The Setting in Miss Mary Pask: The Sea and the Fog

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The Setting in “Miss Mary Pask”
The setting plays a crucial role in a story and is often utilized by authors to express their themes. In "Miss Mary Pask," Edith Wharton uses a setting that is characterized by the turbulent and mysterious sea, which is often shrouded in fog, to explore the aspects of the characters’ inner feelings. The sea represents Mary Pask’s sexual desires that are never satisfied while the fog represents the narrator’s mind and his sexual desires that remain hidden from him.
The Sea and Mary
The sea in "Miss Mary Pask," serves as a symbol for Mary Pask's repressed sexual desires. The narrator describes the sea as "the Bay of the Dead," with a "hungry voice" asking and asking, and the Furies, its keepers, having forgotten it (Wharton 312). This description suggests Mary's own hunger for sexual gratification, which she has not been able to fulfill due to societal constraints. Just as the sea asks and asks in a hungry voice, Mary is hungry too and her sexual appetite has led her to act against the normative social role, including stripping naked for the narrator. By attributing human feelings to the sea, the author highlights Mary's own feelings of desire and frustration. The endless expanse of the sea symbolizes her longing for love and intimacy, while its unpredictability reflects her uncertainty and frustration (312). Despite her efforts to quench her thirst for sexual fulfillment, Mary remains unfulfilled and restless, like the rolling waves of the sea.
The narrator's view of Mary Pask is also significant in understanding her character and her motivations. Mary is portrayed as a "dowdy old maid," a "cheerful derelict" content with her substitutes for living (310). However, the narrator's view of Mary as content with a substitute for a real-life contrasts with Mary's own desires for real affection and sexual fulfillment. The description of Mary Pask as content with her substitutes for living suggests that she is not satisfied with her life, and yearns for something more. Additionally, the use of the word "derelict" to describe Mary Pask implies neglect and disuse, which is not a state that anyone would be happy about. However, the narrator does not care and thinks that Mary should be happy with her ‘substitute for real life.’ The narrator's lack of understanding and consideration of Mary's own desires contribute to her sexual repression and eventual mental breakdown.