unexpected reversal at the end of the story. But many later critics, particularly women, claim that these earlier and primarily masculine readers wanted to label the story as ‘‘comic fantasy’’ in order to deny a frightening picture—that of a woman who defies gender roles. Indeed, Sarah’s revolt against the will of her husband and the will of her entire town and region touches on very serious issues of female identity and the relationship between the sexes.

At the start of the story, it is clear that Adoniram and Sarah closely adhere to their gender roles. Adoniram has complete charge of the farm and any business dealings, while Sarah’s domain is the home. Though the home life was deemed as less significant than the world outside of the home—the world of business and commerce, which belonged to men—the narrator clearly invests a greater meaning to Sarah’s work, proclaiming her to ‘‘a masterly keeper of her box of a house’’ and likening her to ‘‘an artist so perfect that he has apparently no art.’’ Sarah’s revolt itself, while shocking to the community, is undertaken in her role as the keeper of the family and the home. One of her primary reasons for usurping Adoniram’s barn stems from her concern for her daughter’s health. As Sarah tells Adoniram, because of the smallness of the house, ‘‘Nanny she can’t live with us after she’s married. She’ll have to go somewheres else to live away from us. . . . She wa’n’t ever strong . . . ‘an she ain’t fit to keep house an’ do everything herself. She’ll be all worn out inside of a year.’’ And only after spending the morning watching Nanny, ‘‘pale and thin with her steady sewing,’’ does Sarah make up her mind definitively.

In convincing Adoniram to allow the Penn family to keep the new barn as their new house instead, Sarah must learn and make known a new way of communication. Throughout the course of the story, Adoniram steadfastly holds on to his silence as a way of avoiding responsibility for his family. That he has used this tactic for their entire marriage is quite clear, for his speech, which is ‘‘almost inarticulate as a growl,’’ had become for Sarah ‘‘her most native tongue.’’ Yet, when she speaks with Adoniram about building the family a house instead of a new barn, she has no recourse because Adoniram refuses to utter any words on the subject, even such noncommunicative ones. After maintaining that will say nothing about the subject, he further confirms his feelings by ‘‘shut[ting] his mouth tight.’’

Faced with such obstinance, Sarah has no choice but to develop a new language. Instead of relying on words, Sarah creates a system of signs and uses actions to speak for her. By placing all the family’s ‘‘little household goods into the new barn,’’ Sarah gives the barn all the value of a home. Her action also indicates to her husband, in such a strong fashion that he can no longer ignore her feelings, that the ‘‘Home’’ is more important than the ‘‘Barn.’’ Because of her ability to see in the barn a new home—the box-stalls as bedrooms, the harnessroom as a kitchen—Sarah has finally found a way to make Adoniram share her vision. He understands the redesignation, for ‘‘after supper he went out, and sat down on the step of the smaller door at the right of the barn, through which he had meant his Jerseys to pass in stately file, but which Sarah designed for her front house door, and he leaned his head on his hands.’’ By Sarah’s imposition of a new reality on the barn, she forces Adoniram to at long last understand what she wants, and he stammers his acquiescence: ‘‘I’ll—put up the—partitions, an’—everything you—want, mother.’’

‘‘The Revolt of ‘Mother’’’ succeeds so well because of Freeman’s ability to show such real truths about the lives of women from her time period. But it also succeeds narratively because Freeman never sacrifices the structural features of a good short story. She effectively uses symbolism in Adoniram’s promise of a new house, which dates back 40 years—Freeman’s Bible-literate readers would easily recognize 40 years as the length of time in the Bible is consistently related to periods of tribulation and sacrifice, followed by deliverance. Many of the characters’ names derive from the Bible as well, and the Biblical Sarah bore a child at the age of 90, an act of physical transgression that metaphorically equals Sarah Penn’s transgression of the laws that govern her society. Another name that stands out in the story is that of George Eastman, Nanny’s fiance, who never appears but whose full name is mentioned, rather awkwardly, twice. At the time Freeman was writing ‘‘The Revolt of ‘Mother’’’ another George Eastman, the inventor of the Kodak camera, headed a company worth one million dollars. Through the fictional Eastman’s marriage to Nanny, whose frailty makes her unfit for the harsh farm life, Freeman shows the turn that Americans were making towards urbanity and materialism. On a different note, Joseph R. McElrath, Jr., points out Freeman’s artistry in piling crisis upon crisis yet still managing to manufacture a believable but unexpected happy ending. He calls Freeman’ conclusion ‘‘one of the most complicated trick-endings in all of nineteenth-century American short fiction.’’

