert’s illness, these two

opposites stumble toward a relationship.
Beginnning Destroying

Precisely at the point where Jeff and Melanctha are on the brink
of establishing sonething, however, Stein begins to tear down what she

has built up.

126

In the beginning pages of their relationship, from pages 110 until
it really blossoms at the death of 'Mis’ Herbert, Stein fas
consistently used the words "good," "think," "feel," "understand,"
"honest." From this point onwards she uses the same words, but reverses
the meanings and connotations she has built up so carefully around
these words. She also reverses all roles, character traits and
dominance. The words she previously used as hammers in a
straightforward manner, she now uses with increasingly powerful and
driving bitterness and irony.

In the critical literature there is general disagreerent as to why
this affair fails.

DeKoven, citing the phrase, "Melanctha Herbert was always seeking
rest and quiet, and always she could only find new ways to be in
trouble" blames this failure on Melanctha. She writes that Melanctha
"is defeated by what is emerging as the fatal flaw par excellence of
heroines in women’s fiction: a divided self. At crucial times in her
life, including the monent when she finally has the full and passionate
love she needs from Jeff, she acts against her own best interests,
destroying the relationships she has worked hard to build. "7

Frederick Hoffman also blames the failure on Melanctta. He writes
that "when she has finally taught him to be in love with her, she loses
interest in him. It is not wlat she l'as wanted at all, or rather the
realization of what ste has vaguely sought proves to be less in quality
and intensity tfan she wished it to be."81

Walker, as noted before, maintains tlat Jeff and Melanctha fail to
achieve happiness due to their inability to express themselves
adequately and make logical connections in thought. Their "linguistic

helplessness" prevents them from truly understanding each other}

127

Schmitz traces this failure to tie opposition between males and
fenales, and attributes Stein ’5 attention to this issues as a Jamesian
preoccupation. "Melanctha Herbert 's passion for clarity reveals its
futility through her disclaiming repetition of certainly. Chly her
feelings are certain, and these she can not express. Wl'at she wants,
and what Jeff Campbell wants, is the assurance of definition, the
simplicity of male/female, and they do not find it. Melanctha’s
unspeakable feelings presumably obstruct this resolution... What a; is
that tortures Melanctha and deters Jeff Campbell is left unsaid. It
is, this i_t, a large and resonant Jamesian i_t.10

To Hilfer, the failure is the result of the different rhythms of
personality and emotion and an opposition in values. Jeff is the
embodiment of "ethos" while Melanctha is "pathos." He writes, "Much of
the running philosophical debate between Jeff and Melanctha centers on
ethics: Jeff ’5 belief in a prefornmulated conventional ethics is opposed
to Melanctha's belief in an ethics of intensity tnat dares the risk of
desire. Melanctla scorns Jeff ’5 respectable definition of love .. . to
Melanctha, Jeff '5 sort of love is merely a cowardly evasion, not a true
good" (157).11

I disagree totally with each of these authors, except Hilfer, with
whom I agree in part. I do agree tl'at Jeff and Melanctha do not
understand each other due to a difference in ethics and rhythms, but I
feel tnat this is an inconplete explanation. I place the blame squarely
upon Jeff. I maintain that it is Jeff who destroys their love. It is
his personality, his actions, his preoccupations tfat undermine and
finally end whatever they have been able to establish.

From this point onward tl'ere is a slow change in the course of

128

progression in the text. This is a period of stasis for Melanctha and
movement for Jeff. Jeff is slowly moving toward love and making a
commitment to Melanctha. Melanctha retains constant. She nas taken her
stand. She is very certain of her feelings for Jeff. During this period
of her life she never wanders now unless it is with Jeff. The meaning
of "wander" has channged again, from tfe wandering after sexual wisdom
to the conventional meaning of wandering, walking together with no
apparent destination and no need for one. Having cast her allegiance,
she is content to wait for Jeff to commit himself to her.

But there is a shift in dominance. Wtereas in the period of
Melanctla’s initiation into adulthood and sexuality Melanctha was the
student, the learner, Jane the teacher, tne roles lave been reversed.
Now Melanctta is the teacher and Jeff the learner. Stein is further
breaking down the image of the country doctor, with his education and
wisdom.

Stein does not introduce this there explicitly until later in the
course of the relationships evolution, but the 'hammer words ’ "knnow, "
"understand" are used throlghout, and, consistent with her style, she
inserts this idea casually long before she focuses on it directly.

Jeff stated early tlat he certainly does "believe strong in loving, and
in being good to everybody and trying to understand wfat they all need
to help them." (122). WYen Melanctha tells him that he does not know or
understand anything, re invites her to be the one to teach him.
"Perhaps I could learn a whole lot about wonen the right way if I had a
real good teacher" (125).

On page 136, Stein writes that Jeff had "loved all his life always
to be thinking, but he was still only a great boy.. and 1e had never
before had any of this funny kind of feeling." She continues on this

129

train of thought on page 137. "He was open, he was pleasant, he was
cheery, and always he wanted, as Melanctha once had wanted, always now
he too wanted really to understand." Like Melanctla he wants another,
deeper kind of wisdom. Before he had toyed with women. Now that is no
longer enough.

Stein returns to this theme on page 160, after Jeff and Melanctha
have gone through several rounds of tl'eir troubles. The schoolboy
references are explicit as Jeff teases, "I sure am a good boy to be
learning all the time the right way you are teaching me.. . You can't
say no, never I ain’t a good scholar for you to be teaching now,
Melanctha, and I arm always so ready to core to you every day and never
playing hooky ever from you... .You can’t say ever to me, I ain’t a good
boy to you now..." (160). To which Melanctha replies, "Not near so
good, Jeff Campbell, as such a good, patient kind of teacler like me,
who never teaches any ways it ain ’t good her scholars should be
knowing, ought to be really having. "

Failing loving

 

The bulk of the remainder of Part Three is preoccupied with a
description of Jeff attempting to learn how to love. Jeff '3 thoughts
are focussed on knowing and understanding Melanctta. In his own mind he
works very hard at it.

As the days pass, they are more and more drawn to each other. Jeff
is impressed by Melanctla's goodness and sweetness, and he finds tnat
he looks forward to her conpany. But they continue to talk about
"outside things." Sorething holds them back. Melanctta makes the first

move, responding to Jeff ’5 oblique invitation to "teach" him things.

130

She says "I sure do want to be friends with a good man like you, now I
know you... Tell me for true, Dr. Campbell, will you be friends with
me" (127).

Jeff, although his attraction has been growing for sone time,
cannot commit. He replies, "why you see I just can’t say tl'at right
out tnat way to you. Why sure you know.. I-will be very glad if it
comes by and by tfat we are always friends together.. and when I
certainly do want to mean it what I am saying to you, I can’t say
things like that right out to everybody till I know really more for
certain all about you, and how I like you, and what I really mean to do
better for you" (128).

It is this point that Jeff establishes tle pattern of each cycle,
which continues throughout the length of tleir relationship. Melanctta
has snaken him to the roots. He feels corpelled to be with her, and yet

on the brink of commitment he withdraws. When they are together, he is
happy and exhilarated. When they are apart, or when he) begins to think,

he begins to doubt, he nearly thinks himself out of a relationship with
her and finds a way to escape from her. But when he is near her again
his resolve is shaken and he is happy and is again drawn to her. His
thinking stands in the way of feeling and l'alts any progress in their
loving until he can forget his thinking and begin to feel again. It is
appropriate to call these cycles "Rounds," as, after awhile, they take
on a resemblance to rounds in a bodng match. Each is the same,
characterized by a period of happiness, tlen bitter arguments caused by
his indecision, then a resolution in which they make peace with each
other and settle their differences. Then anotner round begins with a
period of renewed nappiness. Jeff and Melanctha are alternately happy

and sad, getting along and fighting bitterly. At first, tle two are

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evenly matched and engage in spirited conversations. Gradually Jeff
wears Melanctta down, she becomes increasingly passive and finally
gives up in defeat. And so the rounds go: attraction, indecision,
resolution; attraction, indecision, resolution.

In order to clarify the evolution of tie relationship it is
necessary to step back from tie story and impose order on the
conplexity. Tne decline and failure of the relationship, and also the
reasons for it is more clearly visible when the repetitive patterns are
viewed side by side. Then it is possible to follow tie passing of love
more easily as the reader progresses through the story. First I will
list all the rounds and then explain their progression.

There are thirteen rounds in all. Each rolnd has two facets. Tl'e
first is wfat seems to be happening on the surface. Stein clearly marks
this first facet with the use of "now" and a summing up statenent of
sore sort. The second, revealed by Jeff ’5 thoughts is tne reality of
where the two stand. The evolution of these second facets clearly

reveals what exactly happens to destroy their love.

ROUND ONE
1. Jeff Cenpbell, when Melanctta left him, sat tlere and 1e
was very quiet and just wondered... He began to think about what
he should do now with her (129).
2. Jefferson was not sure tlat he knew here just what he
wanted. He was not sure he knew just what it was that Melanctha

wanted (129-130) .’

ROUND'Im

1. Things began to be very strong between them. Melanctla

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now never wandered, unless she was with Jeff Campbell (136).

2. These months had been an uncertain time for Jeff

Campbell. He never knew how much he really knew about
Melanctta... He was beginning to feel he could almost trust tie
goodness in her. But then, always, really, be was not very sure
about her (136).

m THREE:

1. They had many days now when they were very happy. Jeff every
day found tlat he really liked Melanctha better. Now surely he was
beginning to have real deep feeling in him (143).

2. Jeff Campbell, all these months, had never told his good mother
anything about Melanctna. He did not know if it was what Melanctta
wanted. .. He never really knnew wfat it was that Melanctha really wanted

(142).

RGJNDFCIJR

1. Jeff saw Melanctha every day now (149).

2. Jeff was a little uncertain all this time inside him (149).

RCIJND FIVE

1. Now for a little time there was not anykind of trouble between
Jeff Campbell and Melanctha Herbert... Trey got much joy now, both of
them, from being all the time together (153).

2. He never, even now, was ever sure, he really knnew what
Melanctla was, when sle was real herself, and honest. He thought he
knew, and then there came to him sole mment, just like'this one, when
ste really woke him up... (156).

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ROUND SIX
1. And now for a real long time there was no open trouble...
(161).
2. Then it came that Jeff knew he could not say olt any more,
wfat it was he wanted, he could not say out any more, what it was, he

wanted to know about, what Melanctha wanted (161).

ROUND SEVEN
l. Tlere was a weight in Jeff Campbell from now on (171).
2. [Melanctta says,] "You always wanting to have it all clear out
in words always, wl'at everybody is always feeling. I certainly don 't
see a reason, why I should always be explaining to you what I mean by

what I am just saying" (171).

ROUND EIGHT
1. From now on, Jeff had real torment in him (173).
2. Now, deep inside him, there was always a doubt with Jeff, of
Melanctha’s loving... He was helpless to find out the way she really

felt now for him (175).

RCIJND NINE

1. Always now Jeff wondered did Melanctha love him (177).
2. Jeff always now felt baffled with Melanctta (177).

ROUND TEN
1. Melanctta rad begun now once more to wander (184).
2. Jeff did not know whether it was that Melanctha did not know
how to give a simple answer. And then how could 1e, Jeff, know what
was important to l‘er (185). I

134

ROUND ELEVEN
1. Jeff Campbell never asked Melanctta any more if she loved him.
Now things were always getting worse between them (188).
2. Jeff Campbell knew very well too now inside him, re did not
really want Melanctha, now if he could no longer trust her, tlough he

loved her hard and really knew now wfat it was to suffer (189).

ROUND TWELVE
1. And now surely it was all over in Jeff Campbell (192).
2. Surely now he never any more could know Melanctha. And yet,

perhaps Melanctha really loved him (192).

RCIJND THIRTEEN
1. As Jeff came nearer to her, he doubted that he wanted really to
be with her... Jeff Canmpbell knew very well now, way inside him, that

they could never talk their trouble out between them (196).

2. Wet was it Jeff wanted now to tell Melanctha... surely he
never now could learn to trust her. Surely Jeff knew very well all

tnat Melanctha always had inside her. And yet... (196).

On the surface, with the "now" to convey immediacy, there seems to
be movenent, a sense of progression, of a building and then declining
love affair. This sense of progression is an illusion. If we look
carefully at the words in each round, it becones clear that tfere has
been no progression at all, tlat their love never really began.

The juxtaposition of these phrases denonstrates tlat there is something
in Jeff '5 mind throughout tnat sees the trouble between them, sonething
tnat holds him back. In part it is his thinking process tnat gradually

undermines and destroys any clance at success in love, but there is an

135

underlying reason for this negative thinking. Jeff has an underlyinng
negative viewpoint toward love and Melanctha. This is revealed in the
words Stein uses to describe his thoughts .

We see this love affair through Jeff ’5 eyes and consciousness. Tie
reader is only privy to Jeff '3 thoughts, his fears and uncertainties.
His thought patterns and the words that describe them are consistently
negative, characterized by "nevers," "nots," "ifs," "yets," and "buts."
"He did not know;" "All this time he was uncertain," "He never even now
was ever sure;" "he could not say what it was he wanted to know;" "he
was helpless;" "he doubted." These words belie the certainty re proudly
displays in his speech and show the the negative outlook which was
hinted at before and not which colors his attitudes.

This negative stance leads to negative hedging in his thinkinng which
in turn leads to negative conclusions toward Melanctha. Stein shows us
his circular reasoning at the beginning of the relationship. As he
sits thinking about Melanctta his thought patterns are marked by
conjunctions as he reasons his way through to a decision. In the first
sentence he uses the conditional conjunction "if:" "He knnew if it was
only play, with Melanctla, that he did not want to do it." He is very
sure (conditional upon Melanctha’s feelings) ttat if Melanctta doesn’t
care then this relationship is not for him. Then he examines anotler
possibility, a contrasting one, and tfe adversative conjunction
denonstrates his consideration of this side: "But he remenbered always
howsl‘e hadtoldhimheneverlonewhowtofeelthingsverydeeply." His
thoughts proceed through the alternatives: "If it was a play he did not
want to go on playinng, but if it was really trat he was not very
understanding, and trat with Melanctta Herbert ne could learn to really

understand,tnen1ewasverycertainredidnotwanttobeacoward. It

136

was very hard for him to know wl'at he wanted." The next series of
tloughts are linked by by additive conjunctions as if each new thought
is a logical progression from the former. "He thought and thought and
always he did not seem to know any better what he wanted." There is no
"so" or causal conjunction to show that the conclusion he reaches is
anything other than tie logical one: "At last he gave up this thinking.
He felt sure it was only play with Melanctl'a" (130). And so he decides
tlat he does not want any part of her. But when she returns he is
swayed by her sweetness and intelligence. "It certainly was very good
in you to come back.. . "Jefferson said at last to her," and tie causal
conjunction "for" appears again to denonstrate his change of heart "for
now he was almost certain, it was no game she was playing." His
thoughts continue with the additive conjunctions as if he were almost

listing her traits to himself to convince himself the she really is
good: "Melanctta really was a good woman, and she had a good mind, and

she had a real, strong sweetness, and she could surely really teach
him." The adverb "surely" enphasizes his attenpt to convince himself
tfat yes, she will teach him love.

This type of trought pattern persists througl'out the relationship.

A passage on page 137 illustrates another typical progression:

At first his dark, open face was smiling and he was rubbing
the back of his black-brown hand over his mouth to help him
in his smiling. Then he was thinking and he frowned and
rubbed his head hard, to helphimwith his thinking. Then
re smiled again, but now his smiling was not very pleasant.
His smile was now wavering on the edge of scorning. His
smile changedmoreandmore, andthenhehada lookas ifhe

137

were deeply down, all disgusted. Now his face was darker,
and re was bitter in his smiling, and he began, witholt
looking from the fire, to talk to Melanctta, who was now

very tense with her watching" (137) .

In the space of a few minutes his own thinking has turned a pleasant
moment into a monent of ugliness and bad feelings. And so begins
another round of hurt.

We are not granted tfe luxury of seeing inside Melanctl'a's mnind.
We can only witness wfat she does and listen to what she says. Perhaps
this is partly the reason why many readers have believed that Melanctha
is the cause of tie downfall of this love affair. If one does not
notice that tle relationship is seen through the eyes of Jeff, who
considers himself blameless, it is easy to place the blame directly on
Melanctla’s sl'oulder.

Wecannowproceedthroughtleroundsastheoccur, andsee
exactly how Jeff ’5 negative outlook gradually destroys the relationship

and -ultimately - Melanctta.
Continuing Destroying

airing Round (he of indecision versus resolution, when Jeff has
finished thinnking he decides to protect himself. "I certainly will stop
fooling, and begin to go on with my thinking abolt my work" (130) he
tells himself resolutely. But then when they begin to talk again he
feels differently. He begins to feel that maybe it is different, tfat
maybe he has been wrog and it is not just play with her. For awhile
things seem to be going quite well.

