Literary Rediscovery and Feminist Scholarship in Alcott’s Sensation Fiction

Textual Origins and Rediscovery One of several collections of Louisa May Alcott’s stories, written largely between 1862 and 1866, this collection of four stories should be considered a sampling of others similarly published in the 1970s and 1980s by Madeleine B. Stern. The stories of passion, vengeance, drug use, and other plot developments totally unlike those of Alcott’s better-known children’s stories and novels caused much discussion among scholars, particularly among feminist scholars such as Stern, who calls "Behind a Mask or A Woman’s Power," the title story, "a narrative meditation on the possibilities for feminist subversion of patriarchal conceits" (Introduction xxix).

Literary Influences and Narrative Strategy If Alcott drew on Pilgrim’s Progress for Little Women, these stories owe more to Jane Eyre, to "blood and thunder tales," and to the melodramatic stage Alcott loved to replicate. In the title story we meet Jean Muir walking from the station to the aristocratic household of the Coventrys. The story will end with her leaving that estate in a carriage as Lady Coventry, but first she must struggle. She must charm the gallant Sir John. Although he is expected to marry a cousin, he is smitten with the tricky Jean. He is probably also confused as, within two pages, Jean gives "a sweet, submissive intonation, which made it expressive of the respect, regard, and confidence which men find pleasantest when women feel and show it," along with a look that "was angry, hurt, and haughty" (44–45).

The Performance of Identity and Subversion As Edith does in The Inheritance, Jean takes part in a tableau vivant. In these scenes she is literally "behind a mask," first as Judith to Coventry’s Holofernes, then as Queen Elizabeth to Coventry’s knight on bended knee. Her metaphoric masks include purporting to be younger than she is. She burns letters proving that she is not the person she has been pretending to be, saying, "I laugh at the farce" (101). The reader knows that at night she removes her braids, wipes off her rouge, and takes out several teeth, appearing as "a haggard, worn, and moody woman of thirty at least" (12). She plays many tricks, including destroying evidence of her true identity, before the neatly sardonic ending. If The Inheritance had ended with virtue rewarded, "Behind a Mask" ends with trickery, sarcasm, and downright evil rewarded. In both cases much property is involved. As she wrote these stories, Alcott might herself have hidden behind many a mask deploring the little property that was hers in real life. In writing under pseudonyms Alcott masks her actual circumstances.

Sensationalism, Revenge, and Psychological Drama "Pauline’s Passion and Punishment," written in 1862, not only won a $100 prize but earned an invitation from E. G. Squier at Mr. Leslie’s newspaper to send more stories. Gradually publishers all but clamored for these dramatic stories. Pauline Valery’s story opens with the title character pacing in exotic Cuba "to and fro, like a wild creature in its cage" as "some mental storm, swift and sudden as a tempest of the tropics" has her in its grip (107). Her lover, Gilbert Redmond, has written her a "Dear Pauline" letter. When Manuel, a Creole "boy" of 19, offers to kill Gilbert, Pauline gathers herself into a frightening posture and says, "There are fates more terrible than death. . . . Women use such, and work out a subtler vengeance than men can conceive. Leave Gilbert to remorse—and me" (110).

Climax, Moral Ambiguity, and Gothic Themes Masquerading as husband and wife, Pauline and "this young lover, half boy" (115) set out to make Gilbert and his new wife, Barbara St. Just, jealous and distressed. Beyond that, the goal is for Manuel to seduce the new Mrs. Redmond, whom he calls "Babie". The story takes a number of rather lurid turns before its horrifying ending, when, during the final showdown of the four crossed lovers, one takes "a heavy plunge into the black pool" beneath a "hoary cliff" (152) where they had gathered. The fast horrible plunge leaves two figures where four had stood, "And with that moment of impotent horror, remorse, and woe, Pauline’s long punishment began" (152). So ends the prize-winning story. Readers of the good little Alcott women will be startled by the intensity of the woman’s passion with its undercurrent of sexual desire, by the nod to miscegenation, and by the physical violence of the story. All of those would be present in A Long Fatal Love Chase, written (but not published) soon thereafter.

For Discussion or Writing
1st question: Write a character study of Pauline as her analyst, had she had one, might have, or cast her in a television talk show and assess her effect on an audience.