Freeman was recognized by contemporary readers as a writer of brilliant short stories of New England village life. Such a widespread perception, along with the support of such influential literary figures as William Dean Howells, who defended the supposed ‘‘sameness’’ of her writings, helped lead to the labeling of Freeman as a writer of ‘‘local color’’—a term that describes realistic fiction concentrating on regional details, true-to-life characters, and the correct us of dialect. These elements are certainly present in ‘‘The Revolt of ‘Mother’,’’ from the ineffectiveness of the minister, who ‘‘was competent to grasp the Pilgrim Fathers and all historical innovators’’ but who could not comprehend Sarah because he knew of no precedent for such behavior, to the narrator’s keen observation that ‘‘[A]ny deviation from the ordinary course of life in quiet town was enough to stop all progress in it,’’ to the almost constant use of regional speech. But to categorize it simply as a ‘‘local-color’’ story does it a large injustice.

Freeman’s writings have graver implications than merely as chronicles of the centuries-old New England way of life that was coming to an end. In ‘‘The Revolt of ‘Mother’’’ she actually, and by her own admission, writes about what is not a feasible action for the time in which she lives. Much can be made of Sarah’s act of rebellion, whether or not it is possible or impossible: if it is possible that a woman of Sarah’s position would do what was worse than disagreeing with her husband—openly defying him—then Freeman has presented a feasible option, perhaps even a secret desire, to women living in a strictly patriarchal society; if it is not possible than any New England woman would take such an action, then Freeman has written a prefeminist text, one that could give impetus to and support such future actions on the part of real women. It is no wonder that this story of a woman who forces her reluctant husband to recognize what is just and decent was embraced by many Americans as a serious tract on women’s rights. No matter what claims Freeman herself might make about it, the truth and poignancy of her words has lasted throughout the twentieth century.

Source: Rena Korb, ‘‘One Woman’s Independence,’’ for Short Stories for Students, Gale, 1998. Korb has a master’s degree in English literature and creative writing and has written for a wide variety of educational publishers.

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s ‘‘The Revolt of Mother’’ is a short story which is now receiving a good deal of attention because of its relevance to the history of American feminism. The mother in revolt is one of those tough-minded, self-aware, and determined females that began to appear at the close of the nineteenth century when the so-called ‘‘New Woman’’ was assuming clear definition. And there’s no need to quibble over feminists’ characteristic distortions and general hobby-horse riding: Sarah Penn is the real thing, a female who successfully revolts against and liberates herself from a familial situation of pernicious male dominance. There is, however, a more important reason for modern readers to focus upon this particular Freeman tale. It is one of her best. Artistically, it transcends the many, many similar pieces that Freeman produced for the American magazine and book reading public of the 1880s and ’90s.

It should be stressed here that ‘‘The Revolt of Mother’’ is magazine fiction, first published in Harper’s Monthly (1890) and then reprinted (with few, and no truly significant, textual alterations) in A New England Nun (1891). The reason for this emphasis is that in a collection of Freeman’s stories— and this applies to all of them—the quality of individual stories is frequently overlooked or blurred as one finishes a tale and then quickly moves on to the next. In the collections there is a quality of sameness which cannot be denied. Freeman worked with regional types, and by the time one finishes a collection of ten tales he usually knows all he wants to, thank you, about the New England spinster, the New England widow, the New England old folks, and the New England schoolmistress. Freeman’s contemporaneous popularity and claim to attention in literary history cannot be fully understood until one forces himself to read her works as they first appeared. Freeman initially drew attention to herself as the author of individual tales which were published in individual issues of magazines. They were originally designed to be read in this manner, and they appear at their best when considered thus.

