國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
will give you my daughter for a wife, and we will live happily together. (125-26)
The old grey bear tries to make peace between the hunter and his bear tribe here.
Through this marriage can all bears be secured safety. However, the father ignores his daughter’s feeling; the she-bear is supposed to be afraid of the hunter. It shows that the she-bear is sacrificed as a peace-offering to accept the marriage.
The old bear’s comment of “being obliged to hunt” seems to express his
disapproval of Muckwa’s hunting because hunters may have disturbed his tribe for a long time. The bear chief hopes that Muckwa stops hunting to proffer his daughter to Muckwa. Hunting is the duty of hunters, but Muckwa’s duty will be transformed to protect the family when accepting the wife. Therefore, Muckwa will fulfill his new obligation to take care of his family and to secure the tribe’s safety.
Muckwa Breaks his Word.
Muckwa accepts the offering, and for a while the couple have lived happily, with their two children: “one of whom was like an Indian, and the other like a bear”
(126). The marriage seems to bring the chief’s expectation of peace, but Muckwa destroys the pleasant life with his bear hunting again. Muckwa goes on hunting even though he accepts the marriage. Muckwa makes a mistake one day, hurting his
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
wife’s sister accidentally: “He found signs of bear, and soon espied a fat she-bear on the top of a tree. He shot at her with a good aim, and she fell, pierced by his unerring arrow. He went up to her, and found it was his sister-in-law, who reproached him with his cruelty, and told him to return to his own people” (126). After hurting the bear, Muckwa returns to his home, and he is as tranquil as if nothing had happened.
However, the bear chief is told the news and thus wants to kill Muckwa in revenge.
Muckwa’s wife tries to rescue him from the angary father, and she succeeds in
saving her husband. The she-bear is successfully in rescuing Muckwa’s life this time, but another trial comes to their life later.
If there had not been the hunting behavior, the couple has kept a pleasant life.
However, nothing comes out as the she-bear has wished. After Muckwa’s wife rescues him from the revenge father, another event takes place. The couple lives in a large tamarack tree for the whole winter, and a party of hunters find them and attempt to kill them. These hunters’ aims are bears, so the she-bear’s family is in danger. Without a choice, the she-bear tells Muckwa that “’[s]ince you have lived among us,’ said she, ‘we have nothing but illfortune; you have killed my sister; and now your friends have followed your steps to our retreats to kill us. The Indian and the bear cannot live together in the same lodge, for the Master of Life has appointed for them different habitations.’” (126). The she-bear is dissatisfied with Muckwa’s
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
behavior and that of his people, even though she rescued him from her father.
Because of Muckwa, his hunter friends come to kill the bears, too. Thus, Muckwa has no alternative choice but to leave them, or he and his friends will get the she-bear family killed one day. Muckwa takes the she-bear’s suggestion for the bears’ security, returning with his son to his own people. The separation of her family members makes the she-bear sorrowful, for the mother must love her another child. However, the child has to leave with the father.
Fuller’s feminist attitude toward the marital issue is shown that the she-bear cannot deicide her own life. She accepts an arranged marriage, and her married life is bound by children and housework. The wife has to take care of the children by herself; Fuller asks that “[i]s it not pathetic; the picture of the mother carrying off the child that was like herself into the deep, cool caves, while the other, shivering with cold, cried after her in vain” (127)? Fuller’s depiction suggests that it is difficult to balance the two children’s need for a helpless mother. That is a pathetic scene for a mother who has no other choice but see her child crying vainly. The she-bear is akin to the traditional women in the nineteenth century; many of whom stay in the house to look after children, and men still can have their own business or recreation outside. In this case, Muckwa goes out to hunt and to move freely.
