Amazon Books and Writers Essay

Miss Furr and Miss Keene has a reputation of being one of Gertrude Stein’s more controversial works. Originally published in 1922, the story tells of the lives of two women who live together. The story is written with a limited lexicon and contains the word â€Å"gay† which appears over a hundred times. It is purported to be one of the first coming out stories published, and through its reprinting in Vanity Fair in 1923, the underground meaning of â€Å"gay† became more widely known (Amazon Books and Writers, 2008). Stein’s style of writing uses repetition as a literary device. Those who grew up reading Dr. Seuss will have no trouble reading Miss Furr and Miss Skeene while those who are unfamiliar with Dr. Seuss will find the text quite confusing. This is because Stein, as a linguist and naturalist, utilizes repetition as a means of achieving the natural primary processes of perception and thought (Kimball, 1998). This is the primary reason why Stein’s writing is oftentimes regarded as gibberish. However, those who study her body of work will find that it is through this method that Stein conveys â€Å"the gradually changing present of human consciousness, the instability of emotion and thought† (Perloff, 1999, p. 98). This method allows Stein to let the reader experience the thoughts being conveyed as they are being written (natural) instead of conveying the thought after it has been written (synthesized). Her use of this playful style in Miss Furr and Miss Skeene is intended to rouse confusion both literally and metaphorically to reflect the thoughts of the writer (as Stein is also a lesbian) and the characters in the story. This also enables Stein to dissect one event into many while still pertaining to that one event—like an episode of 24 where the focus is that one hour but seen in different contexts. Repeating is used here as â€Å"a deliberate regression of sorts—an attempt to get at (sometimes to get back to and recover) the â€Å"real† things lying below the surface (the unconscious, the â€Å"primitive,† the primary â€Å"raw† passions of desire, love, jealousy, power, prestige, etc. ) in order to illuminate the nuanced ways that characters negotiate subconscious desires through the coded conventions of everyday polite conversation† (Nelson 2000). Stein’s depiction of these women, like the way she usually depicts her subjects, are meant to be taken as they are. Stein’s modernist style of writing â€Å"remains impervious to such an easy reading for it never allows us to make secure judgments about characters and action† (Behling, 2001, p. 127). Thus, it is literally impossible to say if the characters were caricatures or not. Stein’s unique technique solely focuses on the action and its multiple contexts instead of one singular notion. This is evident in her use of repetition without literally repeating. Instead, each perceived repetition is in fact designed to convey a new meaning. An example of this is the repetition of the word â€Å"gay. † In its first use in the seventh sentence of the story, â€Å"she did not find it gay living in the same place she has been living,† the word â€Å"gay† is used in the context of being bored. However, with each new variation, the word â€Å"gay† is transformed to mean other things, including that of today’s contemporary definition. This method of wordplay allows for the double entendre of the story. To the (then) sophisticated, the story is about Helen Furr coming out as a lesbian, while to the less informed, it is a simple story of two women living together. This style is meant to be experienced as it was intended by the author. In fact, Stein’s works, be it prose or poetry, are often discussed out loud primarily to evoke and channel that which is â€Å"natural† while also appreciating the style’s lyricism. Hence, Miss Furr and Miss Skeene would benefit from being read aloud by allowing the reader to experience â€Å"living where many were living and cultivating in themselves something† (Stein, 1993, p. 257) References Amazon Books and Writers (2008). Gertrude Stein (1874-1946). Amazon. com. Retrieved November 21, 2008 from http://www. kirjasto. sci. fi/gstein. htm. Behling, L. (2001). The Masculine Woman in America, 1890-1935. Illinois: University of Illinois Press. Kimball, J. (1998). Gertrude Stein and the natural world. Time Sense An Electronic Quarterly on the Art of Gertrude Stein. Retrieved November 21, 2008 from http://www. tenderbuttons. com/gsonline/timesense/1_1kimball. html. Nelson, C. (2000). On Gertrude Stein and Dr. Seuss. University of Illinois. Retrieved Novenber 21, 2008 from http://www2. english. uiuc. edu/finnegan/English%20251/stein_and_seuss. htm. Perloffe, M. (1999). The Poetics of Indeterminacy: Rimbaud to Cage. Illinois: Northwestern University Press. Stein, G. (1993). â€Å"Miss Furr and Miss Keene. † In G. Stein & U. E. Dydo (Ed. ) A Stein Reader (pp. 254– 259). Illinois: Northwestern University Press.