Jeff and Melanctta begin to wander together. On one level

138

"wandering" in this context means merely spending time together walking
aimlessly, but in light of its prior uses it could also mean tfat Jeff
and Melanctha have consummated their relationship. There is a period of
happiness. But in Jeff ’5 thoughts the word "know" crops up again and

again, and the uncertainty that seened to be resolved shows through and

the vascillation continues:

These months had been an uncertain time for Jeff Campbell.
He never knew how much he really knew about Melanctha... He
was beginning always more and more to like her. But he did
not seem to himself to know very much about her. He was
beginning to feel he could almost trust the goodness in ner.
But then, always, really, he was not very sure about fer...
he did not know very well what it was that he really wanted.

Hewasverycertainthathedidnnotknnowverywell what it
was flat Melanctha wanted... (136).

Jeff ’5 preoccupation and uncertainty also appear in his monologues with
Melanctha. It is important to note that in many cases tfese are not
conversations any more. Jeff is speaking at Melanctta, not talking to
here. Stein has told us on page 134 that Melanctha never talks much
anymore when they are together. Jeff teases her about it, but she
replies, "You thinnk a whole lot more about everything than I do Jeff,
and you don’t care much what I got to say about it." He replies tlat
when she is just telling people wfat she thinks tl'ey want to hear then
he doesn’t want to listen, but when ste says wtat’s really on her mind
then he does. The question retains as to when Melanctha is really
saying wrat's on rer mind and when she isn’t. He l'as not established

139

tlat he can tell the difference. And does he really listen tlen?

And so he continues, using her as a sounding board for his doibt.
He says, "Sonetimes you are a girl to me I certainly never would be
trusting... and tl'en certainly sonetimes, Melanctta, you certainly is
all a different creature, and sonetimes tnen there cones ont in you
what is certainly a thing, like a real beauty... And then wlen I got
rich with such a feeling (like a real religion) cores all tlat other
girl... and tnen I certainly do get awful afraid to core to you , and I
certainly never feel I could be very trusting with you. And then I
certainly don ’t know anything at all about you, and I certainly don ’t
know which is a real Melanctta Herbert" (138-139). The "and" l'ere is
used almost as a causal conjunction instead of an additive. This is tl'e
reason why he is afraid and can’t get involved. And it is her fault.

Melanctha is very hurt and bitter about all this fickle wavering.
In tears, she says, "I was awful ready, Jeff to let yol say anything
you like that gave you any pleasure. You could say all abolt me what
youwanted, andeouldtrytostandit, soastobesuretobeliking
me, Jeff, but you was too cruel to me. When yon do that kind of seeing
how much you can make a wonan suffer, you ought to give her a little
rest... When you want to be seeing how the away a wonan is really made
of, Jeff, you shouldn't never be so cruel, never to be thinnking how
much she can stand..." (140).

Jeff is very surprised at her reaction. "Why Melanctha, you poor
little girl, you certainly never did believe I ever know I was giving
you real suffering" (141). He does not believe tfat he has been cruel.
He discounts her feelings as being childish and silly, by calling her
"little girl." He takes her in his arms in a brotherly way and

instantly reverses himself, "I certainly never can know anything about

140

you real. . . but I certainly do admire and trust you a whole lot now"
(141). Melanctha forgives his insensitivity immediately. She persists
in believing one day he will love her. She stated this belief earlier
when she said, "You see all that, Jeff, better, by and by, when you get
to really feeling" (135), and so his cruelty is shrugged off and
forgotten.

Round Three begins. A very happy period follows. Ostensibly happy.
The uncertainty lingers. "He never really knew wl'at it was that
Melanctta really wanted. In all these ways he just, by his nature did,
what he sort of felt Melanctha wanted... Now surely he was beginning to
have real deep feeling in him" (143).

Surely, this is the real thing. But he is not sure enough to tell
his mother. He has kept it a secret from her.

Then all this "beginning toward a real feeling" is sabotaged by
Jane Harden. In a conversation with Jeff, Jane dredges up the past and
recounts at length Melanctha's men, "white ones and blacks, Melanctta
never was particular about things like that." Stein inserts the fact
tfat Jane does not know about the budding relationship, but this seems
suspicious in the face of the sly insertion on Stein ’5 part tl'at "Jane
was always honest... and now it just happened she had started talking
about her old times with Melanctha" (144). The amount of time spent
raking through Melanctha's past furthers the reader ’5 opinion that this
didn’t "just happen." Jeff first got to know Melanctha through Jane
Harden, and this is where he formed his initial impression of her and
that basic "distrust" of wl'at she is. Even before they actually met he
had core to tie conclusion that she was no good. It has been his
preoccupation with Melanctha ’s "badness" and ler sordid past tlat has

141

kept him back. It seems reasonable to deduce here tlat he has been
hoping that Jane will corroborate his fears. And who better tfan Jane?
The phrase "Jane began" - to tell and explain - occurs nine times in
the space of one paragraph. Why sl'e would bring this up out of the blue
is open to question. One gets the distinct feeling tl'at Jane is being
pumped for information. And there is more than a trace of
maliciousness in Jane ’5 words when she says "in passing, not tlat
Melanctha was a bad one, and she had a good mind, Jane Harden never
would say she hadn't, but Melanctta always liked to use all the
understanding ways the Jane had taught her, and so she wanted to know
everything, always, tlat they knnew how to teach her" (144).

Jeff ’5 worst fears have cone true. Melanctha is truly a bad wonan.
All his distrust and uncertainty have been well-founded fears. Now he
understands clearly who and what Melanctha is and feels sick. All of a
sudden Melanctna seens very ugly to him. At last he knows. "Jeff was at
last beginning to knnow what it was to rave deep feeling [and] at last
he rad stopped thinking.... he knm very well now at last, he was
really feeling. He knew it now from the way it hurt him. He knew very
well tlat now at last he was beginning to really have understanding. He
knew very well that now at last he had learned what it was to have deep
feeling" (144). And he is finding it very painful. One gets tl'e
distinct impression tnat Jeff has been searching for a way to sabotage
this relationship. But once he las managed he doesn't like it at all.

He breaks off with a letter. He doesn’t have the courage even to
face her. The word "sick" appears five times in the paragraph
describing his reaction to Jane ’5 words, and in a marvelos piece of

irony he writes Melanctha a note that he cannot see her because he mnust

142

see a "sick patient."

Days go by. After a long time Melanctha writes back and tells him
she ’5 led enough and to never cone back. In this bitter biting letter
Idelanctha uses the words and the issues that have been accumulating in
their thoughts and in their speech up to this point: " understand,"
"good," "think," "afraid." In her roundabout way she gets right to the
heart of the matter.

She begins by using the words that characterize Jeff’s thoughts
against him, his need and inability to "understand" her. She is mocking
him by using his own words against him with bitter sarcasm, and yet
crying out in real pain to ask why he needs to persist in hurting her.
"I certainly don’t rightly understand what you are doing now to me... I
certainly don’t rightly understand Jeff campbell why you ain't all
these days been near me." She says she doesn’t understand. The next
line reveals that she really does. "I certainly do suppose it’s just
another one of the queer kind of ways you have to be good and repenting
of yourself all of a sudden." She is beginning to understand that it is
his "goodness" and uprightness in addition to his negative attitude
toward her that keep himnfromna.true’commutmEKKLtonher. She goes on to
say, "I certainly don’t say to you... I admire very much the way you
take to be good Jeff Campbell." Goodness, in Melanctha’s mind is
kindness and patience and endurance. continually hurting and making
another suffer is not in her code of ethics. She tells him she has had
enough. She has already suffered three rounds of his resolution/uncer-
‘tainty and she has had all she can take» "I amnsorry Dr. campbell but I
certainly am afraid I can’t stand it no more from you the way you have
been just acting. I certainly can’t stand it any more the way you act

when you have been as if you thought I was always good enough for

143

anybodytohavewiththemandthenyouactas if Iwasabadoneand
you always just despise me. I certainly am afraid Dr. Campbell I can't
stand it any more like that. I certainly can’t stand it any more the
way you are always changing." In her anger she takes a stab at his
vanity and his self-image of a good and upright man. "I certainly am
afraid Dr. Campbell you ain't man enough to deserve to have anybody
care so much to be always with you. I certainly am awful afraid Dr.
Campbell I don’t ever any more want to really see you." Tlen she breaks
off the relationship before he can. "Good-bye Dr. Campbell I wish you
always to be real happy."

It is useful here to return to Jayne Walker '5 corments on
Melanctna and Jeff ’3 "linguistic impotence." As the letter quoted above
denonstrates, Melanctha has splendid control over language. She can
use it to rip and tear and stab right to the heart of Jeff ’5 guilt and
fears. She is most certainly aware of the ambiguities and possibilities
inherent in words and is a master at making them work for her. Stein
demonstrated this in the early pages of tne story.

"Melanctta went to school and was very quick in all tne
learning, and she knew very well how to use this knowledge

to annoy her parents who knew nothing" (91).

Her father "often had good reason to be angry with
Melanctha, who knew so well how to be nasty, and to use her
learning with a father wl'o knew nothing" (92) .

"He feared her tongue, and her school learning, and the

way she had of saying things that were very nasty to a

brutal black man who knew nothing" (103).

This is a third type of knowledge, and also a different type of

144

power which Melanctfa has - tfe knowledge of how to wield words to her
own advantage, to stab and to hurt, but except at the very beginning
of their relationship, she has chosen not to use it against Jeff. Here
she wields this power and knowledge with great force.

As I have shown, Jeff '3 inability to understand Melanctfa and
what each means by wfat tfey are saying stens from otfer factors than
inability to express themselves. Yes, they fave talked themselves into
an impasse, but this is not the result of tfeir lack of verbal acuity,
it is from Jeff ’5 unwillingness to understand and accept Melanctha.

Upon receiving the letter, Jeff at first feels self-righteously
angry. After all, he never knew what Melanctha wanted, and it was she
who had been bad, as opposed to his goodness. He reminds himself of how
hardhehastriedtobegoodandkindtoher. "Heknewverywellhehad
donehis besttobekind, andtotrusther, andtobeloyal toher, and

now..." (146) And then, true to fornm he does another about-face and fe
is sorry he has hurt her. "Perhaps she could teach him to really

understand it better. Perhaps she could teach him low it could be all
true." And then tfe hedge. He has the usual reservations. "And yet how
he could be right to believe in her and to trust fer" (146). He writes
a letter back. The words that have dominated his tholght patterns now
dominate his letter; it is filled with the repetitions and hedging we
fave cone to expect of Jeff: "certainly," "think," "honest," "coward,"
"trust," "want." He doesn’t think that she is right. He doesn't think
sfe is being very understanding. He doesn’t know wfat it is she wants.
He is certainly not a coward. He is driven by his inner integrity to be
honest with her, and if sfe doesn’t want him to be forest then there is
no point in them talking to each other. And he foresfadows tfe future

of their relationship when he says, "So don ’t talk any more

145

foolishness, Melanctfa, about my always changing. I don’t change
never, and I got to do what I think is right and honest to me" (p.
147).

In this letter Jeff denonstrates very clearly tfat he is placing
the burden of the relationship - and the blame for its failure - on
Melanctfa. She had to make the first move, he has not attenpted - ever
- to find out what she wants, he has just "sort of" done wfat he thinks 7
she wants. When things break down it is her fault, because he can't
understand her. Here again he is placing the blame for their troubles
directly upon her. She certainly doesn't have it right, she doesn't
understand him, and he never really has known what it is she wants. And
he returns again to the same old tune about trusting her. His sentences
are Rube Goldbergs of self-delusion and blame-mongering. "I certainly
don ’t think you are just fair or very understanding to all I fave to
suffer to keep straight on to really always to believe in you and trust
you. I certainly don 't think you always are fair to remenber right how
fard it is for a man, who thinks like I was always thinking, not to
think you do things very bad very often" (146). In his mind he is the
one who is suffering because he is unable to trust her. She is after
all, a fallen wonan, a wanderer, a whore. How can sfe expect him to be
trusting and certain of her love? In other words: "you must accept me
as I am, but you ’re not being fair for being angry when I can't accept
you as you are."

Melanctha invites him to core back, he goes to her, and after
telling him gently tfat he was very bad to her, she fodly forgives
him. She excuses him witholt question. He laughs a little and says

"Well, Melanctfa, you can’t say, no, never, but tfat we certainly fave

146

worked right hard to get both of us togetfer for it, so we shall sure
deserve it then, if we can ever really get it." If we can believe the
sincerity of this statenent we must believe that fe is totally blind to
his actions and tfeir consequences and the toll all this trolble is
taking on Melanctha. Melanctha does not contradict him. She agrees that
they fave had trouble, and goes so far as to say, "I feel so worn with
all the trouble you been making for me," (149), but tfat is tfe extent
of her (rebellion).

And so begins Round Four. Again they are happy. It is summertime,
they wander again contentedly. EXCEPT tfat Jeff is "a little uncertain
all this time inside him" (149) because he hasn't bared his cfest about
why they had this trouble. He decides tfat fe needs to be "honest." Tfe
two established at the beginning that they would be honest with each
other, so he must adhere to this promise of always being open and

honest. He feels he "must tell to Melanctha wfat it was he knew noww,
tfat which Jane Harden... had told him." (150). His mind tells him that

this is the only way to know her really. The truth no matter what. So,
in the midst of "feeling very close" fe tells it all.

She again is bitter and angry and scornful. But he tel ls her he
hadtherighttoknow, andallfedidwrongwastoaskJaneHardenand
not Melanctfa herself about her past.

The next paragraph introduces the word "struggle" for the first
time, and a foreshadowing of what is to come, knowing, as the reader
does by now, that this can’t be the end of tfeir troubles. "It was a
struggle that was as sure always to be going on between them, as their
minds and hearts always were to have different ways of working." (153).

Melanctha forgives him again, and so begins Round Five. Only this
time we are told that Jeff finally does not do any thinking anymore.

147

Jeff has made the transition from thinking to feeling. He has finally
let go of himself and given in to tfe feeling and to her goodness and
sweetness. "Sonetimes Jeff would lose all himself in a strong feeling.
Very often now, and always with more joy in his feeling, he wolld find
himself, fedidnotknowhoworwhat itwashehadbeenthinking"
(154). The word "love" is re-introduced on page 149, first in
reference to Jeff loving summer, and then loving being with Melanctfa
and then receiving her love. And he is moving in that direction too.
"Every day now, Jeff seered to be coming nearer, to be
really loving. Everyday now, Melanctfa poured it all out to
him, with more freedom. Every day now, they seened to be
having more and more, both togetfer, of this strong, right
feeling. More and more every day now tfey seened to knnow
more really, wfat it was each otfer one was always feeling.
More and more now every day Jeff found in himself, he felt
more trusting. More and more every day now, he did not

think anything in words about wfat he was always doing" (154).

Melanctha showers him with her own love. We have returned to the
present progressive tense and the "now." The words that dominate tfese
pages are "love," "joy," "feeling" and "wandering." Tfe relationship is
finally moving. At last tfey fave found happiness.

Abruptly, without warning, things cfange again. The paragraph
begins "Wfat was it tfat now really fappened to them? Wat was it that
Melanctha did, that made everything get all ugly for them?" (155). It
seems tfat Stein has stepped wt of tfe narrative to evaluate and
corment from a distance. It seens tfat it is Melanctha, wfo has

destroyed the relationship this time. We can return to DeKoven's

148

statenent tfat Melanctha's fatal flaw is a divided self. We can deduce
that DeKoven has interpreted this incident as being Melanctha’s doing.
She writes, "At crucial times in her life, including the moment when
she finally has the full and passioate love she needs from Jeff, she
acts against her own best interests destroying the relationship she has
worked hard to build."12 Closer inspection, and the reader’s
understanding of Jeff’s character reveals something else.

It is important.tr>remsmter that throughout the story the reader
has not been allowed inside Melanctha’s head. The narrator has either
been omniscient and renote or inside Jeff Campbell. We have only seen
the situation froaneff’s point of view, biassed and blind as it is.
The thought patterns we have seen have been Jeff's, his vascillating
and his self-deception. The only way to see into Melanctha’s mind is
through her words, and until this time she has never corplained or
revealed her bitterness or anxiety or anger except briefly, by telling
Jeff he has been very bad to her, and then instantly forgiving him. But
here the paragraph begins with,"What.was it that Melanctha felt just
then, tfat made Jeff remember all the feeling he had had in him wfen
Jane Harden told him how Melanctha had learned to be so very
understanding?" It was not sonething she said, but all of a sudden
things have changed from green and warm and lovely to ugly. He can only
feel disgust.

But why? What brings on this dramatic change? Has.Me1anctha really
done anything or is it Jeff himself?

If we return to the earlier passages on page 137, when, in the
space of just minutes Jeff '5 mood changes from happiness to scorn to

disgust, and to tfe continuing constant reversals in his thoughts, it

149

becones clear tfat this is just more of tfe same. As the paragraph
continues we find tfat we are still inside Jeff ’5 head, following the
undulations of his thoughts. As usual, the blame is not with him.

Again, his mind wheels in the same pattern:

What was it he used to be thinking was the right way for
him and all the colored people to be always trying to make
it right, the way they should be always living? Melanctfa
Herbert sonehow fad made him feel deeply just then, what
very more it was tfat she wanted from him. Jeff Campbell
now felt in him wfat everybody always had needed to make
them really understanding, to him. Jeff felt a strong
disgust. he had only disgust because he never could know
really in him, wfat it was he wanted, to be really right in

understanding, for him, he only had disgust because he never
could know really what it was really right to him to be

always doing, in the things he had before believed in, tfe
things before he had believed in for himself and for all the
colored people, the living regular, and the never wanting to
be always having new things, just to keep on, always being
in excitenents. All the old thinking now came up very strong
inside him. He sort of turned away tfen, and threw Melanctfa
from him (156).

