I-narrator (All Souls')

The first-person narrator in “All Souls’” is also the cousin of the story’s protagonist, Sara Clayburn. In general, the narrator tells his/her version of what his/her cousin Sara has experienced during the mysterious thirty-six hours at Whitegates. The narrator makes clear that he/she is not retelling the story in his/her “[…] cousin’s words, for they were too confused and fragmentary […],[1] but as he/she “[…] built it up gradually out of her [Sara’s] half-avowals and nervous reticences.”[2]

What makes the narrator special is that his/her gender cannot be identified. One the one hand, Haytock argues that “All Souls’” is one out of two stories in which Wharton used a female first-person narrator. [3] On the other hand, Beer[4] and Fedorko[5] claim that the gender of the narrator cannot be identified. Haytock’s argument is based on the fact that Sara Clayburn is undressed and put to bed by the narrator.[6] Naturally, this would suggest a woman. However, the reader cannot be absolutely sure about the narrator’s gender because there are no other clear references within the story. Because Sara Clayburn and the narrator are related and also because it was an extreme situation, when Sara was undressed and put to bed, it could, perhaps, also be possible that the narrator is male. Because the story lacks other references to the gender of the narrator, the arguments of Beer and Fedorko are stronger at this point. Therefore, the narrator is not described as male or female in this thesis.

In the preface of “All Souls’” the reader also learns that the unnamed narrator of the story is a literary persons who studies the supernatural.[7] This becomes especially clear in the following quote:

“I read the other day in a book by a fashionable essayist that ghosts went out when electric light came in. What nonsense! The writer, though he is fond of dabbling, in a literary way, in the supernatural, hasn’t even reached the threshold of his subject.”[8]

Furthermore, the narrator explains in the preface of All Souls’ that in his/her opinion ghosts are more likely to haunt “calm matter-of fact people”[9] like Sara. That the narrator has literary knowledge about the supernatural becomes also obvious in the last part of the story when he/she explains that Agnes comes from the Isle of Skye and then suggests that Agnes could have served as a channel for communication with the supernatural. Furthermore, the narrator states that the “[…] Hebrides, as everyone knows, are full of the supernatural […]”[10] and that the strange woman was possibly possessed by a witch, who summoned Agnes and the other servants to a coven at midnight on the All Souls’ Eve, when the mysterious incident started to occur.

The narrator, who is not only the cousin of Sara Clayburn, but also cousin to her deceased husband, Jim Clayburn, appears loyal and attentive towards the Clayburns. That he/she knows his/her cousin Sara and the Clayburns well becomes particularly obvious in the preface of “All Souls’,” when the narrator recites several quotes from Sara and also informs the reader about the family’s history. Moreover, the narrator does not hesitate to come immediately to Whitegates, in order to stay with Sara, when she called him/her after she had experienced the mysterious weekend. Additionally, the narrator instantly accommodates Sara at his/her flat after she flees from Whitegates and takes care of her.

While it is impossible to ascertain the gender of the nameless I-narrator of “All Souls’,” it can be assumed that he/she is a literary person and well-read in the field of supernatural. Moreover, he/she believes that ghosts are likely to haunt calm and rational people. The narrator documents all information about the mysterious experience of his/her cousin Sara Clayburn, according to what she has told him/her. Additionally, he/she also hypothesizes about possible backgrounds of the mysterious event. Towards his/her cousin Sara, the narrator acts caring and loyal.

[1] Edith Wharton, “All Souls’,” in: The Demanding Dead – More Stories of Terror and the Supernatural, ed. Peter Haining (London: Peter Owen Publishers, 2007), 185.

[2] Ibid., 252.

[3] Jennifer Anne Haytock, Edith Wharton and the conversation of literary modernism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 84.

[4] Janet Beer, Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Studies in short fiction (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 137.

[5] Kathi Fedorko, Gender and the Gothic in the fiction of Edith Wharton (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995), 157.

[6] Wharton, “All Souls’,” 203.

[7] Beer, Studies in short fiction, 138.

[8] Wharton, “All Souls’,” 183.

[9] Ibid., 184.

[10] Ibid., 206.