22 pages • 44 minutes read
Willa CatherA Wagner Matinee
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1904A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Clark
Clark is the narrator of "A Wagner Matinée," and the nephew of Georgiana and Howard Carpenter. At the time the story opens, he is living in Boston, but he spent much of his childhood working on his relatives' farm in Red Willow County, Nebraska. It was here that he developed a lasting devotion to his aunt, who not only tutored him in music and literature, but also comforted him whenever his uncle criticized him.
Cather does not reveal many details about Clark, but he is clearly a young man getting his start in the world, since he currently lives in a boardinghouse. He is a careful observer of those around him and has vivid (if not always happy)memories of his childhood; his description of his earlier self as "gangling" and "bashful" paint an image of a physically awkward boy who lived largely in his own head. His appreciation of art, as well as his affectionate pity for Georgiana, also implya sensitive and reflective nature.
Georgiana Carpenter
"A Wagner Matinée" is largely about Georgiana, Clark's elderly and rather frail aunt. She lives in Red Willow County, Nebraska with her husband, Howard, for whom she gave up her former career as a music teacher in Boston. Georgiana met Howard while visiting relatives in rural Vermont and eventually eloped with him to the frontier.
Clark's memories of growing up on the Nebraska farm suggest that Georgiana largely adapted well to her new life, becoming a capable and efficient housekeeper and mother. Nevertheless, her life for the past three decades has been one of physical hardship and emotional deprivation, and it has taken a toll on her; when Clark meets her at the train station, he describes her as looking "battered" and "semi-somnabulent." He doubts, in fact, that she will even be able to appreciate the concert he planned on attending with her. This turns out to be untrue, however, as Georgiana responds to the music with intense and painful feeling. By the time she breaks down crying at the story's conclusion, it has become clear that the total isolation of life on the Nebraska frontier has been a kind of living death for Georgiana, who is acutely sensitive to art and beauty.
Howard Carpenter
Howard is Clark's uncle and Georgiana's husband. Although Clark never says so directly,it seems likely that the idea of eloping was his idea rather than Georgiana's: he met her while she was visiting relatives in the Green Mountains and then pursued her when she returned to Boston. Since Howard was young and poor when he married, the couple moved westward, to the Nebraska frontier, where they carved out a living as homesteaders.
Howard himself never actually appears in "A Wagner Matinée," but his presence makes itself felt throughout the story. Clark lived and worked on Howard's farm for much of his youth and clearly retains negative memories of his uncle, whom he implies could be harsh. However, Clark's impressions of his uncle are probably also a product of his affection for Georgiana, whose life with her husband was unfulfilling—and perhaps not only because of their living conditions. Clark, for instance, describes his uncle's feelings for his aunt as "callow," implying that his love might not have been deep or long-lasting. All in all, Howard comes across as a man whose hardness and insensitivity make him a poor match for his wife, but it is hard to know exactly how much of this portrayal reflects Clark's own opinions and potential biases; Howard does, after all, buy his wife a parlor organ, so he presumably has some interest in Georgiana's happiness.
Related Titles
By Willa Cather