In this passage tfe same hammer words tfat fave been used throlghout
the story itself appear: "know," "think,""fee1," "understand," with
tfe addition of tfe phrase "the right way."

"The right way." After tfe impact that this philosophy had in both
"The Good Anna" and "The Gentle Lena" the phrase fairly leaps out of

150

tfe page. "The right way." Again, this is the leading force in a
cfaracter's life, which dictates all he thinks, does and feels. Again
it is this preoccupation with virtue and wfat one assumes is God's will
in the mind of one that leads to victimization of another. In their
long discussion while Jeff and Melanctfa waited for ’Mis' Herbert to
die, Jeff revealed his very strong beliefs about how one should live,
and the firmness with which he wanted to see the colored people like
what is good, in other words, "to live regular and work hard and
understand things and that ’s enough to keep any decent man excit "
(117). He was very enphatic about wwhat was good and wfat was bad.
Ebncitements, drinking, "running around." Jane Harden. And Melanctfa.
And now, during the course of another long speech his beliefs return.
He reminds Melanctha that he believes there are two ways of loving -
the good way tfat families are like and the bad way tfat animals are.
He tells her. "I got a new feeling now, you been teaching to me, just
like I told you once, just like a new religion to me, and I see perhaps
wfat really loving is like I love you... like a real religion, and
then it cones over me all sudden, I don ’t knnow anything real about
you... and then it cones over me sudden, perhaps I certainly am wrong
knnow, thinking all this way so lovely, and not thinking now any more of
the old way I always before was always thinking, about what was tfe
right way for me to live... and then I think... tfat you are really
just a bad one. .. I want to be always right really in the ways, I have
to do them... I don 't know any way... to find out really, whether my
old way, the way I always used to be thinking, or the new way, you make
so like a real religion... which way certainly is the real right way

for me..." (159). Jeff is showing his indecision again; he is

151

vascillating now between his feelings for Melanctha and the ethics fe
has hitherto based his life upon.

Here we have reached the crux of Jeff '5 philosophy of life and the
root of all his troubles with Melanctfa. For Jeff, this phrase "the
right way" is the hammer, the key to him. "Understanding" has been
detached and intellectual. Knowing did not concern feeling. Melanctfa
has made Jeff feel very deeply. It seers that Jeff has had a profound
sexual experience. Melanctha has taken him to new heights. And now "all
tfe old thinking" has returned, and feeling is "bad."The "best way."
The "right way." It is apparent, when one takes into account these
phrases, along with Jeff ’5 uncertainty throughout and his need to keep
this relationship a secret, that he suddenly feels tfat he fas violated
all his principles by feeling deeply. Melanctha has supplanted his
religion. He has succumbed to "excitenents." He fas let go of his
"thinking" personality and given in to merely feeling.

The next paragraph traces the movenent of his thoughts, as they
wind in tfeir usual circular way. The word "know" is repeated twelve

times, with the negative to stress his uncertainty:

Jeff never, even now, knnew wfat it was that moved him. He

never, even now, was ever sure, he really knew what [she]
was,when she was real herself, and honest. He thought he
knew, andthen therecametohimsonemonent, just like this
one, when she really woke him up to be strong in him. Then
hereallyknewhecouldknownothing. Heknewthen, fenever
could know wfat it was she really wanted with him. He knew
then he never could know wfat it was he felt inside him. It
was all so mixed up inside him (156).

152

The thought patterns in this situation are almost an exact repetition
of the machinations his mind went through on page 130 when he was
deciding whetfer or not he wanted to get involved with Melanctta. . It
is also an exact repetition of an another incident recolnted on page
139, when they were sitting before the fire and he told Melanctfa that
he in her saw two girls: one "I certainly never would be trusting and
it ’8 what makes me hate so to core near you" and the other: "more
tender than tfe sunshine. .. and it gives me to feel like I certainly
had got real religion."

He is torn between wanting her badly and wanting to throw her from
him, between trusting her and not trusting her. The phrase "What was it
really that Melanctfa wanted with him?" fas occurred in conjunnction
with each incident. The reader will recall tfat this phrase fas
appeared again and again througfout tfe evolution of their relationship
on pages 125, 129, 136, three times on 142, and twice on 146 and now
again on page 156. The exactness of the repetition tells this must be
significant. But this not knowing what Melanctfa wants is ridiculous.
Melanctfa has made it abundantly clear what sfe wants.

In order to understand what she wants we must now introduce
several of the key passages tfat occurred in the beginning sections of
the story.

The reader will recall that on tfe second page, Stein tantalized
the reader with the question: "Why did the subtle, intelligent,
attractive, half white girl Melanctfa Herbert love and do for and
demean herself in the service to this...Rose?" The question was left
unanswered, but in the following pages one particular idea was

repeated :

153

Melanctha Herbert was always seeking rest and quiet, and
always she could only find new ways to be in trouble (89).

Melanctha Herbert was always seeking peace and quiet, and
she could always only find new ways to get excited. (92).

And Melanctha all her life loved and respected kind and good
and considerate people. Melanctfa always loved and wanted
peace and gentleness and goodness and all her life for
herself poor Melanctha could only find new ways to be in
trouble (93).

. ..and all her life Melanctha wanted and respected
gentleness and goodness and this man always gave her good
advice and serious kindness, and Melanctfa felt such things
deeply, but she could never let them help her or affect fer
to change the ways tfat always made her keep herself in
trouble (99).

She found [Jeff] good and strong and gentle and very
intellectual, and all her life Melanctfa liked and wanted
good and considerate people (109).

Melanctfa Herbert all her life long, loved and wanted
good, kind and considerate people. Jefferson Campbell was
all the things that Melanctha had ever wanted (125).

Each of these sentences consists of two different tfnoughts joined by a
coordinating conjunction: Melanctha sought rest fl she only found new
ways to be in trouble. Stein does not use the adversative conjunction
"but" or "yet" to show that the trouble Melanctfa finds is contrary to
wfat one would expect in her life. Stein uses instead the additive

conjunction which here implies that this "trouble" or "excitenent" are

154

foregone conclusions and unavoidable ends.

If we follow the evolution of these sentences we notice that Stein
makes it clear wfat Melanctha wants. She wants love. But she always
manages instead to find trouble. When she falls in lore with Jeff the
second half of the phrase "and she could only find new ways to be in
trouble" disappears. Jeff is the embodiment of all she has ever wished
for in life. She neither received love from nor given love to her
parents. The word "hatred" abounded in the description of her
relationship with them.

We must return to page 108, to the time Melanctfa begins to
wander on her own again. "It was now sonething realler that Melanctha
wanted, something that would move her very deeply, sonething that would
fill her fully with the wisdom that was planted now within her, and
that she wanted badly, should really wholly fill her." It was at this
time tfat she met Jeff and she "came to want him very badly.. . so badly
tfat now she never wandered" (109). She has "always loved and wanted
peace and gentleness and goodness..." (93). Finding that in Jeff (he
was "good and strong and gentle") (109), she is willing to put up with
his vascillating in the hopes that he will eventually give up his fears
and core to her as wholly as she has core to him. She has for Jeff, the
"real strong hot love. . . tfat makes you do anything for sonebody tfat
loves you" (122).

She tells him. Again and again.

You are certainly a very good man, Dr. Campbell, I
certainly do feel that more every day I see you. Dr.
Canmpbell, I sure do want to be friends with a good man like

you, now I know you. You certainly... never do things like

155

other men, tfat's always ugly for me" (127).

"...Like you, Jeff Campbell, and you certainly are mother,
and father, and brother, and sister, and child and
everything, always to me. I can’t say much about fow good
you been to me, Jeff Campbell, I never knnew any man who was
good and didn’t do things ugly, before I met you to take

care of me" (135).

After one particularly cruel session of accusations about
Melanctfa’s nature, she says to Jeff, "I know you are a good man, Jeff.
I always knnow tfat, no matter how much you can hurt me. Oh, Jeff
dear, I love you always, you know that now, all right, for certain."
(160).

She shows him, not only in her actions - "Eyery day now, Melanctha
poured it all out to him, with more freedom" - but also in her
continuing forgiveness, in her denial tfat he has been bad to her. One
can only conclude tfat he doesn't know what sfe wants because he
doesn't want to know.

This word "bad" begins to creep into their conversations during
the reconciliation period after tfe Jane Harden episode. When Jeff
returns to her after the bitter exchange of letters, Melanctha says,
fondly, "Well you certainly was very bad to me, Jeff Campbell," to
which he replies, "Melanctha, honest, I think perfaps I wasn’t real bad
to you any more tfan you just needed from me." Jeff ’s self-righteous
superiority allows him not only to say that he had had a right to dole
out cruelty, and believe it, Melanctha’s desperate need for love forces
her to accept this and him.

Two rounds later, in Romd Five, when he has thrown fer from him

156

in disgust and hurt her again, he says, "I didn’t mean to be so bad
again to you, Melanctfa, dear one... I certainly didn’t never mean to
go to be so bad to you, Melanctfa darling... I certainly am all sorry,
hard, to be so bad to you, Melanctha darling" (157).

This time she lashes out with the truth. "I suppose you are always
thinnking, Jeff, somebody had ought to be ashamed with us two together,
and you certainly do think you don’t see any way to it, Jeff, for me to
be feeling that way ever, so you certainly don ’t see any way to it,
only to do it just so often for me" (157). In other words, since she
has no shame, he has to feel it for her, and make her do penance for
her lack of shame. Melanctha goes on to say, "You certainly anyway
trust me now no more, did you, when you must acted so bad to me." It is

clear to her tfat he doubts her and her loyalty and fidelity. She asks
him to finally admit that he fas never trusted her, and when he does,

she says tfat this time she will never forgive him.

Jeff launches into another endless monologue about wanting badly
to do tfe right thing, telling her he can’t help it tfat he feels this
way. He refuses to take responsibility for himself or his enotions and
doubts. And Melanctfa replies tfat she can't help him in "tfat kind of
trouble [he is] always having" and goes on to say, "All I can do now,
Jeff, is to just keep certainly with my believing you are good always,
Jeff, and though you certainly do hurt me bad, I always got strong
faith in you, Jeff, more in you certainly than you seem to be having in
your acting to me, always so bad, Jeff... I certainly don't think I am
right for you, to be forgiving always, when you are so bad, and I so
patient, with all this hard teaching always" (161).

He asks forgiveness and she replies "Always and always, you be

sure Jeff, and I certainly am afraid I nener can stop with my forgiving

157

you always are going to be so bad to me, and I always going to have to
be so good with my forgiving." There is real sadness in that statenent,
and a sense of hopelessness, as if she has a given up believing tfat he
will change. There is also a sense of passivity, that tfere is nothing
she can do about it except to wait. Jeff merely laughs and says, "I

ain't going to be so bad for always... Melanctha, my own darling."

Understanding Suffering

 

Here Stein fas conpleted her about-face and reversed the goodness
of Jeff and the badness of Melanctfa. Jeff, wfo has prided himself on
his goodness and purity and uprightness has treated Melanctfa
appallingly throughout. He fas been vicious; he has wrenched her back
and forth between his "Yes, I do’s" and "No, I don't’s;" he has accused
her of being anotfer Jane Harden; and he has degraded her by keeping
their affair a secret and refusing to acknowledge their relationship.
His need to appear "good" and hang on to his principles have kept him
from treating Melanctfa decently, fonestly and humanely.

In the very beginning of their "friedship," Melanctha remarked
that Jeff was different from otfer men because he never did "things
like otfer men, tfat's always ugly for me" (127). On page 154, this
there in Melanctha’s mind is reiterated during a period of happiness,
in a time when joy is the predominant enotion. "He poured it all olt
back to her in freedom, in tender kind ness and in joy, and in gentle
brother fondling. And Melanctha loved him for it always, her Jeff
Campbell now, who never did things ugly, for her like all tfe men she
always knew before always had been doing to her." (154) The bitter

irony with these phrases is tfat Jeff has been ugly to her. He has not

158

beaten or abused fer physically or sexually, but fe fas abused her
enotionally and mentally.

Melanctha, on the otfer hard, fas turned the other cfeek each
time. She has forgiven him, she has poured out her love for him when he
will allow it, and when he turns nasty and accusatory, she never
replies in kind. Througfout tfeir relationship she fas responded in
practice what he believes in theory.

This last terrible argument marks the beginning of tfe decline of
the relationship. Stein begins Round Six with the statenent, "And now
for a real long time there was no open trouble"(l6l).

BUT. . .

"Then it canme that Jeff knew he could not say out any more, wfat

it was he wanted, he could not say out any more, wfat it was, he wanted

to knnow about, what Melanctfa want "(161).

He still does not know wfat Melanctfa wants. Shades of Iena. This
"did not know" is repetitious of "The Gentle Iena" but in Jeff '5 case
it is not naivete, but unwillingness. He cannot see it. And Melanctha
has had enough.

The word "forest" returns to the fore. Jeff said at the beginning
tfat he was always honest, and tfat it was very easy for him to be
honest. later he felt forced to be honest, no matter fow badly it hurt
Melanctfa’s feelings. Now he feels that he can't be fonest any more.
She can no longer tolerate the endless discussions about how uncertain
he is, how he sees two different persons in her, fow badly fe wants to
do the right thing. He must keep his opinions to himself. His innate
sense of honesty and rightness feel betrayed and he is uneasy.

The words tfat mark this next period are "feeling," "bad,"

"honest," "uneasy" and "loving," "suffer," "trust." From tfe abuse Jeff

159

has meted out to Melanctha to her feelings abolt the relationship "bad"
fas changed its meaning. Melanctfa has "bad feelings" and is immersed
in "bad suffering. " Sfe has terrible headaches now. And tfe headaches
cone when Jeff "would talk a long time to her about wfat was right for
them both to be always doing" (161). Now "Melanctha sonehow never
seemed to hear him, she just looked at him and looked as if her head
hurt with him."

At last Jeff is feeling very strong about her. But now, because
she is "not strong enough inside fer to stand any more of his slow way
of doing" he feels uneasy and cannot be honest with her anymore. He
does not "know enough, what was his real trouble with her" (164). He
feels that he cannot be honest about his doubts and uncertainty. He
cannot tell her‘tfat he still does not trust her, and tfat he is

wavering toward living "tfe right way." Now he really loves her.
"Always now he felt in himself, deep loving." (164). "He knew now tfat

he had a good, straight, strong feeling of right loving for her, and
yet now he never could use it to be good and hoest with her" (164).
And so, alas, these days are not joyful anymore.
Hebeginstodoubtwhethersfe loveshimatall orwfether it is
just show. It is fer fault that he cannot be forest anymore and he has
to hide his feelings. They have a long senseless argment about courage
and bravery wfere he dredges up tfe old ideas abolt people being
courageous just by "living regular and not having new ways all that
time just to get excitenents" (167). To Jeff, it is more courageous to
live "tfe right way" tfan to always be seeking excitenent. In other
words, heistheonewfois brave, andMelancthais thecoard. There
is irony fare to when the reader recalls tfat before Melanctfa learned

160

the "wisdom" of the world, she was a coward. She did not becone
involved with men because it meant nothing to her. Now Jeff is telling
her tfat she is a coward because she is willing to take a chance on
him.

They sit by the fire in "unloving silence" and at last Melanctfa,
who all this time has put up with Jeff, speaks her mnind. "I certainly
do wonder why always it happens to me I care of anybody wfo ain't no
ways good enough for me ever to be thinking to respect him. "

The similarity between this statenent and the key passages which
fave cone before is striking. "Melanctha all fer life loved and
respected kind and good and considerate people. " At first she had
believed Jeff to be good, kind, loving, in other words, "all the things
[she] had ever wanted" but in the face of tfe way he has been treating
her, she no longer respects him. She has spent her life searching for
goodness, always finding trouble, and this trouble cones in the form of
a man who is no good.

At last the truth is out. Jeff gets up and he is silent. But
Melanctfa does not stand by her words. When he prepares to leave she
retracts her statement instantly , telling him that she never meant
what she said. Then she asks him "be good to me a little tonight when
my head hurts so" (169). This love, however feeble, in any form, any
quality, and kind, is better tfan none at all.

The ensuing conversation is renarkable. Jeff says, "I certainly
been thinking you really mean wfat you have been just then saying to
me."

Melanctha says, "But you say all the time to me Jeff, you ain’t no
ways good enough in your loving to me, you certainly say to me all the
time you ain’t no ways good or understanding to me."

160

161

Jeff '5 reply to this statenent is nearly unbelievable."That
certainly is what I say to you always, just the way I feel it to you
Melanctfa always, and I got it right in me to say it, and I fave got a
right in me to be very strong and feel it, and to be always sure to
believe it, but it ain't right for you Melanctha to feel it. when you
feel it so Melanctha, it does certainly make everything all wrong with
our loving. It makes it so I certainly never can bear to have it"
(169-170).