Magazine fiction, of then and now, must create certain immediate effects upon its reader which are not so sternly required in book publications. The cash investment in a book—versus the usually forgotten cost of a magazine subscription—insures a degree of patience on the part of the book reader. The magazine reader, on the other hand, may pick up an issue to pass a few idle moments, unmindful of his cash investment of several months previous. He is a bit more fickle, more easily distracted; if he is to be engaged the writer must stimulate his interest within the first few sentences—and thus the snappy-opener gimmicks now commonly associated with ‘‘pulp fiction.’’ Once initial interest is stimulated, the magazine story-teller must continue to manipulate his readership so as to counter the distractions of the family parlor which vie with the writer’s own demand upon the reader. Moreover, it does not hurt if the writer provides an unexpected ‘‘kick’’ or ‘‘twist’’ at the conclusion of the story, so as to leave the reader in a state of delighted surprise. (There’s always that subsequent issue in which the writer will want to round-up his audience once again.)

Poe cannily understood the situation earlier in the century. In tales such as ‘‘The Pit and the Pendulum’’ and ‘‘The Tell-Tale Heart’’ he began in the most sensational fashion and structured from that with a series of crescendo effects. Freeman employs the same technique in ‘‘The Revolt of Mother’’: she abruptly seduces the reader into her fictional world and deliberately arranges her tensely emotional material in a series of crises, each of which seems to momentarily function as a climactic conclusion. With a rapid pace she seems to resolve the central conflict of the story, only to renew the same conflict. Then she quickly moves to another apparent resolution, whereupon that ‘‘resolution’’ complicates matters further. When the actual conclusion finally does occur—providing the most surprising and unexpectedly emotional resolution of all—the sympathetic reader who delights in complication piled upon complication receives a rich reward: a happy ending totally unanticipated by the crisis-ridden and foreboding events that led up to it. If masterful artistry involves the writer’s ability to manipulate the reader’s mind and emotions to the point of self-forgetfulness and total immersion in the workings of a tale, ‘‘The Revolt of Mother’’ is a masterwork. At the least, it is a classic example of the artful use of anticlimax as a deliberate narrative device.

Forewarned of a revolt because of the title, the reader begins the story with the expectation of a crisis which will soon develop. If one thought through his expectations before actually commencing the tale, he would hazard the guess that Freeman will fashion her materials toward the mid-story crisis/climax typical to the narrative structure of the conventional short story. Freeman, however, seems to second-guess her readership, aiming at the provision of a unique reading event for an experienced and possibly jaded magazine audience. Without even the ‘‘exposition of background data’’ one expects to find attending the introduction of the principal characters, Freeman immediately proceeds to dramatize the story’s emotional conflict and to build toward the first (apparent) resolution.

‘‘The Revolt’’ begins in media res, with the two main characters assuming definition through their actions and the imagery assigned by Freeman to them:

‘‘Father!’’ ‘‘What is it?’’

‘‘What are them men diggin’ over there in the field for?’’

There was a sudden dropping and enlarging of the lower part of the old man’s face, as if some heavy weight had settled therein; he shut his mouth tight, and went on harnessing the great bay mare. He hustled the collar on to her neck with a jerk.

‘‘Father!’’

The old man slapped the saddle upon the mare’s back.

Freeman’s technique looks forward to the similar exposition of character through the silent and controlled violence of Ab Snopes in ‘‘Barn Burning.’’ Father—Adoniram Penn—is thus introduced as the unsavory villain of the piece, a defiant man who will have his way and who will brook no opposition to his plans. He finally replies, roughly telling Mother to go into the house and mind her own affairs. ‘‘He ran his words together, and his speech was almost as inarticulate as a growl.’’

The sensationality of the opening is enhanced when the reader is allowed a view of the personality questioning Adoniram. It seems as though the sparks will fly, for she does not immediately go into the house; and Freeman provides the first indication of the fiercely independent person with whom Adoniram has to deal. Mother appears the ‘‘meek housewife’’; but ‘‘her eyes, fixed upon the old man, looked as if the meekness had been the result of her own will, never the will of another.’’ As we glance again at her, we are made to see someone who looks ‘‘as immovable . . . as one of the rocks in [Adoniram’s] pastureland, bound to the earth with generations of blackberry vines.’’ At this point, Adoniram is compelled by her presence of character to reveal to Mother that he is building a barn.

