Beyond intuition: analyzing Marsha Norman's ǹight, Mother with concordance data and empirical PDF
Preview Beyond intuition: analyzing Marsha Norman's ǹight, Mother with concordance data and empirical
Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 1996 Beyond intuition: analyzing Marsha Norman's ǹ ight, Mother with concordance data and empirical methods Maria Lee Bernardy Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at:https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of theEnglish Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Bernardy, Maria Lee, "Beyond intuition: analyzing Marsha Norman's ǹight, Mother with concordance data and empirical methods" (1996).Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 7081. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/7081 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please [email protected]. Beyond intuition: AnalyzingMarshaNorman^s 'night,Mother with concordancedata andempirical methods by MariaLee Bemardy A Thesis Submittedto the GraduateFacultyinPartialFulfillmentofthe Requirements fortheDegreeof MASTEROFARTS Department: English Major: English(Literature) Signatures have been redacted for privacy o- * u u ^ ^r ^ " Signatures havebeenredacted for prtvacy IowaStateUniversity Ames, Iowa 1996 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1. INTUmONVERSUS EMPERICALDATAINLITERARY STUDIES 7 CHAPTER2. INVESTIGATING 'NIGHT, MOTHER'S CENTRAL THEMES ANDTOPICS 27 CHAPTERS. INVESTIGATING MOTHER'S POWER STRUCTURETHROUGHMAMA'S ANDJESSIE'S SPEECH 64 CONCLUSION 101 WORKS CITED 109 WORKS CONSULTED 112 APPENDIX . TOPICMAPS FOREACHSEGMENT 114 lU ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Iwish tothankmy MajorProfessor, Rosanne G.Potter, who has provided me with necessary guidance andencouragerhentthroughoutthis demandingprocess. Moreover, becausesheisresponsibleforboththecreationandmaintenanceoftheIowaStateUniversity Concordances Database, which Ihave usedextensivelyin this project, shehas made this studypossiblethroughherdedicationtoempiricalmethodsinliterarystudies. Bothsheand Joe Stniss have aidedme even further by modifyingthe 'night, Motherdatabase specifically forthis study. I also wish tothank themembersofmy committee. Professor Virginia Allen and ProfessorJamesR. Dow, for theirwillingness take part in this endeavor. Finally,I wantto thankJoelRianfor refusing to let me everdoubtmy abilities. INTRODUCTION Duringmy first semester of graduatestudy,Itookacourse calledReading Women into ModemDrama. During that semesterRosanneG.Potterintroduced me, a student trainedinintuitivecriticism,tothepracticeofusLagcomputers andempiricalmethodsto examine literary texts. Irecallbeing moreanxiousthancuriousabout learning thisnew approach; beforethattimeIhadusedcomputerssolelyforwordprocessingandwasofthe opinionthatgeneratingtestablehypotheses andinterpretingnumerical datashouldbe relegatedtothe sciencedepartments. Asthesemesterprogressed,however,I gaineda workingknowledgeofbasicempiricalmethods andconcludedthatthechallengeoflearning tousecomputersandempiricalmethodsinanalyzingliterarytextswasworththetrouble. In thisstudy,I useempiricalmethodstoexamineanddiscussthedialoguefrom 'night,Mother^ MarshaNorman's 1983 PulitzerPrize-winningdrama. *night, Mother 'night, Motheris arealistic domestic drama that represents an eveningin the lives of tworatherordinary women,ThelmaGates and her daughterJessie Gates, the onlycharacters in the play. As describedby Norman, Jessieis "in her late thirties orearlyforties...pale and vaguely unsteady physically....As a rule, Jessie doesn't feel muchlike talking...." (2). Thelma,calledMamathroughoutthe play, is "in her late fifties or early sixties. She has begun to feel herage and so takes it easy when she can, orwhenit serves her purposeto let someonehelp her,...she speaks quickly andenjoys talking...believes things are what she says they are" (2,emphasis hers). Oftheir relationship,Norman writes, There is afamiliarity betweenthesetwo womenthat comesfromhavinglived togetherfor along time. Thereis ashorthandto thetalkand a senseof routine comfort in thewaytheyrelatetoeachother physically. Naturally, thereare