It is all right for him to feel that he is bad, and it is all
right for her to agree with him, so long as she forgives him instantly.
But for her to say that he is bad is wrong. And for her to believe it
is to destroy the relationship.

Of all the things Jeff has disbelieved about wfat she says, this
is the one statenent he cfooses to believe. He fas not believed tfat
she cares, that she loves him, that her steadfastness, fidelity and
forgiving are true signs of her caring.

Again, he chooses to blame Melanctfa for their failure to achieve
understanding and harmony.

Melanctha tries again to mitigate, asking him to forget wfat she
has said, but when she goes to sleep he begins again his thinking,
which he has not done for a very long time. Melanctfa wakes up
screaming from a nightmare tfat he has gone away forever and pleads
with him never to go away again.

Round Seven begins. But now things have cfanged between them. Joy
fas disappeared. Love has virtually disappeared, except for references
in conversation and such instances as"Me1anctfa loved him to be tfere,"

which does not refer to tfe feeling between them. "Not loving" and

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"unloving" and "all wrong with our loving" are beginning to replace tfe
good feelings. "There was a weight on Jeff from now on" (171).
Melanctha interprets this weight as never having forgiven her for
the earlier argument, and she again asks for forgiveness, but Jeff
tells her that this isn't a matter of forgiving at all, but a matter of
wfat she is really feeling. He tells her, "It’s just only what you are
feeling for me, makes any difference to me. I ain't ever seen anything
since in you, makes me think you didn’t mean it right, wfat you said
about not thinking now any more I was good, to make it right of yon to
be really caring so very mmnch to love me." He fas latched onto wfat
Melanctha said in the heat of the monent, and it fas colored everything
she has said since, and his attitude toward her. One almost gets the

impression that he fas been watching, waiting for another instance of
her thinking he was the bad one.

Another pointless circular argument ensues. It is important to
follow the train of this argument because it reveals wfat is fappening
between them. Melanctfa tells Jeff tfat he fas no right to be asking
hertoexplainwfatshesaidintheheatofanargunent, wfenshewas
tired and sick with one of her terrible headaches. He respods in
anger tfat she has no right to use her feadaches as a weapon against
him. "You certainly ain’t got no right to be always folding yolr pain
out to show me." Then he goes on to say, "You act always like I been
responsible all myself for all our loving oe another... you act like
as if it was me made you just begin it all with me. I ain’t no
coward. .. I certainly am right ready always... to stand all my own
trouble for me, but I tell you straight now... I ain’t going to be as
if I was the reason yon wanted to be loving and to be suffering so now

with me" (172-73) .

163

Melanctha replies, "But ain’t you certainly ought to be feeling it
so, to be right.. . Did I ever do anything but just let you do
everything you wanted to me. Did I ever try to to make yon be loving
to me. Did I ever do nothing except just sit there ready to edure
your loving with me. . .But I certainly never. . . did make any kind of way
as if I wanted really to be faving you for me." (173).

Who is right? They both think they are. Jeff says he didn’t
start it, Melanctha says that all she ever did was sit and wait for
him. Melanctha made tfe first physical move toward Jeff, but in his
invitation to her to be his "teacher" he also made a move toward her.
It was mutual attraction and mutual action.

It is Melanctfa who is right. She has done nothing except sit and
edure him and his fumbling toward what he feels is love, which in

actuality is a twisted, selfish and pious abuse.

Jeff is ready to storm out, but Melanctha again gives in, then he
feels sorry for her and tfey are at peace again. Maybe.

The decline continues. Round Eight begins. This round is another
period of transition, marked by the ’prolonged present ’ with the use of

"now" beginning again:

"Melanctha was now always making him feel fer way...
Melanctha acted now the way she had said it ways had been
with them. Now it was always Jeff wfo had to do the asking.
Now it was always Jeff wfo fad to ask when would be the next
time he should cone to see her. Now always she was good and
patient to him and now always she was kind and loving with
him" (174).

164

The same hammer words fill the pages: "lonow," "understand,"
"doubt." But now it is a different struggle. The word "torment"
replaces "uneasy." "From now on, Jeff had real torment in him." He is
tormented by the question whether it was true that he was tfe oe who
made all this trouble for them. He is thinking hard. The familiar
vascillation continues. He does not know whetfer he is right or wrong.
He knows for certain tfat Melanctfa is wrong. He feels resentment and
anger toward her, then he feels again her sweetness. He is torn apart
again with doubt, asking himself burning questions. "Wfat could he
know, who had such slow feeling in him. Wfat could he ever know, wlo.
always had to find his way with just thinking. Wfat could he know, who
had to be taught such a long time about wfat was really loving" (174).

Then a different type of doubt creeps in. He now doubts the depth
and reality of her love for him. "Now, deep in side him, there was

always a doubt with Jeff, of Melanctla’s loving. It was not a donbt yet
to make him really doubting, for with tfat, Jeff never could be really
loving, but always now he knew tfat sonething, and that not in him,
sonething was wrong with their loving" (175). This is not his problem.
It is not sonething in him. It is something in Melanctha. Does she
really love him, or is she just pretending for his sake, because that
is her nature? This question now torments him. He asks fer for
reassurance again and again, feeling like a beggar, that she is giving
it "not out of her need, but from her bounty to him" (175). He tells
her tfat if this is the case then he wants no part of this.

Melanctha treats him like a child, telling him he is foolish and a
bother. "Oh you so stupid Jeff boy, of course I always love you.
Always and always Jeff and I always just so good to you. On yon so
stupid Jeff and don’t know when yon got it good with me... Yes I loe

165

you Jeff, how often you want me to tell you" (177).

But the reassurance falls on deaf ears. Again, Jeff listens to
his own uncertainty, and not to her words. "Yes Jeff Campbell heard
her, and he tried hard to believe her. He did not really doubt her but
sonehow it as wrong now, the way Melanctha said it. Jeff always now
felt baffled with Melanctha. Sonething, he knew, was not right now in
her. Sonething in her always now was making stronger the torment that
was tearing every minute at the joy he once always had had with her"
(177) .

What joy? They had joy, once in a while, when Jeff stopped
thinking and allowed himself to receive the love she was willing to
give. But now again, he is letting his mind and his thoughts bring
trouble to them. And, as usual, he is blaming it on her. This trolble

is not his responsibility. It is sonething in Melanctfa that is tearing
them apart. It is not his fault. Now it is not just a niggling doubt,

it is continuous real doubt. "Always no Jeff wondered did Melanctfa
love him. Always now he was wondering..." (177). He goes on with his
thinking, and suddenly one night, lying in bed thinking, he realizes
the truth. It all cones clear. He says, "I ain’t a brute... Its all
wrong the way I been worried thinking. We did begin fair, each not for
the other but for ourselves, wfat we were wanting. Melanctfa Herbert
did it just like I did, because she liked it bad enough to want to
stand it." So far his reasoning is clear, and the reader can accept
wfat he says. It is true that they both entered into the relationship
for their own selfish reasons, because they both wanted it. But then fe
goes on to say, "I certainly don’t knnow now wfether sfe is not real and

true in her loving. I ain’t got any way ever to find out if she is

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real and true now always to me." Now we know that he is back on his old
there. He doesn't, fas never believed her. Her word is not enough.
There is no way to really know. He goes on to say, "sfe certainly don’t
remember right when she says I made her begin" and this is true, she
began of her own accord, but he continues with the second half of his
reasoning, "and then (that) I made her trouble. I been the way I felt
it honest." And here is his own refusal to accept or see wfat he has
done to destroy this relationship. He was always fonest, belaboring
his doubts, about Melanctfa, about her cfaracter, and about wfat is tfe
right way to live. He goes on, and one almost feels as if he's ranting
to himself in the darknness, about having to stand up for one ’s own
trouble. In other words, accept blame and responsibility for oe’s own
actions. The irony here is glaring. He has never accepted eitfer. Then
he falls back to sleep, "Free from his long doubting torment" and
sleeps the sleep of tfe just.

The next day he delivers a lengthy sermon to Melanctha on the
virtues of of bravery and accepting one’s sfare of trolble in life with
dignnity, without "hollering" about it, and bringing attention to
oneself so tfat others will feel pity.

Melanctfna again gets to the heart of tfe matter and tells him the
truth. "I know wfat you mean now... You make a fuss now to me because
I certainly just have stopped standing everything yon like to be always
doing so cruel to me. (180). She goes on to say, "You ain’t got no
right kind of feeling for all I always been forgiving of you."

But he doesn’t listen. He has fixed now upon the idea of bravery
in suffering. She is not the only one to suffer, fe tells fer, to which
she replies, "Well, and ain’t I certainly always been tfe only person
knows how to bear it. No... I certainly be glad to love anybody really

167

worthy, but I made so, I never seem to be able in this world to find
Irum." ‘Ehis last phrase is the logical evolution of the phrases,
wanting peace and love but finding only trouble.

Jeff's answer is remarkable in its blindness and blame casting
again. He tells her, "No... you certainly Melanctha never going to any
way be able ever to be finding of him. Can't you understand Melanctha,
ever, how no man certainly ever really can hold your love for long
times together. You certainly Melanctha, you ain't got down deep loyal
feeling, true inside you, and when you ain’t just that moment quick
with feeling, then you certainly ain’t ever got anything more there to
keep you." How he can say that it the face of her steadfastness as
opposed to his unsteadfastness is unfathomable.

Then follows a long argument on the there of remenbering. This
particular episode is confusing to many readers because early in the
story Stein slipped in the sentence "Melanctha never could remember
right." She has always been a terrible story teller, managing to leave
out large pieces of the tale so tfat it becones a totally different
story than what really happened. And now here is Jeff accusing her of
remembering incorrectly.

Who is right? They are using the word "remember" differently. To
Melanctha, remembering is holding on to the good feelings even through
the bad. She says, "No, Jeff campbell, it certainly ain't that way with
me at all the way you say it... I amnalways knowing what it is I am
wanting, when I get it. I certainly don’t never have to wait till I
have it, and then throw away what I got in me, and then come back and
say, that's a mistake I just been making, it ain’t never at all like I

understood it, I want to have, bad, wfat I didn’t think it was I

168

wanted." (183). Here she is using her power with words, mimicking Jeff
and throwing his words back in his face. She says, I certainly don't
think much of the way you always do it, always never knnowing wfat it is
you are ever really wanting and every body always got to suffer.. I
don’t certainly think there is munch doubting which is better and the
stronger with us two" (183).

"Remembering" also means living for the monent, which is wfat Jeff
accuses Melanctha of doing. According to Bridgman, Melanctha's life
lacks the continuity that a systematic and accurate menory can provide.
Melanctha’s response to this is "you don ’t remember nothing till you
get home with your thinking everything all over." As Bridgran notes,
"rather tfan displaying appropriate spontaneous reactions , [Jeff]
behaves cruelly and clumsily, which in retrospect he regrets. "Yon go
hone Jeff Campbell and you begin with your thinking, and then it
certainly is very easy for you to be good and forgiving. Bridgman
explains tfat Melanctfa speaks on behalf of immediacy. Her name for it
is "remembering right." "For her, the human way to live is "to renember
right just when it happens to you, so you have a right kind of
feeling.. real feeling every meant when its {sic} neededf'14 Again this
is movenent versus stasis. Remembering in Jeff '5 sense is static and
dead. Bridgman writes in Melanctha’s defense that "Stein came to
justify spontaneous conposition as living in the present at the front
edge of time. It seened to her superior to living in historical
mnenory, feeding on the aftermath of an existence of which one was never
more tfan partially aware." Melanctfa, with her faulty remenbering, is
living on the front edge of time.

At this point Jeff almost leaves her. He gets ready to storm ont
the door. But he doesn’t. At tfe last secod he again changes his mind

169

and takes her in his arms and tells her tederly tfat he honestly and
truly thinks she is wrong. And they "are good" to each otfer for awhile
and then he leaves. Good here has taken a sexual connotation, and this
is another irony, tfat Jeff, with his puritanical beliefs can be good

to Melanctha only in sex.
Beginning Wandering

Round Nine. Now the tables have turned. Melanctha can never say
outright what she thinks witfout Jeff junping up ready to stormn out,
and so she is reduced to passive resistance. She does not fight, she
avoids confrontations and long harangues by eitfer surrounding herself
with people, or just plain avoiding Jeff.

, Movenent begins again. The word "wander" appears again. "Melanctfa
fad begun now once more to wander. Melanctha did not yet always wander,
but a little now she needed to begin to look for other" (184). But tfe
verbs are not in the progresSive tense anymore. Instead tfey are in tfe
simple past. "Melanctfa had begun..." It is not an evolution toward
wandering, away from Jeff. The move has been made. The action implies
the decision is final. Stein ’3 cfaracteristic restraint and tfe
understatenent with which she describes Melanctfa 's act of giving up
fope and searching elsewfere for love in otfers, has distracted readers
from the real impact of this turning point. But in tfe face of the
pain and suffering that has led to this point, the starkness of the
prose is all the more striking. After so many months of always waiting
and suffering at the hands of Jeff, she can not stand it any longer.
Sfe has had enough. She seeks friendship and comfort in the conpany of
others. Always before sfe waited for Jeff. She always had time, waiting

170

patiently for him to make up his mind to come see her. Now she finds
other things to do, and is often too busy to see him. "Now, Jeff you
know I certainly can’t be neglecting always to be with everybody just
to see you. You cone see me next week Tuesday Jeff, you hear. me. I
don ’t think Jeff I certainly be so busy Tuesday." This wounds his pride
greatly, and he again feels like a beggar. The repetition, Jeff "was
not sure yet that he really understood what it was Melanctha wanted"
occurs again, but this time it is true he doesn't. Now she is really
lying when she says she "certainly did love him just the same as
always, only sure he knew now she certainly did seemn to be right busy
with all she certainly now had to be doing" (185). He does not ask. He
feels he doesn’t have the right to interfere. "All Jeff felt a right
in himself to question, was her loving." (186). Which he has. Ad
infinitum. Ad nauseum.

The word "suffering" reappears. Now they have changed places in
their suffering. It is Jeff now who is suffering at the hands of
Melanctha.

At this point the authorial voice intrudes into the story with an
evaluation of what Stein designates as two natures: tender hearted
versus passionate. Jeff is the tender-hearted, the type who never feels
strong passion, and when this type does suffer they lose their
tenderness, and their compassion for others who suffer. 'Ihey becone
hard. They feel that if suffering is not so terrible for the, and they
can bear it, then why can’t others?

Melanctha, on the other hand, is one with a passionate nature.
These are ones "who have always made transelves to suffer, that is all
thekindof peoplewhohaveemotionsthatccmetothamassharpasa
sensation. Suffering does them good because they always become more

171

tenderhearted and kind.

This authorial intrusion, inserted near the end of the
relationship, gives us the key to both characters. This explains
Jeff 's reaction to Melanctha. And it also explains why Melanctha
"always finds trouble." A passionate person, she feels everything
deeply, plunges into feelings and suffers because of themn. And thus she
becomes more tender-hearted and giving and - by extension - caring and
good to others.

Jeff, the tender-hearted one, ostensibly good, has no feelings to
spare for others in their suffering.

The alienation and drifting apart continues. Melanctha continues
to surround herself with more and more friends so that at first she and
Jeff are almost never alone, and then so she has no timne to arrange to
even see him, and then finally she even mnisses appointments to see him.

Here too the tables have turned. Now it is Melanctha who does
most of the talking arnd Jeff is silent, listening.

Somewhere along the line, although it is impossible to pinpoint
where, Jeff has made the final commitment. His donbt is finally gone.
All the words which have been associated with Jeff have been turned
around. "Now every day with it, he knew how to understand Melanctha arnd
he still had a real trust in her and he still had a little hope that
some day they would once more get together... . but now they never any
more were really trusting with each other.. .. He never doubted yet,
that she was steady only to him, but somehow he could not believe much
really in Melanctha's living....Jeff was no longer now in any donbt
inside him. He knew very well now he really loved Melanctha."

The second half of this paragraph demonstrates clearly that

172

without a doubt it is Jeff who cannot remember. "In the days when they
used to be together, Jeff had felt he did not know much what was inside
Melanctha, but he knew very well, how very deep always was his trust in
her;" It was his very lack of trust that brought them to this point.
Now, however, "he knew [her] better, but now he never felt a deep trust
in her. Now Jeff never could be really honest with her. He never
doubted yet, that she was steady only to him, but somehow he could not
believe much really in Melanctha's loving." The old familiar hedgin --
the "and" and the "buts" demonstrate the depth of his self-delusion,
when he can contradict himself within the space of a thought. He
doesn't doubt her, but he can’t believe that she really loves him.
Melanctha’s patience has worn to the breaking point. She tells

him "I never give nobody before Jeff, ever more than one chance with
me, and I certainly been giving you most a hundred Jeff, you hear mne"

(187).

His reply is that if she really loved him she would give him a
million chances. Her reply is a repetition of a thought that has been
building slowly throughout. "I certainly don ’t know as you deserve that
anyways from me" (187).

The word "deserve" has cropped up here and there in their
conversations, and now it comes out full force. When he persists, she
cuts him off short. "I am awful tired of all this talking now, you hear

me" (188). And silences him. She has finally had enough of listening.

