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articulation of denial. Although Fuller uses the word of “nonchalance19” to describe her personality, telling us that she is emotional independently to win her own life, she leaves her husband with anger. We are not informed her sadness when she detects her husband does not cherish her; we only see her leave him swiftly. Such the leave may show her anger displeasure while discovering her husband not cherishing her. The nonchalance means her denial of an unequal relation. Besides, Fuller uses the same word of “nonchalance”
and the phrase of “an unequal relation” to describe the case of the she-bear.
Fuller connects the two figures by their traits of “nonchalance.” It is imaginable both of them to be in their dilemma because they stay in the patriarchal society.
Can the she-bear’s trait of nonchalance be her cure? Is this nonchalance equal to the bear’s emotional independence? Thus, my proceeding discussion will be the she-bear’s situation and how she shows “nonchalance” in the marriage.
An Expression of Emotional Independence: The She-Bear’s Nonchalance
My earlier argument is that emotional independence can be a cure for female anxieties or miseries, and the she-bear’s nonchalance is her way to display what emotional independence is. What is of utmost importance is that, unlike the Indian
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woman’s articulation of denial, her nonchalance is viewed as exemplifying the articulation of self-esteem, and presenting her sophistication. She is omniscient to know what she has to do in any occasions. She protects her family to ensure their livelihood: “Stay at home here and watch our house, while I go to gather some nuts.
She departed and was gone for some days with her people” (126). We see that the nonchalant attitude of the she-bear is given by her order imposed on Muckwa. Her tone shows her self-esteem and autonomy. Although this order the quality of having an understanding of ways to find food, it is a process in which we learn how she exercises will-power over her state in the family. She acts and reacts not only autonomously, but also well-preparedly. Her manner of being well-preparedly suggests a great deal degree of sophistication. She sophisticatedly deals with what she comes to her. My further discussion is about her saving Muckwa. The she-bear protects her family to keep them safe, which is held as her sophistication.
Her sophistication finds expression in her will to protect not only Muckwa, but also the whole family. It is clear that she saves Muckwa to avoid the damage, which manifests that she ensures the safety of the whole family. When the-she bear goes to find food for few days, Muckwa gets tired of staying at home, and then he goes hunting. Unfortunately, Muckwa kills his sister-in-law accidentally. The old chief
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knows what Muckwa does, so he wants to kill him in revenge;20 the she-bear attempts to find means to rescue her husband. She provides her family with insurance against injury and damages.
Different from Mariana, the she-bear protects and dominates her family, being a competent mistress of the house. Although Mariana is the mistress of the house, her conducts are influenced by Sylvain more or less. In contrast, the she-bear manages the whole family whenever her family members need her: “The winter season now coming on, Muckwa prepared to accompany his wife into winter quarters; they selected a large tamarack tree, which was hollow, and lived there comfortably until a party of hunters discovered their retreat” (126). Muckwa’s preparing to accompany his wife suggests that the she-bear plays a major role to conduct the family; “a large tamarack tree” is the bear’s residence, which further proves that the she-bear is the head of the house.
The she-bear is competent as being the head of the house to keep their family members safe from being harmed or injured by those hunters. A party of hunters find them and try to kill them, and the she-bear saves all: “The she-bear told Muckwa to remain quietly in the tree, and that she would decoy off the hunters. She unharmed,
20 The event is as follows: “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 her 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. Muckwa returned quietly home, and pretended not to have left his lodge. However, the old
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although the hunters shot after her” (126). This head of the house is not only
responsible for the family members’ safety, but also makes a crucial decision. When a party of hunters threaten their lives, the she-bear asks Muckwa to leave: “’Since you have lived among us,’ said she, ‘we have nothing but illfortune; you have killed my sister; and now your friends have followed your footsteps to our retreats to kill us” (126). The she-bear knows that they will be more dangerous if Muckwa does not leave them. The she-bear’s sophistication and articulation are along with the trait of her self-esteem from her asking. She is confidence in her abilities and decisions, which are the ways to show her emotional independence.
