the Stroke, Sarton shared her struggles with disease and physical disability. In two of her last three journals, Endgame and Encore, she exposed her feelings of vulnerability and hopelessness because of physical disabilities and chronic pain. In these journals, Sarton raged against the frailties and losses that she associated with her aging process.

The title of her novel Crucial Conversations (1975) provides a clue to a basic organizing principle that Sarton employed in most of her fiction. The dominant internal structure within her novels is the conversation between two characters. In fact, extended dialogue between characters is emphasized far more than the conventional use of external action and plot construction. In some respects, this technique may reflect Sarton’s theatrical aptitude and skills. Perhaps, however, Sarton employs conversations because the action of most of the novels is internal rather than external. What matters is how characters change, not what characters experience. The subject matter of her novels is the process of women (more often than men) coming to an understanding of their identity and values, the significance of relationships in their lives, the possibilities for change in their lives, and their strengths and autonomy. Unfortunately, the attendant thinness of plot distracts from the repeated use of the conversational structure.

Sarton used the novel form to celebrate important women in her own life (a character in The Single Hound is based on a teacher Sarton had in Belgium, and the main character in The Magnificent Spinster is modeled after her teacher Anne Thorp). Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Calling (1965) and The Education of Harriet Hatfield (1989) explore themes related to androgyny and homosexuality.

In all of Sarton’s work, the integration of the self, and particularly the self of women, is of primary value. Working inward to discover self-knowledge, balance, wholeness, and creativity is the most important task of the individual.

Journal of a Solitude

First published: 1973

Type of work: Journal

Sarton records and reflects upon her experiences, ever-changing moods, significant relationships, and strains in her personal and creative life.

In Journal of a Solitude, Sarton explores significant issues in her life through the creative form of the journal. To Sarton, the journal is not to be confused with the diary. In the journal, the writer reflects upon experiences and analyzes the details of daily living. To Sarton, writing a journal means examining her life, putting herself in touch with priorities in her life (friends, work, gardening), reflecting upon the imbalances in her personal and creative life, and, most important, clarifying and resolving aspects of her sense of self.

Entries in Journal of a Solitude begin September, 1970, and end September, 1971. At the beginning of the journal, she examines a dominant theme in her life: the conflict between the opposing forces of solitude and society. She acknowledges the strains of public appearances and social engagements and recalls the times she yielded to the onslaught of personal inquiries and unwanted visits. These, she declares, are not part of her “real life.” For Sarton, who has always lived alone as an adult, real life means engaging in a process of reclaiming the self and finding a creative center from which new life can spring. In many respects she welcomes solitude, because in spite of its recurring loneliness, depression, and rage, solitude provides a source of energy and vitality to stimulate her creativity.

Sarton settles down in the fall of the year to renew herself in solitude. She realizes that after publication of Plant Dreaming Deep in 1968, she was “discovered” by many who viewed her as a seer or sage, someone who seemed “above” emotional frailty. She wrote Journal of a Solitude to reveal a May Sarton who faces daily the struggles between solitude and society, joy and despair, companionship and loneliness.

Love and creativity are closely allied in Sarton’s life. She comments several times on the rejuvenating power of love in an affair with someone she refers to only as “X.” This relationship spurs a creative breakthrough in her writing of poetry. Other high points in the year include the publication of her latest novel, Kinds of Love (1970); reunions with friends; several poetry readings; and her plans to publish a new book of poems, A Durable Fire: New Poems, to mark her sixtieth birthday in 1972. Low points include the death of a handyman, Perley Cole, who was the inspiration for a character in her 1973 novel As We Are Now; the death of one of her pets, a parrot named Punch; and the eventual ending of the relationship with her lover.

After a year of entries, Sarton realizes that it is time to end her journal. She marks the transition in her life with the decision to move away from Nelson, New Hampshire, to live in a house by the sea in Maine. For Sarton, writing the journal has been a process. She examines moods as they come, charts the high and low points of her days, and measures the gradual changes that occur within her sense of self. In this way, the changes in her life unfold, like the changes of the seasons. At the end of the journal, she is a different person, but that difference is not based upon one event or encounter. She has been changed through the process of living, thinking, interacting, surviving, and creating.

