Winifred：An Excessively Rational WomanintheTrap——an Interpretation of the wifein The Door of the Trap from the Perspective of Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatus

楊曉林

（北京語(yǔ)言大學(xué)，中國(guó) 北京100083）

0 Introduction

Sherwood Anderson(September 13,1876-March 8,1941)was an American novelist and short story writer,known for subjective and selfrevealing works.His most enduring work is the short-story sequence Winesburg,Ohio,which launched his career.Throughout the 1920s,Anderson published several short story collections,novels,memoirs,books of essays,and a book of poetry.Though his books sold reasonably well,Anderson’s short stories is permeated with a profusion of themes including alienation、isolation、estrangement、anxiety,which still attract contemporary scholars’attention.Anderson’s concern is not only with the small town but with the universality of those themes human beings are confronted with.Anderson has been neglected in the past decades,which may has some connection with the long term focus on novels rather than short stories Actually,his short stories have directly influenced the next generation of young writers,as he inspired William Faulkner,Ernest Hemingway,John Steinbeck,and Thomas Wolfe. He helped gain publication for Faulkner and Hemingway.

Anderson’s short stories have left much space for scholars to explore.Most scholar only focus on Winesburg,Ohio and The Triumph of the Egg as a whole,but forget to pay attention to the some individual stories.

The author of this paper attempts to interpret one of the short stories The Door of the Trap in the collection of The Triumph of the Egg:A Book of Impressions from American Life in Tales and Poems by means of Althusser’s theory of marriage as an ideological state apparatus.What Althusser calls Ideological State Apparatuses is “a certain number of realities which present themselves to the immediate observer in the form of distinct and specialized institutions”(Althusser,Louis 120).“I propose an empirical list of these which will obviously have to be examined in detail,tested,corrected and re-organized.With all the reservations implied by this requirement,we can for the moment regard the following institutions as Ideological State Apparatuses(the order in which I have listed them has no particular significance):the religious ISA (the system of the different churches),the educational ISA(the system of the different public and private‘schools’),the family ISA,the legal ISA,the political ISA(the political system,including the different parties),the trade-union ISA,the communications ISA (press,radio and television,etc.),the cultural ISA(literature,the arts,sports,etc.)”(Althusser,Louis 133).

Marriage as an ideological state apparatus has a salient feature which makes it distinctly from other ideological state apparatus,that is the demand of emotional investment.The wife as the story represented manifest that marriage is indeed an ideological state apparatus.

The first part deals with Winifred’s daily activities which manifest her mechanical attitude of accomplishing domestic tasks and giving“reports”to her husband as an obligation.The second part,with a center on Winifred’s image in Hugh’s eyes and Anderson’s personal view towards marriage,expatiates on Winifred’s having occupied a“high ground”in family life but do not cushion the inferiority of Hugh with intimacies and female tenderness.The third part interprets Winifred’s acceptance of Cochran and exposes Winifred’s self-indulgence in adventure novels which makes her successfully released herself and gain a clear picture of her husband,thus merely behaving herself and showing indifference towards a suspicious marriage invasion.

1 Daily Activities in Married Life as an Obligation

Winifred’s daily activities which manifest her mechanical attitude of accomplishing domestic tasks conventionally assigned to a wife including doing housework and pressing for her husband to achieve“American Dream”,moreover,she gave “reports”to her husband as an obligation imposed by marriage ideological state apparatus.

The first dynamic description of Winifred is that she “sat sewing,”which is a typical obligatory task for a woman.The conversation between the couple also suggests this woman’s indifference towards her husband.The conversation they had is described as“fragmentary:“Have you been well to-day,dear?”“Yes,”he answered.From this daily conversation,we can feel that the wife only regard the consideration in marital relationship as a ritual which could be processed without emotion.The second place that shows her ritual consideration is her care for the shutter.“The shutters are becoming loose,”she said.The sentence is such an objective statement with nothing in it about caring about her husband’sleeping quality due to the“l(fā)oud banging noise”it caused at night.An inevitable and indispensable part in a couple’s conversation must be the children.Yet the wife only repeated some wise saying that had fallen unexpectedly from the lips of the children.Winifred did this as a report without expecting any response from his husband.

