[In the following excerpt, Barnes asserts that Gerty's physical return to her family, as well as her spiritual return to Christianity, are presented in uniquely modern terms in The Lamplighter. The critic focuses on how Gerty's independence is reinforced rather than reduced by her reconnection to paternal figures.]

CORPORATE INDIVIDUALISM: THE LAMPLIGHTER

Written more than forty years after A New-England Tale, The Lamplighter (1854) constitutes one of the last and most popular of the domestic novels. It also reveals the extent to which literary depictions of Christian individualism have facilitated the reconstruction of paternal authority in the intervening years. Whereas Sedgwick's novel assumes from the outset its heroine's “habit of self-command,” The Lamplighter traces the psychological mechanisms by which passionate individuals achieve their self-possession. What the novel's investigation reveals is, paradoxically, a relational model of selfhood that undergirds nineteenth-century notions of independence. Through the trope of conversion, The Lamplighter links self-determination to sympathetic mediation: in order to be reformed, the heroine must first learn to see herself as she would be viewed through the eyes of an all-seeing Father. She must then go on to internalize that perspective. Adam Smith's “man within the breast,” that eighteenth-century model of mediated subjectivity, takes on renewed significance in a story in which, to use Smith's words, “the lesson of self command” is achieved by an alienation from one's normal emotional and psychological frames of reference and, thus, from one's habitual responses. Put another way, The Lamplighter is a story about an individual who is taken possession of by the ultimate father figure and finds her “self” in the process.

As the novel opens, the reader is introduced to the eight-year-old protagonist, Gertrude Flint, sitting on a city sidewalk amidst the grimy snow. She is “scantily clad, in garments of the poorest description” and bears the signs of emotional as well as physical neglect. As the narrator quite candidly points out, there is nothing about the child that would recommend her to the casual observer. She is “thin and sharp,” with a sallow complexion, and though she has “fine, dark eyes,” they are “so unnaturally large … in contrast to her thin, puny face, that they only increased the peculiarity of it, without enhancing its beauty.”¹ Her mother died five years earlier while a boarder at a house owned by Nan Grant, and Gerty has been kept on in order to do the owner's bidding. After Gerty is cast out of Nan's house and onto the streets, she is taken home by the kindly but poor lamplighter, Trueman Flint. In his modest home, she experiences her first feelings of security and love. “True” makes tangible the Love that comes from an unseen source: the humble man who lights the lamps becomes for Gerty the embodiment of the Father who lights the stars. Living with her adopted father and his neighbors, the Sullivans, Gerty learns what family means. Through them she finds a way out not only of a dark and cheerless world but of her own dark heart as well.

Although Gerty discovers a new source of security, her loyalty remains discriminate; familial attachment does not initiate a sympathy for humankind but for those who treat her like family. With the unadulterated honesty of a child, Gerty freely admits her feelings of hatred and revenge. In fact, she takes great pleasure in indulging in them. Her real problem, we are told, is that she has never been loved. She has therefore never known the bonds of affection that cement social relationships or that enable a child to convert passionate instinct into a willful self-control. It is Emily Graham, a beautiful young blind woman, who first initiates Gerty's transformation through religious instruction. Part of that instruction involves replacing Gerty's “eye for an eye” philosophy of justice with a psychology of mercy. In a conversation that illuminates for readers the necessity of uprooting “natural” instincts in the greater interest of social bonding, Gerty tells Emily that she won't return to school because she hates the girls who tease and demean her. Emily responds by citing the golden rule of Christianity:

“Gerty,” said Emily, solemnly, “didn't you tell me, the other day, that you were a naughty child, but that you wished to be good, and would try?”

“Yes,” said Gerty.

“If you wish to become good and be forgiven, you must forgive others.”

Gerty said nothing.

“Do you not wish God to forgive and love you?”

“God, that lives in heaven,—that made the stars?” said Gerty.

“Yes.”

“Will he love me, and let me some time go to heaven?”

“Yes, if you try to be good, and love everybody.”

“Miss Emily,” said Gerty, after a moment's pause, “I can't do it,—so I s'pose I can't go.”

Just at this moment a tear fell upon Gerty's forehead. She looked thoughtfully up in Emily's face, then said,

“Dear Miss Emily, are you going?”