As We Are Now

First published: 1973

Type of work: Novel

An old woman, oppressed and abused by her caregivers after moving to a nursing home, strikes back with a desperate act.

The plot of As We Are Now is simple: An old woman, Caro Spencer, is placed in a rural nursing home, finds little stimulation in her relationships with other residents, experiences hostile and abusive treatment from the administrator and head nurse, communicates her distress to helpful acquaintances from the outside world, is frustrated and ridiculed by the head nurse after repeated attempts to improve conditions in the home, and decides finally to set fire to the nursing home and kill everyone inside, including herself.

Sarton tells this tragic story from Caro’s point of view by means of a journal that she begins to write shortly after entering the nursing home. The journal reveals Caro as an intelligent, articulate, and sensitive older woman who is definitely out of place in this inadequate rural facility. Few residents share her intellectual background. Only one, Standish Flint, befriends her. He is a tough-minded old farmer who appreciates Caro’s clarity of mind and sense of humor. He seems a potential ally of Caro, but his untimely death hastens the development of her desperate state of mind.

Sarton wants readers to feel the physical, psychological, and spiritual degradation the elderly experience at the hands of insensitive, controlling caretakers who treat them as invisible and useless. The journal format invites readers to empathize with Caro’s feelings of helplessness and vulnerability and to appreciate the individuality and complexity of older adults. Caro begins her journal with the reference to the nursing home as “a concentration camp for the old, a place where people dump their parents or relatives exactly as though it were an ash can.” Sarton aims to show that individuals (the old included) may strike back when they are made to feel abandoned, unproductive, and worthless. The only escape may be a cleansing holocaust that occurs when the old person, her identity and sense of well-being crushed by cruel and abusive treatment, believes there are no other options available to her.

Caro does meet others who understand the complexity of her character and the beauty of her spirit. A minister who visits residents befriends her, and his daughter joins him and soon comes to love and appreciate Caro. They do their best to assist Caro in her attempt to alleviate the degrading conditions in the nursing home, but their actions are undermined by the oppressive hand of Harriet Hatfield, the administrator. When Harriet goes on vacation, Caro experiences a brief respite from this woman’s harsh treatment. Anna Close replaces Harriet and treats Caro as an individual. Anna’s warmth and affection rejuvenate Caro, but when Harriet returns to work and Anna leaves, Caro becomes desperate and feels trapped.

Caro’s last act before setting the fire is to place her journal inside an old refrigerator so that it will be spared and others can read about her experiences. Caro’s creative act of writing the journal represents a victory over her oppressive caregivers and suggests a view of old age as a time of creativity and growth.

“Gestalt at Sixty”

First published: 1972 (collected in A Durable Fire, 1972)

Type of work: Poem

To mark her sixtieth birthday, Sarton reviews the forces that have contributed to her identity and to the meaning of her life.

“Gestalt at Sixty,” a poem in May Sarton’s A Durable Fire (1972), repeats many of the themes found in her earlier poems, journals, and novels. The poet reviews her ten years of living in Nelson, New Hampshire, celebrates her sixtieth birthday, and explores the fabric of her life and the significance of her experiences. The gestalt of the title refers to the wholeness or totality of life experiences. In Gestalt psychology, the overall meaning of one’s experience is greater than the sum of its parts (individual experiences, events, interactions). Thus, when Sarton analyzes her life on her sixtieth birthday, she tries to make sense of the underlying patterns that are the basis of her experiences. She examines the various forces that have contributed to the formation of her identity, her values, and her philosophy of life.

What does it mean to be sixty? Sarton divides her response to that question into three parts. In part 1, she affirms the importance of the natural world in her life. She refers to the lakes, mountains, flowers, and trees, all of which nurture her soul and stimulate her creativity. She addresses an important theme of the relationship between solitude and creativity. She maintains, “Solitude exposes the nerve.” Solitude provides the greatest test for the artist, who has to face the limitations, fears, and shortcomings within herself in order to create. The pressures of solitude provoke passionate responses to life. Sarton admits to fits of weeping, loneliness, and panic, all of which constrain her and diminish her sense of well-being. In the face of these trials, she draws upon an inner resolve of courage and fortitude in order to find a sense of wholeness in herself. She survives by creating a world for herself the same way her garden grows; in order for creativity to bloom, she must clear away inner constraints and renew herself.

