Finding Margaret Fuller: A Novel

“Well, then…love is a bonding of the souls […] But marriage as a legal institution is a bonding of the physical bodies. Once one’s soul no longer feels itself bound to the other, why, then, doesn’t marriage become a sort of entrapment of the body and the being? For that reason I chose the word unnatural.”

Margaret explains her philosophy of marriage to Waldo shortly after they first meet. She makes the distinction between the emotion of love and the contract of marriage. One stems from the spirit, the other from the rule of law. Throughout the novel, Margaret’s critics often describe her as being unnatural. Here, she turns the tables.

“So you’re just like them. All of you…great thinkers…with your desire to remake the world according to your great visions. You all exist on another plane, I suppose, and I’m down here, a mortal, walking with my heavy feet on this earth.”

Lidian explains her perspective to Margaret. She sees herself as the practical one who maintains the Emerson household, allowing her husband to flit about, spinning his philosophical theories. These words convey a sense of bitterness that the contributions of those who support the lives of geniuses are never respected. They’re merely the mundane drudges that enable ethereal intellectuals to survive in the real world.

“I’ve always known that my life is to be one of movement. Seeking […] You’ve shown me that I don’t always need to feel alone. But in fact, I might even hope to encounter kindred souls on my journey.”

At many points, Margaret speaks of her rootless existence. She’s constantly on a quest to learn and experience more. During her travels, she has always felt isolated and misunderstood because of her “unfeminine” intellect. However, her relationship with Emerson changes her perspective by breaking her out of her self-imposed isolation. Perhaps this explains the attraction of Concord long after it ceases to be helpful to Margaret’s own development.

“The bright and beaming light of Waldo’s joy, both professional and domestic, shines an unpleasant and too-bright glare onto the inescapable fact that my own professional and domestic situations are less rich than I would like them to be.”

While Margaret wants to pursue a life of the mind, her gender interferes with her ability to do so. The male transcendentalists all have women who support and maintain them. Margaret doesn’t expect to find a male willing to subordinate his own interests in favor of hers. This is one of her many comments pointing out the differences in the lives of male and female intellectuals.

“Each of these girls deserves to live for more than simply the fate of debutante and then bride. They should aspire to more than merely to dress and go visiting, to gossip over tea and dinner parties. They should improve themselves, and do good, and live for their highest nature.”

Margaret is considering her cohort of bright female pupils. She intends to teach them something more than proper etiquette. Learning to think independently will enable them to make better choices about their future paths in life. Her reference to “highest nature” suggests that females can make a greater contribution to society than simply by giving birth.

“I am the one who in fact lives my life for something larger than myself. These midnight walks to watch giraffes. To see the sunrise over Walden. Or a butterfly laying eggs—I am the one raising the young of our own species. I am in fact working to make the world a more beautiful and—more important—a more just place.”

This is another comment in which Lidian airs her grievances about her role in the Emerson household. Significantly, she doesn’t criticize her husband or his male friends for not being of more practical value. Instead, she levels this criticism solely at Margaret. Presumably, she believes that women are destined to support their spouses. Their contribution to the world isn’t intellectual but physical. In Margaret’s view, however, birthing and raising children is important but shouldn’t preclude other options. Lidian is threatened by the fact that Margaret has made a different choice.

“Thoughts and transcendental experiences will not put firewood on my family’s hearth. For all of these reasons, I cannot give myself up to these philosophies, this Concord creed of Transcendentalism, wholeheartedly.”

Margaret again expresses her frustration at her limited financial circumstances. She must support her entire family through her writing work. Emerson is independently wealthy, while Thoreau and Hawthorne can rely on their own families for funds. In addition, the idealistic nature of the transcendental philosophy suggests that mere material concerns are unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Margaret doesn’t have the luxury of indulging in such fancies.

“If Mr. Ripley accepts this work, I will be a published writer. I will have a book, and perhaps even a check. And with that, I hope, I will have a new freedom to travel into the world. And perhaps, someday, the power to change that world.”

Already in this quote, we see Margaret’s growing awareness that words have the power to shape reality. At the same time, she’s focused on the need to receive payment for her writing. She can’t hope to change the world if she’s a penniless pauper. Philosophy goes out the window when the wolf is at the door.

“But a man like Nathaniel Hawthorne is never going to marry me. Margaret Fuller. What did my father call me? The Much that always wants More. I am a woman who is too unapologetic in my desire to write, to think, to work. I am a woman who is unafraid to speak with the men and support my own life. I want too much.”

Much as Margaret enjoys the company of intellectual men, she’s realistic enough to know that their pride would never allow a wife to outshine them. Margaret is a woman ahead of her time. The men of her generation aren’t ready for a true partnership in marriage. Husbands lead, and wives follow. Sadly, Margaret is correct in her belief that she wants too much.

“One of the fruits of more independent thinking would be a greater role for women in our society, I do believe that. One of the results of throwing off this rigid dogma against which Waldo rails would be a willingness to allow women to think, and write, perhaps even someday to lead.”

Margaret sees the value of Waldo’s emphasis on self-reliance. The transcendentalists look within for divine guidance rather than to a clergyman on a pulpit. Even though Margaret dismisses the more impractical aspects of her friends’ philosophy, she knows that their criticism of the status quo can benefit women indirectly.

“While New England’s intellectual elite has scoffed at Waldo—and all of us Transcendentalists—for some time now, the New York literary and scholarly world is more diverse, more welcoming of a broader array of voices and arguments.”

Once Margaret arrives in New York, she comes to understand the provincial nature of Concord’s intellectual elites. Massachusetts was founded upon a Puritan ideology of suppressing dissension in all its forms. However, New York didn’t spring from the same cultural matrix. Margaret finds an even greater celebration of diversity once she leaves the US altogether.

