A New England Nun- Emily Armstrong

Throughout this short story I couldn’t help but compare the two lovers “trapped” in a loveless engagement to the captivity of the dog Caesar. The dog was being punished for a bite that occurred while he was a puppy and now had to endure being chained up for years as well as only receiving meals of corn-mush because people felt he would go ripping through the village. When Joe and Louisa made their promise of marriage over 14 years ago they could be considered young, naïve and not knowing what their actions would entail, much like Caesar biting the neighbor. It was a punishment so to speak for Louisa and Joe to be confined to a union that neither was committed to any more. Louisa is the embodiment of the individualistic new women ideal because she has a meticulous nature and structure to her household that seems to suit only her as Joe disrupts the balance. When she ends her engagement to Joe the author writes that, “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”. Louisa is completely free to do as she wished no longer trapped in her life with an expectation of marriage. The author also notes that Caesar “never would go on a rampage through the unguarded village”, so he too was also free of the expectations people had of him.