Narrative Strategy and Weeds in "Summer"

In light of our discussion of “Spring” Monday and of the difficulty of classifying Rural Hours (“amazing, unclassifiable” according to Professor Irmscher’s essay) I am quite struck by one of James Fenimore Cooper’s descriptions of the work.  He writes his daughter that, whilst editing the proof sheets, he finds that her entries “carry me along with the interest of a tale” (Introduction, xii).  Of course, the work resists actually being a “tale”: there are only minimal events; the disjunctures between journal entries curb any rising action or emotion; and the main recurring character is Cooper’s “we.” 

Yet the work does seem to proceed with the motion of a tale, not only on the large-scale cycle of the changing seasons, but also in a pattern of seeking, finding, and gathering which is daily repeated.  Sights, plant specimens, and scholarly references are all sought and repetitively “gleaned” and assembled by Cooper.  This recurring structure of searching and finding allows for the development of certain tensions which I think contribute much of the narrative interest of the “tale.”  I am thinking specifically of the tension between what is found and what should be found, what belongs and what doesn’t belong, and who decides what should be where.  (Note: I found Sam’s description of Cooper’s colonial relationship with her environment incredibly interesting in this respect.) 

One example of this tension of belonging/not belonging comes in Cooper’s discussion of weeds in the entry from June 6 (pp. 64-7 in the standard edition.)  Cooper invokes two binaries here, distinguishing between weeds and other, desirable plants as well as between home-grown or “American” weeds and “Old World” invaders.  Cooper asserts that European weeds have nearly overrun the native kind; the reverse trans-Atlantic journey, of American weeds to Europe, has been comparatively less successful.  This discussion of movement, settlement, and – importantly – encroachment hints at anxieties about immigration, and about who belongs where.  Perhaps such anxieties speak to the Cooper family’s history of taking land which formerly belonged to native “others,” or perhaps they are based on apprehensions of European “others” arriving on America’s shores, or perhaps such anxiety is a reflection of Cooper’s sadness that a place formerly controlled by her family now belongs to “other,” perhaps less heroic or productive, settlers.  In any case, the personification of the weeds allows them to serve as proxies for Cooper’s exploration of the tension of belonging.  The weeds are personalized as “individual[s] of the vegetable race” (66).  This individuality is defined by unwantedness, by the weeds’ insistently misplaced presence:

Upon the whole, it is not so much a natural defect which marks the weed, as a certain impertinent, intrusive character in these plants; a want of modesty, a habit of shoving themselves forward upon ground where they are not needed, rooting themselves in soil intended for better things, for plants more useful, more fragrant, or more beautiful (66).

 

It is not simply the weed’s specific evil (noxious smell, ugliness, etc.) that is offensive to Cooper, but rather the daring implied by their presence.  The weeds seem to trespass the boundaries of good etiquette.  As well as being immodest and forward, they are referred to as “rude” and “troublesome,” and appear “so freely and so boldly,” like unwanted working-class visitors in Cooper’s best parlor (64).  Their presence is also bad economy, a poor allocation of resources: they take up space that could be better filled by worthier plants.  I cannot help thinking here of one of the chief arguments for Indian removal.  Indians, it was said, failed to use land as they should; they wasted the rich resources of the American wilderness (this is all tragically ironic in hindsight) by failing to cultivate land in the same way that Euro-American settlers would.  They were, in a sense, the “weeds” which were removed by the “planting” of Cooperstown (see p. 139 for a discussion of civilized improvements made after the “savages” were dispatched.)  This passage doesn’t have to be about Native Americans, though, despite the interesting echo.  It could also be about supposedly lazy Irish moving to Cooperstown, or John Field types, or any model of presence different from that of cultured, upper middle class Susan Fenimore Cooper. 

To bring this back to the idea of narrative, and of Rural Hours inspiring “the interest of a tale,” it seems to me that Cooper’s strategy is to amplify a base narrative (I think of it as searching, finding, and gathering, but perhaps this would be an interesting question to discuss) with scenes that invoke tension, thereby complicating or enriching the cycle.  In this case, the weeds are profoundly not sought, although they are found, and only gathered in the sense that they are listed, classified, and characterized in the work – gathered textually but not physically. 

Tomorrow I’d like to look at two additional episodes in “Summer” which seem to me to complicate the searching/finding/gathering narrative: the Indians’ visit to Cooper (pp. 107-113) and the story of the tamed fawn (pp. 149-151).  I like to think that these two episodes speak to each other in some ways; perhaps we can talk about that as well.