By Samantha Silverman, Class of 2018

As I finished reading the final lines of Edith Wharton’s Souls Belated, I was interrupted by the faint thumping of heavy bass coming from my sister’s room. After a few seconds, I registered the unmistakable voice of Beyonce imploring “all the single ladies” to “put [their] hands up.” In an unusual moment of academic/pop culture hybridization, I began to wonder what the Queen B would think of the decision that Lydia makes at the end of the story. As I considered this question, I sauntered into my sister’s room and began listening to Beyonce’s story of being jilted by a former lover and deciding to embrace the freedom of being young, beautiful, and available. It was the first time I had bothered to listen to the lyrics carefully. By the last verse of the song, I realized that it's message is far more ambiguous than I had originally thought. When the song first came out, I made the simplistic assumption that it was a celebration of “singlehood” and the merits of being able to shamelessly shake your butt in the club. However, by announcing to the men of the world that “if [they] liked it then [they] should have put a ring on it,” Beyonce is implicitly suggesting that there is an ideal endgame for single women—marriage. It was with this realization that I began to imagine a fictional conversation between Beyonce and Lydia. How would Lydia respond to the slightly conservative, pro-marriage stance that Beyonce echoes by the end of “All the Single Ladies?” I have a feeling that Lydia would feel deeply conflicted by the central thesis of Beyonce’s song. Although Lydia seems to surrender to the idea of marrying Gannett by the end of the story, she does so with a heavy heart, knowing that she is agreeing to a life that will―sooner or later―strip her of the autonomy and freedom with which she hopes to live her life.

        When we first meet Lydia, she is in the same basic position as the recently “freed” protagonist in Beyonce’s song—excited to be unlocked from the shackles of her previous relationship and ready to indulge in the next phase of her life. Unlike the protagonist of the song, however, Lydia does not cry tears “for three good years” in response to her breakup. In fact, the reader gets the impression that Lydia’s divorce is a cause for celebration. Wharton writes that “Nothing mattered, in those first days of supreme deliverance, but the fact that she was free; and not so much...that freedom had released her from Tillotson as that it had given her to Gannett” (2). The word “deliverance” is particularly meaningful because it implies that Gannett rescued her from the soulless “fifth avenue” existence of the Tillotson family. The boredom that characterizes Lydia’s unremarkable first husband is so powerful that it fills every room of his family’s meticulously furnished mansion. It is in this luxurious prison that Lydia is forced to listen to her husband speak endlessly about such exciting and provocative topics such as how often “he wore galoshes on damp days, his punctuality at meals...his elaborate precautions against burglars and contagious diseases” and probably the regularity of his bowel movements (2). Compared to this living, breathing cure for insomnia, Gannett must have seemed like a shot of adrenaline. Gannet is literally the “brother” in the club who encounters Beyonce’s protagonist and reminds her of everything she is missing out on.

Unlike Beyonce, who suggests that the goal of a worthwhile courtship is to have a “ring put on it,” Lydia seems to perceive marriage as an institution that will stifle her independence—regardless of the quality of her husband. Gannett, who apparently belongs to the Beyonce-school of relationships, makes the gentlemanly—if annoying—assumption that marriage to Lydia is a forgone conclusion. Although he shares Lydia’s immediate desire to drift around Europe from villa to villa, he wants to eventually settle down. In a tense exchange between Lydia and Gannett, it becomes clear that they have drastically different interpretations of Lydia’s newfound freedom. To Lydia, freedom is the ability to pursue her life without having to consider the rules and obligations of married life. Gannett, however, views Lydia’s divorce as something that frees her up to marry him. When Lydia emphatically declares, “But I don’t want to marry you,” Gannett is devastated. Lydia tries to explain her stance by stating, “If I'd known you as a girl that would have been a real marriage! But now this vulgar fraud...upon a society we despised and laughed at ...don't you see what a cheap compromise it is?” (5). The words “despised and laughed at” are particularly relevant because they underscore the idea that marriage and married culture are concepts that both Gannett and Lydia have ridiculed as part of their courtship. One might even conclude that it is the rejection of the supposedly sacred institution of marriage that gives their relationship it's fire. They are like the unmarried modern couple that is able to go out till the crack of dawn, stumble into an Uber at 4am, and flip a symbolic middle finger at all the married couples who have to wake up early and go to Home Depot to buy paint for the new nurseries they are putting into their suburban homes. Lydia is repulsed by the idea of willingly giving up such freedom—or at least the late 19th century version of it—and rejoining the cult of married people from which she has just escaped. Gannett, however, seems unmoved by her perspective and utters words that hover over the rest of the story: “Life is made up of compromises” (6). Sadly, Lydia seems poised to make one of these compromises by the end of the story.

As the story progresses, Lydia comes to realize that the mores and expectations of late 19th century American high-society--particularly those that have to do with marriage--have embedded themselves so deeply within her mind that she cannot escape them. Lydia comes to this realization after spending some time at the Hotel Bellosguardo. In an attempt to avoid scandal, she and Gannett pretend to be married. However, the “act” eventually becomes a little too real as Lydia and Gannett comfortably settle into the rhythms of their fake married life. The terror and disappointment of this realization are illustrated when Lydia confesses that “I fancied it was for your sake that I insisted on staying because you thought you could write here; and perhaps just at first that really was the reason. But afterwards I wanted to stay myself [because] I loved it” (17). In acknowledging this uncomfortable truth, Lydia also confronts the possibility that she is a fraud. Though she never explicitly says so, she must wonder if she is like the “prototyp[ical] bores” that Gannet supposedly rescued her from (18). Rather than immediately surrendering to this idea, Lydia does the one and only thing that can rescue her from married life—she decides to leave Gannett. However, right before she walks onto the ship that will take her away from Gannett and all that he represents, something draws her back. I suppose there’s a possibility that she forgot her Dramamine, but I suspect it is something else. Quite frankly, I think what Lydia comes back for is security. Lydia is exchanging the uncertainty and danger of singlehood for the stability of marriage. She’s clearly not happy about it, but as she re-enters Gannett’s room, she surrenders to the familiar instead of embracing the unknown.

Let’s get back to the imaginary conversation between Beyonce and Lydia that I mentioned in the first paragraph. I think that the Queen B would console the soon-to-be Mrs. Gannett by reminding her that getting a “ring put on it” is a way to ensure that you are properly valued by your significant other. Unfortunately, I doubt this would make Lydia feel much better about her predicament.  She almost certainly loves Gannett but can’t have him on her terms. She may agree to marriage by the end of the short story, but it’s a moment of resignation. Although Lydia acknowledges that some small part of her likes the idea of being married to Gannett, this part will be in constant conflict with the part that almost gets on the boat. This is where my lack of experience prevents me from commenting further. I am not sure how someone can live her life constantly second guessing a decision as important as marriage. It seems like torture. Perhaps this is the lesson that I’ll keep stored in my memory bank.