The image of Winifred seems so scary in his husband’s eyes.Her occasional entry into his husband’s room and the turning out of the light to shed light upon her husband’s darkness made her husband desperately in search of a sanctuary but ended up in driving her out.Hugh made an excuse like “Be quiet when you come up,Winifred.I have a headache and am going to try to sleep.” “When he had gone back to his own room and locked the door again he felt safe.” “Safe”is a word symbolizing“avoiding danger or threats.”While,in this family,Winifred indeed behaved in a“threatening”way.This can be directly discerned from her interaction with her husband and indirectly from the contribution she has made in supporting the family which is an aspect will be discussed int the next chapter.The beginning of the short story has impart the profession of the husband to us. “He taught mathematics in the little college at Union Valley,Illinois,and waited.”Hugh “had been a professor in the little college for six years.Young men and women had come into the room and he had taught them.”Given that America is a country worshiping the achievement of American dreams,one can speculate that the purpose of Winifred’s frequent visit to his husband’s sanctuary is to persuade him to be ambitious and aggressive in displaying his talent in his teaching position.Knowing this,it’s easy to understand Hugh’s sudden break out of the long time silence which had lasted all through his married life.“He walked homeward with a German who had the chair of modern languages in the school and got into a violent quarrel.He stopped to speak to men on the street.”This sudden change may be regarded as a demonstration of Hugh’s transition of thought transformed by his“powerful wife.”

The structure of marriage,with its expectations of obligatory bond between the wife and husband without preconditions,belongs to the apparatus of ideological state control.While,a recurring image of the wife who was always reading a book without caring about her husband’s existence could be treated as the sole protest against the bond.Readers’attention is drawn to the author’s name of the books the wife could hardly tear herself away from.Anderson mentioned the anthor of the book twice.Robert Louis Stevenson(13 November 1850-3 December 1894)was a Scottish novelist,poet,essayist,and travel writer.His most famous works are Treasure Island,Kidnapped,and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.His stories are permeated with adventures and travels to some islands and faraway places on the earth.“When she(Winifred)had read them all she began again.”In this aspect,Winifred is just like the title character Jane Eye in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre who enjoys reading books about birds.“Birds”symbolizes the freedom and the capability to see far beyond.Likewise, “Adventure”symbolizes passion and the capability to see far beyond,which implicate Winifred’s characteristic.

2 The Image of Winifred in Hugh’s Eyes and Anderson’s Personal View towards Marriage

The author of this paper contends that Winifred has occupied a“high ground”in family life but do not take action to cushion the inferiority of Hugh with intimacies and female tenderness.

Readers obtain the impression of Winifred’s appearance from the Hugh’s observation:

“Her nose was so and so and her eyes so and so.[...]her hair was not in very

good order.Since her marriage and the coming of the children she had not taken

good care of her body.When she read her body slumped down in the chair.It

became bag-like.She was one whose race had been run.”

Winifred in Hugh’s eyes is woman who showed disregard for her self-image and “male gaze”in Laura Mulvey’s term.The author of this paper believes that it is because Winifred has contributed much more resources than her husband in supporting the family.Evidence can be found from Hugh’s perspective.Hugh “in a way felt like a man capable of taking a man’s place in life and in another way he didn’t at all.”While his wife “has the air of something accomplished.She has had these children.They are accomplished facts to her.They came out of her body,not out of mine.Her body has done something.”Giving birth to children may be the most important thing in a family.Besides that,Hugh has to live dependently on her wife’s family property.Hugh “did not have to live within his income from the little college,and so the house was rather large and comfortably furnished.” “Winifred,my wife,is fact,and my children are fact.I must get my fingers on facts.I must live by them and with them.”As a man,Hugh can’t fulfill his responsibility for a family as a man,in contrast to this,his wife occupies a high ground in marital relationship.

Robert L.McDonald said to the effect that Anderson saw heterosexual intimacy as organic,most often with the feminine as primary:he believed that“man”was incomplete without“woman,”that a woman's nourishment provided the best foundation for a man's realization of his human potential(97).Anderson was especially articulate about this in letters to his fourth wife,Eleanor,during both their protracted courtship and their marriage.At the height of an early crisis,he pleaded:“If I can completely lose myself in you,something will happen to us both.There is something there to build upon.[D.H.]Lawrence thought you might start out from that to rebuild all life” (Modlin,Charles 77).In another desperate letter,he confessed:"You may be able to stand alone,without a man.I shall always be needing a woman” (White,Ray Lewis 56).So,Winifred did not meet Anderson’s expectation of a good wife

Yet Winifred never takes into consideration of his husband’s frustration and depression and never includes consolation and encouragement into her conversation with her husband.

