Mary Wilkins Freeman and Character Analysis of Louisa in "A New England Nun"

Love is a very strong emotion, but unlike the beliefs of many, love does not always win. There are sometimes factors in people's lives that are stronger than love. Louisa Ellis, a character in the short story "A New England Nun" is proof of this. While her fiancé Joe is away trying to make the fortune so that he can come back and marry her, Louisa falls into a particular routine. For fourteen years she follows her own routine. When Joe comes back, she is a changed person. In Mary Wilkins Freeman's short story "A New England Nun," Louisa becomes so set in her ways that she cannot change, even for love.

In the first part of the story, the reader is shown just how set in her ways Louisa really is. Louisa did everything to perfection. None of the things she did were designed to impress anyone; they were done because she wanted them that way. From eating on fine china and with silver, to the fluffy biscuits and currant jam, Louisa does what she wants to do. "Louisa had almost the enthusiasm of an artist over the mere order and cleanliness of her solitary home." (604). Allowing nothing to change, one critic stated, "Louisa has allowed her life to slip into a paralysis…" (Westbrook 59). Changing even the slightest object within Louisa's home would make Louisa uneasy. During the story, during one of his visits, her intended Joe changed the position of two books on Louisa's coffee table after knocking them to the floor, and Louisa was trepidatious until she returned them back to their original spot stating, "I always keep them that way" (601). Louisa not being able to change causes her to lose one thing that might have made her happy, Joe's love.

The second part of the story of "A New England Nun," describes how Louisa can no longer marry Joe because she is afraid of change. Although Louisa wasn't delighted that she and Joe split up, she was glad that she would not have to change her life. "Standing in the door, holding each other's hands, a last great wave of regretful memory swept over them" (608). Not even love could help Louisa shed her fear of change nor want to change her ways. The thought of another disturbing her peaceful time haunted her. "She had visions, so startling that she half repudiated them as indelicate, of coarse masculine belongings strewn about in endless litter; of dust and disorder arising necessarily from a coarse masculine presence in the midst of all this delicate harmony" (604). Louisa over the years had placed herself unknowingly in a world where no one could accompany her. "Louisa's feet had turned into a path, smooth maybe under a calm, serene sky, but so straight and unswerving that it could only meet check at her grave, and so narrow that there was no room for anyone at her side" (602).

Louisa did love Joe, but she also knew that she could never change. "She simply said that while she had no cause of complaint against him, she had lived so long in one way that she shrank from making a change" (608). Louisa had two choices, either marry Joe and change or give up his love to live alone. Joe gives her the perfect "out" when she overhears his conversation with Lily. She knows that Joe and Lily will love one another and that Lily will make him a "proper wife." As critic Perry Westerbrook says, "Louisa prompted mainly be her reluctance to change her way of life, releases him" (Westerbrook).

The final portion of the story shows that due to Louisa's unwillingness to change, her life will remain the same forever. As Westerbrook says, "As things are now she will be happier, or less miserable, single than married…" (Westerbrook). Louisa now had her life in her own hands; she knew she would not have to change for anyone. While this seems like a "small thing" in today's world, it is no small feat in Louisa's. When she made her final decision she was not one hundred percent sure that she was right, but shortly after she is positive. "Louisa, all alone by herself that night, wept a little, she hardly knew why; but the next morning on waking, she felt like a queen who, after fearing lest her domain be wrested away from her, sees it firmly insured in her possession" (608). The thought of her life remaining the same is exactly what she wanted. "She gazed ahead through a long reach of future days strung together like pearls in a rosary, every one like the others and all smooth and flawless and innocent, and her heart went up in thankfulness" (608). The life that she had formed over the last fourteen years while Joe was away is now the life she would live forever and knowing this, "Louisa sat, prayerfully numbering her days, like an uncloistered nun" (609).

Louisa had a such a fear of change that she could not envision any other life for herself. She loved Joe, but not enough to give up the freedom and safety of her own house and her own place. While some may think that Louisa's life sounds boring, and that she should have changed her life for Joe, Louisa was happy with her choice to stay single. We cannot find fault with that. Mary Wilkins Freeman was forward with the idea that women did not have to marry and would sometimes choose willingly to be alone. Louisa is truly an uncloistered nun, and that is exactly what she wants to be.

Works Cited

Freeman, Mary Wilkins. A New England Nun and Other Stories. "A New England Nun." 1891.

Westerbrook, Perry D. Mary Wilkins Freeman. New Haven: Twayne Publishers, Inc. 1967.