“I am trying to.”

“I should like to go with you,” said Gerty, shaking her head meditatively.

Still Emily did not speak. She left the child to the working of her own thoughts.

(62)²

Emily's construction of mercy—the idea that one must forgive in order to be forgiven—makes explicit the sympathetic relationship that exists between victim and oppressor. Emily in effect demands that Gerty identify with her assailants—to see herself as part of a universal company of sinners. To do this, she must learn to look outside of herself and to view her actions as another would view them. Specifically, Gerty must imagine how she is perceived by One who is Himself sinless yet merciful. According to Emily, only by identifying with His mercy will Gerty experience her own. Gerty is thus asked to enter into a process of double identification: she must simultaneously acknowledge her kinship with those she hates and psychologically transcend that kinship in order to model the Father whose mercy will redeem her.

The Lamplighter exemplifies sentimental fiction's self-conscious modeling of sympathetic identification by linking the heroine's change of heart to storytelling. Through narratives, characters learn to sympathize with one another and to unite in emotional kinship. Thus Gerty, who has cried many times for herself, first cries on someone else's behalf when she hears the story of Emily's blindness (54). True, we are told, hears Gerty's sad tale of abuse many times over, “but never without crying” (33). And in a climactic moment early in the novel, Gerty becomes transfixed by her own story when she hears it narrated in True's own words; it represents an irrevocable moment of bonding between them:

True was so excited and animated by his subject, that he did not notice what the sexton had observed, but did not choose to interrupt. Gerty had risen from her bed and was standing beside True, her eyes fixed upon his face, breathless with the interest she felt in his words. She touched his shoulder; he looked round, saw her, and stretched out his arms. She sprang into them, buried her face in his bosom, and, bursting into a paroxysm of joyful tears, gasped out the words, “Shall I stay with you always?”

“Yes, just as long as I live,” said True, “you shall be my child.”

(22)

In keeping with the principles of sentimental pedagogy, stories become vehicles through which individuals are made familiar to each other, breaking down barriers between disparate experiences and personalities in a drama of filial love. Moreover, in hearing her history told by True, Gerty not only experiences an emotional connection with him, she learns to see herself through his eyes. Thus begins the process of first perceiving and then internalizing the loving parent's perspective. Although it is some years before Gerty will manage the self-control for which she later becomes known and admired, her conversion has its roots in a desire to please the father who has taught her the value of her self.

Though the road to heaven may be paved with familial sympathy, human attachments alone are not enough to transform a proud spirit into a sympathetic soul. As Emily says, there is but one power strong enough to “quell and subdue earthly pride and passion; the power of Christian humility, engrafted into the heart,—the humility of principle, of conscience,—the only power to which native pride ever will pay homage” (73). For the next few years, Emily will devote herself to teaching Gerty Christian humility. As Cummins's novel presents it, conscience, or one's sense of right and wrong, is not innate but acquired; it is “engrafted” into the heart. Although originally existing outside the body, once taken to heart conscience has the power to transform the body into a model of self-possession. “In teaching her the spirit of her Divine Master,” the narrator tells us, “Emily was making [Gerty] powerful to do and to suffer, to bear and to forbear, when, depending on herself, she should be left to her own guidance alone” (73). Like Smith's “impartial spectator,” conscience performs a self-disciplinary function. It works to alienate us from our “native pride” that we might view our actions through the eyes of others: “We endeavor to examine our own conduct as we imagine any other fair and impartial spectator would examine it,” writes Smith. “If, upon placing ourselves in his situation, we thoroughly enter into all the passions and motives which influenced it, we approve of it. … If otherwise, we enter into his disapprobation, and condemn it.”³ Conjoined as it is with a Christian ethos in The Lamplighter, conscience becomes not only externalized but personalized; the “man within the breast” becomes indistinguishable from the loving and omniscient Father whom Gerty sees as both independent of and intrinsic to herself.

