22 pages • 44 minutes read
A New England Nun
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Themes
Femininity, Virginity, and Sexual Repression
Louisa is not only neat and tidy, but she also fears sexual passion. Freeman gives the reader details that symbolize Louisa’s repressed nature. Beneath Louisa’s placid exterior is an internal struggle. Elements, such as her sewing, the caged canary, and her aprons, represent the desires that she is struggling to keep hidden.
Sewing is the act of closing something up. Freeman notes that Louisa has never misplaced one her “feminine appurtenances,” meaning that for Louisa sewing is intrinsically feminine, and, by extension, femininity is meant to be closed up, not opened. This can also be applied to Louisa’s feelings about sexual intercourse, preferring that her body remain closed up as well. Freeman establishes this in her introductory characterization of Louisa so the reader understands Louisa’s point of view. Everything in Louisa’s house is organized precisely; she keeps objects, such as her dining table, which is covered with a starched white linen cloth, perfect and pristine. Louisa does not make sudden movements, rather her movements are “slow and still” (2). Louisa is most comfortable in her well-ordered world where there are no surprises or external stimuli to disturb her.
Joe’s appearance shows how much Louisa fears not only disorder, but also the threat to her sexual purity. Contrary to what her actions convey, on some level she finds Joe sexually attractive. The canary in the cage betrays this feeling. The canary “fluttered wildly, beating his little yellow wings against the wires. He always did so when Joe entered the room” (3). The canary beating its wings against the cage symbolizes excitement and fear. The fear and excitement go together, such that Louisa cannot separate them. When they sit down, Louisa folds her hands in her lap, a subtle gesture that covers her sexual organs. Louisa only experienced a murmur of passion for Joe during their courtship, but the descriptions Freeman gives now suggest otherwise.
Louisa’s three aprons are another means she uses to cover the parts of her body associated with sex. Louisa is obsessively clean and seems to believe sexual intercourse to be the ultimate uncleanliness. It is not clear if this belief is conscious or subconscious, but all of Louisa’s actions betray a desire to remove the threat of sexual activity from her life. Louisa fears that marriage to Joe will violate her virginity. When she recommits herself to her way of life at the end of the story, she is committing herself to celibacy where she will never again experience the temptation of desire.
Marriage and Obligations
The driver for the plot is that Louisa and Joe intend to be married. For each of them, marriage was a foregone conclusion. When Louisa was young, she had seen marriage as “a reasonable feature and a probable desirability of life” (7). She listened to her mother’s counsel that she should marry Joe and accepted the duty of waiting for him to return and remaining faithful. Now that he has returned and the prospect of marriage is real, she is startled and realizes how much she does not want to give up her maidenly ways. Nevertheless, she continues to sew her wedding clothes, stitch by stitch, until a week before the wedding when she learns about Joe and Lily.
Joe is also committed to marrying Louisa. Freeman writes that his passion for Louisa and his desire to get married never left him while he was in Australia. Unlike Louisa, who was cool toward him even in their youth, Joe was passionately in love with Louisa, to the point that he broke down before their parting. He remained faithful, even when he returned and realized that her ways had changed dramatically. Nevertheless, like Louisa he planned to stay true to his commitment. He tells Louisa before they part that if she had wanted to move forward with the wedding, he would have stayed with her until the end (16). Ironically, in their parting, Joe and Louisa share more honesty, emotion, and kindness toward one another than they had during their stiff, awkward courtship. Freeman is commenting on the way rigid 19th-century New England values tie individuals to the idea of marriage, even when it is ill-advised. Both Louisa and Joe are happier now that they are relieved of their obligation.
There is an old saying “to sell something for a mess of pottage,” which means to sell something for a ridiculously small amount. Therefore, when Freeman writes that by rejecting marriage to Joe, Louisa may have sold her “birthright,” preferring the “delicious” taste of the pottage, Freeman is implying that Louisa chose wrongly (17). The reader is left to decide whether Louisa could have found happiness in being a wife and mother, whether she should have become less rigid and learned to enjoy life more fully, or whether she made the right decision in insisting on a life she found comfortable and satisfying, even though it was unconventional for the time period.
The Symbolic Natural World
The story opens with a lush, detailed description of the late afternoon. The scene is calming; Freeman describes the rural area in vivid sensory detail that utilizes sight, smell, sound, and touch. It elicits a “gentle stir” before the peace of night (1).
When the narration switches to Louisa, Freeman connects Louisa’s emotions to the landscape: “The soft diurnal commotion was over Louisa Ellis, also” (1). The narrator is signaling that Louisa is getting ready for something, although it is not yet clear what. When Freeman describes how Louisa lived while Joe was away, she writes: “Louisa’s feet had turned into a path, smooth maybe under a calm, serene sky” (7). The calm that exists inside Louisa exists in the outer world as well.
The other significant outdoor scene is when Louisa takes a nighttime walk and overhears Joe and Lily. The nature is described much differently, with dark, bold, foreboding imagery. There is a bright full moon, “luxuriant” bushes, fruit trees, tangled shrubs, blackberry vines and thornbushes that close in around her (12). Louisa feels vaguely uncomfortable but still wants to enjoy the beautiful night. Whereas the previous natural imagery conveyed calm, this scene conveys sensuality, fertility, and a hint of danger.
In the end, the lively description of the summer day that is happening outside Louisa’s window shows that she has cut herself off from the outside world completely.
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