As for the she-bear, she has to go out to supply the family with provisions: “As
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
the autumn advanced, the bears began to go out in search of acorns, and then the she-bear said to Muckwa, ‘Stay at home here and watch our house, while I go to gather some nuts’” (126). The she-bear, alternatively, only goes out to gather food for family. Nevertheless, Muckwa prefers to “go off to a distance and resume his favorite bear-hunting” (126). There is a significant difference between the role of the couple plays. In the aspect of mobility and freedom, Muckwa’s situation is like Sylvain; they have their outside business or recreation. In contrast to their wives, they can move freely, and the wives are not as free as their husbands.
There are several ways to discuss the she-bear’s miseries. Firstly, Fuller
describes the pathetic scene about how the mother has to take care of the children by herself. This concept echoes the Mill’s statement that it is often seen as a feminine duty to take care children. Moreover, the bear has to go out to gather nuts. The she-bear’s situation here is similar to that of Mariana because both of them play the role of the mistress of the house; one is expected by her husband, and the she-bear shoulders the whole household chores involuntary because Females have been regarded as the mistress of the house after marriage. This ingrained idea is deeply affecting females’ liberty. For a long time, women are men’s accessories; they do not share the same rights as men, such as liberty and autonomy.
There is an expectation for women to be responsible for their family, and it is
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
not easy to get rid of the duty for those women who have to share their husbands’
chores to become “the partner of toils and cares10.” Most of the women in the nineteenth century are stuck in this expectation, including the she-bear. After she marries Muckwa, like Mariana, the she-bear loses liberty after marriage. Therefore, Fuller puts emphasis on liberty, especially for females: “It is for that which is the birthright of every being capable to receive it,—the freedom, the religious, the intelligent freedom of the universe, to use its means; to learn its secret as far as nature has enabled them, with God alone for their guide and their judge” (Women in
the Nineteenth Century 31). Fuller indicates that human beings are given the right of
freedom. As a Transcendental feminist, Fuller, like many of other Transcendental writers, believes in the divinity of humanity, and in the individual’s share of the Divine mind. It is linked to the right of freedom/liberty; women have the right to share it certainly. Nevertheless, women are bound by the constraints of social expectations, so their freedom/liberty is forfeited.
Secondly, separation from one of her children is also the cause of the she-bear’s misery. It is natural for a mother to love her children, so the mother does not want to leave one of her children behind. However, she has no an alternative choice but to see the child go with the father. Muckwa is supposed to meet the human child needs,
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
so the child has to go with the father. Thus, the she-bear’s miseries come from the two reasons: one is to perform her role of being the “head” of the house; the other is her separation from the Indian child.
Conclusion
Fuller’s feminist attitude is exemplified in the two stories of the two females in
SL. Fuller depicts their difficulties after marriage. Although the second case’s
leading role is not a human, she experiences a series of tests in her marriage. The folklore inspires Fuller to ponder over what difficulties are facing in their marriage, for both Mariana and the she-bear have their own issues in their marriages. Despite the fact that the two females are the heads of their houses, their roles steal away their freedom and self-development. Fuller tries to protest against females’ bondage in their marriages, and she is successful in convincing us that females have more limitations after getting married through the two examples in SL.
Although the two figures share some miseries after marriage, their agonies are somehow different. Mariana suffers from Sylvain’s indifference little by little, which generates her mental disease. Mariana’s anxieties are caused by her husband’s little attention. In the case of the she-bear, Muckwa breaks the contract and brings his wife’s anguishes. Moreover, the she-bear’s miseries are linked to the external
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
community, which means the she-bear’s decisions are related to the entire bear group, so she has the responsibility for the whole tribe.11
This travelogue is not only just about the natural scenery Fuller enjoys but it also mentions human affairs—particularly female anxieties in the patriarchal society.
I present the two females’ anxieties, explaining their similarities and dissimilarities. I will explore how Fuller and other feminists might suggest their potential cures in the next chapter. The cures can be relevant to Fuller’s perspectives, since some feminists of her times raise suggestions to deal with female hardship. Their suggestions can strengthen the female mind and foster female emotional and economic
independences.
11 I will discuss the interaction between the she-bear and her group in the third chapter further. The