Becky Humprhies, “Be My Maid”: A Marxist Deconstruction of “Dream of the Evil Servant”
“Dream of the Evil Servant,” written by Reetika Vazirani and first published in 1999, tells the story of a power struggle between two women, one the servant, the other the mistress. Throughout the poem, these women battle for power and control of both themselves and each other. As would seem natural, the mistress first appears to have the ultimate authority over her servant. By the poem’s end, however, this traditional binary has been flipped; the power rests with the servant.
Deconstruction, a form of literary criticism, seeks to “discover the binary operations” (Bressler 128) that work within a text and, through examination and close reading of the text, flip or completely destroy that binary. The power binary displayed at the poem’s beginning (mistress/servant) asserts the power of the mistress over the servant. By exploring the text, it is possible to determine how this binary is supported and yet is ultimately flipped, taking the power from the mistress and giving it to the servant. For this paper, deconstruction will work hand in hand with Marxist criticism by examining the power binary inherent in “Dream of the Evil Servant.”
Marxist literary criticism, founded on the economic and philosophical ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, examines the roles class and class struggle play in how society and culture are shaped. (For the purposes of this essay, the class struggle will be examined through the mistress/servant power binary—a binary that innately portrays a struggle between classes.) Believing that literature “highlights elements of society most affected” (Bressler 204) by the oppression of the dominant class, Marxist critics look not only at the literature itself, but at how that literature depicts the dominant societal values (or ideology) of its time. This examination of cultural values as well as the power struggle dynamic that is the basis of Marxist criticism will both play a strong role in the examination of “Dream of the Evil Servant.”
The binary of mistress/servant (or master/servant) is held in every society that has servants. Indeed, it could almost be said that the binary is the definition of the mistress-servant relationship; a servant is one who takes orders from the mistress or master. “Dream of the Evil Servant,” at its beginning, clearly depicts the mistress’s power. In line five, the mistress demands that the servant be back from her break at four. “I’m paying you,” she says, before handing over the cash. In this case, the mistress’s financial status (which is closely related to class status) gives her power over the servant. Because she has more money and is capable of deciding how much money will come to the servant, the mistress can make demands on the personal life of the servant. In the ideology of this society, money is power. And both belong to the mistress.
Stanza four furthers this supremacy of the mistress. While she is allowed to curse, both openly and silently, the failures of her servant, the servant herself remains largely mute. She is reduced to sticking diaper pins in the mistress’s children, a wordless act of rebellion that only serves to anger the mistress further. Notice too that, while the mistress confronts the servant directly, the servant is only able to seek retribution indirectly, on the mistress’s children. The mistress is comforted by her guests who, having servants and sharing in the mistress’s ideology of how servants typically behave, “understood” (line fifteen) the dramas and difficulties associated with uncooperative servants. The servant, not yet permitted to speak, confides in no one. Indeed, the entire format of the poem itself gives power to the mistress and denies it to the servant. Every story has two sides, yet it is only the mistress’s point of view that readers are given. It is the mistress’s complaints, beliefs, and thoughts that are expressed and permitted. The servant’s words and story, like the servant herself, are suppressed, not shared in any way with the poem’s audience. She is, like any “good” servant, seen only when needed and never heard.
The poem’s last two stanzas mark a drastic shift in the power struggle between mistress and servant. Stanza five begins with the mistress’s question “Why didn’t I dismiss her? / I don’t know.” It is not clear exactly to whom the mistress is speaking—herself, a friend, or the actual audience of the poem—but this question is the first sign that the mistress’s power over the servant may not be as secure as the previous stanzas made it seem. In this question, the mistress doubts herself and her actions, wondering what it is about the servant that prevents (that controls) her from dismissing what is obviously an uncooperative servant. Further in the stanza, in line 29, the mistress depicts the servant’s presence as unavoidable. “I had to look at her. It had to wound me” (emphasis mine). The mistress cannot keep herself from looking at the servant—she has lost the power to determine her own fate, to control her own actions. Like the servant, she is reduced to being in the power of someone other than herself.
By the end of stanza five, the mistress is lessened not only in terms of control but in physical presence. Throughout the poem the mistress has been a powerful physical presence moving from room to room within her house giving orders and cursing the servant’s laziness. Now, faced with this realization that she is helpless to dismiss her servant or to even look away from her, she is “crouched in [her] head” and is forced to “listen” (line 30). Not even the servant, despite her lowly and humble role, is ever shown in any physical position that holds the same negative, fearful, and weak connotations as “crouched.” And to “listen” implies that someone else is speaking, someone else’s voice is being heard while the mistress’s is not. The mistress, if only in her mind, has now become lower, less dignified than her servant.
