Patriarchal Hegemony in Thornton Wilder’sThe Matchmaker

Patriarchal Hegemony in Thornton Wilder’sThe Matchmaker

Dr. B. Kathiresan                                                                  M.Sathyaraj

Associate Professor & Head i/c                                              Ph.D. Research Scholar

Department of English                                                            Department of English

Thiruvalluvar University                                                         Thiruvalluvar University

Vellore – 632115                                                                    Vellore – 632115

Thornton Wilder (1897- 1975), born in Madison and educated at Yale and Princeton, has been an accomplished novelist and playwright. His works always explore the connection between the cosmic dimensions and commonplace of human experience. Among the seven novels that Wilder has written, The Bridge of San Luis Rey won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928. His novel The Eighth Day has won the U.S. National Award. His two plays Our Town and The Skin of our Teeth won Pulitzer Prizes in 1938 and 1942 respectively.

With the reputation of his second novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey which received the Pulitzer Prize led him to quit teaching and indulge in fulltime writing. Wilder’s works continued to be read and performed around the world. Wilder rewrote his 1938 The Merchant of Yonkers as The Matchmaker in 1955 and enjoyed 486 performances on Broadway. It became the basis for Hello Dolly (1964), a movie which gained him internationally repute.

Thornton Wilder’s four-act play The Matchmaker is based on a widow who brokers marriages. First act of the play describes the time and setting of the play. Horace Vandergelder is the protagonist and a wealthy widower.  Dolly Levi is introduced at the end of the first act. Ambrose Kemper, a penniless artist wants to marry Vandergelder’s niece Ermengarde. Ambrose Kemper is too simple to provide a good living for her. Vandergelder, being practical restricts Ermengarde to marry Ambrose because he thinks she shouldn’t choose a partner of her own. Vandergelder loudly says,“I tell you for the hundredth time you will never marry my niece” [185]

He shows his supremacy over his niece aptly in the presence of Ambrose. He secretly plans to send her to New York but is revealed by his old deaf housekeeper, Gertrude. Ambrose overjoyed by Gertrude’s act kisses her and leaves Vandergelder’s place saying,“And I tell you for the thousandth time that I will marry your niece; and right soon, too” [185]

Vandergelder goes to New York in search of a better life-partner who can take care of his business and household who can be appointed as a free servant. Being a man of sixty, he thinks that love is for fools and claims that he wants to get married just to have a woman working for him to help him save money and bring order to his home. Vandergelder is not concerned about whom he is going to marry but he is worried in order to get an efficient housekeeper. He thinks that the women who are hired would not hold responsibility. He tells the audience that“In order to run a house well, a woman must have feelings to own it. Marriage is a bribe to make a housekeeper think she’s a householder”[194]

Through this statement, we can understand that his view of gender roles is not very much necessary to be accepted by the audience. Dolly Levi also introduces a character named Ms Ernestina Simple who has been brought up in an orphanage and she doesn’t want to have a luxurious life as the other ladies do. She says that like her name, Simple will always be simple and will save five thousand dollars a year, not earning but saving.

In the first place, she is an orphan. She’s been brought up with a great saving of food. What does she eat herself? Apples and lettuce. It’s what she’s been used to eat and what she likes best. She saves you two thousand a year right there. Secondly, she makes her own clothes- out of old tablecloths and window curtains. And she’s the best-dressed women in Brooklyn this minute. She saves you a thousand dollars right there. Thirdly, her health is of iron- [203]

The second act of the play is set in Molloy’s hat shop where she works with her assistant Minnie. Molloy also calls people “fools” just like Horace does. Irene plans to marry Horace as she is tired of working and she wants to have adventure in her life. She wants to get out of the hat business. She is set in the trap by the reputation that milliners would be watched by people who expect her to be a woman of low virtue.“All millineresses are suspected of being wicked woman. Why, half the time all these women come into the shop merely to look at me.” [213]

She spends all her time in business working with her employees and she is a real hard-worker. But when it comes to the Yonkers’ mindset, she may not be a proper lady though she longs for love and affection. We can easily understand the gender-bias portrayed in this particular Wilder’s play.

  The meeting of Irene Molloy and Cornelius make them fall in love, Molloy thinking that he is a wealthy man. “Yes! Equal status in longing for love.” They are not really equal in their financial status but in their humanity. The audience can easily understand that if she marries Horace Vandergelder, she would not be happy and comfortable rather she would have to be an unpaid servant. The social convention of the Yonkers’ threatens her to get into a relationship with anyone. She wants to get out of the stereotype that“all milliners are suspected of being wicked”[213]

This unwritten social convention and of how people would punish her if she broke them is more telling of gender roles in the Yonkers’ society than Vandergelder distorted notions. Wilder foreshadows part of the resolution of this comedy when Dolly suggests that Horace makes Cornelius a partner in his business. This is the second time that the idea has been mentioned in the play. The audience knows that women will be partnered with another in business.

  The third act of the play is set in Harmonia Garden’s Restaurant in New York. A meeting has been arranged between Ms Simple and Horace Vandergelder. Horace and his new clerk, Malachi is at the restaurant arranging for Horace’s dinner with Ms Simple. Dolly also arranges a meeting between Ermengarde and Ambrose. Malachi pulls a screen across the three characters so that Horace can hear Dolly insulting him. Aware of the plan she praises and quickly changes her tone to sympathy, Just as Malachi pulls a screen to let him know the harsh words of Dolly. Thornton Wilder uses conversation between employees to make his employee “overhear” some hard truths. Irene Molloy says,“You thought I’d be angry! Oh dear, no one in the world understands anyone else in the world.”[248]

Again, Wilder using an employee to teach human nature dictates that all people have similar need, including leisure, companionship and enjoyment of the arts.Wilder’s motives in this act are similar to Dolly’s. He is showing his audience that a life, which is centered on acquisition and cut off from other people, can never bring real order and security.

The last act of the play is set in the home of Miss Flora Van Huysen. The gender role of Miss Flora is revealed in this act where she is angry on people who separate young lovers. She has never been married as someone interferes with her and her fiancee’s relationship long back. So, she helps Ermengarde to escape from her uncle Horace in order to marry Ambrose.

“The difference between a little money and no money at all is enormous…and the difference between a little money and an enormous amount of money is very light.”[278]

In the same act of the play, Flora, having Dolly’s suggestion takes Horace, Irene and Minnie into the kitchen to have some coffee so that she may have some time to talk with her deceased husband seeking permission to remarry Horace . After two years since her husband’s death she realises that one must have money to survive and to be happy but not too much of it. Vandergelder arrives from the kitchen accepting his niece’s act of love with Ambrose and forgiving Irene Molloy and Cornelius. And now he wants to marry Dolly who struggles with the decision, until he assures, she can do with his money as she pleases.