The+Verge

Original Author: Jessica Shaw, ENG348 FL09 Revision: Susan Glaspell’s play //The Verge// can be best described as a feminist tragedy. Claire is the central character, a woman who feels trapped by the typical female role. Claire reflects her feelings through her greenhouse, but in the end it no longer comforts her and she goes mad. Like herself she goes about trying to make create new flowers, much like she could do to herself. Claire suffers from the restraints society has put on her. We are introduced to Claire in the first act as a very outspoken person. She has removed the heat from the house, where her husband and two other houseguests are, to put it in her greenhouse in the middle of a snow storm at that. Harry, her husband, desperate for some warmth moves the breakfast table to the greenhouse, making his wife none too happy, telling him, “I’ll not have you in my place!” (10). When two other men join the breakfast, Claire continues with her less than shy actions. Harry questions her hostess skills, she tells him, “ I care nothing about your ease. Or about Dick’s ease” (13). It is apparent that Claire does not fit into the mold of what a woman should be as a wife or a hostess. Nor does she fit the role of a loving mother. We find that Claire daughter Elizabeth has been raised by Claire’s sister Adelaide, who is “…fitted to rear children” (47). In the following acts it is found that she is not in love with her husband, but Tom a houseguest of hers. This adds to her entrapment of the world she lives in. It is easy to see how she feels trapped and needs her own place. Claire challenges the norms of her society which is no easy task. All of this woman’s struggles are reflected in her actions of attempts to create new plants. The names of the plants themselves are telling, “Breathe of Life” (15) or “the Edge Vine” (6). Claire is waiting to receive her breathe of life, so that she may be able to live as she truly wishes. By the end of the play Claire destroys the Edge Vine and is in fact on edge (55). Claire feels that she is continually pushed to the edge. We see this when Claire loses it in the company of her daughter. Later it comes completely to head when she is so gone that she kills Tom, her true love and then herself (116). The Breathe of Life is the plant that Claire has created, it is her pride (113), but she just waits around for it to flower and never does. Claire is waiting for the breathe of life to come to her and does so in vain. She never sees it flower, she makes her escape too soon when she is pushed over the edge. //The Verge// begins with an outspoken and seemingly strong woman, but ends in tragedy. The feminist feel of the play is shadowed with the pain and suffering Claire comes to. She is a person who goes against the grain and faces consequences for it. She wishes to live differently than how society thinks she should. It is no easy task to be so significantly different. We learn more about her struggles through her creations and what she names them. The roles of a woman have trapped Claire in a life she hates and in the end must escape from.
 * The Verge **

Glaspell, Susan. //The Verge//. Boston, MA: Small, Maynard, and Company Publishers, 1922. //Google Books//. Google Books, n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2009
 * Works Cited **