Friday, February 24, 2012

The Nature of Martha's Feelings

I'm going to write a post about what I brought up in class the other day. To get right to the matter, "Martha's Lady" seems to have us take it for granted that Martha is in love with Helena--that it's a beautiful love story of a kind that would have been intolerable during the time period. I can certainly see this. But I'm not entirely convinced that Martha is in love with Helena and not just infatuated with her.

On page 875 the narrator talks about how Martha was dreading Helena's visit, expecting her to be harsh and demanding like Harriet. Helena also notices that Martha had been crying when they go to pick cherries. It's obvious that Martha is sad, lonely and probably frightened by Harriet's overbearing manner. All alone and forced to deal with a job that's she can't get the hang of fast enough, and then out of nowhere comes a welcome friend who is warm and understanding. Out of gratitude, Martha latches onto her, and her feelings towards Helena are only strengthened with she hears her speaking kindly of her to Harriet. She is desperate for love and acceptance, and she thinks she's found it in Helena.

The problem is, Martha forms these feelings too quickly for them to truly be love. While Helena is visiting for at least a month and that would probably be enough time for true love to develop, Martha falls in "love" almost immediately, and a deep infatuation at the beginning would preclude actual love from forming.

I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on this.

3 comments:

  1. I somewhat agree. Whether it was "real" love or not who knows, but I definitely think it was real to Martha. Also, I think Martha sees Helena as an idol more than anything else. She even refers to her as such on page 882.

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  2. This is an interesting topic to continue discussing. I think there is a great deal of infatuation going on here, and that in some ways, Jewett indicates that love and infatuation are synonymous for someone like Martha. Or, perhaps more accurately, that all kinds of love that are as intense as the love Martha has for Helena are by their very nature also marked by infatuation. Does that make sense?

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  3. I had to look up the exact definition of infatuation to see if I could find a link between it and love--in my understanding, infatuation and love were mutually exclusive.

    infatuation: foolish or all-absorbing passion or an instance of this

    I guess I can see how a person could be truly in love but also infatuated with someone. If they had a genuine basis for love but were also so obsessed with the person that they couldn't see their flaws and raised them to a pedestal, that would satisfy requirements for both, wouldn't it?

    But for Martha, I'm not sure this applies. When would she have truly fallen in love with Helena? During that one month together, perhaps?

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