Settlers of the Marsh Clara as a sympathetic character

In Settlers of the Marsh Frederick Phillip Grove tries his best to provide a sympathetic portrait of Clara, but he is continually tripped up by his own unconscious bias against her. Grove tries to depict Clara as an attractive widowed woman who is only in need of companionship, but turns her into an unlovable and uncared for creature for whom we can feel no pity or compassion. Through discussion on Clara’s interactions with the other characters, especially that of Niels, Grove’s bias towards Clara and her sexual choices can be easily seen. Grove’s bias towards Clara does, after-all, have a positive effect on the story’s outcome allowing for the love story to complete itself with a happy ending.

Clara is the most complicated character in the book. Grove portrays her as vulgar and lazy she tells Niels after their marriage: “I hope you didn’t marry me in order to make me work… I am not the kind of woman who works” (152). In the times of this novel, work was considered “good” and necessary for survival. With work came advancement in material wealth and in community stature. The prosperous in the community were the farmers who were well established and had strong healthy livestock and cultivated land. The men seemed to pride themse

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Niels does not understand this and though his impulses do tell him to ‘get up and go out’ (53). Niels seems to fight with his conscious (which is that of Grove) over giving the women in his life the respect that he thought they were deserving of even though Clara had betrayed him.

Niels becomes involved with Clara not knowing that she s the district prostitute because he idealizes women and is naive to the fact that she could be a prostitute. He describes her as “almost sexless” (36). She is dark and devilish with black hair and “black beady eyes” (38). Clara is a threat to the women and men in the community, the women for the fear of their husbands straying and the men for the fear of succumbing to their desires. She is virginal, young, and a hard worker, faithful to her family and continues to run the farm after her father passes. He states, “ It would have been rude to not obey her summons” (53)

Grove splits the women in his novel into two separate categories. He is not a sexual person and sees sex and even having a wife as only the necessity of child rearing even though he does show interest in having a companion. Niels does not assume sexuality in that he seems to believe in the wholesomeness of keeping ones self until marriage.

The murder of Clara brings about a world of changes for Niels. Niels is almost refreshingly innocent towards sex and sexuality making Clara’s sexual choices seem even more cruel and obscene. Grove sums this up best when he says:

These two have been parted; and parting has opened their eyes. Clara is educated and feels that her time is better spent in reading and idle pleasures where her husband is a hard worker and believes that hard work and devotion will help him to achieve his goals of running a prosperous farm and making a life for himself. The death of Clara is justified by the societal view that the deaths of some women are less important than the deaths of other women because of their status in the community and her inability to further society.

Approximate Word count = 1227
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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