Susan Glaspell’s Book Alison’s House: A Goddess and a Muse
To Agatha, Alison was a vulnerable creature who needs protection. She has centered her whole life on protecting her sister’s legacy and “I won’t have people looking through Alison’s room. I’ve guarded it for eighteen years” (p. 657). Instead of letting others in, she became very isolated and cut off from the rest of the word. She is very suspicious of the young reporter, Knowles. Agatha states “That’s why I didn’t want to move. Stirring it all up! I wish they’d let Alison alone” showing her feelings that Alison needs the decency of privacy (p. 657). She is adamant in her feelings that Alison belongs to the Stanhopes and not anyone else.
Not only does Agatha protect her sister; she will destroy anything that Alison was connected to, in order to protect her. As her last night in the house that she grew up in comes to an end Agatha decides the only way for Alison’s memory be protected is if she burns the house “O-h! I wish you’d all go away-and leave me here alone! Why couldn’t you let it burn” (p. 665). The highlight of let it burn implies that she doesn’t understand why her family will not protect Alison either. Agatha feels betrayed that her family is selling the house out from under her.
Even death seems like a better alternative to leaving Alison “What could I do? I tried-and tried. Burn them? All by themselves? (In a whisper.) It was-too lonely (p. 665). She is in a constant struggle to protect her sister, when she tried to burn the house down with the straw from her packing materials. In that very stage direction of her frustrations, she says it in a whisper so that no one in her family hears her. She is isolated even from the family on her last night in the house, the night she dies. The next stage direction is that she falls back into her chair. She falls away from those around her.
Agatha also represents the old way of looking at the world. The play takes place on the eve of the turn of the 20th century and the characters are trying to deal with that change. The old v. the new is a constant theme throughout the play. Stanhope is another example of the old way of thinking. In the end Agatha dies. Her views on how the world should be die too. Stanhope, on the other hand, finally changes his point of view and looses out in the end.
Stanhope fears Alison’s legacy. To him Alison could destroy his character. When Agatha gives Elsa Alison’s unseen poems, Stanhope is the only member who wants to burn them. He is trying to save himself because he is the one who made Alison stay after falling in love. Stanhope shows the extremes people will take in order to keep up appearances.
Knowles represents the new way of thinking, the new century. He is Stanhope’s opponent to which Stanhope is defeated by. Trying to burn Alison’s poems is his way of trying to contain Alison’s legacy and work in her own time ” I mean that I am going to burn them in her own fireplace-before her century goes” (p. 688). It is symbolic that Stanhope changes his mind after the 19th century ends. Glaspell was showing how times change no matter how hard you try and stop that time. Stanhope in the end couldn’t keep the poems in his own family or time.
He gave them to Elsa who will publish them to the world. To Knowles, Alison is the archetype poet. Knowles feels that Alison’s work transcends the Stanhope family and she should be exposed to the world for art’s sake “She isn’t dead. Anything about her is alive. She belongs to the world. But the family doesn’t seem to know that” (p. 653). Knowles is the very type of person who Agatha is protecting her sister from. Alison influenced Knowles to become a poet “I’ll never forgot the day I got them-” referring to Alison’s published poems. Alison is the poet archetype to Knowles, an untouchable, flawless figure. By visiting Alison’s house he hopes to understand the poet who he has put on a pedestal.
Louise represents vanity. She is only concerned with what she can get and how to get it. She is solely concerned with how she looks to others. When the Hodges, the house buyers arrives, she puts on her airs of pretension. The rest of the family was not being friendly to them because of the way the Hodges were talking about renovating the house. On the other hand Mr. Hodges points out how polite Louise was when he says “Always nice to have a cheerful member of the family” to describe her (p. 674). Alison’s legacy and memory seems to have no affect on Louise. Not being a family member, she doesn’t have any immediate connection with Alison, but neither does Knowles. She is more concerned with the image of a family rather than the feelings of her family. She is adamant about keeping out the inquisitive Knowles.
Ted represents greed. With the glare of spotlight on his family Ted has exhibited his dishonorable nature. His only interest in his great aunt Alison is getting information to pass his English class “Well, gee, she’s my aunt, isn’t she, and you want to be flunked in English” (p. 659). Ted feels entitled to a reward for having a famous aunt. The irony with Ted is that he is the one exploiting Alison for his own gains while Knowles, who is not even a family member, has a much more noble desire for Alison. Even other members of the Stanhope family are frustrated with Ted’s endless selfish questions and greediness about Alison when Stanhope reprimands Ted “Edward! You have very little sense of family, or very little sense of anything. But perhaps you have sense enough to know what it would mean if your allowance stopped” (p. 667).
Alison had a great affect on Elsa. The first affect that Alison had on Elsa’s life is that she helped to reunite her from her estranged family. Alison’s legacy is used when Elsa defense when coming home “It doesn’t mean you forgive me, Father, if-if you don’t. If you cant. But won’t you just do it-because Alison would do it? She’d take my hands. She’d say-Little Elsa. She’d say-Elsa has come home” (p. 663). The incredibly strong influence that Alison had on the whole family can be seen her as Elsa uses her as an example. Alison is regarded in a way that makes her a religious figure in the house because her life has been studied and her actions revered. At the end of the play when Stanhope wants to destroy the newly discovered Alison poems, Elsa and Stanhope finally united “I never thought you and I would do another thing together. But she did love you. Then shield her. Join with me. What when on in this room-let it end in this room.