Ending loving

 

After this point Jeff never asks whether or not she loves him
anymore. Round Eleven. Things get worse and worse. Now it is Jeff who

is patient. He knows that it is his turn to endure. He hears rmors

173

that she has begun to wander again, but even though he sees Jane Harden
he doesn’t ask because "Jeff was always loyal to Melanctha."

Stein’s bitterness and irony in this passage are so blatant as to
be almost overpowering. We are still within Jeff ’s mirnd, but the
outright dis-honesty, self-delusion and self-pity, in the face of how
abominably he has treated her make him utterly contenptible. This is
clear as Stein records his continuing blind stupidity. "Jeff Campbell
knew very well too now inside him, he did not really want Melanctha,
now if he could no longer trust her, though he loved her hard and
really knew now what it was to suffer" and "Now he knew he never any
more could really trust her" (189).

He is continuing to fool himself, and believe that he is the good
man who has done nothing to harm her. He is now the martyr, the wounded
and wronged lover.

His convictions deepen. The word "knov" appears again. Now he doe—s
know. He knows that he does not want her. .He knows that Melanctha
never did love him. But he is not bitter about it, "he was bitter only
that he had let himself have a real illusion in him" and that "he had
not got this new religion really, and he had lost what he before had to
know what was good and had really beauty." He has also finally achieved
wisdom. After some uncertainty - a little doubt as to whether she did
or did not really love him - he returns again to the belief that she
had never really had "real greatness for him." After she fails to
appear at a prearranged meeting, he writes her a long letter telling
her "I love you now because that ’5 my slow way to learn what you been
teaching, but I know now you certainly never had what seems to me real

kind of feeling" (191). He tells her that no man can ever trust in her

174

because she can never remember and she can never be honest. He atterpts
to justify his actions, and perhaps we can speculate that he is not
only trying to justify them to her but to himself. It is Jeff who can’t
remember.

Now he has reached the bottom. "Jeff Campbell could not think
now, or feel anything else in him" (193). He retains for awhile in
solitude, and then one day he returns to "what he knew was the right
way" (193) and goes back to work. But without feeling. This word
"feeling'appears six times in the space of one paragraph, as Jeff is
remembering sore of the things he had been feeling with Melanctha. And
shame wells up in him as he remembers. "Always he blushed hot to think
things he had been feeling... sometimes he shivered hot with shame when

he remembered some things he once had been feeling" (194). Melanctha
was right. He is and always has been ashamed of his feelings. Another

of her statements has core true.

He goes on without feeling until one day in spring he sees a girl
passing who looks like Melanctha. Arnd then he remembers how he felt
and feels suddenly how stupid he was to throw her from him. All the
old circular vascillation return. All the important words reappear
again. He "thought," he "warnder ", he was "certain" and then in
"doubt." He hurts himself physically "so that he could be sure he was
really feeling, and he never could knov what it was right, he now
should be doing." So he writes her a letter, she says core to him and
they have a reconciliation, but it is a fruitless repetition of the old
pattern. She declares her love, he doesn't believe her. Melanctha knovs
that he doesn’t. "I love you too Jeff, even though yon don’t never
certainly seem to believe me." "Certainly" occurs seventeen times on

page 197 and twelve times on 198. Both of them are declaring their love

175

in terms of great certainty. But it is only self-delusion. This word
appears most often in times of doubt and uncertainty.

Round Twrelve. Nothing has changed. Jeff sees Melanctha, but they
never talk any more. "Jeff Campbell knew that he had learned to love
deeply, that he always knew very well now in him, Melanctha had learned
to be strong to be always trusting , that he knew too now inside him,
but Melanctha did not really love him, that he felt always. too strong
for him. That fact always was there in him, and it always thrust
itself firm, between them" (199).

That fact. That fact has not been confirmed except within Jeff '5
mind. From this point on they see each other often, but "Jeff Campbell
was never any more a torment to Melanctha, he was only silent to her."
There is no talking at all any more. She has surrounded herself with
people so that he can no longer be near her alone.

It is at this point in the story that Stein brings us round full
circle to Rose. Melanctha spends more and more time with Rose, ard
they wander together. But the relationship with Jeff dies an
excruciatingly slow painful death. Jeff sees Melanctha once again.

Melancthaadmitsthatshehasbeentheonewhowasbadtoputhimoff

for several days for no reason. Her reason in the same one that has
motivated her actions all along. "Only you always certainly been so
bad Jeff, and such a bother to me, and making everything always so hard
forme, ardIcertainlygotsonewaytodoittomakeitconeback
sometimes to you. You bad boy Jeff..." But the fact retains that she
has always allowed him to. She continues to take him back whenever he
comes around.

Round Thirteen. The two are happy together for awhile, then the

176

same pattern sets in: they are happy, then they are silent, ard then
sad ard then very quiet. Melanctha tells him three times that she still
loves him, but goes on to admit, "but not the kird of way of loving you
are ever thinking it now Jeff with me. I ain't got certainly no hot
passion any more now in me. You certainly have killed all that kind of
feeling now Jeff in me. You certainly do know that Jeff, now the way I
am always, when I am loving with you." Melanctha has changed places
with Jeff. There is no more of that "strong hot love that makes you do
anything for somebody that loves you" (122). Now she still loves him,
but it is with the passionless friendly caring Jeff once displayed to
other women. Jeff mnistakes this lack of passion for not loving. He
was right that she did it out of kirdness and friendship. Now all she

has left is the brotherly caring that Jeff was only able to give before
he met Melanctha.

Jeff is very hurt, so hurt "that it almost killed him." He does,
really and truly love her, "he certame did know now what it was to
have real hot love in him, and yet Melanctha certainly was right, he
did not deserve she should ever give it to him." At this point the
reader firds it hard to believe that Jeff is taking responsibility for
her pain. He isn't. In the next breath he says, "You can’t help it,
anybody ever they way they are feeling." He couldn't help it. It
wasn’t his fault, ard now it isn't Melanctha's either.

We return to the 'prolonged present, ' almost as if to prolong, to
draw out in the reader ’s consciousness the agony of this painful
affair. Now Jeff feels real pain. The present progressive tense has not
reappeared. Now the simple past and the stative are prevalent. "Now
Jeff knew very well what it was to love Melanctha. Now Jeff Campbell
knew he was really understanding. Now Jeff knew what it was to be good

177

to Melanctha. Nov Jeff was good to her always" (204). The repetition
of the hammer words here hold a bitter irony. The "now" conld easily be
replaced with "finally", now that it '5 too late. He has achieved "real
wisdom" from the experience of loving hard and losing, but, he is a
man, good to the end; it does not make him bitter, because "he knew he
could be good, and not cry out for help to her to teach him how to bear
it... Jeff knew now all through him that he was really strong to bear
it." The word "brave" is not used here, but we can almost hear Jeff
thinking it. He is brave n the face of this terrible suffering. He
does not holler or show his pain. Like Melanctha, he suffers in
silence.

Stein uses the word "understand" in the next paragraph. "Every
day Jeff Campbell understood Melanctha Herbert better." Ard now he

"sees" that she can't love him the way he wants her to, that strong hot

love. He does not see that at one time she did.

They drift apart. He does not want to see her anymore, but he
knows that he will always love her, he will always be loyal to her,
even though she is not a religion to him anymore.

Twice in this last drawn cut scene we encounter the phrase which
seered objective at the beginning ard now has taken on an insidious
subjectivity. "Melanctha Herbert had no way she ever really could
remember." and "That Jeff must retember always, though now he never can
trust her to be really loving to any man for always, she never did have
any way she ever could renember." He knows that the failure of their
love is Melanctha’s fault because she cannot "renerber right." He is
blaming her to the last.

They part at last. He tells her "If she ever needed anybody to be

178

good to her, Jeff campbell always would do anything he could to help
her. He never can forget the things she taught him so he could be
really understanding." (203).

Jeff returns to his old life, living regular and doing "everything
the way he wanted it to be right for himself and all the colored
people." (206). The word "learn" and "good" crop up once more. "He had
learned to have a real love in him. That was very good to have inside
him." He uses this newrfound knowledge, strength and goodness to help

his fellow man in their suffering.

CHAPI'ERFIVE

"MEIANC'IHA" - Part Two

We have seen the relationship between Jeff ard Melanctha cone full
circle. Domed from the start, it ends in failure and each goes on alone.
The words Stein introduced to characterize the two followed them
through their relationship to take on different meanings and brutal
irony at the end.

At this point we can to proceed forward to the end of Melanctha's
life by returning to the beginning of the novella and examining all the
various other types of repetition that have been accumulating over the
past 130 pages . The phrases and sentences which have been repeated
throughout , viewed together with the repetitions of words , will

complete the portrait of Melanctha.

MEIR;

Alone Again

_ In this last section, with Jeff no longer in Melanctha's life, tie
perspective shifts away from Jeff '5 point of view to Melanctha’s. We
witness the remainder of Melanctha’s life primarily throngh her eyes.

As noted above, Stein began "Melanctha" in media res, starting
with Rose and the death of her baby. On the first page sle writes of

the death of the child due to Rose ’5 carelessness:

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The child though it was healthy after it was born, did not
live long. Rose Johnson was careless and negligent and
selfish, and when Melanctha had to leave for a few days, the
baby died. Rose Johnson had liked the baby well enough and
perhaps she just forgot it for awhile, anyway the child was
dead and Rose and Sam her husband were very sorry but then
these things came so often in the negro world in
Bridgepoint, that they neither of then thought about it

very long (85).

This paragraph is repeated verbatim on page 225. We have returned to

the opening scene of the text with an exact re-statenent of the entire
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scene, with differences so slight as to be negligible.

The baby though it was healthy after it was born did not

live long. Rose Johnson was careless and negligent and
selfish and when Melanctha had to leave for a few days the

baby died. Rose Johnson had liked her baby well enough and
perhaps she just forgot it for a while, anyway tfe child was
dead and Rose and Sam were very sorry, but then these things
came so often in the negro world in Bridgepoint that they

neither of then thought about it very long (225).

Calvin Brown classifies this type of repetition as "the frame." It is
classified thus because of its function, which is to set off an episode
by franming it between a statenent of sone sort and a repetition of that
statenent. The purpose here in "Melanctha" serves, Bauer asserts, as a
"kind of hinge, opening and closing tl'e doors of tl'e entire

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narrative." It is, as are all repetitions in "belanctha," designed to

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catch the reader ’5 attention, alerting the reader to the fact that the
story has cone full circle back to where it started, to enphasize that
nothing has changed, nothing has been gained, and Melanctha is where
she was when she began - alone and unloved.

A second significant passage was first introduced on page 87:
"Sometimes the thought of how all her world was made, filled the
conplex, desiring Melanctha with despair. She wondered often, how she
could go on living when she was so blue" (87).

In tfe fol lowing two paragraphs the word "blue" is repeated four
more times, to hammer hone the depth of Melanctha’s despair, and also
to establish the tone of depression which pervades the entire novel,
and cheapens annd belies the periods of "joy" and "happiness" which Jeff
and Melanctha experience ever so briefly during their relationship.

This passage is repeated again on page 89, "Melanctha wondered
often how it was she did not kill herself when she was so blue. Often
she thought this would be really the best way for her to do."

The fact that this passage is repeated so closely after the first
occurrence leads the reader to predict that possibly Melanctha will , in
fact, kill herself, despite Rose’s cheery no nonsense pep talks. On
page 87, Stein writes

Rose Johnson did not see it the least bit that way. "I

don 't see Melanctha why you should talk like you would kill

yourself just because you ’re blue. I 'd never kill myself

Melanctha just ’cause I was blue. I’d maybe kill sonebody

else Melanctha 'cause I was blue, but I’d never kill myself.

If I ever killed myself Melanctha it '6 be by accident, and if

I ever killed myself by accident Melanctha, I’d be awful

sorry . "

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This passage is repeated nearly verbatim, setting up a frame within a
frame:
Rose Johnson never saw it the least bit that way. "I

don’t see Melanctha why you should talk like you would kill

yourself just because you’re blue. I’d never kill myself

Melanctha cause I was blue. I’d maybe kill somebody else

but I’d never kill myself. If I ever killed myself,

Melanctha it ’d be by accident and if I ever killed myself by

accident, Melanctha, I’d be awful sorry..."3
The exactness of the repetition could lead the reader to conjecture
that this repetition could possibly be a "key passage" in the book:
"one of tie fundamental ideas.. or sonetimes, the single idea on which
the entire work is based."4

This is a reasonable possibility. However, the story does not bear
this ont, as I will denonstrate, even though the repetitions of
"Melanctha was so blue..." continue. This repetition is abandoned
after page 89. The feeling of despair Melanctha feels does not occur in
any period of her life until Round Seven, when her relationship with
Jeff is failing. At this point Melanctha actually cries out in despair,
"I amnalways my head, so it hurts me it half kills me, and.my heart
'jumps 50, sometimes I think I die so when it hurts:me, and I amxso blue
always, I think sonetinres I take sonething to just kill me..." (172).
Her outcry marks the beginning of the real depression that was
intimated by the two repetitions in Part One of the text. The
repetition of Melanctha 's enotional state heightens tie reader ’5

experience of her pain and suffering, and intensifies the sense of its

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prolongation over the entire remainder of her life.
The pain goes on. The phrase is repeated again and again during

the final section of the story:

Sometimes the thought of how all her world was made,
filled the conplex, desiring Melanctha with despair. She
wondered, often, how she could go on living when she was so
blue. Sonetimes Melanctha thought she would just kill
herself, for sometimes ste thought this would be really the
best thing for her to do. (211).

Then Melanctha would get very blue, and she would say to
Rose, sure she would kill herself, for that certainly now

was the best way she could do (226).

Rose reiterates this theme in one of her conversations with Sam her
husband. "And then Sam, sometimes, you hear it, she always talk like
she kill herself all the time she is so blue" (229). The fact that
Rose tells us that Melanctha brings up the subject continually, even
when the authorial voice does not tell us, intensifies the impression
of deep sorrow.

This passage is repeated in variation twice more on the second to
the last page, just before Melanctha's death. In the first Rose

actually puts into words the question which was implicit at tl'e

beginning :

"I expect sore day Melanctha kill herself, when she act
so bad like she do always and then she get so awful blue.
Melanctha always says that tfe only way she ever can thinnk

it a easy way for her to do... I certainly do think she will

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most kill herself sonetime, the way she always say it would
be easy way for her to do. I never see nobody ever could be

so awful blue" (235).

This time Stein answers the conjecture immediately. "But Melanctha
Herbert never really killed herself because she was so blue, though
often she thought this would be really the best way for her to do.
Melanctha never killed herself, sheonly got a bad fever and went into
the hospital where they took good care of her and cured her." The
adverb "really" here implies that perhaps even if she didn’t commit
suicide outright, her state of depression could and probably did cause
her run down state which led to her illness, subsequent hospitalization
and eventual death.

This terrible depression that was hinted at in Part One and
literally forced upon the reader '5 consciousness throughout the whole
of Part Three is perhaps the leading cause for Melanctha's death. But
it is not the "key passage." It is not _tl_ne fundamental idea upon which
the work is based. This state of depression is ultimately an effect in
itself which, in turn, is subsequently a cause for another state:
death. The real heart of the story, the key to Melanctha, the cause
of all her troubles, lies elsewhere, in a passage we have already
discussed above. In paraphrase: All her life Melanctha wanted peace and
quiet, and loved and respected goodness, and all her life she found
nothing but trouble.

As we have noted, this passage was repeated many times thronghout
not only Part Onne but also througlout Parts Two and Three, through
Melanctha’s affair with Jane and then her affair with Jeff. In Chapter
Four we focussed on the first half of the phrase and noted the

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evolution of the sentence from Melanctha 's desire to what she perceives
as the fulfillment of that desire. Now we can focus on the second half

of each sentence:

Melanctha Herbert was always seeking rest and quiet, and
always she could only find new ways to be in trouble (89).
Melanctha Herbert was always seeking peace and quiet, and
she could always only find new ways to get excited. (92).

And Melanctha all her life loved and respected kind and good
and considerate people. Melanctha always loved and wanted
peace and gentleness and goodnness and all her life for
herself poor Melanctha could only find new ways to be in
trouble. (93). i

...and all her life Melanctha wanted and respected
gentleness and goodness and this man always gave her good
advice and serious kindness, and Melanctha felt such things
deeply, but she could never let them help ler or affect her
to change the ways that always made her keep herself in
trouble (99). 7

She found [Jeff] good and strong and gentle and very
intellectual, and all her life Melanctha liked and wanted
good and considerate people (109).

Melanctha Herbert all her life long, loved and wanted
good, kind and considerate people. Jefferson Campbell ~was
all the things that Melanctha had ever wanted (125).

We noted that Jeff was the embodiment of her wishes and that this 'key
passage’ was dropped wl'en she felt that she found the object of her

desire, except in a sort of echo which kept repeating in Jeff 's

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thoughts: "He never really knew what Melanctha wanted."