It is Adoniram who then retreats, although he does not change his mind about the barn. He temporarily defuses the situation by his withdrawal; and Freeman then turns to the Mother, explaining through dialogue that Adoniram has conspired to build the barn without her consent and against her known desires. By the time son Sammy reveals to Mother that Father also intends to buy four more cows, the first ‘‘act’’ of the story with its crisis/climax is complete. A stiff-necked Adoniram and equally willful Mother have completed their initial confrontation, and Adoniram has won the contest. Mother does silently return to her kitchen, where we soon discover that she is in no way as sinister as her husband seems and that, while she is strong-willed, she is clearly a sympathetically conceived victim of her husband’s obstinate nature.

This constitutes the first resolution of conflict in ‘‘The Revolt of Mother,’’ and hence the usefulness of a dramatic term such as ‘‘act’’ in explaining the short story. The first section of the story functions as a one-act play: a conflict was introduced; it moved toward a muted but real climax; and the conflict was resolved by the withdrawal of Adoniram and the capitulation of Mother.

But, the story, and the conflict, as it turns out, have only begun. The second act opens with Mother, saying ‘‘nothing more,’’ entering her pantry. As Adoniram expressed his emotionality by roughly handling the mare, Mother likewise employs the means at hand: ‘‘a clatter of dishes’’ is heard. She attempts to resign herself to the situation in dutiful, housewifely fashion. But as she begins washing dishes with her daughter Nanny, the attempt seems to be failing. Her behavior bristles with suppressed rage. Mother ‘‘plunged her hands vigorously into the water’’ as Nanny identifies the cause of the conflict initiated in act one: ‘‘‘don’t you think it’s too bad father’s going to build that barn, much as we need a decent house to live in?’’’ That this is the root of resentment is confirmed by Mother who then ‘‘scrubbed a dish fiercely.’’ Her anger is finally articulated: ‘‘‘You ain’t found out yet we’re women- folks, Nanny Penn’.’’

Nanny goes on to lament the fact that her impending wedding will take place in their illdecorated ‘‘box of a house.’’ She is not exaggerating about the house. We may recall that in act one we were off-handedly told something about their dwelling. The details now assume a larger signifi- cance: ‘‘The house, standing at right angles with the great barn and a long reach of sheds and outbuildings, was infinitesimal compared to them. It was scarcely as commodious for people as the little boxes under the barn eaves were for doves.’’ Nanny is upset; Mother is upset. But then Mother goes on to display the nobility of character which makes her such a positively fashioned heroine in the eyes of the reader and which, by way of contrast, makes Adoniram seem an even blacker villain. For forty years Adoniram has promised a decent house but has built only the structures he felt he needed for his business. Mother has just passed through the most recent and greatest betrayal of that promise. Yet she has strength of character enough not to exact revenge by turning Nanny against her father. She attempts to appreciate the finer points of her situation, reminding Nanny that ‘‘a good many girls don’t have as good a place as this.’’ Then she notes what a blessing it is that Adoniram built a cooking shed for them so that they would not have to bake in the house during hot weather.

A few hours later, with both of the children out of the way, a second crisis is initiated by Mother. She calls Adoniram from his work, sits him down, reminds him that she has never complained before, and begins to complain at length about his placing barns and cows above familial obligations. She delivers a brilliantly passionate monologue, clearly vindicating her claim that she and her children have been wronged. ‘‘Mrs. Penn’s face was burning; her mild eyes gleamed. She had pleaded her little cause like a Webster,’’ hearing in response only Adoniram’s blunt reply, ‘‘‘I ain’t got nothin’ to say’.’’ That resolves the crisis. Adoniram shuffles out; Mother goes to the bedroom, and later comes back to the kitchen with reddened eyes. Renewed conflict— crisis—resolution.

A third act begins with Nanny returning to the kitchen miffed, sarcastically suggesting that her wedding might better be held in the new barn which will undoubtedly be nicer than the house. Nanny notes her mother’s peculiar expression when she completes this pettish suggestion. It will become clear to the reader several hundred words later that this constitutes actual ‘‘crisis’’ moment of the narrative structure (determining the outcome of the tale): it is here that Mother decides to make the barn their new home should the opportunity afford itself. At present, though, Freeman withholds this information and runs the risk of maintaining reader interest with a peculiar kind of suspense. The question that comes to mind at this point is, where can the story possibly be going? In view of the many paragraphs remaining, something is certainly about to happen. But it is simply unthinkable, given the information Freeman has fed the reader, that Adoniram will change his mind.

