Article #295-1 | Gutenberg Articles

Excerpt

Excerpt from The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton — Part 1, by Edith Wharton

Yves de Cornault came home, and the next day she found the greyhound
strangled on her pillow. She wept in secret, but said nothing, and
resolved that even if she met a dog dying of hunger she would never
bring him into the castle; but one day she found a young sheep-dog, a
brindled puppy with good blue eyes, lying with a broken leg in the snow
of the park. Yves de Cornault was at Rennes, and she brought the dog
in, warmed and fed it, tied up its leg and hid it in the castle till
her husband’s return. The day before, she gave it to a peasant woman
who lived a long way off, and paid her handsomely to care for it and say
nothing; but that night she heard a whining and scratching at her door,
and when she opened it the lame puppy, drenched and shivering, jumped up
on her with little sobbing barks. She hid him in her bed, and the next
morning was about to have him taken back to the peasant woman when she
heard her husband ride into the court. She shut the dog in a chest and
went down to receive him. An hour or two later, when she returned to her
room, the puppy lay strangled on her pillow...

After that she dared not make a pet of any other dog; and her loneliness
became almost unendurable. Sometimes, when she crossed the court of
the castle, and thought no one was looking, she stopped to pat the old
pointer at the gate. But one day as she was caressing him her husband
came out of the chapel; and the next day the old dog was gone...

This curious narrative was not told in one sitting of the court, or
received without impatience and incredulous comment. It was plain that
the Judges were surprised by its puerility, and that it did not help the
accused in the eyes of the public. It was an odd tale, certainly; but
what did it prove? That Yves de Cornault disliked dogs, and that his
wife, to gratify her own fancy, persistently ignored this dislike.
As for pleading this trivial disagreement as an excuse for her
relations--whatever their nature--with her supposed accomplice, the
argument was so absurd that her own lawyer manifestly regretted having
let her make use of it, and tried several times to cut short her story.
But she went on to the end, with a kind of hypnotized insistence, as
though the scenes she evoked were so real to her that she had forgotten
where she was and imagined herself to be re-living them.

Explanation

This excerpt from Edith Wharton’s The Early Short Fiction (likely from the story "The Lady’s Maid’s Bell" or a similar gothic-inflected tale, though the precise source is unclear) is a haunting, psychologically charged passage that blends elements of domestic horror, marital oppression, and the uncanny. Below is a detailed breakdown of the text, its themes, literary devices, and significance, with a focus on the excerpt itself.

Context and Setting

The passage appears to be part of a legal narrative—a woman is testifying in court about her marriage to Yves de Cornault, a nobleman in a castle (likely in Brittany, given the reference to Rennes). The story unfolds in a Gothic framework: an isolated castle, a tyrannical husband, a powerless wife, and a series of mysterious, violent deaths (the dogs). The courtroom framing suggests this is part of a trial—possibly for adultery, murder, or witchcraft—where the woman’s testimony is being dismissed as trivial or irrational. This mirrors Wharton’s broader themes of female silencing and the dismissal of women’s experiences in patriarchal structures.

The historical context (likely 19th-century or earlier, given the feudal setting) reinforces the wife’s lack of agency: she is trapped in a marriage where her desires are not just ignored but punished, and her attempts to assert even minor autonomy (saving dogs) are met with cruelty.