This she-bear appears to transcend the traditional beliefs. It is worthy of a further look what the she-bear is set to transcend. Perhaps, Fuller tries to express her own transcending beliefs by the she-bear. This figure embodies is shown as
expressing a careless attitude toward the concept derived from the binary opposition.
That is to say, Fuller’s transcending ideas are about the transcending experiences, events, or ideas, which are special and unusual and cannot be understood in ordinary ways.
There are three points to discuss Fuller’s transcending of the conventional images. Firstly, she seems not minding the principles what are assumed right and wrong or good and bad in the case of the she-bear, which is regarded as transcending
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ideas. For example, she has rescued Muckwa from her angry father without any sentimental presage toward the killing of her sister. Fuller voices such an
unimportance: “The moral, too, of Muckwa’s return to the bear lodges, thinking to hide his sin by silence, while it was at once discerned by those connected with him, is fine” (127). Apparently, Muckwa does realize that his cruelty cannot be acceptable, so he chooses to hide the sin. However, the she-bear appears to be unconcerned about the mistake to save Muckwa; she faces these considerable events without a strong feeling deriving from her calmness. Her state of mind is being free from agitation or strong emotion, which is seen as her characteristic of nonchalance.
The moral that Fuller points out here clearly refers to the violation of the contract between Muckwa and the bear tribe’s chief. Muckwa accepts his daughter as his wife, so he should keep his promise to stop hunting. He continues hunting to mean that he breaks his words, which refers to “moral.” And, Muckwa hides his sin also to refers to “moral.” For the general public, the killing is a serious event. To forgive or not to forgive, that is a question for us, but it is not so important for this bear because she is detached the relation between right and wrong. She does these things emotionless, which is her nonchalance to bring her tranquility. Her state of mind is free from disturbance of morality to be calm and peaceful. For me, it is can be deemed as tranquility. Moreover, her feeling appears to be calm, not displaying
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anxieties from which is also the quality of nonchalance. Her nonchalant manner makes Muckwa safe from being punished by the angry father, so Fuller writes that
“[t]he moral is fine” for the she-bear.
Secondly, that this bear goes out to find food to seem as transcending the stereotypical impression that men are breadwinners and women are homemakers.
We see a female to support the family. It is also regarded as transcending women’s axiom that women exclusively pertain to the domestic space. The transcendence beyond female ascendency that free them from limitation. The fact that the she-bear finds food is a capacity to move freely of the she-bear from which Fuller through the status of this she-bear redresses the imbalance between genders. As Fuller writes in
Woman in the Nineteenth Century: “We will tell every one that you have ‘surpassed’
your sex” (19). As for the female Transcendentalist, women are not always to be the weaker party; they can even maintain the family, which is Fuller’s transcending.
Thirdly, the transcending ideas of the she-bear reveals the relation between nature and culture oppositions. Nature is mostly regarded as uncivilized or wild part free of any social, cultural, and moral constrains. On the contrary, culture is civilized or educated section in which an advanced stage of social and cultural development is seen. Nevertheless, the figure of the she-bear overthrows that concept. The bear-tribe is classified to nature, but they treat each other with respect and politeness: “He
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[Muckwa] approached the largest of them, lifted the curtain at its entrance, and went in, when he perceived the inmates to be bears, who were seated around the fire smoking. He said nothing, but seated himself also and smoked pipe which they offered him, in silence” (125). Bears do not crowd Muckwa out because of his difference; instead, they treat him kindly. Hence, we can say that this bear-tribe has the quality of being generous, helpful and treating other people in tenderness.
The she-bear shares this tribe’s convention of kindness, and there is potential for tranquility in a relation between Muckwa and the she-bear. While the she-bear appears, she is sophistically to know how to treat Muckwa amiably: “who [the she-bear] came and took off his wet moccasins and gave him dry ones” (125). It can be observed that, according to the she-bear’s sophistication and the bear-tribe’s convention, the she-bear is respectful and considerate of Muckwa. It is clear that the she-bear is in a cordial atmosphere. This proves that these bears are related to the virtuous nature of kindness and cultivation.
Fuller seems to disclose information that hunters edge out bears in every way.
