Ellen Glasgow

Ellen Glasgow, "Barren Ground" In the 1996 article, Heroism and tragedy: the rise of the redneck in Glasgow's fiction, Duane Carr speaks of Ellen Glasgow as a transitional author entrapped by ideals of the traditional and the modern. Carr's stated thesis is associated with Glasgow's character as a person as well as an author. Ellen Glasgow was an advocate of progress and a modern South where reality would tear away fantasy and science would bring economic benefits to the lives of impoverished people.

At the same time, her ties to the romance of the Old South were strong, and therein lies the major conflict in her novels. She was never quite to work out a satisfactory compromise. (Carr, 1996) Carr contends that through her dichotomous background, with two very different parents Glasgow could not help but represent a dichotomy in her character san her works.

"She seems to be the quintessential Southerner, seeking valiantly to hold onto the old while embracing the new, never fully acknowledging that a belief in one might well preclude a belief in the other." (Carr, 1996) Carr is critical of Glasgow in her early works for failing to fully develop characters. He argues that she assumes that a character does not have complex emotions simply because he or she cannot express them.

Glasgow makes the same mistake many writers before and since have made, and that is to assume that the inability to express complex emotions means the person does not have complex emotions. What she hasn't realized is that complex language comes to us through education or from having grown up among educated people. Failure to realize this has caused more than one writer to create flat characters, and Ellen Glasgow is no exception.

(Carr, 1996) Yet, in Barren Ground he gives her credit for one well developed character, that of Dorinda Oakley. Carr asserts that through Glasgow's own admission the character of Dorinda in many ways represents the author. Through the assessment Carr gives Dorinda the only positive mark of completeness that is offered in his work and yet somehow dismisses this because Glasgow expresses her personal connection with the girl as a liberator. Glasgow has written of Barren Ground (1925) that it is the novel she "might select..

For the double-edged blessing of immortality" because of the principal character, Dorinda Oakley, who achieves universality because she "has learned to live without joy." Tying this theme to her own life and seemingly identifying with her character to a great extent, Glasgow wrote that the novel "became for me, while I was working upon it, almost a vehicle of liberation."...equally important to Dorinda's liberation as a woman is her liberation from a past that is tied -- through her father -- to the futility and despair of existence in poverty.

Dorinda is perhaps the most fully realized of those Glasgow characters. (Carr, 1996) Carr goes on to point out that the duality of Dorinda is reflected in the same duality that exists within Glasgow's heritage, though wealth may not be the issue the lack of vision that is present within those people, like her own father who cling to old traditional ideas often leads to impossible failures in life. Carr goes on to describe the way in which the dichotomous marriagae produces children with divergent personal abilities.

Each child inheriting better or worse character traits from one or the other parent, becoming a mirror of the parent if you will. It is clear that Dorinda and in this case Glasgow also prefers the character traits of her mother and disdains the simpleton and possibly stereotyped traits of her father. Joshua, the oldest son inherits the traits of the father and Dorinda and Rufus the more gentile character traits of her mother.

Yet, to complete the character Dorinda's liberation resides in the fact that she discovers that she has also inherited good character traits from her father. As she becomes a more fully developed character she realizes the strength of her connection to the land and to tradition. A what gives Dorinda her sense of independence and allows her to escape the futility of her father's life is her realization that she has inherited good traits from her father as well as her mother.

For despite his limitations, he has maintained throughout his life a closeness to nature that has allowed him to endure. This "kinship with the land" has been passed along to Dorinda "through her blood into her brain; and she knew that this transfigured instinct was blended of pity, memory, and passion." This, combined with the determination to overcome and rise above obstacles, a trait inherited from her mother, allows her to find her life's work in successful farming (pp. 233-236).

(Carr, 1996) Though Carr redeems his opinion of Galsgow through a fair interpretation of Dorinda he still seems to have a simplistic view of the subtlety of Glasgow's work. Having read the novel it is clear that the defining character, Dorinda is going through a period of growth that enables her to see her father and eldest brother as people of merit, regardless of their coarse natures. Dorinda embraces her growth and accepts the ideals that are a part of her heritage.

Though stating that the character Dorinda loses her expectations or "has learned to live without joy," seems harsh. Dorinda has learned that reducing her expectations of others and the future, especially where she can have so little real impact makes her a more happy peaceful person not a less happy person. Though Carr contends that there is no real solution offered for the dichotomy of old vs. new or traditional vs. modern, the real interpretation lies in the idea that each step toward anything is gradual.

Dorinda realizes that she has a lack of control over just how much change can occur and though this may be sad because she seems to lose so much of her vision through this realization she also acknowledges the vision in what.