Discovery and Cooper’s Scenic Stage

Before I begin my reading response, I must admit that I know little about 19^th C American theater techniques or Cooper’s feelings towards the stage. With this disclaimer in mind, last week’s discussion about the Gothic-window passage popped into my mind when I was reading an unrelated article on theatrical techniques. The Gothic-window reads:

Standing on the hill-side within the woods, we looked down beneath an archway of green branches, and between noble living columns of pine and hemlock, upon the blue waters below, as though we were gazing at them through the elaborate mouldings of a great Gothic window—a fine frame for any picture. (21)

Cooper views the lake through the natural frame of pine and hemlock branches, but likens the arch of tree branches to a Gothic window. Professor Irmscher pointed out that this visual technique is often used in Books of Hours. On the illustration page, one often finds a religious scene depicted as if the reader were looking through a cathedral window. As a class we posited that Cooper was either emulating this artistic technique in her narrative or was using man-made elements through which to shape the reader’s perceptions of nature. However, it should be noted that the scenes Cooper depicts are not static or frozen scenes like those of an illustration, but instead lively and animated scenes (an affect afforded by the narrative form Cooper decides to use).

This point is further emphasized later on in the “Autumn” chapter when she depicts a moving scene. She writes:

In our walk this morning, observed a large stone farmhouse, with maples grouped about in most brilliant color; a party of men were husking maize in the foreground; a group of cows grazing, in one direction, and a cart with a pile of noble pumpkins lying in the other. It would have made a good picture of an American autumn scene. (215)

Even though Cooper notes that the scene she describes in this passage would make a good “picture,” there is a distinct difference between this narrative and a potential painting. The beauty of the scene lies in its dynamic movement: the men “husking” corn; the cows “gazing,” and the pumpkins “lying” as if in rest. Unlike an unchanging illustration that merely implies movement, the scenes Cooper’s narrative renders is in constant flux.

I want to offer the alternate suggestion that in these repeated moments of framing scenes as if through windows or as works of art, Cooper appropriates the theatrical technique of “discovery.” I believe that the similarities are significant and the aesthetic technique of discovery nicely aligns with Cooper’s eco-critical message. To provide a brief explanation, discovery is defined as the space revealed by the opening or closing of shutters on a stage. Discovery revolutionized the scenic stage because it allowed for fluidity of control over scene changes. The shutters, often constructed at multiple depths on the stage, could be pulled open to reveal or pushed closed to hide multiple discovery areas. In other words, the nature that Cooper depicts is not an illustration or a window, but instead a scenic stage.

Cooper uses the visual effects of performance to affect audience perception as well as audience comprehension of her eco-critical message. More specifically, Cooper employs the theatrical technique of discovery in order to differentiate her narrative’s location from the known natural areas around Cooperstown so as to prevent her readers from reducing the scenery to mere territory or owned property. Note also that Cooper removes the names of common land markers such as Mount ---. Cooper functions as our eyes to the natural world around her, making sight a prominent theme in the text. She is able to reveal or obscure the discovery areas of Cooperstown, either providing the reader sight of the natural landscape or blindness in much the same way as the shutters function on the scenic stage to reveal or hide certain discovery areas.

The Gothic window passage and others like it are moments of discovery in which Cooper decides to move the reader from a state of blindness to a state of sight. Coopers use of discovery often helps to illustrate a world in which the true way of seeing (i.e. Cooper’s way of seeing) the land is concealed and its eventual revelation is rendered more spectacular, as if framed by a Gothic window. This manufactured revelation allows Cooper to guide the reader through her narrative to reach the rhetorical conclusion of her text. Cooper wants the reader to see the landscape as a place of activity, interaction, and change, rather than as the location for passive contemplation or possessive ownership. Nature is something that should be actively preserved instead of possessed, contained, and destroyed.