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]
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.
Posts
No comments: