The Small Room by May Sarton

First published: 1961

Type of plot: Realism

Time of work: The 1950’s

Locale: A New England women’s college

Principal Characters:

• Lucy Winter, a new instructor at Appleton College
• Carryl Cope, a brilliant medieval history professor
• Harriet (Hallie) Summerson, the head of the English department
• Jennifer Finch, a professor of mathematics
• Olive Hunt, a wealthy trustee
• Jane Seaman, a student at Appleton

The Novel

Set on the campus of Appleton College, a small, prestigious New England women’s college where scholarship is emphasized, the action of The Small Room takes place in one semester. The primary focus is on the faculty, although necessarily a few students play important roles. The tale is told from the point of view of Lucy Winter, a twenty-seven-year-old woman whose broken engagement to a medical student marks a major turning point in her life. Academically well qualified with a doctorate from Harvard, Lucy, not really committed to teaching, is a new appointee to the faculty. Although in the center of activity on a college campus, Lucy feels lonely from time to time.

In the narrative, Lucy relates some of her classroom experiences. She believes that the relationship between professor and student should develop only around course work; for this reason, she refuses to listen to Pippa Brentwood’s tales of her recently deceased father. Lucy also sits in on a class taught by Harriet Summerson (Hallie) and is impressed by Hallie’s masterful handling of the learning situation. As an educator, Lucy is also a learner.

Lucy is also a learner as she becomes more familiar with Carryl Cope, whose friend Olive Hunt is one of the college trustees. Olive is vehemently opposed to the appointment of a resident psychiatrist to the faculty. Cope, too, appears to be against it, but Lucy suspects that Cope is being influenced by Hunt.

Lucy spends an evening reading compositions written about the Iliad. Somewhat depressed because the compositions are bland papers worthy of only mediocre grades, Lucy, to relax before falling asleep, decides to read from Appleton Essays, a recent publication that Cope has given her. Her choice of reading material, however, serves only to arouse her, because she is certain that, while preparing to teach the Iliad, she has read one of the essays from the Appleton collection in an obscure periodical in the library. On the following day, Lucy locates the source for the essay, which has been plagiarized by a promising Appleton senior, Jane Seaman. She is aware that Appleton policy dictates that plagiarism is cause for dismissal from the college. Wishing that she had not uncovered so flagrant a violation, Lucy goes to Hallie with the evidence, thus setting in motion a process that cannot be stopped. Lucy and Hallie raise difficult questions: What will happen to Jane Seaman? What made her commit this act? And what effect will its revelation have on Carryl Cope, Jane’s mentor?

Cope, learning of Jane’s deed and assuming some responsibility for her protégée, prevents the involvement of the college judicial bodies. Because the students know what has happened, however, and because Jane is not contrite before them, they are irate. Pippa Brentwood confronts Lucy, and Lucy attempts to show Pippa that Professor Cope believes herself to be responsible, and that Jane’s mixed-up family situation and her inability to adjust to college pressures make the easy disposition of the case impossible. Lucy really shows Pippa the heartlessness of automatic judgments based on inflexible moral standards.

The person who suffers in this case is Carryl Cope. She is the one who has had to accept the blame for the sin of omission—not giving her heart to Jane when Jane needed her. Also, the Jane Seaman case is being used by the faculty as a basis for needing a resident psychiatrist, thus leading Olive Hunt to change her will—and forcing Cope to break with her. The price of excellence is enormous; so, too, are the responsibilities of the dedicated professor.

The Characters

Lucy Winter, who becomes involved with campus people and events, has no loyalties and no preconceived likes and dislikes. She also has no philosophy of education, probably because she had not planned to teach and has no prior experience. The fact of Lucy’s broken engagement suggests her capacity to love, to give of herself to others. She is respected by many on campus as a confidante, a tower of strength, and a voice of integrity. Lucy’s loneliness without her former fiancé does not establish marriage as an ideal; Lucy is simply an individual whose plans had included marriage.

On the other hand, Carryl Cope, the medieval history professor who is recognized as an authority in her field, discreetly has her love affair with Olive Hunt, a wealthy trustee. Cope truly believes that the college is devoted to the pursuit of excellence, and she erroneously thinks that Jane Seaman shares this passion for excellence for its own sake. Although Cope misreads Jane, Cope herself does not waver in her position. She is a professor and a scholar. If Hunt proceeds to withdraw her bequest of millions of dollars and her allegiance to Appleton, she will have to part with Cope, who, although voting against the hiring of a psychiatrist, will remain loyal to her profession and to Appleton. Until the Seaman affair materializes, the diminutive Cope appears to be a giant. She finally admits to Jennifer Finch, a professor of mathematics, that she has been afraid to give love to Jane, for whom love was a basic need. Here, then, is Cope’s failure.

Hallie Summerson, head of the English department is an example of the sagacious professor who can lead the students to think and to comprehend. She makes no attempt to impose learning on her classes; instead, she gently inspires and leads the students toward discovery. Hallie is an uncomplicated individual who is able to maintain her own integrity; she expects others to do likewise.