Themes

Marital Tyranny and Female Subjugation
- The husband’s strangulation of the dogs is a metaphor for his control over his wife. The dogs represent her attempts at nurturing, love, and independence—all of which he destroys.
- The wife’s fear and secrecy ("she wept in secret, but said nothing") highlight her powerlessness. She cannot even mourn openly.
- The repetition of violence (greyhound → sheepdog → old pointer) shows the inescapability of her oppression. Each time she tries to care for something, it is erased.
Isolation and Loneliness
- The wife’s "unendurable loneliness" is both literal (she is alone in a castle) and emotional (she has no allies, not even animals).
- The castle as a prison: The gates, the chapel, the court—all are spaces of surveillance and punishment. Even the peasant woman (a potential ally) is bought off or fails to protect the dog.
The Uncanny and Psychological Horror
- The return of the lame puppy (drenching, shivering, "sobbing barks") is supernaturally charged. It suggests the wife’s guilt, trauma, or the inevitability of her husband’s wrath.
- The strangled dogs on her pillow are a grotesque, intimate violation—her husband invades her private space to deliver his message.
- The disappearance of the old pointer (no corpse this time, just "gone") implies escalating menace—the husband no longer needs to leave evidence.
The Failure of Justice
- The court’s dismissal of her story ("puerility," "absurd") reflects how women’s suffering is trivialized. Her trauma is treated as irrelevant to the "real" crimes (likely adultery or conspiracy).
- The lawyer’s regret suggests that even her defense is complicit in silencing her. She is not allowed to frame her own narrative.
Animal Symbolism
- The dogs represent:
  - Innocence and vulnerability (the puppy’s broken leg, the old pointer’s age).
  - Loyalty and unconditional love—qualities the wife craves but is denied.
  - Her own position: like the dogs, she is dependent, muzzled, and disposable.
- The husband’s hatred of dogs may symbolize his disdain for weakness, emotion, or anything that distracts from his control.

Literary Devices

Repetition and Pattern
- The cycle of rescue → hiding → discovery → death creates a rhythm of dread. Each iteration is more desperate (she hides the dog in a chest, then her bed).
- The husband’s returns (from Rennes, from the chapel) are ominous interruptions, reinforcing his unpredictable, looming presence.
Foreshadowing and Irony
- The wife’s resolution to never bring another dog in is immediately broken, showing her lack of self-control in the face of her own compassion—and her husband’s inevitable retaliation.
- The court’s incredulity is ironic because the reader senses the horror of her situation, even if the judges do not.
Sensory and Emotional Detail
- Tactile imagery: The puppy’s "drenching," "shivering," and "sobbing barks" make the scene visceral.
- Sound: The "whining and scratching" at the door is unnerving, suggesting ghostly persistence (or her own guilt).
- Silence: Her "secret" weeping and the absence of dialogue emphasize her isolation.
Gothic Tropes
- The castle as a haunted space: The chest (a coffin-like hiding place), the pillow (a place of rest turned violent), and the chapel (false sanctity) all contribute to the oppressive atmosphere.
- The husband as a Gothic villain: He is absent yet ever-present, his cruelty methodical and cold.
Narrative Perspective and Unreliability
- The courtroom framing makes the wife’s story doubted, which mirrors how women’s testimonies were (and are) dismissed.
- Her "hypnotized insistence" suggests she is either traumatized or mad—but the text validates her experience, making the judges (and perhaps the reader) question who is truly unreliable.

Significance of the Passage

Feminist Critique of Marriage
- Wharton (a sharp observer of Gilded Age gender dynamics) exposes how marriage can be a form of imprisonment. The wife’s small acts of defiance (saving dogs) are crushed, illustrating the erasure of female autonomy.
The Horror of the Mundane
- The banality of the husband’s cruelty (he doesn’t rage; he quietly strangles dogs) is more terrifying than overt violence. It reflects systemic oppression—not dramatic abuse, but steady, grinding control.
The Limits of Legal and Social Sympathy
- The court’s refusal to see her suffering as relevant critiques how institutions fail women. Her story is "puerile" to them, but to her (and the reader), it is a matter of survival.
Psychological Realism
- The wife’s compulsion to repeat her trauma (despite the lawyer’s attempts to stop her) mirrors PTSD or dissociation. She is reliving the horror, unable to break free even in her testimony.
The Supernatural as Metaphor
- The return of the puppy could be read as:
  - A ghost (the dogs haunt her, as her guilt or trauma does).
  - A symbol of her own trapped self (she keeps returning to her husband, despite knowing the cost).
  - Fate (she cannot escape her role as a victim).

Why This Passage Stands Out

Wharton’s genius here lies in what is unsaid:

We never see the husband actually kill the dogs—only the aftermath. This makes his violence more sinister.
The wife’s motives are unclear: Is she truly just fond of dogs, or are they substitutes for the love she lacks? Is her husband jealous of her affection, or does he hate weakness?
The court’s dismissal forces the reader to take her side, creating empathy through exclusion.