also routine aggravations. (2) All ofthe play's action, whichconsists mostly oftalking, occurs insideoftheir home, whichNormandescribes as "builtway out on acountryroad, with alivingroomand connectingkitchen, and acenterhall that leads offto the bedrooms" and filled withitems "more personal than charming" (3). At the startofthe play, Mama and Jessie appearabout to spenda "normal"evening together, talking andcompleting householdtasks. However, only minutes into the play, Jessie announces that she intends to kill herselfat the evening's end. Whatfollows is a revealing conversation,infusedwiththe intensityofJessie's intentions. Norm^'s choice to avoidthe commoninterruptions of^t and scene divisions adds to the tension as well. Withoutthese divisions, time and actions proceedunhindered, andthe audiencemembers haveno time toremovethemselvesfromthe on-stagereality. Iselected 'night, Motherfor this studybecauseI was intriguedby the contradictory feelings Iam leftwith eachtimeIreadorviewit. My feelings abouttheplay arelargely unchanged since last fallwhen Iwrotethefollowingreader response: Ifind myselftom between twoverydisparate reactions tothis play. Froma literaiyperspectiveI amabletoseeJessie's suicide astaking herlifeinto her own hands and finallyhavingcontrol. Fromthisviewpoint [oneI consider to be concernedmore with symbolic acts than real-life circumstances],I admit thatIbelievesheisnot givingup. Sheisjustmaking her own decision....On the otherhand, lookingattheplay from an emotionaland morehuman perspective, I seeJessie's suicideas aselfishcry for helpthat she won'tlet anyone act upon....1see her on abigpowertrip and Ican'tunderstandher actions orhermotives—^fortheyre^y do seemselfishandillogical [when lookedat from this level]. (Writtenfor ReadingWomeninto ModemDrama, Fall 1994). Perhapsmyfinal sentenceofthatresponsesumsupmyfeelingsabouttheplay best: "SomehowI amleftfeelinganalmostperversesenseoftriumph forJessie'sfinalact." InthisplayNormanaddresses anumberofissuesthatinterestscholarscurrently workinginfeministandpsychoanalyticcriticism, schoolsthatI findintriguingand,often. insightful. Theseissues includemother-daughterrelationships, identity, orality, society's definitionofthe"feminine," and one'srighttochooseone'sdestiny. Becausetheexisting scholarship on 'night, Motheraddresses these issuesfrom thefeminist andpsychoanalytic ' traditions, I wantedto see ifthroughempiricalanalysisI couldfind the textualelements that are responsible for the prevailinginterpretationsor ifIcould reveal any otherissues or themes thatNorman has inscribedin the text. Furthermore, 'night,Motherinterestsmebecause"asareader anda viewer Ihave experiencedan emotionalintensitythat seems incompatiblewith the common,everyday words both Jessie andMamause. I wonderedhowNormanwrought suchforce into the play in spite ofa dialogue that seemsdominatedbythemundaneaffairs oflife. In other words, althoughthe play addresses the theoreticalissue ofwhetherone has the rightto • choose life or death,Mama andJessie seemnottodiscussthematterin directorspecifically theoretical terms,butthrough discussing their everyday reality. BeforeIbeganthis study, so much of theplay's meaning seemedtoliebeyondthe wordsonthepage; Norman seemedto have written it"betweenthe lines." Iwantedtoseeifusingempiricalmethods could helpme understandhow Norman expresses the issues ofsuicideand independencein suchpl^and seeminglyirrelevantlanguage. I wonderedifI couldfind these answersin the textitselfor if itwassimplysomethingheraudienceunderstoodbecauseoftheirpastexperiencesor preconceptions. Thefinal factorin my selecting 'night, Motherfor this study was convenience. First, I had already studiedreaderresponses to theplay earlierin my graduatework, so I was familiarwiththetextoftheplayitselfandthevariousresponsespeoplehavetowardthe play's focusonsuicideasavalidchoice. Furthermore, thetexttotheplaywasreadily I availableinsearchablecomputerformrighthereatIowaStateUniversity. Hadaready-made databasenotbeen available,Iwouldnothavebeenabletoexaminethedialogueinsuch depth. Organization of this Study In this study, alargely descriptive and exploratory mid-range