In part 2, she admits that sometimes she is overwhelmed by the fruits of her fame. She feels oppressed when the contacts with others become collisions, when she is plagued by the pressure of unwanted interactions. In this context solitude is a restorative, because she can be nourished by the joys of music and poetry and aloneness. For Sarton, there must be a balance between the forces of solitude and society. When she finds that balance, she is able to participate fully in human relationships and open herself to growth and change.

In part 3, Sarton integrates her response toward her aging with a synthesis of a variety of religious and philosophical perspectives, including Daoism, a Chinese philosophy; Buddhism; and Christianity. She characterizes herself with images reminiscent of the Daoist sage, the wise person who embraces change as the basis of all life. Her acceptance of her impending old age and her mortality reflects Buddhist thought in her references to “detachment” and “learning to let go.” She ends the poem with a Christian prayer. There she accepts a God who is at once merciful and demanding. She acknowledges that on these various spiritual levels, creativity flows from the dynamic tension between life and death, youth and old age, light and dark, just as her creativity has flowed from the tension between solitude and society.

Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing

First published: 1965

Type of work: Novel

Hilary Stevens, a poet in her seventies, spends a day remembering and reflecting upon the key moments in her life and the significant personal relationships that sparked her creativity.

This novel tells the story of Hilary Stevens, who reflects upon the various manifestations of the poetic muse throughout her life. She shares those reflections with two young interviewers from a literary magazine who visit her one day at her New England home. Mrs. Stevens, like May Sarton, lives alone in a house by the sea. She loves gardening, and she has made of her home a work of art. The title of Sarton’s novel comes from a reference in T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Near the end of the poem, the narrator, a disenchanted middle-aged man, admits, “I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each/ I do not think that they will sing to me.” In other words, he realizes that his life lacks meaning and purpose. Life has passed him by. Sarton employs Eliot’s lines as a metaphor for the creative individual who hears the mermaids singing—in other words, the writer attuned to her muse, the source of her inspiration, her guiding genius in the creative process.

Before the interviewers arrive for their scheduled visit, Mrs. Stevens gardens, and she reflects upon Mars Hemmer, a young man and neighbor who has become, in some respects, her latest muse. Mars is gay, and he shares with Mrs. Stevens a recent disappointment regarding his love for an older man. Hilary encourages Mars, a budding poet himself, to write about his pain as a way of objectifying it and filtering out his anger and self-pity. At the end of the novel, after the interviewers have left, Hilary meets Mars Hemmer again, and she realizes that Mars represents her masculine side, that part of her which confronted all aspects of her self in the struggle to create poetry. Even in her old age, then, Hilary Stevens uncovers more of the truth about the core of her identity through her friendship with Mars.

Most of the novel consists of conversations between Hilary and the interviewers and other scenes in which Hilary, alone, reflects upon her past. In the latter scenes, she relives the key moments in her life, including her relationships with her parents, her marriage and widowhood, and several key relationships—including love affairs—with both men and women. Her passionate attachments to women always precede the appearance of her muse—the engine for her creativity.

Hilary fell in love with her governess at fifteen and for the first time discovered the power of poetry in her life. Later, she married happily, but her concerns about how to balance domesticity and the creative process were short-circuited by his accidental death early in their marriage. In her grief, Hilary was attended by a physician named Holliwell. He recognized a dangerous pattern in her creative intensity and advised her to focus on her recovery, objectify her emotional pain, and pour her creative energies into writing poetry. Dr. Holliwell (note the name, “whole and well”) represents the perfect male figure in Sarton’s fiction—the sensitive man who has integrated his feminine and masculine sides. His advice (similar to the advice that she gives Mars) speeds Hilary’s recovery. Later, she admits that the struggle with the muse is multidimensional; it is at once inspiring and terrible, a balancing act between joy and pain, courage and fear, hope and despair. The struggle with the muse represents the poet’s attempt to plumb the mysteries of the self.

