Way Down East: a regional American narrative

¶ … Down East

The theme of guilt and redemption is a key one in literature and drama, often with direct reference to biblical concepts of each and the link between them. In the film Way Down East by D.W. Griffith (1920), the central female figure suffers greatly because of a sexual indiscretion until she is redeemed and saved for a traditional role in the family. The film appears to suggest at the outset that it is the male who needs to be redeemed, but as the film progresses, it becomes clear that Griffith sees the roles of men and women in very traditional terms and that his idea of the double standard for women differs greatly from modern feminist thinking on the same subject. The structure of the story creates a male villain, but it is still the female who suffers for her sin and who must achieve redemption before she can be made whole again and allowed back into traditional society, a society that is limited in scope for both men and women but always more so for women and a society that is especially unforgiving for women. Griffith seems at first to criticize this fact, but in the end he revels in it and sees the redemption of society in terms of the redemption of woman first and man second.

Guilt

The concept of guilt in this film is biblical in nature and addresses more the guilt of the woman than the guilt of the man. In the beginning, the filmmaker states in a subtitle that women are constant in their affections, while men are not. He indicates that the promiscuity of men means that in some manner the men are not as evolved as the women, and the implication is made that women are on a higher plane because of their ability to remain faithful to one mate for life, while men are lesser creatures who are weak and so more given to promiscuous behavior. This might seem on first blush to be an indictment of men and their behavior, but in another way it is not. Indeed, it appears instead to give men a pass for their promiscuous behavior, as if they simply cannot help themselves and will not be able to do so until they evolve. Within the inherent praise for women is also a higher standard for women. If a man falls, he is just following his nature. If a woman falls, she is betraying her true nature and so committing a much graver sin.

In the structure of the film, Lennox Sanderson is the cad who seduces Anna and betrays her. Griffith may condemn Lennox, but he also seems to indulge him to a degree, much as society has tended to do at different times with the view that "boys will be boys."

An introductory title card also calls this a simple story of plain people, referring specifically to Anna and her mother. Her relatives are not such plain people, and it is through their grudging hospitality that she is introduced to Lennox and to the cynical world of which he is a part. Anna and her mother, along with David Bartlett, are more understanding and forgiving than the norm, while Squire Bartlett is the righteous man who is not forgiving at all. The Tremonts and Sanderson are snobbish and at the same time corrupt, making them assume a superiority that is not rightfully theirs. For Griffith, the upper classes in general are unworthy and often seek to corrupt the more innocent members of the working class. They assume that everyone is like himself or herself and laugh at the sort of home-grown attitudes and spiritual beliefs of others. They see Anna as simply a country cousin who does not know any better than to have ideals. Griffith recognizes her more spiritual nature, but this only makes her fall all the worse and all the more in need of redemption.

Virginia Wright Wexman discusses the film in terms of the way Griffith approaches the female nature of Anna and states,

Anna's body is made the focal point of a residual discourse that seeks to define the "proper" role of women. Griffith relates it first to culture, then to nature. While Anna's adventures in Boston depict sexuality as an erotic pleasure readily available in modern-day society, her experiences on the farm depict sex as a "natural" part of procreation, which is in turn associated with the nurturing quality of agricultural work. (Wexman 54)

Wexman also notes that Anna's indiscretion takes place in the city, a less natural and more evil locale than the farm, while her regeneration takes place in a rural setting and leads to her being reintroduced into the natural farming world with David.