The story leaps ahead through the spring months during which the barn is being constructed, and Freeman relates that Mother no longer speaks of the matter. We are duped into thinking that Mother has, indeed, resigned herself to the egotism of her husband— that the conflict of acts one and two has been truly resolved. Freeman now elaborates upon Adoniram’s villainy, once again confirming the belief that Mother’s situation is a hopeless one. While he claims he cannot afford to build the promised house and is insensitive to Nanny’s having to be married in an old ‘‘box,’’ he makes plans to go to Vermont to buy ‘‘jest the kind of a horse,’’ he has long wanted. As he departs on the buyingtrip, a hiss is the audience response that has been engineered by Freeman.

A maxim occurs to Mother after Adoniram’s departure: ‘‘‘Unsolicited opportunities are the guideposts of the Lord to the new roads of life.’’’ To Mother, the opportunity ‘‘looks like providence.’’ She forthwith gives directions to the help: move all of the household belongings to the barn. The event is a grandly liberating and heroic one, even if it does seem destined to produce an unhappy outcome. ‘‘During the next few hours a feat was performed by this simple, pious New England mother which was equal in its way to Wolfe’s storming of the Heights of Abraham,’’ Freeman tells us. But, we should recall that General Wolfe was mortally wounded during that conflict.

Most of the fourth act is given to the rising action leading to the true ‘‘climax’’ of the narrative structure and its rapidly executed denouement and conclusion. What will Adoniram do when he returns? We know only the most negative things about his character: he has seemed violent; he has acted in the most egotistical and pig-headed ways; he has been curt with Mother beyond the point of simple rudeness; and he expects no one to cross him, least of all Mother. We are free to imagine only dire consequences.

Reader interest is heightened through more suspense. The local characters begin ruminating over the probable outcome of this revolt; they loiter about the neighborhood on the day of Adoniram’s return to see what will happen. We know that Mother is not going to back down. When the local minister comes to reason with her, she is shelling peas ‘‘as if they were bullets,’’ and when she looks at him there is in her eyes ‘‘the spirit that her meek front had covered for a lifetime.’’ Suspense is further increased when Sammy excitedly announces Adoniram’s arrival and Nanny finds ‘‘a hysterical sob in her throat.’’ The reader is thus prepared for a stormy conclusion, possibly of blood and thunder.

What the reader does not except after all that has occurred is a comic reversal. But Freeman does end this tale of impending tragedy with a startling turn to a tragicomic resolution. And the truly amazing thing is that she turns the tables on the reader as convincingly as she does. Adoniram shows none of the anger that seemed to be so great a part of his nature at the story’s beginning. Adoniram shows no anger at all. Rather, he is totally bewildered, able only to say ‘‘‘Why, mother!’’’ again and again as he tries to grasp the change that has taken place. What are the cows doing in the house, and why is the house in the new barn? Mother leads him to the supper table and they eat in silence. Afterward, Mother touches his shoulder, breaking into his state of distraction, and he begins—weeping. He totally capitulates, promising to finish the new barn as a house. There is no resentment. Instead there is the first show of his love for Mother in the whole tale: ‘‘‘Why, mother,’ he said, hoarsely, ‘I hadn’t no idee you was so set on’t as all this comes to’.’’ He is telling the truth, oddly enough. Freeman had withheld the fact that Adoniram’s could be, and was, a sensitive and loving nature—albeit an extraordinarily dense one. It is one of the most complicated trick-endings in all of nineteenth-century American short fiction. Freeman did all that she could to suppress suspicion that such an ending could be even remotely possible. Her mastery is especially made manifest when we think back over the story and note how she developed the scenes to obscure positive personality traits in Adoniram which were actually there all the time.

