Celia
Celia is the woman Theron seems to struggle to understand the most. She is strong-willed, independent, and free. Up to this time, upper-class women were supposed to act civil, polite, and give way to the will of men. But Celia is different. She speaks her mind freely and refuses to be committed to one man for the rest of her life. This is frustrating to Theron because Celia is not playing along with the "rules" that he had become used to playing by. Up to this time, Theron understood that women were supposed to act a certain way and Celia defied all of these expectations. Overall, Celia represents a turning point in the liberation of women. Women like Celia no longer had to be afraid of being considered an "old maid" if they were not married by a certain time. Instead, women like Celia could now be admired for the independence. The only struggle left, it seems, is for men to understand what this kind of woman is actually all about. Image from www.bookrags.com
Quotes About Celia
Theron viewing Celia as a traditional woman
* “The window in Father Forbes' room was open, and I stood by it listening to the music next door, and I could just faintly see on the dark window across the alley-way a stained-glass
picture of a woman. I suppose it was the Virgin Mary. She had hair like yours, and your face, too, and that is why I went into the church and found you” (238).
* “I remember the pictures—of the Virgin—in your room,” said Theron, feeling more himself again. “I wondered if they—quite went with the statues.”
The remark won a smile from Celia’s lips.
“They get along together better than you suppose,” she answered. “besides, they are not all pictures of Mary. One of them—standing on the moon—is of Isis with the infant Horus in her
arms. Another might as well be Mahamie, bearing the miraculously born Buddha, or Olympias with her child Alexander, or even Perictione holding her babe Plate—all these were similar
cases, you know. Almost every religion had its Immaculate Conception. What does it all come to, except to show us that man turns naturally toward to worship of the maternal idea?
* That is the deepest of all his instincts—love of woman, who is at once daughter and wife and mother. It is that that makes the world go round.” (246)
The above quotes are perfect examples of how Theron struggled to understand the woman that Celia was. This struggle is exemplified by Theron continually mentioning the Virgin Mary. In her apartment, Celia has both paintings of the Virgin Mary and nude sculptures. Theron is troubled by this. He is troubled because he is naturally drawn to the Madonna, while also being drawn to the nude sculptures in her apartment. Theron can not seem to understand how the two sides, the Madonna and the nude sculptures, can coincide, "I remember the pictures--of the Virgin--in your room... I wondered if they--quite went with the statues" (246). Here Theron's struggle is exemplified. And the real stinger comes when Celia explains the way of men, "that is the deepest of all his instincts--love of woman, who is at once daughter and wife and mother" and yet Theron can neither explain the ways of women, nor can he even explain the ways of men (246).
People attempting to understand who Celia is and their struggle with the emancipation of women
* "She is not worth talking about--a mere bundle of egotism, ignorance, and red-headed immodesty. If she were even a type, she might be worth considering, but she is simply an abnormal
sport with a small brain addled by notions that she is like Hypatia, and a large impudence rendered intolerable by the fact that she has money. Her father is said to be a decent man. He ought to have her whipped" (214).
* “Of course her father was very wealthy, but it had not occurred to him that the daughter’s emancipation might run to the length of a personal fortune” (242).
* "A little side-thought sprouted in the confusion of his brain. It grew until it spread a bitter smile over his pale face. "I know so little about kisses," he said; "I am such a greenhorn at that sort of thing. You should have pity on my inexperience, and told me just what brand of kiss it was I was getting. Probably I ought to have been able to distinguish, but you see I was brought up in the country--on a farm. They don't have kisses is assorted varieties there" (304).
* “The glamour of a separate banding account shone upon her. Where the soft woodland light played in among the strands of her disordered hair, he saw the veritable gleam of gold. A
mysterious new suggestion of power blended itself with the beauty of her face, was exhaled in the fait perfume of her garment. He maintained a timorous hold up the ribbon, wondering
at his hardihood in touching it, or being near her at all” (242).