In contrast to the polite manner of the bear-tribe, hunters treat the bears hostilely.
Muckwa’s behavior has incited the tribe’s anguish: “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” (126). His betrayal illustrates that he failures
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to keep his promise, so he breaks the agreement between himself and the bear chief.
Furthermore, the brutality of human culture casts great threat to the bear-tribe from the invasion hunters. The cultivated party aggresses the uncultivated one; we may ask which party is the real uncivilized one from this story? Nature belongs to the wild and uncultivated one, and culture is classified to the civilized and cultivated one. The story goes beyond the range of concept sphere to undermine the established system. It is one of the result of this story’s points.
The she-bear brings out Fuller’s transcending ideas. After experiencing a series of incidents, the she-bear decides to ask Muckwa to leave this tribe. In fact, the she-bear believes that “[t]he Indian and the bear cannot live in the same lodge, for the Master of Life has appointed for them different habitations” (126). Bears and humans cannot coexistent. With the awareness the in-coexistence, Fuller’s she-bear is set more arguably as an in-between figure to go around two categories, humans and bears, right and wrong, and culture and nature. The in-between figure designates dynamic, harmonious, and nonchalant state. The figure is clearly set to transcend the traditional concept, built in the patriarchal and in the humans’ frame. Behind the plea, lies the emancipation of females where is set to waver restriction imposed on them.
Despite the she-bear is placed in the patriarchal society, she behaves for her will instead of the values of others, putting self-reliance into practice. She is spontaneous
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to offer for her family, not from others’ wishes, which is deemed as her self-reliance.
Such self-reliance helps to find a more concrete outlet or a cure for female anxieties.
Her behaviors and nonchalance are the trait of emotional independence, too.
Conclusion
From the cases of Mariana, the Indian woman, and the she-bear, Fuller’s feminist attitude appears to be marriage of emotional independence. Their marriages are as binary oppositions—women and men or anxieties/miseries and cures.
Undoubtedly, the patriarchal society limits female self-development and freedom, so they suffer. Exploring the potential cures for these suffering women does not mean that we can solve their anxieties or miseries. Instead, we can rethink about female plight. Being autonomous and self-fulfillment can be Mariana’s cure, and the Indian woman teaches us how to be an autonomous one. The attitude of the she-bear inspires us a certain peace of calmness which renders less effective the frame of some patriarchally constructed norms. Compared with Mariana, the she-bear is more obviously seen as pertaining to a patriarchal society in which she is dominated or influenced by her father and her husband. However, the she-bear chooses to accept all, not expressing her thoughts until the hunters place the whole bear tribe in danger.
Although the she-bear’s final articulation is a crucial stand for the value of
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“autonomy,” it also brings her miseries of being separated from her family members.
Besides, we perceive Fuller uses “nonchalance” to describe both the Indian woman and the she-bear. Both of them display the different aspects of
“nonchalance.” The Indian woman’s nonchalance is with an angry rejection, and the she-bear’s nonchalance transcends the frame of some stereotypes. Fuller’s
transcending messages are within this bear. My argument comes which discovering the transcendence of binary oppositions. Fuller’s notion of transcendence as a process of unfolding revelations has been reinforced by the-bear’s nonchalance as a means of facing predicaments made of more specific that confront her. In this sense, this she-bear is regarded as a pivotal figure to solve genders’ conflicts in my overall argument.
There are a couple of meanings for Fuller’s word of “nonchalance.” Although the Indian woman makes decisions to win her own life, she leaves her husband with irritation. For the Indian woman, her articulation of denial is a kind of nonchalance, which is her way to let us know what emotional independence is. As distinct to the sense of denial and rejection, the nonchalance in she-bear’s side further conveys the involvement on things that she encounters. She becomes a subject who seemingly dominates all the circumstances. We perceive the she-bear’s self-esteem,
sophistication, and protection in her characteristics of nonchalance, which are the
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ways to show her emotional independence. Both of them present different meanings of nonchalance to let us know what emotional independence is. Their emotional independence can be cures for Mariana’s anxieties.