This is not just a ghost story—it’s a story about how women’s pain is ghosted, how their small rebellions are punished, and how justice systems are ill-equipped to recognize their suffering.

Final Thought: The Dogs as Metaphor

The dogs are not just animals; they are:

Her children (she nurtures them; they are killed).
Her hopes (each dog is a fleeting attempt at happiness).
Her self (strangled, disappeared, erased).

When the last dog is "gone"—not even left as a corpse—it suggests her final surrender. There is nothing left to kill.

This passage is a masterclass in Gothic feminism, where the real horror is not the supernatural, but the all-too-natural cruelty of men.

Questions

Question 1

The wife’s repeated attempts to save dogs, despite the inevitable consequences, most strongly evoke which of the following psychological dynamics?

A. A masochistic compulsion to provoke her husband’s wrath as a form of indirect rebellion.
B. The futile but necessary ritual of asserting agency in a context where all meaningful resistance has been foreclosed.
C. A dissociative escape from reality, wherein the dogs serve as surrogate objects for a child she lost or never had.
D. An unconscious reenactment of childhood trauma, where the husband assumes the role of a punitive parental figure.
E. A calculated strategy to expose her husband’s cruelty in a way that might later incriminate him legally.

Question 2

The court’s reaction to the wife’s testimony—dismissing it as "puerile" and "absurd"—primarily serves to:

A. underscore the legal system’s inherent bias against narratives that lack material evidence.
B. highlight the wife’s failure to articulate her suffering in terms the patriarchal order deems legitimate.
C. expose the gap between institutional frameworks of justice and the lived experience of systemic oppression.
D. suggest that the wife’s story is, in fact, a fabrication designed to manipulate the court’s sympathies.
E. illustrate the judges’ rational skepticism toward supernatural or emotionally charged testimonies.

Question 3

The husband’s method of killing the dogs—strangulation on the wife’s pillow—is most thematically resonant with which of the following interpretations?

A. A perverse parody of marital intimacy, where the pillow symbolizes the conjugal bed.
B. An assertion of dominion over the domestic sphere, marking the wife’s private space as his territory.
C. A ritualistic warning to the wife that her transgressions will be met with escalating physical violence.
D. A psychological tactic to induce paranoia, ensuring she internalizes surveillance even in his absence.
E. An erasure of her nurturing role, transforming objects of care into instruments of her own complicity in their destruction.

Question 4

The passage’s Gothic elements (e.g., the castle, the chapel, the returning puppy) function primarily to:

A. distract from the mundane cruelty of the husband’s actions by framing them as supernatural.
B. critique the wife’s irrationality by aligning her perspective with Gothic melodrama.
C. provide a historical backdrop that excuses the husband’s behavior as a product of his era.
D. emphasize the wife’s isolation by contrasting her psychological state with the castle’s grandeur.
E. amplify the horror of her oppression by rendering her husband’s control as an inescapable, spectral force.

Question 5

The wife’s "hypnotized insistence" on recounting her story, despite the lawyer’s attempts to interrupt her, is most plausibly interpreted as:

A. a performative act of defiance, wherein she reclaims narrative control through sheer obstinacy.
B. evidence of her mental instability, undermining her credibility in the eyes of the court.
C. a traumatic repetition compulsion, where the act of telling becomes a failed attempt to master unbearable experiences.
D. a strategic ploy to prolong the trial, delaying an inevitable guilty verdict.
E. an unconscious appeal to the judges’ latent paternalism, framing herself as a helpless victim.

Solutions and Explanations

1) Correct answer: B

Why B is most correct: The wife’s actions are not strategically rebellious (E), nor do they suggest a dissociative break (C) or a direct reenactment of childhood trauma (D). Her behavior is ritualistic in its futility—she knows the outcome yet repeats the act, which aligns with B’s framing of agency in a context where resistance is impossible. The dogs are not surrogates for a child (C) or tools for legal incrimination (E); they are symbols of her dwindling autonomy, and her attempts to save them are desperate, necessary assertions of selfhood in a system that denies her any other form of control. The masochism in A is undercut by the text’s emphasis on her loneliness and fear, not pleasure in provocation.