It is critical to again point out the conjunction which links the
two clauses together. In the first three sentences Stein uses the
coordinating conjunction "and" as if Melanctha’s finding excitement and
trouble are merely the next step in a sequence of events. The
adversative conjunction "but" would have given these pairs of thoughts
entirely different meanings, implying that although Melanctha wanted
peace and happiness an unexpected twist of fate led her to sorrow. But'
the "and" here implies that finding trouble is a logical and expected
continuation of the pattern her life has taken. This implication is
particularly apparent in the sentence, "Melanctha always loved and
wanted peace and gentleness and goodness and all her life... Melanctha
could only find new ways to be in trouble" (93).

In the next repetition .Stein varies this conjunction to "but:"
"Melanctha felt such things deeply, but she could never let them help
her. " Here Stein replaces "and" with "but. " This adversative
conjunction placed in juxtaposition to the previous three repetitions
does not contradict tie meaning implied, it instead reinforces it.
"But" here is used in the contrastive sense to mean that in spite of
the fact that she wanted gentleness and goodness she could never let
them affect her, which implies a helplessness on Melanctha’s part, the
inability to change tle course of her life. Taken together, these
sentences display Stein ’5 deternminisnm, that Melanctha was born to this
fate and she cannot change it or lelp herself.

Stein links this key passage to the otl'er significant repetition
of Melanctha's depression on page 199, at precisely the point wl'en she
brings Rose Johnson back into the story:

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Then, too, Rose had it in her to be sorry for the subtle,
sweet-natured, docile, intelligent Melanctha Herbert who
always was so blue sonetimes and always had had so munch
trouble. Then, too, Rose could scold Melanctha, for Melanctha
Herbert never could know how to keep herself from trouble
(199).

Here Stein uses tle causal conjunction "because, " to denonstrate again
Melanctha's helplessness in the face of her own character which leads
her to get involved in relationships which give her nothing but
trouble.

This phrase, at the turning point in Melanctha's life provides a
link between all the key repetitions previously made and a bridge
between all tnose which occur from then on. I shall examine each in
turn.

First, this variation is a logical step in do evolution of the
phrases beginning with "Melanctha wanted. . . ." Here Stein is
reinforcing the helplessness of Melanctha even further by enploying tl'e
causal conjunction "for" to slow that this is the reason why Rose
needed to scold Melanctha. The "never" here also strengthens this
impression of Melanctha’s inability to direct her own life. "Never
could knnow" is distinctly reminiscent of Lena, and her powerlessness.

The evolution continues:

"Always Melanctha Herbert wanted peace and quiet, and
always sne could only find new ways to get excited." (207)
"...and all her life Melanctha loved and wanted good and
kind and considerate people, and always Melanctha loved and

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wanted people to be gentle to her, and always she wanted to
be regular, and to have peace and quiet in her, and always
Melanctha could only find new ways to be in trolble" (212).

At this point we need to focus on the second half of this phrase,
"Melanctha could only find trouble." Now Stein begins to pick up all

He threads she has been spinning and weave them into one:

Rose was always now with Melanctha. . . Rose always was
telling Melanctha Herbert the right way she should do, so
that she would not always be in trouble. But Melanctta
Herbert could not help it, always she would find new ways
to get excited. Melanctha was already now to find new ways
to be in trouble. And yet Melanctha Herbert never wanted
not to do right. Always Melanctha Herbert wanted peace and

quiet, and always she could only find new ways to get
exited (207).

And so it was Melanctha Herbert found new ways to be in

trouble (208).
Stein qualifies the last phrase:

"But it was not very bad this trouble, for these white
men... never meant very much to Melanctha. It-was only that
she liked it to be with them... and it was just good to

Melanctha, now a little, to feel real reckless with them.

In these last repetitions Stein is not just implying Melanctha’s
inability to change herself. She states outright, "Melanctha coild not

help it," and tlen enploys the adversative conjunction "yet" with the

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additive conjunction, as if to say: and yet she didn’t want to be bad.
She wanted to do right. But "trouble" is her only fate.

The next repetition drives this implication even further home with
the causal conjunction: And §9_the result of her actions is that she
finds only trouble.

In these repetitions Stein uses the words "excitement" and
"trouble" interchangeably. Melanctha finds both. It seems that
.Melanctha finds "excitements," which, if we return to Jeff’s usage of
the word, means the opposite of living "the right way," in other words,
the way good colored people M live. "Excitenent" is indecent
living - free and easy sex, gambling, drinking, - all the vices of
modern living. The type of excitenent she is finding leads only to
"trouble."

At this point we can clearly and conpletely define tie word
"trouble." "Trouble" is involvement with men. "Trouble" is the
heartache and pain caused by rash actions and jumping recklessly into
relationships that have no hope of lasting. "Trouble" is also allowing
oneself to be vulnerable and open to others. It is this trouble that
leads to "suffering." The "trouble" and "suffering" Stein alluded to in
Part One are the pain of loving "too hard and much too often" (89).
Melanctha, as Stein told us in the beginning is "sudden and impulsive
and unbounded in sole faith," the faith that soneday soneone will fill
her with love and answer her needs. "And then she would suffer and be
strong in her repression." Again the "and" to imply that this is a
foregone conclusion. That someone never comes along, and she remains
unfulfilled.

At this point, in order to gain a complete picture of the way in

which Stein is picking up the various threads of repetitions and

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weaving them together to create a whole, we must return to the story

and exanmine this evolution as it is woven into the fabric of the story

itself.
"Friends"

Stein begins Part Four with the phrase, "Melanctha Herbert, now
that she was all through with Jeff Campbell was free to be with Rose
and the new men she met now." (207). Stein uses the word "free" as if
to suggest that Melanctha has really and truly made a break with Jeff
and that she can continue her life without being shackled and dragged
down by Jeff.

But the optimism.intimated in one paragraph is shattered in the
next by another repetition of the phrase "always she would find new
ways to get excited." nMelanctha could not help it. It is her fate.
This repetition is couched in the modal, to set the stage for the
future. She would never be free of this need to get excited. This is
intensified with the reiteration of the same phrase in the following
paragraph, with the adverb "always." "Always she could only find new
ways to get excited." She is not free. She is bound, if not by Jeff,
by her own character and personality traits of which she cannot break
loose.

Rose scolds and nags her to act "righ " and not to consort with
white men. The next repetition of "finding trouble," carries with it
the clause that this was not bad trouble because none of these men
meant much to Melanctha. In the next sentence we see Melanctha
rationalizing away the fact that she is with white men: "It was only
that she liked it to be with them... and it was just good to

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Melanctha... to feel real reckless with them." In otl'er words, her
behavior is not bad because it doesn’t mean anything. It ’3 just a
release of energy.

The following short section paints a picture of a fairly pleasant
existence. On the surface, Melanctha’s life seens to have settled in a
pattern that could almost be called happy. The word "pleasant" occurs
twice, along with a description of hot sunnmer days, laughter and
Melanctha acting with the same reckless abandon as she did when she was
younger . Perhaps she has recovered from tfe crushing defeat of the
affair with Jeff.

But then Stein inserts the phrase "And tlen Rose was so sorry for
Melanctha, when she was so blue sonetimes, and wanted sonebody should

cone and kill her." The person the world sees is only a facade. The
happiness that shows on the surface is not there underneath.

The next paragraph is crucial:

"And Melanctha Herbert clung to Rose in the hope that
Rose could save her. Melanctha felt the power of Rose '5
selfish, decent kind of nature. It was so solid, simple,
certain to her. Melanctha clung to Rose, she loved to have
her scold her, she always wanted to be with her. She always
felt a solid safety in her. Rose always was, in her way,
very good to let Melanctha be loving to her. Melanctha
never had any way she could really be a trouble to her.
Melanctha never had any way that she could ever get real
power, to cone close inside to her. Melanctta was always
very humble to her. Melanctha was always ready to do
anything Rose wanted from her. Melanctha needed badly to

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have Rose always willing to let Melanctha cling to her."

This paragraph strips away the pleasant surface to show what is really

tlere. The carefree happy Melanctha is clinging to Rose, needing
sonebody, anybody to care for her. "Scolding" in this context is
similar to the cook scolding Iena: it is an expression of caring. None
of the relationships Melanctha involves herself in mean anything to
her, but she is still desperately searching for love, and in Rose she
hopes to find a safe caring. The denanding selfishness of Rose is mnuch
easier to bear than solitude. This paragraph finishes with another
repetition of "sonetimes Melanctha thought she would just kill herself,
(211)." Here again we are given a graphic glimpse of the utter despair
that Melanctha is feeling.

Two pages later, Stein reiterates the phrase, "Melanctha loved and
wanted people to be gentle to her.. . " and then tells us again that
"Melanctha needed badly to have Rose, to believe her and to let her
cling to her. Rose was the only steady thing Felanctha had to cling to
and so Melanctha deneaned herself to be like a servant to wait on,
always to be scolded, by this ordinary, sullen, black, stupid, childish
wonan" (213).

Stein is finally answering tl'e question which she asked on page
86: "Why did the subtle, intelligent, attractive, half white girl
Melanctha Herbert love and do for and denean terself in service to this
coarse, decent, sullen, ordinary, black childish Rose..." (86) (In that
page Stein set up a contrast of positive traits in Melanctha - subtle,
intel ligent , attractive - against the negative traits of Rose - coarse,
sullen, unmoral, promiscuois Rose.

Nny did Melanctha denean herself? She needed to. She needed

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desperately to have soneone love her. Rose has a different kind of
power than Melanctha’s father. Rose has the power of appearing to be a
pillar of strength for Melanctha. She has the power of seeming to be
the answer to Melanctha’s needs. She has the power of knowing what
Melanctha wants and how to use Melanctha’s vulnerability to her
advantage until Melanctha is of no more use to Rose.

The passages displaying Melanctha ’s desperate vulnerability tie in
with the other key repetition "Melanctha all rer life wanted and
respected gentleness and goodness.. . and loved and respected kind and
good and considerate people." Because she is so vulnerable, Melanctha
is willing to accept even the crumbs of kindness which Rose throws to
her, the semblance of caring denonstrated by the scolding and dictating
of Rose and belied by her coarsenessin her treatnment of her own child
and her friendship to Melanctha.

We must return to Stein’s theory that there are two types of
people: those who need to love and those who need to be loved.
Melanctha needs - desperately - to be loved. And now her need is so
great that anybody will do. And Rose allows her to take care of her in
return for a pittance of caring in the form of scolding.

There is such patios in the pain and suffering in tlose terse
sentences! More than through the repetitions of her "blue-ness" and
desire to kill herself, we learn through the starkness of the prose; we
get a graphic glimpse of the depth of Melanctha's despair. To need to
cling to anybody, not the least of which is one as unlikable and
unsavory as Rose, is to reach the bottom. V

But we need to go even deeper than that, to ask tle question why
does Melanctha need love so badly that she will sacrifice herself and
all ste is and has for these crumbs of "love."

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Stein answers this question too, in the course of a conversation
between Rose and Sam. Rose is continually telling Sam to be kind to
Melanctha. She explains that "she had such a bad time always with that
father, and he was awful mean to her always that awful black man, and
he never took no kind of care ever to her, and he never helped her when
her mother died so hard." Then she cones to the crux of the matter.
”(he day Melanctha was real little, and she heard her ma say to her pa,
it was awful sad to her, Melanctha had not been the one the Lord had
took from them stead of the little brother who was dead in the house
there from fever. "

So there it is. The suffering intimated throughout, laid bare. To
be begrudged her existence because she is alive instead of a better-
loved younger brother. Now tfe reader can understand such sentences as

"Melanctha Herbert had not loved herself in childnood. All of her
youth was bitter to remember" (90). We can also understand she "had not

loved her father and her mother" and also why "they had found it very
troublesone to have her. .. [because of ] a tongue that could be very
nasty." That bitterness is not misplaced, nor is it the product of an
over-active mind.

Rose continues her story. "She always is being just so good to
everybody and nobody ever trere to thank ter for it. I never did see
nobody ever Sanm... like that poor Melanctha always has it, and she
always so good with it, and never no murmur in her, and never no
conplaining from her, and just never saying nothing with it." Her words
lereechoathenewhichhas occurredatthebeginningofthestory: "It
was never Melanctha’s way, even in the midst of her worst trouble to

conplain to any one of what happened to her, but nevertheless sonelow

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everyone who knew Melanctha always knew how much she suffered" (92).

Melanctha has spent her life, not only trying to find the love ste
was not given from her parents, she lnas also tried valiantly to turn
that ugliness around and bring sone good into tle world. She will not
impose her suffering on others.

Anotler sentence which was repeated througlout', furtlers the there
of Melanctha’s goodness, kindness and caring. "Melanctha did everything
a woman could" (pp. 85, 110, 125, 139, 222, 224).The sentence was
always repeated in connection with Melanctha’s care of her mother and
of Rose. Unconplaining, unstinting of her own eergy, Melanctha works
herself to the bone caring for others. .

This suffering in silence brings a brutal irony to Jeff '5 false
heroics, to his lectures on being game and "not rollering" when he
tells her, "I know all about how you are always making a fuss to be
proud because you don ’t holler so much when you run in to where you
ain’t got any business to be, and so you get hurt, the way you ought
to" (166). Jeff, whose mother loved her boy well, does not knnow what

real pain is .
Jem

Stein has answered all the reader 's questions and conpleted the
picture of Melanctha. But the story is not finished. Her life
continues to wind down, and tte pattern of enterinng into a relationship
and then being abandomd is repeated twice more.

Melanctha has cone to rely enotionally upon Rose. Ste clings to
Rose . Stein has given us a contradictory set of descriptive adjectives
concerning Rose', who is "coarse, decent, sullen, ordinary, black,

childish... unnmoral, promiscuous and shiftless" (86). Most of the

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adjectives are negative, except the word "decent, " but Stein has
explained that trait away with the insertion, ". . . she needed decent
comfort. Her white training had only made for habits, not for nature"
(86) . Altlough she was raised by whites and now belongs to a church,
she does not care for religion, she merely uses it and the appearance
of being religion to her own ends. And it has fulfilled her needs.
While the attractive Melanctha has failed to find a suitable husband,
the sullen stupid promiscuous Rose has found one. She marries Sam, "a
good man... kindly, simple, earnest steady" (211).

After her marriage, Rose continues to use Melanctha. Melanctha
does everything Rose needs but Rose is "shrewd in her simple selfish
nature" (214) and does not ask her to come live with them. She is
perfectly willing to use Melanctha for her own purposes, capitalizing

upon Melanctha’s need for the "safety [Melanctha] always felt when she
was near her" (215).

But still, this friendship does not fill Melanctha’s need for
total love. She begins "to feel she must begin again to look and see if
she could find what it was she had always wanted." That love which she
has been denied. The word "wander" appears once more as she sets out
again to search.

Then she meets Jem on the street. A sprightly exchange of words
takes place, but she "escapes" before talk advances to action. She sees
him several days later, and "soon [begins] to like him. " (217).

It seens that Melanctha has finally met her man. Jen is
everything she could have wisled in a man. He is "a dashing kind of
fellow... a straight man... [and] and reckless man... He knew how to

win out" (217). Better yet, "Jem was more game even than Melanctha.

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Jem always had known what it was to have real wisdom. Jem had always
all his life been understanding."

He is successful, he knows how to win, and he has power, the power
of success, the power of sexual attractiveness. Here we encounter
another different version of what Melanctha wants. "Always all her
life, Melanctha Herbert loved successful power." (217). This sentence
is another variation on tfe theme of what Melanctha wants in life. One
gets the impression that she is so overwhelmed by this dashing,
handsome man that she has lost sight of her real purpose and her goals.
Bauer has pointed out that "the Jem Richards pattern is both an

intensification and a repetition of tne horsetamer mystique

 

foreshadowed in tle naive , tentative overtures extended to Melanctha by
John, tle Bishops ’ coachman, whose attention to Melanctha so angers her
father. With John and Richards both what essentially happens is that
Melanctha stunmbles into relationships she cannot tame. John and
Richards are likened to horses and the "wild life/wildlife" image that
repels Jeff Campbell as much as it attracts Melanctha."5

The impression of overpowering infatuation is verified in the
repetition of the phrase "Melanctha’s joy made her foolish" (219, 220,
224); "Melanctha’s love for Jem had made her foolish" (219): and "She
was mad and foolish in the joy she had there" (219).

Melanctha throws herself oonpletely into this relationship. "Now
in Jem Richards Melanctha found everything she had ever need to content
her. . . Jem Richards was a straight decent man, whom otler men always
look up to and trusted. Melanctha needed badly a man to content her."
At last sle has found true love. Jem begins to talk of marriage and
gives her a ring to show the they are engaged. T‘te words "joy" and

"love" dominate tiese pages .

 

198

The foolishness referred to in tfe repetitions is the foolishness
of happiness. In her delight, Melanctha lets olt her joy, talking and
telling everyone that she is engaged to be married to this fine
upstanding man. "Melanctha Herbert never thought she could ever again
be in trouble" (220).

But the affair is short-lived. Jem, that lucky man, finds that
his luck has fun olt. He has trouble with his betting, he is unable to
pay his debts and there is the possibility of him going to jail.
Melanctha, still carried away with love for him, tells him that she
will always love him and no matter what sl'e will wait for him and marry
him. She talks too much. The phrase "Melanctha’s love had surely made
her mad and foolish" appears again, and tie second repetition is
completed by the clause, "she should be silent now and let him do it."

