The Fullness of Life

What awaits us after death? A question a lot of people ask themselves and have different beliefs about. In her short story “The Fullness of Life,” which was published in Scribner’s Magazine in December 1893, Edith Wharton offers one possibility of what life after death might look like. In the story a woman dies and finds herself standing in front of the Spirit of Life in heaven, faced with a decision for eternity.

In the first chapter, the last thoughts of the woman’s life are described. She is about to die, comforting herself by thinking about the fact that now at least she never has to hear the creaking of her husband’s horrible boots again and that no one will bother her about next day’s dinner (Lewis 12). She feels herself sinking into darkness (12), and then ”it’s all over” (12). The name of the deceased woman is never mentioned in the story, neither is the name of her husband.

In the second chapter, the woman finds herself in heaven after seeing a flood of light breaking through the darkness. She is glad about the fact that “[…] death is not the end after all” (13). Looking around, she is delighted by the glorious view spreading out in front of her.

“How beautiful! How satisfying!” She murmured. “Perhaps now I shall really know what it is to live (13).”

While speaking, the woman notices herself standing in front of the Spirit of Life, who heard her murmuring and hence questions her about her life and why she feels that she never really knew what it meant to live (13). She reports that her life on earth wasn’t too bad, but that she never experienced “the fullness of life (13).” The Spirit of Life is surprised, as she was married, and asks her if she did not find the fullness of life with her husband.

The woman negates, and describes her marriage as “a very incomplete affair (14).”

Further, she admits that her husband could never satisfy her wishes and, even worse, never tried to. To further express her feelings, the woman uses a metaphor and compares herself with a house full of rooms—a house, which her husband entered, but never bothered to walk any further into than the “family sitting room”(14). This room though, she felt, everyone could enter and thus it was nothing special that her husband entered it. The woman further explains that she and her husband never got along very well and did not have much in common. While she is a lover of art and literature, he was only ever interested in dinner and his railway novels and therefore they did not have a lot to talk about. She also complains that he did not have good manners and always wore creaking boots.

After unloading all of these complaints, the Spirit of life wants to know which moments in life she appreciated. She replies that there were only a few moments in her life where she felt happy as “sometimes to a verse of Dante or of Shakespeare; sometimes to a picture or sunset [ … ] ” (15), but her happiest moment was when she spent an evening in the Church of Or San Michele—an existing church in Florence, Italy.

She tells the Spirit of life about her day in Florence in great detail, talking about all the art she saw in the church and the beautiful atmosphere created by the light and colors there. Her time was memorable; however, she would have enjoyed it even more with someone by her side who understood her, instead of a husband who had no interest in the beautiful place at all.

When the woman finishes her narration, the Spirit of Life offers her a compensation for her dissatisfying life and introduces her to her soul mate whom she may spend all of eternity with. According to the Spirit of Life, those who do not find their true soul mate on earth will find them in heaven. The woman is overwhelmed by emotion and instantly feels a connection to the man she is introduced to. They understand each other, even without many words, and when they talk it seems as if they have known each other for a lifetime. They share the same beliefs and views on any topic they choose to discuss.

"After a storm in autumn have you never seen --" he asks.

"Yes, it is curious how certain flowers suggest certain painters -- the perfume of the carnation, Leonardo ; that of the rose, Titian ; the tuberose, Crivelli -- "

"I never supposed that anyone else had noticed it."

"Have you never thought -- "

"Oh, yes, often and often; but I never dreamed that anyone else had."(17)

They talk about artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, and literature, and how wonderful it is to find someone who truly understands one’s feelings. But then her kindred soul starts to make plans about building a home for their eternity together, and that is the turning point of the story because she still feels a conjugal fidelity to her earthly husband.

"A home," she repeated, slowly, "a home for you and me to live in for all eternity?"

"Why not, love? Am I not the soul that yours has sought?"

"Y-yes -- yes, I know -- but, don't you see, home would not be like home to me, unless -- "

"Unless?" he wonderingly repeated.

She did not answer, but she thought to herself, with an impulse of whimsical inconsistency, "Unless you slammed the door and wore creaking boots."(18)

The woman’s kindred soul then describes what he imagines their home might be like and which books they could read together. She is torn between her loyalty to her husband and spending eternity with her soul mate, but she cannot just forget her husband. She turns away from her kindred soul and asks the Spirit of Life if her husband will also find his soul mate in heaven, but the Spirit of Life explains that for her husband, she is his soul mate, and the Spirit cannot tell her what exactly will happen with him in heaven.

For her it is plain that her husband will never be happy without her and she knows that she must wait for him. The Spirit tries to convince her that her husband will not change his ways, and that her life will be the same as it was before —unfulfilling, perhaps But she defends her husband and insists that she “shouldn’t feel at home without him (19).” She then tells her heavenly soul mate that she cannot go with him and decides to wait for her husband, convinced that her husband would have waited for her, too, if their positions were reversed. The Spirit of Life once again tries to warn her.

"But consider," warned the Spirit, "that you are now choosing for eternity. It is a solemn moment."

"Choosing!" she said, with a half-sad smile. "Do you still keep up here that old fiction about choosing? I should have thought that you knew better than that. How can I help myself? He will expect to find me here when he comes, and he would never believe you if you told him that I had gone away with someone else -- never, never (20)."

Even in heaven, she still feels responsible for her husband and there is no other choice for her than waiting for him, and so she sits down alone and “listens for the creaking of his boots (20).”

Sources, Research articles and further reading:

Farwell, Tricia M. “The Fullness of Life”. Love and death in Edith Wharton's fiction . New York: Peter Lang, 2006. Print. Modern American literature : new approaches v. 48. 13-23
Griffin, Joseph. America's social classes in the writings of Edith Wharton: An analysis of her short stories . Lewiston, N.Y: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009. Print. 7, 8, 378-381, 424-425
Kornetta, Reiner. “The Fullness of Life”. Das Korsett im Kopf: Ehe und Ökonomie in den Kurzgeschichten Edith Whartons . Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1996. Print. Düsseldorfer Beiträge aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Bd. 225-2
Sneider, Jill. “Edith Wharton: Vision and Perception in Her Short Stories.” (2012) Electronic Theses and Disertations. Paper728. 24–25. ( Online Version available)
Lewis, R.W.B, ed. The Collected Short Stories of Edith Wharton . Volume 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1968. Print. 12-20

Image(s) used:

Bierstadt - Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains - 1868Public Domain.