It should therefore appear as no mystery that William Dean Howells celebrated Freeman’s technique and vision of life. When Howells reviewed Main Travelled Roads, he chided Hamlin Garland for his preoccupation with the grimmer, darker aspects of life. Howells suggested that in every field there were roses as well as thistles and that a truly representative picture of American life should note the beautiful as well as the ugly. The reassuring testimony to the admixture of good and evil in human nature with which Freeman startles the reader at the conclusion of ‘‘The Revolt’’ is vintage Howellsian realism at its enduring best. ‘‘The Revolt’’ is also, to speak more plainly, literary gimmickry at its best. It is so well executed that, while some readers may resent the withholding of the fact about Adoniram that changes everything, the rest of us can enjoy the notion that love can sometimes conquer all, in 1890 and even in the 1980s.

Source: Joseph R. McElrath, Jr., ‘‘The Artistry of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s ‘The Revolt’,’’ in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 17, No. 3, Summer, 1980, pp. 255–61.

‘‘The Revolt of ‘Mother’’’ is one of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s most frequently anthologized stories, and, as an exemplary member of the localcolor genre, its action is both poignant and culturally revealing. In this note I would like to call attention to a hitherto unnoticed aspect of Mrs. Freeman’s art, that is, the way in which her names blend realistically with the story, while, at the same time, subtly enriching it.

The prominence of Biblical given names (Adoniram, Sarah, Samuel, Anna, Hiram, Rufus) in ‘‘The Revolt of ‘Mother,’’’ particularly names from the Old Testament, reflects a common rural Puritan practice. In Adoniram and Sarah, however, we can also uncover what must be a conscious correspondence between the fictional and the Biblical characters. The Biblical Adoniram was the overseer for King Solomon who managed the tribute and organized an important levy during the building of the Temple (I Kings, IV, 6; V, 14). The husbandry evinced by his New England namesake is certainly a worthy reflection on his name. The Biblical Sarah bore a child at the age of ninety (Genesis, XVII). It is only a metaphorical step from this suspension of physical law to the rebellious moral feat of her namesake. Mrs. Penn, therefore, carries within her, implicitly and symbolically, the great action which she will perform in her old age. These meaningful Biblical associations also account for the specific use of forty years (reiterated nine times) as the period of Sarah’s repression. In the Bible, this number is consistently related to trial, tribulation, and sacrifice, which is followed by deliverance (e.g., Exodus, XVI, 35; Judges XIII, 1).

Given the above correspondences, it is also possible to posit a specific reason for naming Nanny Penn’s suitor ‘‘George Eastman.’’ George does not actually appear as a character in the story; he is mentioned but three times in the dialogue. One wonders, then, why it was necessary to give the suitor a full name, and even more, why Sarah would twice use the full name, rather awkwardly, in referring to him. The reason lies in the contemporary significance ‘‘George Eastman’’ would have for Mrs. Freeman, and in the symbolic value this name would lend to the story.

At the time ‘‘The Revolt of ‘Mother’’’ was being written a real George Eastman was making social history in the United States. Rising from a modest background, Eastman had his own substantial photography business by the time he was thirty years old in 1884. By 1888 the first low-priced Kodak camera was on the market, and by 1890 the Eastman Company was worth one million dollars. Obviously, then, the ‘‘George Eastman’’ of Mrs. Freeman’s story is meant to represent the urban, business, and materialistic society toward which America was turning. For Mrs. Freeman, the marT riage of the frail Nanny Penn, unfit for the harshness of farm life, with George Eastman indicated the new trend in American social life. Sarah Penn was no longer willing to endure in primitive simplicity, and the embarrassment envisioned in the forthcoming marriage of her daughter is a prime cause of her ‘‘revolt.’’

The subtle submergence of art to action in ‘‘The Revolt of ‘Mother,’’’ exemplified here in the choice of names, renders this story a very effective member of the local-color genre. The reader does not sense the mediation of the author; the objectivity necessary to ‘‘capture’’ a particular geographical region is preserved. In the simple, and often overlooked, art of naming, however, one can detect the sure and conscious hand of the author.

Source: Edward J. Gallagher, ‘‘Freeman’s ‘The Revolt of ‘‘Mother’’’,’’ in The Explicator, Vol. XXVII, No. 7, March, 1969, item 48.