Men and Angels by Mary Gordon

First published: 1985

Type of plot: Psychological realism

Time of work: The 1980’s

Locale: Selby, Massachusetts

Principal Characters:

• Laura Post, the nanny to the children of Anne and Michael Foster
• Anne Foster, the holder of a doctorate in art
• Michael Foster, Anne’s husband, a professor on sabbatical
• Jane Watson, the elderly widow of Caroline’s son, Stephen
• Rose Corcoran, a brain-damaged woman
• Ed Corcoran, Rose’s husband and the Fosters’ electrician

The Novel

Men and Angels illustrates the possible consequences of parental rejection and implies that people need religion to be complete. The story begins when Laura Post, a twenty-one-year-old drifter, becomes a live-in babysitter for the two children of Anne Foster, who is writing a lengthy catalog on the works of the late artist Caroline Watson, to be used at an exhibition being arranged by Anne’s longtime friend Ben Hardy. Since Anne’s work is time-consuming and since Michael, a professor, is teaching in France that year, she needs someone to tend the children and the house.

Anne hires Laura because her original sitter has changed plans and no other suitable person can be found. Yet she takes an instant disliking to the younger woman, for which she tries to compensate by doing small favors for Laura, such as making her cocoa in the mornings, taking her to lunch, and baking her a birthday cake. Anne’s dislike of Laura is augmented by the latter’s religiosity and her frequent reading of the Bible. Anne, on the other hand, has no conscious religious life. She and Michael do not attend church, and she has never told her children, Peter and Sarah, ages nine and six, respectively, about hell and the devil, thinking these supposedly questionable doctrines might frighten them. While Anne is not an avowed atheist, her highest objects of worship seem to be her spouse and children, whom she keeps safe and secure in their upper-class home.

Although Laura appears to be mentally stable, her lifelong deprivation of parental love (especially from her mother, who seems to hate her) has caused her to embrace religion (of no particular denomination) to the point of madness. She has convinced herself that human love, especially the love of family, is worthless and that the love of the “Spirit” (a term she never clearly defines) is the only love worth having. She guards herself from all close human encounters and owns only absolutely essential material items. Moreover, Laura fancies herself the Chosen One of God, sent to “save” Anne from materialism by destroying her maternal attachment. Without realizing it, however, she develops a love for Anne similar to a daughter’s love for her mother. Unfortunately, this love is not reciprocated.

During the first six months of her employment, Laura is watchful of the children, but her first act of negligence—letting them slide on a deep, partially thawed pond while she sits behind a rock reading the Bible (a possible scheme for their deaths, which will forever sever them from Anne)—is her downfall. Furious with the sitter for endangering her children’s lives, Anne fires her immediately. This abrupt dismissal is too much for Laura. The only way she can now “save” Anne and obtain her love is by offering herself as a sacrifice. While Anne takes the children out to supper, having told Laura to be packed and gone by the time they return, Laura slits her wrists and bleeds to death in an overflowing bathtub. By letting the water run, she knows she is beginning to rescue Anne from her preoccupation with the material, as the water, flooding the upstairs hall and dripping through the downstairs ceiling, destroys much of the Fosters’ beautiful house.

While tragic, the young woman’s suicide has redeeming effects. At last, Anne is able to feel some tenderness, if not love, toward Laura. Furthermore, her dormant spirituality begins to surface. After Sarah explains to Peter that the lifeless form the police have removed was not really Laura—only her body—Anne asks her daughter, “Where do you think she is now, sweetheart?” It is as if Anne is contemplating the afterlife for the first time. Later, at the cremation service, she understands from the words of Psalm 121 (“from whence cometh my help? My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth”) that she is not completely autonomous; she must learn to appeal to a higher, divine being. Finally, Anne realizes that she cannot protect her children from all the pain and tragedy in life. Therefore, the death of Laura, tragic as it is, provides a growing experience for both Anne and her children.

The Characters

Caroline sets the novel in motion. Had Ben not arranged an exhibition of her works, he would not have asked Anne to write the catalog; hence, Anne would not have hired Laura.

Laura is the catalyst for Anne’s religious development, while her strangeness lends interest to the novel. Her physical appearance is significant, as it is one reason for her mother’s rejection. While not unattractively large, Laura is tall, with a sturdy bone structure. Her hair is red, her eyes blue, and her complexion fair. Laura’s mother, in contrast, is dark and petite. Moreover, Laura has a sister who is a replica of her mother and who thus has received all the mother’s attention and affection.

Anne, the protagonist, is the one character who develops to any extent. A woman who considers religion unnecessary and somewhat disquieting, she becomes marginally aware of this missing element in her life through her contacts with Laura and Jane Watson. After Laura’s death, she realizes that there is something higher than the material world and her children. In addition, she develops as a mother by letting her children experience tragedy instead of trying to protect them. Like Laura’s, Anne’s looks are important, for she too is tall, red-haired, and blue-eyed. Coincidentally, she is thirty-eight, the same age as Laura’s mother. Anne’s age and their similarity in appearance probably contribute to Laura’s love for her employer.

Jane exemplifies the practice of religion. A churchgoer, she can nevertheless form meaningful human relationships. For example, she is the lover of Ben, a divorced man. She also befriends a woman whose battered children have been taken from her. Since the formerly abusive mother regrets her behavior and has received therapy, Jane gives her another chance by entrusting her with the care of Anne’s children for a few hours. Additionally, Jane becomes a mother figure to Anne, who, like Laura, is the less beloved of her own mother’s two children.

