Fraiman - Extreme domesticity: a view from the margins

EXTREME DOMESTICITY

GENDER AND CULTURE

GENDER AND CULTURE

A SERIES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

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EXTREME
DOMESTICITY

A VIEW
from the
MARGINS

_________

SUSAN FRAIMAN

Columbia University Press

New York

Columbia University Press

Publishers Since 1893

New York Chichester, West Sussex

cup.columbia.edu

Copyright 2017 Columbia University Press

All rights reserved

E-ISBN 978-0-231-54375-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Fraiman, Susan, author.

Title: Extreme domesticity : a view from the margins / Susan Fraiman.

Description: New York : Columbia University Press, 2016. | Series: Gender and culture | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016022755 (print) | LCCN 2016040222 (e-book) | ISBN 9780231166348 (cloth : acid-free paper)

Subjects: LCSH: American literature20th centuryHistory and criticism. | English literature20th centuryHistory and criticism. | Women and literature. | Domestic relations in literature. | American literatureWomen authorsHistory and criticism. | English literatureWomen authorsHistory and criticism. | Home in literature.

Classification: LCC PS228.W65 F73 2016 (print) | LCC PS228.W65 (e-book) | DDC 810.9/9287dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016022755

A Columbia University Press E-book.

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Cover image: Curro Ulzurrun, Paisaje con Niebla (2007)

Photographer: Manuel Blanco

Cover design: Rebecca Lown

Book design: Lisa Hamm

FOR JEFF

CONTENTS

T his book has been a while in the making and has, along the way, benefited from the support and input of many. The University of Virginia gave me time to write by granting me several Faculty Research Fellowships. I am hugely indebted to my generous colleagues in the English Department for their advice and friendship. Cindy Wall shared bibliographical references along with the wisdom of her own work on domestic description in early novels. Sandhya Shuklas astute reading of but also, over the course of countless walks, a sounding board for developing ideasand always with characteristic discernment and kindness. Rita Felski has been a source of inspiration and support throughout this project. My own thoughts on everyday life are crucially informed by her important contributions to this area. She read the first installment of this book and the last. Theres no one whose professional and editorial judgment I trust more. For many fortunate years now, I have been buoyed up personally and professionally by Debbie McDowell, Vicki Olwell, Jahan Ramazani, Caroline Rody, and Chip Tucker. Over at the School of Architecture, Richard Guy Wilson saved me from an error in my discussion of Edith Whartons The Decoration of Houses . To all of these wonderful UVA scholars, my heartfelt thanks.

I would also like to thank Anita Rose and Paul Fyfe for inviting me to speak at the 2015 Victorians Institute Conference; as it turned out, my remarks on Mary Barton for that occasion became the basis for a previously unplanned chapter of the book. Several other chapters appeared previously elsewhere. Shelter Writing: Desperate Housekeeping from Crusoe to Queer Eye first appeared in New Literary History 37, no. 2, 34159. Copyright 2006 Johns Hopkins University Press. Domesticity Beyond Sentiment: Edith Wharton, Decoration, and Divorce was originally published in American Literature 83, no. 3, 479507. Copyright 2011, Duke University Press. It is republished by permission. Bad Girls of Good Housekeeping: Dominique Browning and Martha Stewart first appeared in American Literary History 23, no. 2 (2011): 26082, and is reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press. I wish to thank the readers and editors of these journals for their many good suggestions. I am equally grateful to Jennifer Crewe, the director of Columbia University Press, Gender and Culture series editors Nancy Miller and Victoria Rosner, and the readers who reviewed my manuscript. Their incisive comments and queries at various stages were tremendously helpful in pushing me to clarify and unify my claims. Grace Vasington was the best possible research assistant; her hypercompetence and good cheer were a godsend in the last phase of readying the manuscript for production.

Being involved with two, incredible Charlottesville organizationsThe Haven Day Shelter and Building Goodness Foundationhas deepened my appreciation for shelter. Thanks to them, I am slightly less ignorant of the difficulty faced by those who are precariously housed and more aware of concrete measures that can help alleviate this difficulty. I myself have been extremely lucky in matters of psychic as well as physical shelter. Tania Modleski has long been a mentor and collaborator in the project of keeping women and gender central to left intellectual work. Her unstinting support has sustained me throughout my career, and I will never be able to thank her enough. My dear friend Helen helped me with edits, fed me with kale, and let me organize her closets. For her wisdom, kindness, and loyalty, I offer my deepest thanks. Rachel is not only my exercise wife but also my interlocutor and confidante in all things. Her encouragement was as integral to the completion of this project as her friendship is to the richness of my everyday life. My mothers feminist example, unqualified support, and wonderful closeness are a continuing source of gratitude. Cory, by growing up and moving out, managed to nail my point that home life is never still. Much as I miss him, I admire how ably he is shaping a domesticity of his own. This book is lovingly dedicated to Jeff, partner in dwelling and traveling, whose insight guides my writing and my life and who shows me many times a day the preciousness of home.

S he does not make a grand entrance. For one thing, she is already there, inside the house. For another, it is part of the job description to be unassuming. Modest to a fault, she fans attention away from herself the better to care for others. As compliant wife and devoted mother, she has no equal. If she ventures outside, it is only to aid and enlighten the poor. She herself is not poor. Her appearance is neat and refined, her complexion fair. With a light step, she moves from room to room, ensuring that everything is in its place: children in bed, servants in the kitchen, linens properly starched and stowed. This space is her domain; we might almost say that home and mistress are consubstantial. Both are stable and contained, untouched by worldly flux, bustle, and mess. (Sex, which can be messy, is reserved for procreation.)