The story, "Female Quixotism," by Tabitha Tenney is a story about a young woman named Dorcasina who is in love with a man, O'Connor, who her father claims is only after her fortunes. Dorcasina tries to conceal her meetings with O'Connor and hire trustable messengers to send her love letters. This story in, the Norton Anthology of American Literature book volume A, is started of in chapter IX. I originally didn't want to read this story because I didn't want to read one that was started off in the middle of the story. I am glad now that I did go on and read the story because it's actually a great story.
The story is started off with Dorcasina and her love O'Connor writing love billets back and forth to one another. O'Connor is an Irish man who has a rather troublesome past that Dorcasina's father, Mr. Sheldon, learns about. Mr. Sheldon tries to warn his daughter about him and prevent her from being hurt. However, Dorcasina doesn't believe her father and thinks that it is true love between her and O'Connor. After multiple love letters and being apart for a long period of time Dorcasina decides she will meet O'Connor in her fathers lovely garden.
The garden is taken care of by her father's servant Scipio who takes pride in his work and in the garden. The garden is full of every type of fruit that the climate would allow to grow during the seasons. Mr. Sheldon always gave the children fruit from his garden and for this Scipio believed was the reason it would get robbed at night. He believed it was the children and he wanted to catch them in the act of stealing fruit from the garden. Scipio conjured up a plan and was going to wait patiently in the garden for the thief to strike again.
Dorcasina entered the garden excited to finally see her love, but she had no idea that Scipio was waiting to catch a thief. Scipio waited in the summer-house for his very own love, miss Violet, to join him on his adventure of catching a thief. Dorcasina went into the summer house and saw Scipio, but thought it was O'Connor due to lack of lighting. Miss Violet and O'Connor both entered the garden at different entrances and headed towards the summer-house. Once Scipio heard Conner's voice he began to attack O'Connor and beating him to a bloody pulp. Being completely undiscovered Dorcasina jumped out of a window and ran back to her house and climbed in bed. O'Connor had been blamed for stealing the fruit from Mr. Sheldon's garden.
Dorcasina was worried about O'Connor so she sent letters to O'Connor and the messenger said that O'Connor was hurt badly. Dorcasina wanted to see for herself so she disguised herself and went to see him.
When ever there is a forbidden love it always seems that issues arise to keep each other apart. Even though Dorcasina's body was separated from O'Connor she still obsessed over him and was attached to him at heart. She tried to get her servant Betty to dress like a man and try and reenact her first meeting with O'Connor. Betty gave it her all but failed and refused to try again. She climbed a tree and hid there refusing to come down or talk to Dorcasina. In the meantime Dorcasina walked the garden and carved O'Connor name in the trees.
I'm not normally one that is big on love stories but I can't wait to finish this story. I think the carving of names into the trees is what makes me like it so much. The love of my life carved my name into a tree before I knew who he was. He saw me a few times at work and said he couldn't get me off his mind so he carved my name into the tree by his bedroom window. When I got to know him and I eventually saw it of course but I didn't know if he was a maniac or just a sweet guy. Now after seven years and three children later I think I can say he is a little bit of both. My father did tell me the same thing Dorcasina's told her, except the fortune part. My father didn't approve, but it made me want him more. Well I'm off to read more of Female Quixotism and see how it turns out for Dorcasina.
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