The ambiguity of the poem’s sixth and last stanza further destroys the mistress’s power over her servant. The stanza opens with a quote from “she”—this she is not identified by name. Is it the mother of the mistress mentioned in the last lines of the previous stanza? Is it the servant herself? The quote itself gives the reader the identity of the speaker. “Go sit on your rag,” (line 34) the unidentified she says. This command, along with the question “What have you got to show?” (line 33) do not seem like things a mother would say to her daughter. And, because of the use of the pronouns “you” and “she” it can be deduced that the mistress is no longer speaking, but is being spoken to. Therefore, the only character left to speak these words is the servant. The servant is now not only speaking for herself, she is demanding answers from the mistress and giving her orders. The power binary, through this quote from the servant, has been completely flipped; the servant now commands the mistress. The central dynamic in the mistress-servant power struggle has been reversed.
Because the quotation from the servant has no quotation marks (or any other distinguishing marks) it is difficult to tell where the quotation ends, or if it ends at all. However, close examination of the use of pronouns and sentence structure reveals a possible division of this last stanza. The first four lines (lines 31-34), as discussed above, appear to belong to the servant. The use of the pronoun “you” indicates that the servant is talking to the mistress; the mistress never directly addresses the servant as “you.” In the last three lines (lines 35-37) of this stanza, the pronouns return to “I,” indicating that the speaker has once again become the mistress. The short, command-like sentence structure—which mirrors other short sentences used by the mistress throughout the poem such as “I gave her cash.” (line nine) and “I don’t know.” (line 25)—would also seem to point toward the mistress as speaker. Content, as well, suggests that it is once again the mistress’s voice being heard: “All my life I tended to looks” (line 35). This is not a statement to be expected from a servant. Therefore, although the format of this stanza is definitely opens the interpretation to many possibilities, this essay will look at the last three lines of the poem as spoken by the mistress.
Examining the mistress’s reply to her servant’s challenge reveals the core of the power struggle between the two. “I bore you,” the mistress says. Because the mistress is speaking to the servant, this word “bore” would not seem to be applicable in the typical definition—the mistress would not have carried and given birth to her own servant. But how, then, has the mistress “bore” her servant? The word “bore” has many definitions. While it unlikely that the mistress physically carried her servant as a woman would a child, it could be said that she, through her treatment of her servant, has created and shaped the servant as a mother would a child. She has also had to tolerate (or bear) the servant and her unwillingness to cooperate. She has “bore” her servant—both in terms of conception and endurance.
This declaration of significant influence and grudging patience would, at first glance, appear to reinstate the mistress in her position of power over the servant. In fact, had the poem ended here, the mistress/servant binary might not have been completely deconstructed. The poem’s final line (line 37), however, portrays the mistress as pleading and self-deprecating. “I am wretched. Be my mother. Be my maid.” Here the mistress drops all pretence of power and control, calling herself wretched, a far more demeaning insult than any given to the servant throughout the poem. “Be my mother,” she begs of the servant. The position of mother is traditionally one of power, at least over her children. Here the mistress submits herself to the authority of the servant, clinging to her as a child would to her mother.
It is the final three words of the poem that gives the mistress’s action—and the poem itself—its true power. “Be my maid.” The fact that this sentence appears just after the mistress’s request of “Be my mother” would seem to equate the two. The mistress would not ask her servant to take a position of power over her—mother—then immediately force her back into a submissive position—maid. It is likely, then, that the mistress is conceding to the supreme power of the servant. She realizes that, despite her social and financial superiority (things traditionally held to give one power and control), she is dependent on the servant. The servant who fixes dinner, tends the children, and keeps the household running smoothly—this is the woman with which the true power lies. The mistress’s yearning request to the servant to “Be my maid” is in no way derogatory or diminutive; it is a genuinely desperate plea from the powerless to the powerful for help and comfort. With this line, the mistress/servant binary is completely flipped. The servant has the true power and the mistress has been forced to admit it.
The progression of the poem, beginning with the mistress in clear control of her servant and ending with the mistress begging her servant for help, shows the deteriorating power of the mistress and the growing power of the servant. From a Marxist point of view, the deconstruction of this power binary challenges the ideology of the poem’s society. As mentioned above, it is the financial power mentioned in line five (“be back by four, I’m paying you”) that gives the mistress her control over the servant. As the mistress realizes at the poem’s end, however, money is not enough to maintain her control. The servant’s role in the household, her control over the simplest workings of the mistress’s life (meals and tending the children, for example) circumvents the financial power of the mistress. By asserting her power through non-financial means, the servant defies the dominant ideology of her society. Her power lies elsewhere. “Dream of the Evil Servant” which, at first glance, would seem to support the traditional role of mistress over servant, reveals the weakness of that role, flipping the typical power relationship and putting power in the hands of the servant.
Works Cited
Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. Print.
Vazirani, Reetika. “Dream of the Evil Servant.” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, 1999. Web. 29 Oct. 2009.