The above quotes are good examples of how the men in The Damnation of Theron Ware or Illumination struggled to understand Celia. Dr. Ledmar did not seem to like her at all. In fact he said that "she is not worth talking about" (214). He believes that the only reason that she can be as strong as she is is because she had money. Dr. Ledmar also says that she believes she is like Hypatia, who was a Greek philosopher who was also the head of the Neoplatonist School and was eventually murdered by a mob a Christians. It is almost as if Dr. Ledmar believes that Celia thinks of herself as a martyr of some sorts, while he only believes her to be a girl whose father has money. In this case, Dr. Ledmar chooses to react to Celia's claim to independence with dislike and intolerance.
The last three quotes are examples of Theron's misguided beliefs about Celia. He never really saw her for who she was, and was constantly confused by the "modern woman" that she was portraying. He was even blinded to the fact that Celia's emancipation lended itself to her fathers wealth. Whether Theron was understanding her wealth, independence, affection, or beauty-- Theron simply seemed unable to fully understand Celia as she was.
Celia on herself
* “Now it is the one fixed rule of my life to obey my whims” (241).
* “It is the only way that a person with means—with plenty of money—can preserve any freshness of character…the instant a wish occurs to me, I rush to gratify it” (241).
* “That is the old-fashioned ideas,” she said, in a musing tone, “that women must belong to somebody, as if they were curious, or statues, or race-horses. You don’t understand, my friend,
that I have different view. I am myself, and I belong to myself, exactly as much as any man. The notion that any other human being could conceivably obtain the slightest property rights
in me is as preposterous, as ridiculous, as—what shall I say?—as the notion of your being taken out with a chain on your neck and sold by auction as a slave, down on the canal bridge. I
should be ashamed to be alive for another day, if any other thought were possible to me” (242).
In the above quotes, Celia explains the reason she lives as she does. She does not see to live by rules, but instead she lives by "whims. Nor does she lend herself to traditions or "old-fashion ideas" (241). Instead, Celia subconciously disagree to the fact that Theron continues to mentally compair her to the art in her apartment. She talks about how that idea that women must belong to someone as though she were a statue as the old-fashion idea. She levels herself to the same statute of men; Celia only belongs to herself. And yet, Theron continues to attempt to "own" her, as though she were a piece of art. It is as though Theron cannot get his mind wrapped around the idea that women are equal to men, that they can be indepent, and do not have to fit into either the "nude statue" category or the "Madonna" category. Theron's biggest downfall seems to be that he attemts to categorize Celia (as well as other women in the novel), and is damned because no woman neatly falls into any single category-- a fact taht Theron just cannot seem to accept.
Through a Critics Eye
“By the close of the century, Harold Frederic is able to exploit the Madonna theme for purposes or artistic irony and social satire. In his underrated masterwork, The Damnation of Theron Ware, an artless Methodist minister confronts a new American Catholic subculture in which the Marian image of “holy womanhood” merges confusedly with the pagan cultures of liberated licentiousness. Or so at least things appear to the Reverend Theron Ware as he gazes longingly toward the unattainable Celia Madden. But while Theron’s overheated male imagination sees in Celia an alluring amalgam of Madonna a presumptive harlot, what she embodies in actual social commentary, the author shows how Celia at once scandalizes and entrances Ware when she brings him into her inner sanctum decorated with nude statues and paintings of the Virgin. For Frederic, then, as realist observer, the Madonna theme matters less in its theological aspect of universal myth than in its sociological reflection of cultural myth, psychosexual conflict, and changing models of womanhood at a give historical moment (Gatta 5).
In this except from American Madonna, John Gatta explains the turmoil that Theron is experiencing over Celia's identity as a woman. Women are supposed to be sweet and motherly, and Theron does see something in Celia that is like that as seen in the scene where Theron is in Celia's apartment listening to her play the piano. As Theron is looking around the apartment he finds himself transfix by the paintings of the Madonna and then, "He looked from the Madonna to Celia" and it is in this moment Celia almost seems to be a Madonna (186). Theron likes what he sees in Celia as the Madonna, and yet he is also sitting amongst the nude sculptures, which also represent Celia. Gatta exploits this truth when he states, "But while Theron's overheated male imagination sees in Celia an alluring amalgam of Madonna a presumptive harlot." Gatta is explaining the struggle that Theron is experiencing Celia's apartment of understand what kind of woman she actually is and how a sexual, independent woman could in herself also represent something of a Madonna.
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