Wexman also points out how the aunt who helps lead Anna into the corrupt world of Boston dresses in a rather mannish fashion then seen as evidence of the New Woman of the time, a critical assessment of women trying to change the old ways for new, less tried-and-true, and less "female" forms, as Griffith sees it. Such women wanted to be more like men and so to lead more promiscuous lives without the opprobrium that attached to women who behaved in that may. Griffith sees this as unnatural, leading to the punishment visited on Anna rather than the carefree life proponents of the New Woman would have everyone believe was possible. The proper woman is represented by Anna, who must be redeemed:

At the center of this ideal is the image of the woman as "the angel in the house," an image most fully embodied for Griffith in the person of Lillian Gish. To Griffith, Gish's beauty and fragility represented the right of women to a protected place within the domestic sphere. This view of womanhood was not put forward in a social vacuum; it emerged during a period in which the "proper" place of women was a topic of widespread debate. Griffith's domestic melodramas can be seen as a contribution to that debate, especially as it touched on women's reproductive rights. (Wexler 53)

The fact that Anna must be redeemed again implies that she has committed a sin, though an objective analysis would find that she is much more sinned against than sinning. After all, she marries Sanderson and only later is told by him that the marriage was false, that they are not married at all. She did not know this, of course, so her pregnancy should not be seen as her fault but his. He is the clear sinner in this story, and yet she is the one in need of redemption. Her punishment is far greater than the offense would seem to warrant in modern terms, though in the more Victorian view of Griffith, Anna is at fault for being seduced in this manner. Her punishment, though, begins with learning the truth and then includes the death of her child. Yet, she still must be redeemed before she can be taken back into the community. For Griffith, she suffers guilt for the offense even if she did not know she was committing it.

At most, she is guilty of naivete and of believing Sanderson, indeed of believing in the essential goodness of her distant relations. She fails to see how little they regard her when she arrives. She views them as decent folk, but they look down on her and only cater to her as part of an internal battle between greedy nieces and a rich aunt, all using the girl for their own purposes. She is easily fooled by Sanderson, a type of person she has never seen before. She is completely rural and innocent, and these people are completely urban and corrupt. That particular dichotomy is one that has long prevailed in much literature and drama, and Hollywood adapted it as a working principle from the first and maintained it as a touchstone thereafter. The idea of the innocent hick meeting the corrupt city dweller is found again and again in films in different forms, and the idea prevails in this that those closer to the soil are more natural, more in touch with the spiritual, and innocent of guile, while those raised in the city are duplicitous, corrupt, cynical, and not to be trusted. The idea also prevails in this film that Anna should have known that and that her sin may simply be that she did not keep this in mind and distrust others as she should have done. Again, the punishment for this is terrible and far out of proportion to the sin, but that in itself serves as a warning to others.

There is a visual warning early in the film as Anna arrives at the Tremont's door. Griffith uses a narrowing of the frame to increase the sense of height for the door and to enclose Anna in a smaller area before the door, as if she is stepping into something bigger than herself, something that extends above her and that she does not understand. The door itself is a barrier, and she does not realize what is behind that door until she is inside and it is too late.

This kind of innocence is repeated in other Griffith films, and some of his biographers have speculated that the sort of character represented mirrors Griffith's view of his older sister, who raised the family after the mother's and father's deaths and who herself never married (Henderson 23-26). Whether this is the true source or not, the innocent female from the country was a staple in Griffith's films and a character tested again and again as various temptations are placed in her path. In Way Down East, the temptation may include the more affluent lifestyle of Lennox Sanderson and the Tremonts, and this desire to rise above her station may be the real sin for which Anna must atone. Sanderson's house has a high ceiling that makes the house seem huge, certainly much larger than the small home Anna shares with her mother. It is that desire that leads her to ruin, to the death of her child, and to the other ills that beset her before she is rescued by David.

Redemption

Indeed, Anna's full redemption requires the intercession of a male hero who not only saves her from the ice floe but also brings her back into society by loving her, in effect forgiving her for her fall. This turns on its head the usual paradigm of the man saved from evil by the love of a good woman. David is a good man, and so his love for Anna carries special weight in bringing her back into the fold, described by Paula Marantz Cohen as a form of overly dramatic acting out of the idea of redemption: "The second half of the film is a countermovement to the scene of the baby's death: a conventional melodramatic plot takes over to make possible a happy ending -- -to bring the heroine back from the abyss of reality to the safe port of cinematic representation" (Cohen 124).