The success of Emily's tutelage is proven in a trial that, some years before, would have ended in the child's wrath. One day, while ostensibly tidying up Gertrude's room, Mrs. Ellis, jealous of the attention paid to Gertrude, throws out all the mementos of Gerty's past life—gifts from True and from Willie Sullivan, Gerty's brotherly confidant. When Gerty discovers the betrayal, she enters into a contest with her own emotions:

Once or twice she lifted her head, and seemed on the point of rising and going to face her enemy. But each time something came across her mind and detained her. It was not fear;—O no! Gertrude was not afraid of anybody. It must have been some stronger motive than that. Whatever it might be, it was something that had, on the whole, a soothing influence; for, after every fresh struggle, she grew calmer, and presently, rising, seated herself in a chair by the window.

(117)

In the end, a “wonderful composure stole into Gertrude's heart,” announcing the beginnings of a new and different strength: “She had conquered; she had achieved the greatest of earth's victories, a victory over herself” (117). Gertrude has just turned thirteen at this point in the novel. Puberty becomes associated with—even intercepted by—a “soothing influence” that redirects her desire. This influence is the affective trace of “Him who is strength to the weak and comfort to the sorrowing,” the “Father of spirits” to whom Gertrude submits herself (164). The potentially devastating effects of male manipulation—so central a mechanism of the seduction plot—is supplanted by an image of the all-seeing Father who ushers the child into womanhood.

Gertrude exhibits now a correspondence between private and public selves that is the mark of a true heroine. Where the young Gerty once hid in corners, behind doors, and behind furniture, the mature Gertrude can enter public spaces with the same self-assurance as if she were in private:

As she came in alone, and unexpected by the greater part of the company, all eyes were turned upon her. Contrary to the expectation of Belle and Kitty, who were watching her with curiosity, she manifested neither embarrassment nor awkwardness; but, glancing leisurely at the various groups, until she recognized Mrs. Jeremy, crossed the large saloon with characteristic grace, and as much ease and self-possession as if she were the only person present.

(197)

Gertrude's ability to appear the same in public as in private puts to rest the anxieties over women's hidden physical and emotional spaces so prevalent in seduction stories. The problem of privacy, and of the emotional susceptibility that gives rise to illicit private acts, is alleviated by the condition of transparency—the woman's capacity to withstand both external and internal scrutiny. Ironically, self-discipline is shown forged from the bonds of filial devotion, and privacy made perfect through the incorporation of paternal influence.

Through her identification with the spiritual Father, Gertrude achieves a self-possession that is both consistent with and independent of public forms of control. It is a condition conducive to capitalist as well as evangelical constructions of liberal individualism. As C. B. MacPherson has argued, capitalist ideas inform both the conception and the structure of American liberal democracy.⁴ Gillian Brown summarizes MacPherson's conclusions by identifying the “possessive” nature of liberal individualism: “According to this concept of self evolving from the seventeenth century, every man has property in himself and thus the right to manage himself, his labor, and his property as he wishes. … This is a market society's construction of self, a self aligned with market relations such as exchange value, alienability, circulation, and competition.”⁵ Liberal democracy's development alongside a capitalist market economy results in a view of the (male) individual's right to property as both personal and exclusive: “The very concept of property is reduced to that of private property,” MacPherson asserts, “an individual's right to use to the exclusion of others.”⁶ The domestic novel, with its flawed but resourceful heroine, draws on the principle of possessive individualism to assert woman's independence through spiritual liberation. By extending the limits of the body to include the sanctifying presence of paternal influence, The Lamplighter effectively weds capitalist and religious values, envisioning a self that is at once private—“self-possessed”—and corporate.

The marriage of capitalist and Christian philosophy can be seen in the ways in which The Lamplighter aligns material property with the intangible sentiments that give such property meaning. Thus houses become symbols in the novel not only of material security but also of the domestic values an individual must internalize before such treasures can be possessed. A memorable example appears early on in the novel, when Gerty and Willie Sullivan stand outside the window of a beautiful home meant to epitomize the domestic dream. The vision brings home to Gerty the material luxuries from which she is excluded:

It was now quite dark, so that persons in a light room could not see anyone out of doors; but Willie and Gerty had so much the better chance to look in. It was indeed a fine mansion, evidently the home of wealth. A clear coal-fire, and a bright lamp in the centre of the room, shed abroad their cheerful blaze. Rich carpets, deeply-tinted curtains, pictures in gilded frames, and huge mirrors, reflecting the whole on every side, gave Gerty her first impressions of a luxurious life.