One of her most tragic attachments is to a dear friend, Willa MacPherson. When Willa shares the pain of a broken relationship with a man, that sharing prompts another appearance of Hilary’s muse. She can write again, and she is ecstatic. Now she desires the accompanying passionate attachment, but Willa rejects her at first. Finally, the two consummate their relationship in an unforgettable night of passion. Fate intervenes, however, and two days later Willa suffers a stroke and is severely disabled. In a few months, the muse withdraws, and although Hilary does see Willa again, their relationship is at an end.

A secondary theme in the novel is that women seeking the ideas of domesticity and creativity face extraordinary obstacles. This concern is reflected in the young female interviewer who wants to be married and raise a family—and yet also be a writer. Yet Hilary believes there is hope that this young woman can accomplish her goals. She characterizes the role of the creative woman as a “total gathering together where the most realistic and the most mystical can be joined in a celebration of life itself. Women’s work is always toward wholeness.”

Encore: A Journal of the Eightieth Year

First published: 1993

Type of work: Journal

Sarton takes the measure of her eightieth year, from 1991 to 1992, and feels rejuvenated by a flowering of friendship, honors, and creativity.

Much of this journal represents May Sarton’s recovery and rejuvenation after a difficult year characterized by illness and frailty—as reflected in her previous journal, Endgame: A Journal of the Seventy-ninth Year. In that journal, Sarton lacked the energy to work in her beloved garden, and she tired after only an hour or two of creative activity. She suffered several losses, including the deaths of old friends and lovers, a loss of independence and autonomy, and a loss of identity. She felt that the May Sarton people had come to know was now a stranger, someone very old and ill. She ended Endgame on her birthday, May 3, and she begins Encore two days later.

The first sign of Sarton’s rejuvenation appears in her response to her garden in the late spring on Maine’s coast. To Sarton, being able to work in the garden again is a major accomplishment after a year of frailty and medical concerns. Her garden represents an evolving, ever-changing work of art. She brings flowers in the house and is heartened by the blooms.

Sarton’s journal reveals her strengths and values in her old age. She is committed to the ideals of friendship, and many of the peak times in her year are based upon renewing several friendships by visiting old friends. She is a dedicated letter writer and maintains other longtime friendships through her correspondence. She is a voracious reader of literature and includes numerous passages of prose and poetry that have moved her. She continues to evolve as a person and refines her points of views on key social and political concerns.

Throughout the journal, her deepest friendship is with Susan Sherman, a professor of English who lives in New York City and is writing a book titled Among the Usual Days, based on unpublished Sarton works. Sherman visits Sarton numerous times during the year, and each time that she arrives, she brings flowers and other gifts. Sherman is a calming, loving presence in Sarton’s life, and she brings order out of chaos. She is an emotional anchor and confidant.

Unfortunately, Sarton’s medical concerns persist throughout the year. Despite trying various homeopathic cures, she suffers chronic pain in her abdomen. At the onset of winter, and for the first few months of 1992, she suffers from diverticulitis, an inflammation of the bowels, and must take antibiotics. On good days, she is able to work for only two hours on her many projects. She becomes increasingly anxious about the difficulty of completing all the tasks before her, including writing this journal, maintaining the garden, and visiting her doctor. These and other requirements of daily living conspire to sap her emotional energy and precipitate feelings of depression.

Yet her year is also filled with several peak experiences that provide strong emotional release, as well as comfort in the context of her aging and frail physical condition. At the end of June, she celebrates her first lengthy outing in more than a year. In July, she spends a week on Cape Cod and visits an old friend recovering from a stroke. During the year, Sarton meets and approves of her biographer, Margot Peters.

Throughout the journal, Sarton is revealed as a prominent American literary figure. She receives an honorary Ph.D. (her sixteenth) from Westbrook College in Maine. Her journal Endgame is published during the year, several of her new poems are published, and two new collections of her poetry are in process. After a rough winter and months of suffering severe chronic pain, she manages a two-week trip to England in March and visits one of her oldest friends, Juliette Huxley, aged ninety-five, and even some of her English cousins. In June, she gives a poetry reading on the final day of a three-day conference celebrating her work. She ends her year of journal writing feeling fulfilled, despite her continued ill health; feeling a sense of joy for her recognition as a significant literary figure; and feeling a deep and abiding love for her good friend, Sherman. Most important to this writer is that she does not fail her friends and that she begins to write poetry again after her creativity lay fallow for more than a year.