Such a visual serves as a strong metaphor for the road taken by Anna, a road that is fast-moving and treacherous, like the ice on the river; that moves inexorably toward complete ruin in the form of the falls; and that requires a certain goodness of spirit to overcome and the strong arms of a worthy male. The film reaffirms the domestic role for women and at the same time holds this image out as a salvation for men as well. In this way, Griffith suggests that the proper path is on firmer ground, to which the couple returns once David is able to help Anna across the ice and away from the falls.

The structure of the film shows the melodramatic roots of the story Griffith purchased, a dramatic form with which Griffith was most comfortable in any case. His plots tend to be heightened and emotional, filled with grand gestures and largely black-and-white characters. The hero and heroine may seem more gray because they are in some degree tempted by the darker forces around them, but in truth they remain pure and affirm this in the end. The origin of a character like Anna is indicated by Cohen when she writes that Griffith "concentrated on women as the vehicle for a narrative of character, following the lead of the female-centered Victorian novel" (Cohen 129). Anna is such a character and shows clear roots in the Victorian image of women and in a Victorian moral code.

The final need for Anna's redemption comes after some time has passed. She lives and works at the Bartlett farm until her past is exposed, suggesting that a sin once committed comes back again and again to exact punishment. Squire Bartlett is the arbiter of morality for the community, and it is he who drives Anna out of his house and onto the ice. For the Squire, the only way to cope with a sin is to cast it out. He does not seem to recognize the power of or even possibility of redemption, and the behavior of Anna since her "marriage" therefore means nothing.

Part of that behavior has been her burgeoning romance with David and her refusal to agree to marry him because she knows that her past will one day return to harm her. It indeed does when the Squire arrives in Belden to be told about Anna's baby by the busy-bodies at the hotel. It is this revelation that leads to his throwing Anna out of his house. That scene is interesting because it is both the low-point for Anna and the moment at which she reveals the truth, accusing Sanderson of the real sin as she walks out of the house.

The reappearance of the unrepentant Sanderson serves as a threat not only to Anna but to others in the household as he continues his career of seducing women, this time directing his attention toward the Squire's niece. The Squire's sanctimony has been well-established by this time, so his throwing Anna out is not a surprise. However, as she leaves she informs him of the truth about his houseguest, leading to a complete turnaround in his attitude. The real climax of the film comes after her rescue from the ice, when the Squire comes to her and asks her to forgive him. This act clearly shows the depth of her redemption, the degree to which the community recognizes that it has wronged her, and shows the Squire in effect redeeming himself through this act.

In some sense, even Sanderson might be seen as redeemed because he come to her at the end and confesses before all, asking if she wants to marry him so he can correct his own crimes. She refuses, but it does appear that the events have changed everyone in the film in some way and made all seem more unified around certain community values and around the initial idea that women are constant and men should be.

The film ends with a triple wedding, affirming much the same thing in a community setting, drawing together the people involved and offering a celebration of marriage and of the unity that marriage brings to the community. Marriage was a common conclusion in fiction throughout the nineteenth century and through the Victorian age, serving as the natural conclusion to the trials and tribulations suffered by characters up to that point. Way Down East is firmly tied to the traditional values and to the kind of social order that spawned those values. Any new ground broken by Griffith in this film is in visual terms, from the way he handles deeply emotional sequences such as the death of Anna's baby to the scenes of peril on the ice at the end. Anna becomes the long-suffering heroine after her early innocence is lost, always knowing more than others because she knows her history and they do not, reacting accordingly to protect David and to keep herself safe as well, and ultimately expressing her own sense of injustice when she reveals the truth about Sanderson and leaves the house. The film is melodramatic in the way it deals with heightened emotions and a somewhat contrived plot, with the coincidence that Sanderson picks a member of the family to seduce where Anna is now living. Still, the story is realistic for the most part and remains firmly tied to the social order of the time in which it is set.