3 Winifred’s Acceptance of Hugh’s Odd Behaviour

Winifred’s elf-indulgence in adventure novels makes her successfully released herself and gain a clear picture of her husband,thus merely behaving herself within the marital bond and showing indifference towards a suspicious marriage invasion.

There is a paragraph consists of a single sentence:“Winifred accepted her(Cochran)as she accepted everything,the service of the two negroes,the coming of the children,the habitual silence of her husband.”Here,everything certainly includes Hugh’s odd behaviour.Winifred has clearly known her husband and the obligation of “marriage”which is policing oneself in married life.Winifred accepted her husband’s rare behaviour of inviting a female student to her family for she has clearly discerned Hugh’s dismal situation within the family.She knows that their marriage life to Hugh was a boring and dull one,thus a sudden female intruder is not irritating and surprising to her. “he (Hugh)was in a drugged,silent state.”He even “counted the stalks in each hill of corn and computed the number of stalks in a whole field.” “In the spring he worked in the neglected garden.It had been plowed and planted,but he took a hoe and rake and puttered about.”The dreary life forced Hugh to wait for“new life”which finally finds its owner---Mary Cochran.

Facing such a “would-be”love affair,Winifred did nothing as common women would do including showing jealousy and indignation not only due to her insight of his dismal marital condition but also her comprehension of his husband’s double mindset. This total comprehension of this sort of strange spiritual condition derives from her familiarization with the works of Robert Louis Stevenson.One of his famous book Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was first published in 1886.The work is commonly known today as The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde,Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde,or simply Jekyllffamp;Hyde.The work is commonly associated with the rare mental condition often spuriously called “split personality,” referred to in psychiatry asdissociative identity disorder,where within the same body there exists more than one distinct personality.This provides the explanation for Hugh’s conversation with himself in the third paragraph and the selfdivision displayed in his body.“As though speaking to a third person in the room.He was quite sure there was a third person there and that the third person was within himself,inside his body.”Having recognized this rare spiritual phenomenon,Winifred can have a penetrating insight of his husband.While due to the reasons put forward in the beginning of this paragraph,she did nothing to save Hugh’s soul.

4 Conclusion

Winifred’s daily activities manifest her mechanical attitude of accomplishing domestic tasks and giving“reports”to her husband.She has occupied a “high ground”in family life but do not cushion the inferiority of Hugh with intimacies and female tenderness.Having indulged herself in adventure novels,she successfully released herself and gain a clear picture of her husband,thus showing indifference towards a suspicious marriage invasion.

Winifred’s marriage life manifests that marriage as an ideological state apparatus is extremely efficiency in making the married ones willingly fulfill the their bounden duty and strictly play the conventional role assigned by the society in the married life.While,marriage,as an ideological state apparatus,has a salient feature which makes it distinctly from other ideological state apparatus,that is the demand of emotional investment.As the beginning of the story suggests: “Marriage was marriage to her (Winifred)”,Winifred only regards marriage as a“contract”which is just the functioning principle of marriage ideological state apparatus rather than realize the importance of “intimacy”which Anderson has attached great importance to in married life.Hence,the author of this paper concludes that it is Winifred’excessive rationality that mainly contributes to the couple’s being caught in the“marriage trap”and to their inability to find the door of it.

［1］Althusser,Louis.Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays[J].Trans.Ben Brewster.New York:Monthly Review P,1971.

［2］Sherwood Anderson’s Secret Love Letters:For Eleanor,a Letter a Day[J].Ed.Ray Lewis White.Baton Rouge:Louisiana State UP,1991.

［3］Sherwood Anderson’s Secret Love Letters:For Eleanor,a Letter a Day[J].Ed.Ray Lewis White.Baton Rouge:Louisiana State UP,1991.

［4］McDonald,Robert L.A Man’s Worth:Intimacy in Sherwood Anderson’s“Fred”Short Story Criticism[J].Ed.Jelena O.Krstovic.Vol.142.Detroit:Gale.