It is right” (p. 691). Stanhope later relents and gives the poems to Elsa after they came to an understanding about Alisons influence on her “âÂ?¦ She loved to make her little gifts. If she can make on more, form her century to yours, then she isn’t gone. Anything else is-too lonely. For Elsa- From Alison” (p. 691). Elsa represents the way people try to get out of taking responsibility for their actions. Elsa, however, does not hesitate to use Alison’s legacy to her own advantage. Elsa uses Alison’s love affair as an excuse for her own love affair. After Agatha dies Elsa goes to Alison’s old room with the picture of Alison’s old lover.
She uses Alison’s unhappiness as an excuse to her running off with a married man “Knowing what it is to be alone, I think she would be glad I am not alone. What could I do-aloneâÂ?¦ If she were her own- in her own room- she would say- Happy? Are you happy? Be happy, little Elsa, she would say” (p. 689). Elsa justifies breaking up a marriage as an act of finding happiness. To Elsa happiness is all that matters. Happiness is desired even at the cost of disgrace and hurting her own family because of her immoral behavior. Stanhope makes his opinion known when he states ” Alison was not like Elsa. Alison stayed” (p. 690).
Ann Leslie, the family secretary is greatly affected when she falls in love with Knowles. She feels that love at first sight is a reality and seeks out Elsa for advice in the comfort in Alison’s old room. Like Knowles, Ann feels that Alison has been there for her “I didn’t know her but-it does seem that way. What did I say? I didn’t know her? But I do know her. Her poems let me know her. And now-tonight-I know her better than before” (p. 681). She feels that Alison exists still in her poetry and to Ann, Alison is her guide. Later in the play, after unseen poems are discovered of Alison’s she defends the right to their existence. Stanhope wants to burn them as his sister Agatha originally wanted to.
Ann wants the letter left to a woman ” Because Alison said it-for women” (p. 690). She did not feel that a man should be in charge of Alison’s legacy because she again transcended her family and was a poet for all people and women especially. Ann is the character that benefited the most from Alison’s legacy; she was able to learn from the lessons that Alison’s poems had in them.
The ultimate question that Susan Glaspell presents in with her play is who has control over an artist’s work after they have died. Is the family at liberty to control the work? Or does the public have a right to the work? The Stanhope family is trying to protect Alison’s reputation as well as protect their own name. Each family member has something to gain by keeping Alison a mystery. Stanhope himself is trying to keep her poems in the family “I promise you my sister’s intimate papers are not going into your vulgar world” (p 689). He does not want his family disgraced by the publication of the poems.
Stanhope wants to keep her heart a secret “I feel- something right, something that all the time had to be, in you and me, here alone in her room, giving back to her century what she felt and did not say” (p. 690). Stanhope finally says that he feels that the life that took place in their home is theirs only, theirs alone to have. He wants to keep any family secrets in the family and should be passed down to the grandchildren and so on, not to the world to have.
On the contrary, Ted, Knowles, Eben, Ann, and Elsa represent the public opinion that Alison’s works should be exposed to the world. Eben feels that the new love poems should be given to the world ” She didn’t give the others to the world, either. She was too timid of the world. She just left them, and we did the right thing, as in her heart she knew we would” (p. 690). Stanhope wants to burn the letters while Eben is trying to stop him from making a hasty decision about the works.
Elsa speaks for the public when she says “âÂ?¦ But do you know, Father, I feel Alison wrote those poems for me. /And there will be those in the future to say, She wrote them for me” (p. 691). This idea that Alison wrote the poems for the public is the very heart of the argument that the poems should be published. Even if the work is embarrassing to the family, there will be those in the world who will be so touched and affected that the family discomfort is a small price to pay. Alison is treated as a muse, a building block for the whole house, a God and a voice for the people.
The argument against Stanhope could have been played out with any of Alison’s fans, like Knowles who has been greatly inspired by Alison. Ann feels that Alison has spoken to her through her poems, and as a result she found love. Elsa, who speaks for the fans, states ” How can you know that? And even so- What has been brought into life can not be taken away from life” (p. 691). This is the heart of the argument. If Alison wrote the poems in the first place, she gave life to them, she brought them into the world. Just like a child, one born cannot be killed off by the will of a family member who may be disgraced by that child. The poems transcend the Stanhope family.
In the end, at the turn of the century, the new way of thinking wins. The letters were not burned and Stanhope realized their significance to the world. Anne and Knowles were examples of how fans can treat the artist better than the artist’s own family. Even though Elsa realized Alison’s contribution to the world, she still used Alison’s legacy selfishly for her own benefit. Ted was a complete atrocity to Alison’s legacy. Ted was the type of person who Stanhope and Agatha had to protect Alison from. Agatha thought that type of exploitation would occur outside the family, but the ironically it was inside the family.