Jen is a proud man, "not a kind of man to want a wonan to be strong to

him, when he was in trouble with his betting. That was not the kind of
a time when a man like him needed to have it."

So Melanctha’s foolishness has anotler facet. It is l'er strength
in adversity. This is her recourse in trouble. Stein repeats anotl'er
characteristic of Melanctha which she gave us in Part One: "She was
only strong and sweet and in her nature wwhen she was really deep in
trouble, when she was fighting so with all she had..." (92). Melanctha
is "never so strongandsweetandinhernatureaswhensl'ewasdeepin
trouble, when she was fighting so with all she had " (222). Which is
wwhat a proud man like Jem does not want. So he sees l'er less and less
as he struggles to make up his debts and recoup his losses. Melanctha
occupies herself with taking care of Rose, whose baby is due. She tries

not to be foolish in the sense of bragging like Rose had done, junping

199
the gun as if marriage was a certainty with Jem. Now she is silent,
heping-

Now Stein repeats a phrase that dominated the entire relationship
with Jeff, only at this point the tables have turned. "Melanctha did
not know what it was Jem Richards wanted." This time there is no irony.
Melanctha is genuinely perplexed. Jen is being as unreliable as Jeff.
He does not like it when she talks about marriage, but when she says,
"All right, I never wear your ring no more Jem, we aint ' not any more
to meet ever like we ever going to get really regular married," tlen
Jem did not like it either. What was it Jem Richards really wanted?"
(223). 80 poor Melanctha takes to wearing his ring around her neck, and
now it is she who vascillates between trust and doubt. "And so
Melanctha sonetimes was really trusting, and sonetimes she was all sick
inside her with her doubting." (223) .

The relationship continues to decline. Jen and Melanctha have long
talks, but the pattern of happiness versus bitterness, quarreling and
then reconciliation continues a la Jeff. The only comfort Melanctha can
find is taking care of Rose "till she was so tired she could hardly
stand it" (224).

Rose ’5 husband Sam, who has stood by and seen all this take place,
now begins to feel sorry for Melanctha. "Sam Johnson began now to be
very gentle and a little tender for Melanctha" (226). She has had
such trouble in her life, that as time goes on his feelings becone more
and more favorable. "Sam Johnson always, more and more, was good and
gentle to Melanctha" (228). There is no irony in the use of "g " in
reference to Sam. He is gentle, decent, l'onest and kind, one of the
few in the entire story. He begins to defed Melanctha wwhen Rose talks

her down. In the passage on page 229, we see the workings of Sam’s mind

200

as he speaks. He finds that defending Melanctha is bad policy and
attenpts to talk himself out of a corner. The paragraph begins, "At
first Sam tried a little to defend Melanctha... and Sam liked the ways
Melanctha had to be quiet to him... when she was there and heard him
talking, and then Sam liked the sweet way she always did everything so
nicely for him." Then he quickly qualifies and reassures Rose that
there is nothing more to it than that: "but Sam never liked to fight
with anybody ever, and surely Rose knew best about Melanctha and anyway
Sam never did really care much about Melanctha. Her mystery never had
had any interest for him. Sam liked it that she was sweet to him.. .
but Melanctha never would be important to him." We find him hastily
backing away from her defense under tfe heat of Rose's wrath. He
reassures Rose: "All Sam ever wanted was to have a little house;" he
agrees with Rose, "Jem Richards was a bad man to behave so to her, but
that was always the way a girl got it when she liked that kind of a
fast fellow;" he finally bows out of the whole conversation. "Anyhow
Melanctha was Rose '5 friend, and Sanm never cared to have anything to do
with the kind of trouble always came to wonen, when they wanted to have
men, who never could know how to behave good and steady to their wonen"
(229).

The fol lowing paragraph traces tie next step in Sam and
Melanctha’s relationship. "And so Sam never said much to Rose about
Melanctha... now he began less and less to see her. Soon Melanctha
never came a more to the house to see Rose and Sam never asked Rose
anything about her. " The understatenent in the sentences give the
impression that Stein has merely glossed the surface of many harsh
words and harsher feelings about the subject of Melanctha in that

201

household.

Jealous Rose now thrusts Melanctha from her. She finds more and
more reasons not to have Melanctha around: she doesn’t need help, Sam
is tired, Sam doesn’t like people around when he eats dinner. She
begins sending Melanctha away before Sam comes bone from work.
Melanctha does not understand what is happening. She needs this
friendship so desperately that she does not dare broach the subject and
ask why Rose is doing this to her. "Melanctha dared not ask Rose why
she acted in this way to her. Melanctha badly needed to have Rose
always there to save her. Melanctha wanted badly to cling to her and
Rose had always been so solid for her." (231) But one day Melanctha
stays a little later and meets Sam who speaks kindly to her. The next
day Rose will not even let her cone in the house.

Her speech is unspeakably cruel. Rose, like Jeff, turns things
around so that it is Melanctha's fault. "I certainly don't... think you
got any right ever to be conplaining the way I been acting to you. . .
nobody ever been more patient to you than I always been to like you."
Tfe words "honest" and "trust" appear. Rose declares that Melanctha has
never been honest to her. Rose can never trust her. People have been
talking, telling her about Melanctha. Rose self-righteously asserts
that she has always tried to make Melanctha act decently and do the
right thing.

There is gross irony here. Stein has only used the word
"promiscuous" as an adjective to describe Rose. Rose, was just as free
and indiscriminate in sex as Melanctha, but merely for the purpose of
having sex. "Wisdom" and "experience" had no place with such a person
whom Stein has characterized as "decent, sullen, ordinary, ...[an]

unmoral, promiscuous shiftless" wonan (210). She is the epitone of the

202

type of person Jeff would call "bad," one who "does it like an animal"
(124). Rose, who "kept company, and was engaged, first to this colored
man and then to that, and always she made sure she was engaged, for
Rose had strong the sense of proper conduct." (88) . And now Rose
presunnes to sit in judgment upon Melanctha and abandon their friendship
in the name of decency.

There is also gross irony in Rose's use of tie phrase "tle right
way" when she has scolded Melanctha about her behavior and the types of
men she has been consorting with. Rose is passing judgenent upon
Melanctha for acting just as she acted before she married Sam. From her
secure position as a married woman she can now ignore her past life and

condemn her friend who is still living in that same manner as before:

"No Melanctha. . . you never can have no kind of a way to act

right, the way a decent girl has to do, and I done my best
always to be telling it to yon Melanctha Herbert, but it

don 't never do no good to tell nobody how to act right;
they certainly never can learn when they ain’t got no sense
right to know it, and you never have no sense right
Melanctha to be honest. .. you don ’t knnow never tie right

way, any kind of decent girl has to be acting...

Thus, because Melanctha has no sense of "proper conduct," Rose
does not want any part of her anymore. "Me and Sam, we don't never any
more want you to be setting your foot in my house here..." (233). And
she shuts the door in Melanctha’s face.

Melanctha is absolutely devastated by Rose 's rejection. Sle "stood
like one dazed, sl'e did not know how to bear this blow that almost

203

killed her." This phrase is a repetition of the description of Jeff ’s
feelings when Melanctha tells him finally that she has "no hot passion
any more," that he had finally "killed all that kind of feeling" (203).
"Jeff Campbell was hurt so that it almost killed him." But this first
occurrence is ironic. Jeff has no right to be hurt so. The final denial
of love by Melanctha was a direct effect of all his actions and lack of
action until that point. Melanctha, on the other hand, has only one
friend, and that is Rose. To be repudiated so summarily is a shattering
blow:

"Melanctha Herbert was all sore and bruised inside her.
[She] had needed Rose always to believe her, [she] needed
Rose always to let her cling to her, Melanctha wanted badly

to have sonebody who could make her always feel a little

safe inside her, and now Rose had sent her from her" ( 233).

The next passage again reiterates that it is love that Melanctha
has been searching for all this time. "Melanctha wanted Rose more than
she had ever wanted all the others. Rose always was so simple, solid,
decent, for her." Her loss is unimaginable. "Melanctha was lost, all
the world went whirling in a mad weary dance around her. [She] never
had any strength alone ever to feel safe inside her." (234). She
needed so terribly to lnave soneone care, fuss over her and scold, that
without that one anchor in her life, she is totally cast adrift.

Rose has delivered the final blow. "Melanctha knew now, way inside
her, that she was lost, and nothing any more could ever help fer."
(234).

But even now her troubles are not over. Jem too abandons her.

Melanctha knows that he will. She oan feel it coming, but after the

204

loss of Rose has no strength to even fight it or plead. Jem's cruelty
is equal to Rose ’8. He sets her up by asking her if she still cares
for him, andwhen shewants toknnowwhy he asks suchaquestionhe
replies, "Because I just don ’t give a damn now for you any more
Melanctha" (235).

The loss of Jen is a blow, but it is Rose ’5 friedship that hurts
the most. "Rose Johnson had worked in to be the deepest of all
Melanctha’ enetions" (234).

Melanctha goes into her final downhill slide into deep depression
and final death. She never sees Rose, Jem or Jeff again, and so finally
dies in a hospital for consumptives, alone, denied of the one thing she

wanted most in life - love.

CHAPTER SIX

COMIJSION

After having determined the need for a tleory of repetition that
provides a basis with which to study repetition in literary texts, I
developed, in Chapter One, a theory of repetition through a discussion
of the theories of textlinguistics, cohesion in English, and the
phenomenological and transactional theories of reading. This theory
was based upon the notion that all discourse is an act of communication
with a sender, a receiver and a message.

Chapters Two, Three, Four and Five were analyses of the individual

novellas in Three Lives: "The Good Anna," "The Gentle Iena," and

 

"Melanctha." All three stories enbody Stein 's View of deternminisnm -
that one ’s life does not change. Life to the three wonen is
repetitious, not repetitive. Their lives did not increase in force,
their actions and enotional states were repeated with less impact at
each recurrence, to no particular end, until they each died lonely
alienated deaths, renarked and remembered by few.

Although in "Melanctha" the progressive tense and the seemingly
overlapping cycles in the affair of Jeff and Melanctha created the
illusion of movement and progress there was actually no movement at all
- merely a continuous recurring of self- defeating and ultimately fatal
behavioral patterns .

We have seen lnow the repetitions have worked together in the three

stories. The process of reading through the work, allowing the

206
repetitions to shape the evocation of the text has created a profoundly
different interpretation than has hitherto been reached. Now, by noting
some of the repetitions which carry not only through the three stories
but across, we can see how Stein has created not three distinct
disparate novellas, but instead has created a densely packed cohesive
whole. In the following pages I will discuss several of tfese
repetitions in turn and slow how they changed meanning from story to
story and gradually accumulated a different tone and resonance from tle
flat, one-dimensional meanings they had at the beginning.

The first word is "good." We first encountered the word in the
title "The Good Anna" as a ’tag' for Anna. Over the course of the
story "good" took on ironic overtones because it was used in many
instances where Anna was not being good. However, in her own eyes,
because she lived with such dedication to making life good for others

and living "the right way," the irony was mnitigated and lessened to a
gentle irony, level led at Annnna, but not with harshness or derision.

"Good" next appeared in "The Gentle Iena," as a tag for nearly
everyone except Lena: Mrs. Haydon, the Kreders, the cook, Herman. This
use of good was a grim and bitter irony because of all the characters,
only the cook had any senblance of goodness, and she was the most
inconsequential of all, and tie least able to help Iena wt of her
situations. "Good" was also used as an adjective to describe what life
would be like for Iena and Hernman if they obeyed the wishes of those
who knew better. Life in America was good for awhile, until Iena
allowed herself to be forced into a prearranged marriage. This
marriage proved to be nothing but relentless agony at the hands of the

"good" Mrs. Kreder. The marriage was good for Hennan, however, and tie
birth of his children brought him new life and the motivation to

207

achieve independence from his parents . Marriage brought Iena nothing
but pain, sorrow and a lonely, pointless death.

We next. encountered the word "g " in "Melanctha." Melanctha as
an impulsive, tenpestuous, sharp—tongued girl who had engaged in many
sexual encounters before she met Jeff, was not "good" by the
conventional definition of a "good" wonan. In fact, she is a "bad"
wonan, a fallen woman- a slut. And yet, she is kind, caring, attentive
and a good nurse to her mother and to Rose. She cares for them
conscientiously without trought for her own needs. an the otter hand,
we have Jeff Campbell, the "good" doctor, with his firm beliefs in the
way people M live, his upstanding moral sense, his dedication to
’his' people, and his fervent desire for them to lead "good" lives. It
is Jeff, as we have seen, who has caused the failure of the
relationship, killed Melanctha's love for him, and in the course of
their love affair, abused her terribly, because he cannot trust her.
(Her past, you know. After all...) It is in "Melanctha" that Stein '5
bitter irony is the must apparent, levelled at the hypocrisy of tlose
who claim to be good and yet mete out senseless pain to others without
realizing or taking tfe blame for their hurt.

The word "trouble" reached across all three stories. Again, in
"The Good Anna," it was a gentle irony, because most of the "trouble"
Annrna encountered was trivial and silly. "Trouble" also had
condescending overtones at the beginning of "Iena," because her
"troubles" were also trivial, such as her absolute helplessness in the
face of sea sickness. This initial meaning of "trouble" teded to
mitigate and lessen tl'e impact of the trouble Iena began to suffer as a

result of ner marriage, but as the story progressed, however, and the

208

reader became aware of the terrible effects this "good" marriage was
having on Lena, "trouble" began to take on new meaning.

"Trouble" in "Melanctha" initially seened to mean problens with
men, problems which, from the wording of the sentences, ste seened to
deserve, because, more often than not, she went out of her way to find
it. "Trouble" gradually took on new meaning over the course of the
long, ugly affair with Jeff which Melanctha eded in a a desperately
lonely state. At the end of the story we could define "trouble" as
suffering the pain of loving, needing and wanting to be loved, witlout
having it be returned in equal measure, if at all. Melanctta
eventually died from this kind of trouble.

"Suffering" also carried across the stories. Each wonan suffered
in a different way, Anna not the least because it was self-imposed by
her need to please and live in the right.

"Power." All three were poerless, trapped by their lives and

circunnstances to a certain fore-ordained station in life. Anna had
power in her own sphere - the house, but beyod her little universe,
she had no control. Lena had control over nothing, not even herself.
She was used, abused and discarded by those wwho had more authority or
influence than she did. Her life was unmitigated helplessness, subject
to the moods and whims of all others. Melanctha had power. This was the
power of sexual attraction. It was not the poor she wanted or needed.
The "poor" was shifted to Jeff, and she lost her own. She had no poor
to control Jeff, nor her own enotions, nor the lives of others.

"The right way." This is singularly the most brutal of all tle

words or phrases encountered in Three Lives. It is this little phrase,

 

this idea entrenched in tne minds of the characters that leads them, or
others, to their deaths. It is Anna’s fervor for "the right way," whicln

209

drives her to work herself to death. This phrase is only used twice in
"The Gentle Lena," once in regard to the right way to dress, and the
second concerning Hernnan '5 teaching his children "the right way" to do
things. A variant occurs when Lena tells her aunt that she will do
whatever Mrs. Haydon thinks is right for her. The impact is lessened by
the trivial uses to which it is put, and yet, conversely, the ugliness
of the phrase is heightened, because of tie character 's seeming
disregard for the impact this "right way" of thinnking and doing has on
the life of Iena.

In "Melanctha" Jeff '5 obsession with the "right way" of living
again achieves monstrous proportions in the face of the distorted
ethics which lead him to treat Melanctha so abominably.

It is odd that, of all the repetitions, critics have missed the
one that has the most impact on the lives of the three wonen. Of all

the other traits of the characters in these stories, it is this
fixation in the minds of people which leads to the downfall of the

three. Carl Wood, one of the few who have noticed this phrase, writes:

While none of the individuals who play principal roles in
[the lives of Anne and Melanctha] is witlout defects, there
is nothing really evil about any of these secondary
characters, and trey intend no harm to tie protagonists. In
fact, the people who hurt the protagonists most - Mrs.
Lehntman, Jeff, and Rose - have the best intentions toward
them and intitially do them more good than any of the otter
characters. The fault for the protagonists' unhappiness,
therefore, cannot be fairly assigned to life as it affects

1
them through these secodary characters..."

210

Wood goes on to describe Mrs. Haydon as a domineering aunt who is
determined that Iena should have the good things in life, and
presumably out of the goodness of her heart, arranges Lena's wedding.

Although I agree with Wood that such characters as Jeff, Rose and
Mrs. Haydon do not overtly inted harm to Lena and Melanctha, I believe
that he is mnissing the impact of these characters upon Lena and
Melanctha. Their twisted, blind, and selfish fixation on "the right
way" directly contributes to these wonen’s deaths. Anna’s own
preoccupation with this idea also looks her into self-defeating cycles
of behavior.

At a higher level of repetition than lexicon, Stein has also
repeated patterns of behavior. Anne renains in the same circumstances
her entire life, going from one position to another as housekeeper,
never wanting or seeking anything else. Lena renains a passive,
unimportant and all but forgotten shadow who is used by others for
their own eds. Melanctha speds ler life seeking love, going from one
relationship to do next, finally seeking solace in tle friedship of a
woman, who also fails her.