2nd question: Regarding Gilbert and "Babie," in what ways does Alcott make them well-rounded people, not simply the demons who have robbed Pauline of what she desires?

3rd question: Read further in the story collections to see whether you agree with Stern’s grouping of themes into "Manipulation by a Woman," "Drug Use," "Madness," and "Mind Control." What themes would you add to this list?

Louisa May Alcott’s "My Contraband": A Critical Civil War Analysis

Critical Reception and Theoretical Context in Civil War Fiction. Literary Context and Modern Reception "My Contraband" is one of a number of impassioned stories Louisa May Alcott composed during the American Civil War that scholar Madeleine Stern has described as combining the "lurid" and the "melodramatic" with "threads of realism". Despite being called "one of the most dramatic and powerful stories [Alcott] ever wrote" by the Alcott friend and contemporary Edna D. Cheney (139) and praised by Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Stern, L. M. Alcott 123–124), "My Contraband" can present problems for modern readers. W. E. B. DuBois called it a "tribute to ignorance and religious hypocrisy" because "in the minds of most people, even liberals, only murder makes men" (Fahs 169). As a Civil War story, the work may trouble today’s readers less for its association of murder with the assertion of manhood than with its use of stereotypes.

Character Cast and Structural Interplay "My Contraband" involves four representative actors in the Civil War: a nurse, a doctor, a rebel soldier, and a newly freed slave. The first of these, the Yankee Miss Faith Dane, who narrates the story, is so given to moralizing that readers begin to question her judgment, if not her reliability. Asked by the overworked Doctor Franck, whose good sense and objectivity balance the nurse’s impetuosity, to care for "a Reb, sick with Typhoid," Nurse Dane agrees to do so, saying, "I should rather like to show them [Rebs] that, though I cannot quite love my enemies, I am willing to take care of them" (Elbert 69). Soon, however, "the Reb," Captain Fairfax, is displaced in Nurse Dane’s eyes by the fourth member of the cast, Robert, the "Contraband" slave newly freed by Union forces. Described as a "strong-limbed and muscular" man, "more quadroon than mulatto," Robert is offered to Miss Dane by the kindly doctor as a helper. Her initial attitude toward him is disturbing: "These black boys are far more faithful and handy than some of the white scamps" (70), but it soon becomes clear that Nurse Dane sees beyond this racially dubious generalization.

Narrative Arc, Moral Dilemmas, and Melodrama The story, then, is largely that of the narrator’s attitude change as she nurses Captain Fairfax, whom Robert immediately recognizes as his half brother, "Marster Ned". In an emotional scene, Robert tells Nurse Dane that the gravely ill Captain Fairfax had "taken" the wife of his black brother, for which Robert now seeks revenge. In a twist of fortune (and plot) that strains credulity, Robert now helps to nurse him while trying to kill him. The goodness and sharp observation of Nurse Dane interrupt Robert’s plan, saving him from that sin and liberating him to die noble at Fort Wagner. Nurse Dane becomes a teacher of other "contraband," but she returns to nurse the Fort Wagner black troops, including Robert, and the melodrama continues.

Evaluative Synthesis and Critical Conclusion Contemporary readers might easily agree more with DuBois’s condemnation of the story than with Higginson’s praise. Final assessment may depend in large part on how readers judge the story’s sentimental ending, as in the final lines of the story, Nurse Dane witnesses Robert’s death and declares, "My contraband found wife and home, eternal liberty and God" (86). Despite such cloying sentiment, however, it is difficult to doubt Alcott’s sincerity of motive.

For Discussion or Writing
1st question: Develop an analysis of "My Contraband" that supports either the position expressed by DuBois or that of Higginson. This means you will have to decide whether Alcott’s sincerity outweighs her use of stereotypes and predictable sentiment.

2nd question: Explain the importance of Nurse Dane in this story. Select a particular scene and explain how her conduct draws out features of other characters that illuminate key themes.

3rd question: Compare the way Alcott presents Robert’s death in this story with the way HARRIET BEECHER STOWE presents the death of Uncle Tom in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Explain how each author uses the death of a character to make a point about the inner life of that character.