Negation

Cydney Chadwick Negation She goes to college, majors in art and becomes a sculptor. In only two years foUowing graduation she has had a solo exhibit in an upand -coming gallery, and received good notices in two group shows. At around this time she meets a law student who talks of his plans and ambitions after graduation. Marry me he says, we will have a nice life. It never occurs to the woman to turn down a nice-looking man poised for success. In 1959 it doesn't occur to any woman s he knows. After graduation the man's career does not rise as quickly as either of them had hoped, and the woman is forced to take a job typing. When she gets home from work she pays the baby-sitter and attends to her baby daughters, who are usuaUy cranky and fussy. When her husband comes home he drinks highbaUs and complains about his life. In a corner of the flat sit inanimate bundles of clay, but after one ofher daughters tries to eat the clay, the woman throws it into a nearby dumpster. The woman's husband finally gets a job with a good Manhattan firm, but it is competitive and he must work weekends and most evenings to stay on top of things. He is befuddled by his daughters: on Sunday afternoons during autumn he takes them to Central Park and tries to show them how to throw a football, and in springtime how to hit a baseball. The girls are quiet and sulky during the instruction, which only holds their attention for ten or so minutes. The eldest girl develops an interest in ballet and is given lessons. Her younger sister is encouraged to take up the piano. The eldest girl becomes rather good and has a solo as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker. Several weeks before the performance the woman begins commenting to her daughter: your hair is too stringy, perhaps we should have it cut before you go onstage; or: stand up straight, don't they teach you poise and posture at that school? And after attending a dress rehearsal her mother says wistfuUy: so many of the girls in the production are so lissomeand beautiful. When the girl gets onstage she executes the steps competently but lacks charisma and confidence. The following day the girl's teacher calls her mother and says she just doesn't understand , she was delightful to watch in the preceding months. The woman says coldly that perhaps her daughter isn't cut out for performance and would be better off just dancing for exercise, and soon after the girl quits ballet. At thirteen her eldest girl again tries the performing arts. This time she begins acting lessons, her teachers be- Chadwick 65 lieve she shows promise and again she is cast in the part of Amy in a dramatization of Little Women. The girl is careful not to talk about the upcoming performance, but while putting the girls' laundry away her mother discovers her costume in the closet. Put it on she commands when the girl arrives home from school. The girl complies and her mother scrutinizes her, frowning. Perhaps there is still time for the girl to lose five pounds before opening night, or maybe the wardrobe person could let the costume out several inches around the hips. The girl gives up acting after the show's closing night. The woman's youngest daughter has always been distant from her family and impervious to her mother's barbs, so she is more or less ignored by her mother and the rest of her family. In the early 1970s there is a real estate boom and the family buys a large house on Long Island. The man commutes into the city most days, and also takes a second job teaching a class at NYU. A short time later the woman tells her husband that if he continues banging his students she will take him for everything he has. The girls go off to coUege and the woman decides to resume sculpting , clearing out her oldest daughter's bedroom, filling it with clay, and installing...