Emotional states rarely change. After tle oe relationship which
Anna establisl'es in her infatuation with Mrs. Iehntman, she does not
find any other ronance. She spends her life giving and attenpting to
make otters happy, but she never gives of her love, nor does she find a
solid permanent relationship. Lena’s enotional state is eitfer the
placid sonm'olence of her pleasant pre-marital existence, or tie
terrible helpless misery after she marries Hernman. She does not conquer
or help her helplessness or fer enotions. Melanctha's enotions are on

either end of tle spectrum - sonetimes "impnlsive and unbonnded..."

211

(89) and then strong in her suffering and repression. Her life also
ends in lonely misery.
Bauer writes of "Melanctha:"
And how i_s life? Life is a series of repetitive

junctures which turn us back repeatedly to gates through which

we have already passed. And yet, paradoxically, life and

its actors move ahead, i.e. , ’wander. ’ Stein creates the

impression of change and movenent in the relationships

of her characters in ’Melanctha, ' but we are given the

impression Melanctha and Jeff, at least, can never really

break out of their set cycles of personality, experience,

and enotional states."2

We can logically extend this thought to all three wonen. They never
do break out of their cycles. Their lives renain essentially unchanged,
except in a slow downward spiral toward lonely deaths.

We have noted that sone critics who have focussed on one word or
phrase to tie exclusion of others have evoked inconplete readings of
the stories, while others have missed the point entirely.

But yet, the sympathetic readings of such critics as DeKoven and
Frederick Hoffman have nonetheless captured the essence of the sheer
unmitigated and unrelieved pathos and suffering to which these wonen
have been subjected. In Anna’s case, much of her victimization was due
to her own fervor to live a life of goodness and giving. Iena and
Melanctha were both victims of the blind and singularly cold-hearted
and uncharitable fervor of otters to live "the right way. At times
Stein ’6 bitterness over the monstrosity of the character '5 self-

righteous manipulating has been overwhelming.

212

(In an even large scale, each seem to have lived fruitless,
pointless lives. Anna's is the most fulfilled, but even thougln her
need is to give and love, her love is never returned in measure. All
three die lonely painful deaths, Lena and Melanctha remembered by no
one.

Three Lives is not easy reading. Nor is it particularly

 

pleasurable. At times, the grimnness is relieved by Stein’s display of
wit and humor, but not often.

These three stories have been consistently underrated in the
critical literature. I feel that this lack of attention should be
redressed, and this study has been one step in that direction.

Stein ’5 careful use of repetition denonstrates a mastery over
words not hitlerto credited her. This is not repetitions writing from
sheer laziness or the inability to find different, more appropriate
words . It is instead, the attenpt to capture, through the repetition of
words , phrases and behavioral patterns, the repetition that is life and
tie repetitious prisons in which these three wonen live out tfeir
lives. The repetition in the writing was meant to be paradigmatic of
the cyclical nature of these wonen’s personalities and lives dooned to

exist without love and respect. In my estimation, Stein succeeded.

INTRODUCTION

1

Cynthia Secor, "The Question of Gertrude Stein" in American
Novelists Revisited: Essays E Feminist Criticism ed. Fritz Fleschman,
(G.K. Hall, Boston, 1982) p. 299.

2

Marianne DeKoven, A Different W, (Madison, Univ. of

Wisconsin Press, 1983); Randa Dubnick, The Structure o_f Obscurity:
Gertrude Stein, Language and Cubisnm (Urbana, University of Illinois
Press, 1984); Jayne Walker, The Making 9f 3 Modernist: Gertrude Stein
from Three Lives to Tender Buttons flAmlerst, University of Mass.
Press, 1984); Lisa Ruddick, " ’Melanctha’ and the Psychology of William
James," Modern Fiction Studies, 28(4) (Winter, 1982-83); Anthony
Channell Hilfer, "Stein ’5 Melanctha: An Education in Pathos" in his
book The Ethics 9f Intensity i_n American Fiction, (Austin: University
of Texas Press, 1981).

3

Gertrude Stein, Three Lives, (Norfolk, Conn: New Directions,
1933). All further refrences to these works will be made parenthetica-
lly with page numbers in the text. References will be cited as fol-
lows: "The Good Annna," (TGA); "The Gentle Lena," (GL) and "Melanctha,"
(M);

M.A.K. Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan, Cohesion _ih English, (Iondon,
Longman Group Ltd., 1976); and Waldenar Gutwintski, Cohesion i_n
Literary Texts, (Mouton, The Hague, 1973).

5

J. Hillis Miller, Fiction and Repetition: Seven English Novels
(Cambridge, Harvard U. Press, 1982),

6

Gillian Brown and George Yule, Discourse Annalysis, (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983). p. ix.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter one INTRODUCTION

1

Calvin S. Brown, Repetition _ifl Zola 's Novels, (Atlens, University
of Georgia Press, 1952).

2

Halliday and Hasan, p. 293.

3

Sergej Gindin, "What is a Text as a Basic Notion of Text
Linguistics" in Pags in Text Linguistics. Vol. 29: Text Versus
Sentence ed. Petofi, (Hamburg, Helmust Buske Verlag, 1979) p. 35.

4

D. M. levy, "Oonmunicative Goals and Strategies: Between
Discourse and Syntax." in Syntax and Senantics, Vol. 12: Discourse and
Smtax, (New York, Academic Press, 1979).

 

 

214

5
Tomas Mayordono, "On Text Linguistic Theory’ in Petofi, p. 4.

6
Ibid, p. 7.
7

Donald G. Ellis, "language, Coherence, and Textuality," 1n
Conversational Coherence: Fornm, Structure and Strategy, ed. Robert T.
Craig and Karen Tracy, (Beverly Hills, Sage Publications, l983),p. 224.

8

 

Halliday and Hasan, p. 4.

9Ibid. p. 303.
10
Louise Rosenblatt, The Reader, Tfe Text, The Poem,
(Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 1978) p. 54.
11
he Cooperative Principle developed by Grice presents the
following ternms: Make your conversational contribution such as is
required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or
direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. The
conversational conventions, or maxims supporting this principle are:
Qnantity - make your contribution as infornmative as possible, not more,
not less; Quality - make it true; Relation - make it relevant; Manner -
make it clear: be perspicous, avoid obscurity of expression, avoid
ambiguity, be brief , be orderly. From H. P. Grice, "Logic and
conversation," in P. Cole & J. Morgan eds. Syntax and Senantics _3_:
Speech Acts (New York: Academic Press, 1975). Stein particularly
violates the maxim of manner.
12
Gertrude Stein, "Rue de Rennes" in Two: Gertrude Stein and her
Brother (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1951).
13
Gertrude Stein, "Susie Asado" Geography and Plays (Boston),

 

 

1913.
14 . »
Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons, (New York: Claire Marie), 1914.

 

15
Gutwinski, p. 159.
16
Halliday and Hasan, p. 288.
17
Robert deBeaugrande, Text, Discourse and Process: Toward a
Multidisciplinary Science of Texts (Norwood: Ablex Press, 1980) p. 133.
18
Geoffrey leech, "'This Bread I Break’ - language and
Interpretation," _A Review g English Literature, VI (1965), 66-75.
19
Halliday and Hasan, p. 289.

 

 

20Wolfgang Iser, T‘lne A_ct of Rea in:g A Theory_ of Aesthetic
Resmnse (Baltimore, Jo—hns— Hopkins University Press, _1978), p. 67.
1Ibid p.111
22

Ibid p. 115.

215

23
Wolfgang Iser, The Implied Reader: Patterns o_f conmunnication i__n
Prose Fiction from Bunyan t_o Beckett. (Baltimore: Jo—hns Hopkins Univ.
Press, 1974). p284.
24
Thonas Ballmer, in Petofi, "Words, Sentences, Texts and All
That, " p. 24.
25
Iser, lh_e Ac_t_ g Reading, p. 126.

 

 

26Gerald Prince, Narratology: The Room and Functioning 9f
Narrative, (Berlin, Mouton, 1982), p. 103.
27
Donald Sutherland, Gertrude Stein: A Biography of her Work,
(New Haven: Yale U. Pres, 1951) p. 48. Sutherland here is operating
under the mustaken notion that reading proceeds word for word in a
linear sequential order. It is not my purpose here to discuss the
mechanics of the reading process, but to point out that although he is
incorrect in that sense, he is correct in the sense that Stein did want
her reader’s to pay attention to the individual words she foregrounded
through repetition.
28
Iser, Ag: 9f_Reading p. 17.
29
Ibid, p. 108.
30
Bruce Kawin, Telling It Again and Again: Repetition in
Literature and Film, (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press,
l972)51p. 4.

 

 

Gertrude Stein, "The Gradual Making of Tl'e Making o_f
Annericans", in lectures in Annerica (New York: Random, 1935). p. 214. It
is not inappropriate to use tne statenents Stein made concerning The
Making_ of Americans in reference to Three Lives because, although——
Making_ o_f Americans was written and published after Three Lives it was
begun in —1903, and discontinued until after Three Lives was finisled.
The thought processes followed through.
32
Ibid. p. 213.
33
Michael Hoffman, The Developnent of Abstractioniem i_n_n the
Writings of Gertrude Ste1n. (Pfi1lade1phia: Univ. Of Pennsylvania Press,
1965 ) {Mo—54 .

Michael Hoffman, Gertrude Stein, (Boston, T\wayne Publishers,
1976) p. 30.
35
Hoffman, Developnent g Abstractionisnm p. 69.
36
Norman Weinstein, Gertrude Stein and the Literature 5g bodern
Consciousness (New York, Frederick Ungar, 1970) p. 14.
37
Leon Katz, "Weininger and the Makigg o_f Americans" in Twentieth
Century Literature 24 (Spring, 1978) p. .
38
Kawin, p. 7.

 

 

 

216

39
Alfred Lee, _Hg 3.3 Understand Propaganda (New York: Rhinehart,
1952) p. 132.
40
Gertrude Stein, "Portraits and Repetition, " in Lectures _:_1n_n
Merica (New York: Random, 1935) pp. 171-2.
41
Kawin, p. 124.
42
Stein, "Portraits and Repetition," p. 179.
43
Kawin, p. 123.
44
Stein, "Portraits and Repetitions" p. 185.
45
Thornton Wilder , "Introduction " to Gertrude Stein , Four _i_g
Annerica (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1947), P. vi.
46
Stein, "The Gradual Making..." p. 213.
47
James Mellow, Clnarmed Circle: Gertrude Stein and Conpany (New
York: Praeger Publishers, 1974). p. 71.
48
According to Carl Wood, this epigraph was not writen by
laForgue, but was instead written by Stein. Stein, writes Wood, "seens
to have studied and distilled laforgue's thought and style into a
statement particulalry adapted to ler own artisitic purposes." Carl
Wood, "Continuity of Ronantic Irony: Stein ’5 Honage to Laforgue in

Three Lives, Conparative Literature Studieg 12(June, 1975) pp. 152-153.
Wood interprets the wofii "malheureuse" to mean unnhappy , and altlough

this interpretation certainly applies to the lives of tfese three
wonen, I would not limit the meaning strictly to "unnhappy" but ratler
extend it also to mean "unfortunate." In keeping with Stein ’5 penchant
for anmbiguity and her ability to use words in contexts where they can
mean more than one thing at a time, both meanings are particularly
applicable.
49
Steiner, Exact Resemblance 29 Exact Resenblance: The
Litera_ry Portraiture g: Gertrude Stein (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press,
1978) p. 64.
50
James Miller Jr., ed., James’ Theory of Fiction, (Lincoln,
Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1972). p. 198.
51
Malcolm Brinnin, The Third Rose: Gertrude Stein and Her
World (Boston: Little, Brown, 1959) p. 59.
52
For a complete list of fornm types of repetitions, refer to
Emile Lawrence, Repetition and Parallelism E Tennyson, (Iondon: Oxford
U. Press, 1910).
53
Brown, p. 5.
54
Ibid, p. 7.

 

 

 

 

 

 

217

55
Ibid, p. 33-34.
56
Ibid, p. 23.
57
In his study of repetition in Zola 's novels, Brom found
thirteen different types of repetition. Most of these are evident only
when examining the whole of Zola’s literary words side by side. Four
of these in particular are found in the three stories in Three Lives;
one which will be noted in the course of the separate chapter, is found
in "Lena" and another in "Melanctha. Others may becone evident when
Stein '3 works are exanmined together . later works might exhibit others .
We can conjecture that many of these were not used in Three Lives
because they were not relevant to the work at hand.
58
Frederick Hoffman, p. 32.
59
Hilfer, p. 152.
60
DeKoven, p. 31.
61
Iser, The Agt_ 31:: Reading p. 40.
62
Brinnin, p. 58.
63
DeKoven p. 29.
64
Weinstein, p. 53.
65
Stein, p. 31.
66
M. Hoffnnan, p. 71.
67
Walker, p. 24.
68
Ibid, p. 27.
69
Ibid, p. 33.
70
Frederick Hoffman, p. 33.
71
Charlene Siegfried, Chaos and Context: A Study o_f Willianm James
(Atl'ens, Ohio Univ. Press, E327, pp 14-15.
72
Richard Bridgman, Gertrude Stein E Pieces, (New York: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1970), p. 56.

 

 

CHAPTER Tm - "The Good Anna"

1

Jayne Walker, The Making g E Modernist; Michael Hoffnman, 1h_e_
Developnent 9f Abstractionism i_n_ Gertrude Stein; Carolyn Faunce
Copeland, Egg; and Time and Gertrude Stein, (Iowa City, University
of Iowa Press, 5). As Copeland points out, Here is a good deal of

repetition of thenes, characters and situations of Flaubert’s story of

 

 

 

218

Felicite’. She also denonstrates the same types of repetition between
Q.E.D and "Melanctha." I have made no attenpt to denonstrate any
repetition outside of Three Lives. For further discussion of this
idea, see also Marjorie Perloff, "Poetry as Word-System: The Art of
Gertrude Stein" in American Poetry Eview (8:5, Sept/Oct. 1979). p. 33-
43 and Richard Bridgman, "Melanctha," American Literature, 33,
(November, 1961), 350-359.
' 2
Marilyn Gaddis Rose, "Gertrude Stein and the Cubist Narrative"
in Modern Fiction Studies, 22 (1976-77): pp- 543-545.
3
Bridgman, p. 49.
4
DeKoven, p. 30.
5
Frederick Hoffnnan, p. 28.
6
Carl Wood, "The Continuity of Ronantic Irony: Stein ’5 Honage to
laforgue in Three Lives, Conparative Literature Studies 112 (June,
1975) p. 147.
7
Brown, p. 7.
8
Ibid, p. 33.
9
Willianm Janmes, Psychology: The Briefer Course (New York: Henry
Holt and co., 1892), p. 172.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER THREE - "The Gentle Lena"

1Bridgman, p. 51
2Frederick Hoffnnan, pp. 28-29.
3DeKoven, p. 31.
4Walker, p. 25.
5DeKoven, p. 31.

Brown, p. 31.

Ibid, p. 53.
8
Walker, p. 25.

CHAPTER FOUR - "Melanctha" - Part One

1

Weinstein, p. 57.

2

Francis Russell, Studies 2 Twentieth Century Obscurity (Aldington:

 

218

219

The Hand and Flower Press, 1954). This is a particularly useless essay,
ill-informed and poorly thought out. For further comentary on this
subject, see Michael Hoffman, The Develognent o_f Abstractionisnm _'1n_n the
writings of Gertrude Stein; Dubnick, The Structure of Obscurity;
DeKoven, A Different Language; Richard Kostelanetz, "Gertrude Stein:
What She Did" in Helicon Nlne: A Journal o_f Women 5 Arts and
literature; 5 (Fall, l981):p ppn. 7- -21, among others.

3

DeKoven, p. 41.

4

DeKoven, p. 31.

5

Hilfer, p. 151.

6

For a more detailed analysis of tie progressive tense please refer
to W. H. Hirtle, Time, Aspect and the verb, (Quebec, Le Presses De
L'Universite Laval, 1975).

7

DeKoven, p. 31.

8

Frederick Hoffman, p. 31.

9

walker, p 26.

10

Neil Schmitz, "Portrait, Patriarchy, Mythos: The Revenge of
Gertrhde Stein", Salmagundi (Winter, 1978), p. 74.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hilfer, pp. 155-161.
12

DeKoven, p. 31.
13

Bridgman, p. 61.

CHAPTER SIX - "Melanctha" - Part Two

1
In the second paragraph "Child" has changed to "baby," "The baby"
to "her baby," the appositive "her husband" has been deleted from "Sam
her husband."
2 .
Dan Bauer, "Creative Repetition in Gertrude Stein '5 'nelanctha ’
in fig Jen Studies, Literature and Linguistics, 14 (1981) p. 32. This
small essay is one of the most intelligent and helpful articles written
on the subject of repetition yet.
3
The only difference her is that "did not see it" has been changed
to the more absolute "never saw it" and in the secod paragraph one
appositive "Melanctha" has been left out.
4
Brown, p. 53.
5
Bauer, p. 35.

220

CODCLUSION

1

Carl Wood, p. 154.
2
Bauer, p. 41

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