Another professor whose opinions matter is Jennifer Finch. She has a keen, logical mind; she is able to reduce complicated matters to the basic components. Her appearance is unassuming, but she has the respect of her fellow faculty members. She herself, however, defers to her autocratic mother, to whose outrageous demands she regularly submits.

Olive Hunt has had power over Carryl Cope. Hunt introduced Cope to Europe and the pleasures of travel which Cope combines with study. Hunt, growing old, believes that she no longer has much influence over Cope, and she attempts to control Appleton and Cope by threatening to change her will. Hunt recognizes that she is being contrary and stubborn, but she believes that she cannot change her nature.

Critical Context

The early novels of May Sarton were set in Europe or the British Isles, with her second novel being set in Belgium, the land of her birth. These novels reflect her interest in the impact of the Old World on the New. Some of the themes which Sarton continues to develop in her writing are apparent in these early books. How love, suffering, marriage, and family affect the individual are critical points for study in her fiction.

Beginning with Faithful Are the Wounds (1955), Sarton turned increasingly to New England as a setting for her fiction. This academic novel centers on Edward Cavan, a professor of American literature who commits suicide. (Cavan was based in part on the distinguished scholar and Harvard professor F. O. Matthiessen, who committed suicide in 1950.) Loneliness and the cost of repressed emotion are important themes developed in this work, and they are important in The Small Room as well, the second book in which Sarton makes use of the academic world.

Frequently Sarton uses intelligent professional women as central characters in her fiction. In The Small Room, the main characters are women whose struggles in the academic world are treated with dignity and understanding. Of this book, Virgilia Petersen says, “a more eloquent appraisal of teaching it would be hard to find.” Sarton, who did not attend college, draws upon her experiences teaching in such institutions as Harvard and Wellesley, where she had the opportunity to observe campus politics and to question the price of excellence.

The lesbian affair in The Small Room is very muted and delicately presented. Later works by Sarton, including The Magnificent Spinster (1985), are more forthright in this respect, although they remain restrained in comparison to many novels of the 1970’s and 1980’s. Conflict in marriage, which is a minor theme in The Small Room, is developed into a destructive force to the thinking and/or the professional woman in Crucial Conversations (1975) and Anger (1982): Sarton frequently suggests that marriage can stifle the growth of the individual.

Indeed, most of the basic themes of Sarton’s work can be found in The Small Room, making it a seminal work. Some ideas are fully explored in this novel while others are only suggested. Sarton’s novels, like those of Willa Cather, are simple on the surface, but actually quite complex. The intensity with which Sarton’s characters react to events and to one another is also a distinguishing feature of her poetry, another genre in which she has published extensively.

Bibliography

Bloin, L. P. May Sarton: A Bibliography. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1978. In two parts, the first listing Sarton’s poetry, novels, nonfiction, essays, and articles. The second part lists secondary sources, including book reviews. A conscientious compilation of sources that is most useful to the Sarton scholar. The author acknowledges Sarton’s assistance in putting together this work.

Curley, Dorothy N., Maurice Kramer, and Elaine F. Kramer, eds. Modern American Literature. 4 vols. 4th ed. New York: Ungar, 1969-1976. A collection of reviews and criticisms of Sarton’s poems and novels, the latest entry being 1967. Includes criticism on Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, considered an important book and which the author says was most difficult to write. The supplement has reviews on Sarton’s Collected Poems.

Evans, Elizabeth. May Sarton. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne, 1989. In this volume in Twayne’s United States Authors series, Evans upholds Sarton as a writer who speaks for women, insisting they claim their own identity; hence, her increasing popularity among feminists. An interesting addition to this somewhat standard criticism is an appendix of letters of Sarton’s to her editor while writing Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing. Selected bibliography.

Grumbach, Doris. “The Long Solitude of May Sarton.” The New Republic 170 (June 8, 1974): 31-32. Grumbach draws together Sarton’s philosophy, in particular the serenity of her writing in the face of her declared “traumas.” Noting that critics have often ignored Sarton, Grumbach says: “Hers has been a durable fire . . . her small room seems to make most male critics uncomfortable.” An article well worth reading.

Peters, Margot. May Sarton: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1997. The first full-length biographical treatment of this most autobiographical of writers. After her death in 1995, there was an upsurge of interest in Sarton, and this book certainly contributes to her legacy. Peters herself is fair in her assessment of Sarton: clear about why this woman inspired such a devoted following among readers and equally straightforward about her uncertainty concerning the literary value of much of Sarton’s work.

Sibley, Agnes. May Sarton. New York: Twayne, 1972. Obviously a must for criticism on Sarton, because there is so little of book-length size written about her—despite her prodigious output. This study discusses Sarton’s poems, from Encounter in April in 1937 to A Durable Fire, published in 1972. Sibley has grouped novels under two themes that she considers relevant to Sarton: “detachment” for the early novels and “communion” for the later ones.