Monday
Although I’ve promised not to write about Democratic presidential candidates until the debates, I’ve made one exception: anyone who mentions literature will get coverage. So far I’ve mentioned Sherrod Brown’s love of Tolstoy (although Brown has since decided not to run) and Pete Buttigieg’s love of James Joyce (Buttigieg has not yet declared but seems certain to do so). While the intentions of Georgia’s Stacey Abrams are still up in the air, her childhood love of George Eliot’s Silas Marner caught my attention:
Stacey taught herself to read chapter books by age 4, according to her family, after [her sister] Andrea got sick of reading to her. She counts among her childhood favorites books by the Brontës and all of Dickens; she read Silas Marner at age 10.
“Basically, what kids were forced to read when we got to high school, I’d read,” she recalls.
It’s not unusual for bookish 10-year-olds to be drawn to the Brontes, Dickens and Eliot (at least Silas Marner), and I can well understand why Abrams would be drawn to Dickens’s vision of social justice and to the strong heroines of Charlotte and Emily. (I can imagine her saying, “I care for myself,” when she resolved to break with social expectations and run for office.) I focus here, however, on her engagement with Silas Marner. Perhaps it contributed towards a recent decision.
Because of her strong showing as candidate for Georgia governor and her strong response to Trump’s State of the Union address, Abrams has been getting a lot of buzz. As a result, Joe Biden reportedly considered having the two of them run for the Democratic presidential ticket as a president/vice-president pairing. While various commentators have commended his political savvy (it would signal to voters that he was listening to African American women), Abrams will have none of it. “You don’t run for second place,” she says.
I’m not claiming that Abrams thought of Silas Marner when she rejected Biden’s potential offer, but some fascinating parallels suggest the novel played a subliminal role. To summarize the plot, Little Eppie is the daughter of Godfrey, the son of a local squire who is keeping secret his marriage to a working class, opium-addicted mother. After the latter dies in the snow and Eppie wanders into Marner’s house, Godfrey is relieved. He can marry the woman he really loves and pretend that Eppie never happened.
Little Eppie essentially saves Marner’s soul and grows up to become a remarkable woman. Meanwhile Godfrey’s marriage is childless, at which point he confesses his past to his wife and they approach Silas with the proposition of adopting Eppie.
Do you see where I’m going with this? Although long the Democratic Party’s most faithful voters, black women have long been neglected, or at least taken for granted. Now that they are stepping forward, however, there is something to be gained by elevating one of their number. Abrams could become the legitimate daughter of an established squire rather than much around with unknowns.
Only Eppie will have none of that. She knows who she is and turns down Godfrey’s offer. She remains faithful to the man she considers her father and to her values. As she puts it,
“I can’t feel as I’ve got any father but one,” said Eppie, impetuously, while the tears gathered. “I’ve always thought of a little home where he’d sit i’ the corner, and I should fend and do everything for him: I can’t think o’ no other home. I wasn’t brought up to be a lady, and I can’t turn my mind to it. I like the working-folks, and their victuals, and their ways. And,” she ended passionately, while the tears fell, “I’m promised to marry a working-man, as’ll live with father, and help me to take care of him.
Eppie’s rejection makes no sense to Godfrey until he grapples with his privilege and what it means. He thinks he is honoring her, as perhaps Biden thought he was honoring Abrams, and is stung to discover that Eppie has her own view of the world.
Like Biden, however, Godfrey is a good man at the core and he comes to respect Eppie’s choice. For the rest of his life, he supports her from afar.
I like to think that Biden will do the same with Abrams.