Rose Corcoran, who developed an inoperable brain tumor during her second pregnancy, is permanently impaired both physically and mentally. Although she appears only once, she seems to represent the acceptance of fate and divine will. Not fooled by the comments of others that she is getting well, Rose regards herself as a “cripple” and wishes to be photographed on a particular hill, so that she might resemble a crippled girl in a painting she admires. When she says she would be better off dead, Laura replies, “If the Lord wanted you to be dead, you’d be dead in the blink of an eye.” While Anne is shocked by the callousness of this remark, Rose is not offended. “That’s what the priest says,” she agrees. “He says I’m alive for a reason.”

Ed Corcoran is an attractive man who loves his wife unconditionally. Physically drawn to Ed, Anne attempts to seduce him, but he declines her proposition on the grounds that he could never be unfaithful to the wonderful woman he married, despite her infirmity, which is not her fault. Thus, Ed stands for adherence to the marriage vow, “for better or for worse,” and to a firm moral code that does not alter with circumstance.

Critical Context

Men and Angels demonstrates Gordon’s growth and maturity as a writer. This novel, unlike her earlier Final Payments (1978) and The Company of Women (1980), moves beyond the subculture of Roman Catholicism, extending the theme of religion into society at large. Some critics, in fact, see Gordon’s work as moving from the genre of “women’s fiction” to that of religious literature. Moreover, her characters are older (with the exception of Laura) and less stereotypical. Isabel Moore, the protagonist of Final Payments, and Felicitas Taylor, heroine of The Company of Women, are thirty and twenty, respectively; Anne, however, is thirty-eight, and Jane is in her seventies. When the novel begins, Anne is already settled as a wife and mother, and Jane has come to terms with God and the world.

The characters in Final Payments and The Company of Women seem to be stock types, Catholics or privileged persons rebelling against their upbringing. Anne and Laura, on the other hand, are more complex. Anne conscientiously divides her time between work and motherhood. She feels ambivalent toward Caroline Watson, an artist who neglected and never truly loved her son—and worries over her own inability to love Laura, whose psychosis appears to be only eccentricity.

The theme of love, prominent in both Final Payments and The Company of Women, continues in Men and Angels. Yet those people whom the earlier protagonists cannot love are unlovable for obvious reasons: Margaret Casey in Final Payments and Muriel Fisher in The Company of Women are embittered spinsters, seething with envy and spite, while the Habers in The Company of Women are a filthy, coarse, and indigent family. Laura Post, however, is young, strong, and on the brink of life. Her unlovability, therefore, is more pathetic. Thus, the issue of love is more problematic in Men and Angels.

The novel also looks deeply into the issue of motherhood, probably because maternity had become central to Gordon’s life. When she wrote The Company of Women, her first child had not yet been born, but while writing Men and Angels, she was pregnant with her second baby and was the mother of a three-year-old. The focus on motherhood and family, as well as the expansion of religion, probably makes Gordon’s third novel attractive to a wider and more mature audience than her earlier works.

Bibliography

Bennet, Alma. Mary Gordon. New York: Twayne, 1996. In this first full-length book on Mary Gordon, Bennet draws on personal interviews with Gordon, as well as other primary and secondary sources to provide students and scholars with a comprehensive introduction to Gordon’s work.

Gordon, Mary. Interview by Patrick H. Samway. America 170 (May 14, 1994): 12-15. Gordon discusses her ethnic and educational background, as well as her career. Gordon’s insights into her Catholic upbringing are particularly illuminating and shed considerable light on her works in general.

Mahon, John. “The Struggle with Love.” In American Women Writing Fiction, edited by Mickey Pearlman. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1989. Mahon discusses characters’ inabilities to give and receive love. He also points to the frailty of the secular family, which, he says, in times of crisis easily disintegrates.

Morey, Ann-Janine. “Beyond Updike: Incarnated Love in the Novels of Mary Gordon.” Christian Century 102 (November, 1985): 1059-1063. Morey observes that Gordon’s novels show religion from a feminine viewpoint. For example, Anne is concerned about nonsexual human love, an issue not found in the works of most male writers.

Pierce, Judith. “Profile.” Belles Lettres: A Review of Books by Women 9 (Fall, 1993): 8-12. A compelling portrait of Gordon revealing that her priorities are her children and her writing; that listening to music helps her along in the creative process; and that her instinct for parenting is balanced, fully acknowledging that being a parent has both its positive and negative sides.

Seabury, Marcia. “Of Belief and Unbelief: The Novels of Mary Gordon.” Christianity and Literature 40 (Autumn, 1990): 37-55. Seabury analyzes Gordon’s works in terms of the inseparability of spirit and body. She observes that Laura’s warped religiosity is juxtaposed with Anne’s repressed spirituality.

Suleiman, Susan. “On Maternal Splitting: A Propos of Mary Gordon’s Men and Angels.” Signs 14 (Autumn, 1989): 25-41. Suleiman notes that working mothers may be jealous of mother substitutes and compensate by finding the substitute “bad.” Laura’s strangeness is the “badness” that aggravates Anne’s animosity.

Wymward, Eleanor. “Mary Gordon: Her Religious Sensibility.” Cross Currents 37 (Summer/Fall, 1987): 147-158. Wymward comments that in Gordon’s fiction, individuals must find salvation within the world; however, they need faith in something higher. Laura evokes Anne’s latent spirituality.