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"The Spectacles" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, published in 1844. It is one of Poe's comedy tales.
The narrator, 22-year-old Napoleon Buonaparte Froissart, changes his last name to "Simpson" as a requirement to inherit a large sum from a distant cousin, Adolphus Simpson. At the opera he sees a beautiful woman in the audience and falls in love instantly. He describes her beauty at length, despite not being able to see her well; he requires spectacles but, in his vanity, "resolutely refused to employ them". His companion Talbot identifies the woman as Madame Eugenie Lalande, a wealthy widow, and promises to introduce the two. He courts her and proposes marriage; she makes him promise that, on their wedding night, he will wear his spectacles.
When he puts on the spectacles, he sees that she is a toothless old woman. He expresses horror at her appearance, and even more so when he learns she is 82 years old. She begins a rant about a very foolish descendant of hers, one Napoleon Buonaparte Froissart. He realizes that she is his great-great-grandmother. Madame Lalande, who is also Mrs. Simpson, had come to America to meet her husband's heir. She was accompanied by a much younger relative, Madame Stephanie Lalande. Whenever the narrator spoke of "Madame Lalande", everyone assumed he meant the younger woman. When the elder Madame Lalande discovered that he had mistaken her for a young woman because of his eyesight, and that he had been openly courting her instead of being civil to a relative, she decided to play a trick on him with the help of Talbot and another confederate. Their wedding was a fake. He ends by marrying Madame Stephanie and vows to "never be met without SPECTACLES" — having acquired a pair of his own at last.
Publication history of "The Spectacles"
at the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore
Original manuscript of "The Spectacles"
at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin * {{DEFAULTSORT:Spectacles, The 1844 short stories Short stories by Edgar Allan Poe Comic short stories Works originally published in American newspapers Works set in opera houses
Plot summary
The narrator, 22-year-old Napoleon Buonaparte Froissart, changes his last name to "Simpson" as a requirement to inherit a large sum from a distant cousin, Adolphus Simpson. At the opera he sees a beautiful woman in the audience and falls in love instantly. He describes her beauty at length, despite not being able to see her well; he requires spectacles but, in his vanity, "resolutely refused to employ them". His companion Talbot identifies the woman as Madame Eugenie Lalande, a wealthy widow, and promises to introduce the two. He courts her and proposes marriage; she makes him promise that, on their wedding night, he will wear his spectacles.
When he puts on the spectacles, he sees that she is a toothless old woman. He expresses horror at her appearance, and even more so when he learns she is 82 years old. She begins a rant about a very foolish descendant of hers, one Napoleon Buonaparte Froissart. He realizes that she is his great-great-grandmother. Madame Lalande, who is also Mrs. Simpson, had come to America to meet her husband's heir. She was accompanied by a much younger relative, Madame Stephanie Lalande. Whenever the narrator spoke of "Madame Lalande", everyone assumed he meant the younger woman. When the elder Madame Lalande discovered that he had mistaken her for a young woman because of his eyesight, and that he had been openly courting her instead of being civil to a relative, she decided to play a trick on him with the help of Talbot and another confederate. Their wedding was a fake. He ends by marrying Madame Stephanie and vows to "never be met without SPECTACLES" — having acquired a pair of his own at last.
Publication history and response
"The Spectacles" was first published in the '' Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper'' in the March 27, 1844 issue. Critics suggested that the piece was paid by the word, hence its relatively high length, especially for a work of humor. Upon its reprinting in the '' Broadway Journal'' in March 1845, Poe himself acknowledged he was "not aware of the great length of 'The Spectacles' until too late to remedy the evil". The editor of the ''Dollar Newspaper'' printed "The Spectacles" with the comment that "it is one of the best from oe'schaste and able pen and second only to the popular prize production, ' The Gold-Bug.'" Editor John Stephenson Du Solle reprinted the story in his daily newspaper ''The Spirit of the Times'' in Philadelphia, saying, "Poe's Story of 'The Spectacles' is alone worth double the price of the paper." It was first published overseas in the May 3, 1845, issue of London-based ''Lloyd's Entertaining Journal''.Major themes
Besides warning readers to obey their eye doctors, Poe seems to be addressing the concept of "love at first sight" – in fact, the first line of the story points out that "it was the fashion to ridicule the idea". Yet, the story is presented to "add another to the already almost innumerable instances of the truth of the position" that love at first sight does exist. Theirony
Irony (), in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what on the surface appears to be the case and what is actually the case or to be expected; it is an important rhetorical device and literary technique.
Irony can be categorized into ...
is that the narrator does not have a "first sight" of the woman he falls in love with, due to his lack of spectacles.
Additionally, the story is based around vanity. The narrator changes his name, with "much repugnance", from Froissart to Simpson, "a rather usual and plebeian
In ancient Rome, the plebeians (also called plebs) were the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census, or in other words " commoners". Both classes were hereditary.
Etymology
The precise origins of ...
" name in order to collect inheritance. His original patronym
A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor.
Patronymics are still in use, including mandatory use, in many countries worldwide, alt ...
, he says, elicited in him "a very pardonable pride". This same pride kept him from wearing spectacles. Madame Lalande admits that she was teaching him a lesson.
The name of "Napoleon Buonaparte" makes obvious reference to the Corsican general Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
. The story also has very strong Oedipal tones.
Scholar Carmen Trammell Skaggs noted that the story, though intended to be humorous, nevertheless showed Poe's awareness of the opera. He references the soprano singer Maria Malibran and the San Carlo, and he also describes vocal technique in a way that implies a close knowledge of the subject. Skaggs also emphasizes Poe's role as a music critic for the ''New York Evening Mirror
The ''New-York Mirror'' was a weekly newspaper published in New York City from 1823 to 1842, succeeded by ''The New Mirror'' in 1843 and 1844. Its producers then launched a daily newspaper named ''The Evening Mirror'', which published from 1844 ...
'' and, later, the '' Broadway Journal''.Skaggs, Carmen Trammell. ''Overtones of Opera in American Literature from Whitman to Wharton''. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010: 35–36.
Notes
References
*External links
Publication history of "The Spectacles"
at the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore
Original manuscript of "The Spectacles"
at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin * {{DEFAULTSORT:Spectacles, The 1844 short stories Short stories by Edgar Allan Poe Comic short stories Works originally published in American newspapers Works set in opera houses