“Here they might see just how far we are from having any answers, particularly on the matter of finding happiness. Because, as it turns out, even we Transcendentalists are making ourselves miserable.”

The Concord enclave tends to view itself as spiritually superior to the rest of the world. Waldo is free to spin philosophical theories without the necessity of testing them in the real world. Margaret rightly points out that human fallibility exists even in the rarefied atmosphere of Concord.

“If we will build our country with beauty and goodness, if we will allow all, our men and our women, even the children of those now enslaved, to seize the promise that is offered by our rich and bountiful lands, then America can truly live up to its promise of greatness.”

Margaret tells Horace Greeley about her travels through America’s heartland. She sees the unlimited potential of the land’s natural resources but recognizes that its human resources are also vast. The Declaration of Independence offered a promise of freedom that as yet only applies to white men. Margaret is suggesting that its promise to the rest of America has yet to be fulfilled.

“It’s also, I hope, a rallying cry. A chant for female expression in the place of repression. It’s an invitation for readers, both male and female, to take on the hard work of adventure, of wandering, of self-exploration and expansion.”

Margaret talks about the book she’s currently writing to describe her travels around the Great Lakes. She explicitly sees it as a tale of female adventure at a time when venturesome females are censured rather than applauded. Boldness is regarded as unfeminine, at least partially because bold women don’t require permission to become explorers of both the inner and outer landscape.

“‘Life here slumbers and steals on like the river,’ I write. ‘It’s a very good place for a sage, but not for the activist. Life here in Concord is lacking in Discord.’”

Despite Margaret’s frequent returns to Concord, she has a love-hate relationship with the place. In part, this is because of her complicated relationship with Waldo. As long as she remains enthralled by the great sage, she doesn’t move forward with her own life. While Waldo is an armchair philosopher, Margaret is an activist who must conquer her own inertia first.

“I am planting seeds with my words, in the hopes that my writing will burst into new life in the minds of my readers, in the form of independent thoughts and important questions.”

Margaret now works for Horace Greeley as a literary editor, but her mission in life has changed little. She seeks to open minds by using the power of her words, just as she did through her Conversations for women in Boston. While her job as a journalist pays the bills, she looks forward to the future. Every word she writes is intended to have significance somewhere down the road.

“I had expected more from the great Queen Victoria […] She, a mother, speaks openly about her love of family […] Yet her land is filled with starving children and downtrodden women working in factories.”

Earlier in the novel, Margaret mentions how pleased she is to see a female monarch on the British throne. Presumably, she believes that a woman will more likely take pity on the downtrodden than a male monarch. However, not all women think alike, much less act in solidarity with one another. Lidian is loyal to her husband. Victoria is loyal to her social class, not equality, regardless of her gender.

“People have been divided and separated, purposefully so, by foreign occupiers who wished to prevent a feeling of Italian unity. All so that they might keep their city-states and principalities, their thrones and footholds in this prosperous land.”

This observation about the tactics of autocrats seeking to control countries through divide-and-conquer strategies could just as easily apply to the men who seek to control women. Isolating women in the domestic sphere and placing them in competition with one another on the marriage market is the same tactic. It plays out in the home rather than in the public square.

“I no longer feel the need to voluntarily wear the shackles that, for more than thirty-seven years of my life, I’ve accepted. If George Sand can write and speak and love without fear of condemnation, why must I live in fear of offending?”

Margaret has just decided to part ways with her chaperones during her trip to Europe. The notion that a 37-year-old woman isn’t competent to travel alone is ludicrous to a modern sensibility but was common in the early 19th century. Margaret doesn’t fully realize the shackles she wore in the US until she leaves the continent for the first time. Traveling is a broadening experience and, in this case, also a liberating one.

“His people march to him with songs and flags, and he meets them with bullets. All the while, he cowers behind his walls and his hired guards. He’s not a father to the people. He’s a tyrant who will cling to power by whatever means necessary, even if it means spilling our blood.”

The papal massacre has just occurred, and the people of Rome no longer trust Pio Nono. Margaret notes that a spiritual leader who controls physical territory is just as prone to greed for power as his secular counterparts on Europe’s thrones. Again, an obvious parallel exists between women’s struggle for liberty from domesticity and the people of Rome defying the despots of church and state.

“This pilgrim who has filled her life by wandering, this butterfly who never had a place to land, who never had people to call her own, I now have the two people from whom I will never be parted. Giovanni and Nino, they are my home.”

At more than one point in the novel, Margaret describes herself (or others describe her) as a butterfly. Her intellectual curiosity seems to make the restlessness of her existence inevitable, yet she continues to yearn for home and family. Sadly, this quote also foreshadows her end. She’ll never part from Giovanni and Nino because they’re fated to soon die together.

“I know this work is important. Not just for me, and not just to honor the Romans. This work is important for Americans. For all freedom-loving people to see how the Romans fought. To see that freedom is something we ought never to take for granted.”

Margaret’s caution against taking freedom for granted now seems prescient. With global autocracy on the rise, democratic nations can’t afford to become complacent. Similarly, women’s rights, once given, can be revoked. No one should be lulled into a false sense of security about the permanence of freedom.

“‘There are so few of us, you see,’ Elizabeth says, once I’ve finished. ‘Sand is one of us. Mary Wollstonecraft. The fallen women who are willing to speak out. But if we do it, my dear, then we shall invite others to join us in our boldness. And soon there shall be more. And then the next day, even more.’”

During Margaret’s time, advocating for women’s rights was still a novelty, if not an outright absurdity. Elizabeth Cady Standon and Susan B. Anthony were very young, and no one yet took women’s suffrage seriously. When Elizabeth Barrett Browning makes this statement, she’s uttering a prophecy. A handful of women who dared to speak out were responsible for changing the world.