(45)

The Lamplighter is filled with such descriptive details of the affluent life, a life that Gerty will later discover is hers by rightful inheritance but that comes to her only after she has learned to live without it. Confronted with this image of domestic bliss, Willie vows to work hard and grow rich in order to buy his family a fine house when he is older, but his self-made-man philosophy is subsequently put to work in building character as well as a bank account. After many years of working in a business trade in India, far from the watchful eyes of family and friends, Willie is tempted to indulge in the debauched lifestyle of many of his associates; guided by the spirit of his departed mother, however, Willie is able to resist the impulse. His desire to make a life for himself through hard work is translated from material terms to the terms of sensibility: he makes himself a man of integrity—constant in his affections and sensitive to the needs of others. While the novel suggests that the inner man is more important than the outer one, the internal and the external are never truly separated. Gerty and Willie's success at mastering their personal flaws results in an earthly reward of financial security, one that confirms rather than competes with the sentimental value of self-possession.

Like A New-England Tale, The Lamplighter ultimately reconciles material with affective forms of domesticity by returning the heroine to familiar ground. Whereas Jane Elton regains the childhood home from which she was originally expelled, by the end of The Lamplighter Gerty is reunited with her blood kin. Befriended by a man others believe to be a suitor, Gerty discovers the stranger is actually her father. To add to the drama, the man turns out to be Emily's stepbrother and long-lost love as well. While such coincidences may appear a simple—and incredible—plot contrivance, the reconvergence of family relations at the end of the novel actually affirms the power of affinity at the core of sentimental narratives. Moreover, the return of the biological father gives a material structure to the free-floating familial feelings that have been driving the plot. What has long been established in spirit—that is, the kindred connection between Gerty and Emily—is now made legal when Emily marries Gerty's father. Gerty and Willie, too, who have been brought up as brother and sister, cement their familial attachment by marrying each other. While The Lamplighter offers a new basis on which to define the family, the natural justice of the characters' affective arrangements is proven by the return of the father who can give those feelings social and legal validity.

Lawrence Stone has argued that two key characteristics of the modern family are “intensified affective bonding of the nuclear core at the expense of neighbors and kin” and a “strong sense of individual autonomy and the right to personal freedom in the pursuit of happiness.”⁷The Lamplighter brings these oftentimes conflicting impulses together in a heroine whose self-possession reinforces familial bonds. The potentially fatal effects of intensive bonding are annulled by the redistribution of filial ties—turning “neighbors” into family. Independence is reinforced rather than undermined by familial allegiance, as the heroine's self-possession is achieved through her internalizing of paternal influence—both True's and God's. The Lamplighter thus represents an achievement in modern domestic drama: it offers a vision of domestic unity in which independence leads one back to the family.

Notes

1. Maria Cummins, The Lamplighter, ed. Nina Baym (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988), 1-2. All citations hereafter will appear in parentheses following the quotation.

2. Gerty's desire to go to heaven, and her subsequent efforts to be “good” so she will get there, are linked to her feelings of family. Her growing awareness that she is different both in temperament and in faith from True, the Sullivans, and Emily signals a future—and eternal—separation from them. What she seeks is a home where there is no shadow of parting. It is not an objective acceptance of religious doctrine that initiates Gerty's conversion; it is sympathy. In order to remain with those she loves, she must first be like them. Sustaining a family—even after death—necessitates a consanguinity of mind and spirit in its members.

3. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L. MacFie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976 [1759]), 110.

4. C. B. MacPherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962).

5. Brown, Domestic Individualism [Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1990], 2.

6. MacPherson, Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval (Oxford: Clarendon, 1973), 126-127. MacPherson observes that it is in the modern conception of a full capitalist market society that “the idea of common property drops virtually out of sight” (125). So David Hume can state that property constitutes “such a relation betwixt a person and an object as permits him, but forbids any other, the free use and possession of it, without violating the laws of justice and moral equity” (128).

7. Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 [London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977], 22. The other two characteristics Stone lists are “a weakening of the association of sexual pleasure with sin and guilt; and a growing desire for physical privacy” (22).