Dangling Between Spaces

As a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Edith Wharton is one of the most distinguished female writers in the history of American literature. She is a prolific writer whose published works include 14 novels,13 novellas and 86 short stories. Among her literary works, Summer is not as widely accepted and known by the public as her well accepted books like The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome. Nevertheless, it still attracts critics’attention with its realistic description of the life in the rural New England.Foreign critics have interpreted the novella from various perspectives. Feminist studies on Summer are a major part in the researches on this work, followed by studies on the structure and plot of the novel and its artistic features. The debate on the genre of Summer also attracts critics’ attention. Apart from these major researches, some critics also study the work from the perspectives of social and psychological studies, Marxism and authorial influences. Compared with diverse and systematic foreign studies, Chinese critics are too concentrated on a few perspectives which are mainly feminism, naturalism, and initiation novel. Since architecture and space images are abundant in the work, some critics have made relative studies in this aspect. However, no critics at home and abroad have explored the duality of the spaces closely related to the female protagonist. And this is precisely the focus of this thesis. The thesis aims to study the protagonist’s existentialist dilemma of dangling between spaces through examining the interplay between her and the spaces characterized by duality.To space critics, everyone exists in a certain space which means more than an empty area. Henry Lefebvre, an important theorist of spatial criticism, points out that human beings are in the space and know that they have a space where they act and situate themselves as active participants. If a person wants to exist in a certain space, he should integrate himself with people in it and embrace a compliant attitude to the rules and values in it; otherwise, he will be excluded by the space. Though one’s body exists in a physical space, his estrangement from the social relations in a space will make him a marginal being in the space, and thus he will be in a dangling state in the space. To existentialists, a person must have a position in the world, or he will be hung in the air. Besides, they point out that what a person is the result of his choices. One should be responsible for the choices he makes.In Summer, the protagonist Charity is closely related to three spaces which are characterized by duality, namely the Mountain as her birthplace, North Dormer as her growing place and Nettlton as her desirable place. Since Charity falls in love with Harney Lucius and makes her choice to keep the unborn baby, she must choose a space which can accept her and at the same time she can accept. The three spaces most closely related to her are her choices. Currently living in North Dormer, Charity can choose to move to two places, the Mountain or Nettleton. However, the duality of these spaces produces both pulling and pushing forces for Charity, but the pulling force of none of these spaces is strong enough to make her willingly stay. She cannot integrate herself into any one of them for she cannot integrate herself with the people and culture. Though she finally chooses to stay in North Dormer, she does not mentally accept the place and is always estranged from the people there. Having found no space to settle herself down both physically and mentally, she is actually caught in an existentialist dilemma dangling between those conflicting spaces. Because the dilemma results from her own choices, she should be responsible for it.This thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter One is introduction. It includes an introduction to Edith Wharton and Summer, and a literature review of existing studies on the novella. The structure of the thesis is also explained in this part. Chapter Two examines the three spaces with duality in the work, including the Mountain which is Charity’s birthplace, North Dormer which is her growing place and Nettlton which is her desirable place. Chapter Three explores the protagonist’s state of dangling between the spaces based on the discussion in Chapter Two. It is the duality of the spaces that has caused Charity’s existential dilemma of dangling between these spaces. Chapter Four is conclusion which summarizes previous discussions and, by bringing the theme of existentialist dilemma of dangling between spaces into a larger context, further reveals the profound significance of the work.