The Collected Stories of Caroline Gordon by Caroline Gordon

First published: 1981

Type of work: Short stories

Form and Content

A consummate artist, Caroline Gordon was one of several Southern women writers born around the turn of the twentieth century who created brilliant portraits of Southern life. More than a local colorist, however, Gordon maintained a philosophy deeply influenced by her Southern upbringing that carried over into all of her works. Although she seemed as comfortable creating male characters as female ones, those stories that do focus on women explore areas of female sensibility often overlooked in depictions of the South.

The Collected Stories of Caroline Gordon consists of twenty-three stories grouped into four parts. Except for one story, part 1 confines itself to the early twentieth century and the south-central Kentucky region in which Gordon was born. Six of the stories—“The Burning Eyes,” “Old Red,” “One More Time,” “To Thy Chamber Window, Sweet,” “The Last Day in the Field,” and “The Presence”—concern Aleck Maury, classics professor and sportsman, who persistently resists the tug of social obligations to pursue a life as hunter and fisherman. Two stories, “The Petrified Woman” and “One Against Thebes,” are told from the vantage point of Maury’s child, Sally, who struggles to discover her feminine role in a world of adults. “The Enemies” and “The Long Day” concern infidelity between black men and women and the resulting violence. A final story in this section, “Tom Rivers,” shifts the scene to the Old West and is a character study of a transplanted Kentuckian and Texas frontier hero.

Part 2 consists of four stories, all set in the nineteenth century. Two of them “The Forest of the South” and “Hear the Nightingale Sing” concern the Civil War and relationships between white Southern women and Northern soldiers. Another, “The Ice House,” treats the aftermath of the war and a Yankee who tries to profit from retrieving the bodies of Northern soldiers hastily buried in an icehouse during the war. “The Captive,” a fourth story in this section, is a captivity narrative told from the point of view of a white pioneer woman whose children are murdered by Indians, although she endures and escapes.

Part 3 returns to the twentieth century with five stories on mixed topics. One, “All Lovers Love the Spring,” concerns a woman whose capacity for love and living fully belies her social status as a spinster. Another, “The Waterfall,” describes a visit from a child’s uncle who is a successful writer. This story returns to the theme of a girl’s difficulty in being heard in the adult world. “The Brilliant Leaves” describes the tragic death of a young woman who falls while rock climbing as her young lover looks on helplessly. “Mr. Powers” and “Her Quaint Honor” concern violations of the Southern social order. The former deals with the community’s perceptions of a man who has accidentally killed his son; the latter, with a white man lusting after the mulatto wife of an African American.

Part 4 departs from the Southern focus of most of the earlier stories by shifting settings to Europe. “Emmanuele! Emmanuele!” is the story of a French author whose selfishness is so complete that he writes love letters to himself. Reflecting Gordon’s conversion to Catholicism, “A Walk with the Accuser” is essentially a condemnation of Protestantism and John Calvin. “The Olive Garden” depicts a young man’s return to France seeking the happiness he had enjoyed before the loss of a fiancée. There, however, he finds post-World War II desolation, a symbol of his own ravaged heart.

Context

Caroline Gordon’s productive career had a strong impact on the history of women’s literature. The author of nine novels, three volumes of short stories, and two of the most influential books of criticism of the twentieth century, Gordon never allowed the fame of her better-known literary husband, Allen Tate, to discourage her own writing. She was deeply concerned with preserving a history of the South and particularly women’s roles in it. To that end, she portrayed a diversity of feminine personalities, many of whom struggled under duress and without the support of men. Gordon believed strongly that women occupied a special space in the Southern community, and in many subtle ways she explored the perimeters of that space.

Bibliography

Booklist. LXXVII, March 1, 1981, p. 916.

Choice. XIX, September, 1981, p. 79.

Christian Science Monitor. LXXIII, June 24, 1981, p. 18.

Fraistat, Rose Ann C. Caroline Gordon as Novelist and Woman of Letters. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984. Emphasizes Gordon as someone who devoted herself to the vocation of letters, both as novelist and critic. Includes a thorough bibliography.

Hudson Review. XXXIV, Autumn, 1981, p. 457.

Landess, Thomas H., ed. The Short Fiction of Caroline Gordon: A Critical Symposium. Irving, Tex.: University of Dallas Press, 1972. A collection of six essays dealing with the short stories. Particularly strong in analyzing Gordon’s technique and her conservative philosophy.

Library Journal. CVI, March 1, 1981, p. 576.

McDowell, Frederick P. W. Caroline Gordon. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1966. A good introduction to Gordon and her fiction, this fifty-page pamphlet also provides a bibliography of works by and about the author.

Makowsky, Veronica A. Caroline Gordon: A Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. The only book-length account of Gordon’s life, this work sometimes is frustrating because of its lack of dates, particularly in the early years of Gordon’s life. Contains short analyses of the stories.

Ms. X, July, 1981, p. 89.

Nation. CCXXXIII, July 4, 1981, p. 25.

National Review. XXXIII, July 10, 1981, p. 789.

The New York Times Book Review. LXXXVI, April 19, 1981, p. 6.

Saturday Review. VIII, July, 1981, p. 78.

Stuckey, William J. Caroline Gordon. New York: Twayne, 1972. A useful short account of Gordon’s life and works. Although limited by its being written a decade before Gordon died, it nevertheless provides many thoughtful analyses of her works, with an entire chapter devoted to the short stories. Also provides a useful chronology of important dates in the author’s life.

Warren, Robert Penn. Introduction to The Collected Stories of Caroline Gordon. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1981. This friend of the author and fellow Kentuckian focuses primarily on the realistic and specific details of her fiction, particularly as she describes Kentucky.