Susan Glaspell's The Verge

Susan Glaspell's The Verge
Begin: 04/19/07
End: 04/19/07
Quality: Seven out of Ten
Reason: Modern Drama
Genre: Drama. American Literature. Fiction.
Original Language: English.
Date of Publication: 1921
Fog Index: N/A
Flesch Index: N/A
Flesch-Kincaid Index: N/A
Complex Words: N/A
Number: Never.
Synopsis: Well, it's really all about Claire. She is a woman who is trying to create a new type of plant and the play focus on the reasons Claire is doing this and how that effects the people in her life.
Thoughts:

I have to say that although I really did like this play, that while I felt strangely connected to some of the angst/melancholia that Claire was going through, I did find myself a little confused by the whole thing. Too much symbolism perhaps? Claire says at one point, “There’s something underneath-an open way-down below the way that words can go” And I think that sums up the play for me in many ways. It’s like I got this play on a visceral level that makes it hard to explain not only my connection to it but also what I saw going on and revealed in the aforementioned play. It’s like its accessible only by my unconscious self and much of what I perceived and felt about it is still inexpressible at the moment. Perhaps, it must marinate in my mind for a little while longer. I do feel that this is one of those plays which will lurk in my head for a good long time, peeping out at me at inopportune times.

Let me try and give some of the thoughts that I can muster up in the next few minutes before I start on all the stupid reports that I must do for my jobby job.

Claire is more than unhappy by her current circumstances. Claire is pushed down and broken.
She is a woman of vast intellect and talent and she has very little outlets for that. She is expected to be the wife and mother above all else. This has disturbed her severely. She so wants to break free. She very much reminded me of that Nina Simone song, “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free”. And she is very much treated, in the first act especially, like the beloved eccentric pet. It reminded me a bit of Ibsen’s Doll House and how Helmer treated Nora. Neither her husband nor her lover nor her romantic love seems to know what to do with her.


The use of plants was, I believe, a symbol for Claire's creativity. Glaspell was possibly speaking of her own struggles with living in a society which devalued women while having this enormous talent and intellect.


Nor am I really sure what else to talk about.

Anyway. Here are some quotes that I found to be very relevant.


"You think I can't smash anything? You think life can't break up, and go outside what it was? Because you've gone dead in the form in which you found yourself, you think that's all there is to the whole adventure? And that is called sanity. And made a virtue-to lock one in. You never worked with things that grow! Thing that take a sporting chance-go mad-that sanity mayn't lock them in-from life untouched-from life-that waits." (231)

Dick: Anyway, I think he might have some idea that we can't very well reach each other.
Harry: Damn nonsense. What have we got intelligence for?
Dick: To let each other alone, I suppose. Only we haven't enough to do it.
Harry: Don't tell me I'm getting nerves. But the way some of you people talk is enough to make even an aviator jumpy. Can't reach each other! Then we're fools. if I'm here and you're there, why can't we reach each other?
Dick: Because I am I and you are you.
(233)

Claire: No; I'm going on. They have been shocked out of what they were-into something they were not; they've broken from the forms in which they found themselves. They are alien. Outside. That's it, outside; if you-know what I mean.
...
Claire: Out there-lies all that's not been touched-lies life that waits. Back here-the old pattern, done again, again and again. So long done it doesn't even know itself for a pattern-in immensity. But this-has invaded. Crept a little way into-what wasn't. Strange lines in life unused. And when you make a pattern new you know a pattern's made with life. And then you know that anything may be-if only you know how to reach it." (238)

Adelaide: Come, come, now-let's not juggle words.
Claire: How dare you say that to me, Adelaide. You who are such a liar and thief and whore with words!
...
Claire: I respect words.
Adelaide: Well, you'll please respect me enough not to dare use certain words to me!
Claire: Yes, I do dare. I;m tired of what you do-you and all of you. Life-experience-values-calm-sensitive worlds which raise their heads as indications. And you pull them up-to decorate your stagnant little minds-and think that makes you- And because you have pulled that word from that life that grew if you won't let one who's honest and aware and troubled, try to reach through to-to what she doesn't know is there"
(242)
“My love you’re going away-
Let me tell you how it is with me;
I want to touch you you-somehow touch you once
Before I die-
Let me tell you how it is with me.
I do not want to work,
I want to be;
Do not want to make a rose or make a poem-
Want to lie upon the earth and know.
Stop doing that!-words going into patterns;
They do it sometimes when I let come what’s there
Thoughts take pattern-then the pattern is the thing
But let me tell you how it is with me
All that I do or say-it is what it comes from
A drop lifted from the sea
I want to lie upon the earth and know
But-scratch a little dirt and make a flower;
Scratch a bit of brain-something like a poem
Stop doing that. Help me stop doing that!” Claire-245