one, I use empirical methods to analyzethe dialogue ofMarshaNorman's 'night, Mother. As the empirical approach to textual analysis isnot widelyemployed,inmy firstchapter Iprovide an overviewofthe scholarship written about 'night, Mother, mostofwhichtakes a dual feminist-psychoanalyticalapproach. These articlesprovide materialto whichIreferoften throughoutthis study. Then, in orderto situate my study within the empirical approach and highlightthe differencesbetweenthese generally acceptedintuitiveapproaches (i.e., feminist and psychoanalytic) andthe morecontroversialempiricalapproaches,Ipresentexcerpts from a numberofcriticalarticles that discuss empirical approaches and the resistancethey have met in the literary field. Afterprovidingthisbackground,Idiscussmy basic researchquestions andthe articles thathavehelpedmedevelopmy approach. Throughoutthis study, Iemployempirical methods and beginto formulate some answers forthose who questionthe valueof applyingcomputers andempirical methods in tandemwith or in place oftraditional,intuitiveanalysesofliterature.^AccordingtoPotter, "computersearches"and "statisticalanalysis...are worth doing because&ey confirmthe sourceofcriticaljudgmentstobetextualratherthanimpressionistic" ("CharacterDefinition," 427). Myinquiryinbothchapters twoandthreerestsonPotter's observation. Inchapter twoI examinewhatfeminist-psychoanalyticalcriticshavewrittenabouttwospecificthemes, foodandidentity. InchapterthreeIalsoinvestigateanideaabout thestmctureof 'night. MotherXhst JanetBrown,whoworkswithintheaforementionedschoolsofthought, has forwarded. Mypurposeinusing these alreadyidentifiedaspects oftheplaywastwofold. First,I wishedtocorroboratePotter'sassertion aboutreaders' perceptionscomingdirectlyfrom the text. I thoughtthatconfirmingintuitivereadings oftextswouldbeaworthwhile endeavor, foritcoulddemonstratethe accurateapplicationofempiricalmethods andforge connections betweentheempiricalandthemoreconventional modesoftextualanalysis. Secondly,I wantedtoputempiricalmethods totheirfulluseandactuallyusethemtogeneratenew informationabouttheplay. Empiricalscholars,suchasJohnB. Smith,have stressedthatin ordertogainacceptancefromtheacademy, theymustgobeyondthesimpleverificationof intuitiveobservationsin their studies and,ultimately, enterthe mode termed"computer criticism." Thus,inmysecondandtbkdchaptersI makeamovebeyondconfirming conventionalanalyses. I useempiricalmethodstogenerateseveralnewreadingsofthetext. Specifically,inthesecondchapterIfocus onusingempiricalanalysis toexamine whatliterary scholars havewritten aboutthethemes offood andidentityintheplay. In "ComputerCriticism,"Smithasserts thatwhenconductingempirical studiesoftexts, one necess^y views textualelements, suchaswords andthemes, as"mobilefragments" that gaintheirmeaningfromtheirlocationwithin andrelation tootherelements ofthewholetext (23). Withthisapproachtothemeinmind,Iusewordlistsandconcordances, aswellas topic maps, toexplore 'night. Mother'sthemes. Inaddition toquestioningthevalidity of severalinterpretationsthroughquantitativeanalysis, Iinvestigatethesethemesfurtherand discuss anunforeseenbyproduct: howthesethemesfunction in the dialogue. In the third chapter I explore 'night,Mother'spower structure through adopting Janet Brown'sconceptofthe play's "movements,"orunits. AsBrown's discussion ofthe play's structureaccounts for only abriefinterludeinanessay devotedtoexaminingthe themeof identity, it is necessarily underdeveloped. However, Brownhas providedenough informationso that I may buildupon her initial observationsand offeramore complexand specific discussion ofhow the dialogueworks and how specific words and constructions reveal which characteris in control, or tryingto take control, ofthediscussion at various points. In this chapter, I use word counts, lexical items, and syntacticfeatures to discuss how Norman has inscribedthese changesin her characters' speech. In my conclusion I offersomefinalcommentsontheprocess ofusing computers and empiricalmethodstostudy 'night,Mother,andsomerecommendations forthosewhoplanto conductaliterarystudy with empiricalmethods.
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