Reading the Domestic Spaces: Capitola's Bed Room/Body

We talked at length in class about the trap door and underlying pit in Capitola’s bed room. It is really the only domestic space that we see her in and we get a lot of description of the space, the furnishings and furniture in that space. It is a “large shadowy space” (72) that instantly lead me to feel anxiety for Capitola being taken into by Mrs. Condiment. However, once I saw that it has a nice big bed, a rocking chair, two arm chairs, a dresser and wash stand, I thought she would be very appreciative because it was much better than living on the streets. But as soon as Mrs. Condiment starts talking about the trap door, and the author drops hints like, “the simple accident of its arrangement, depended, on two occasions, the life and honor of its occupant” (72)--I started to feel concerned again. And then when Mrs. Condiment tells Capitola that the trap door was used to trap Indians, I started to feel sick. But now that I have finished the novel and see how the trap door functions as a plot device and a symbol, there is much more to be discussed than we talked about in class. For instance, it perplexes me that Capitola tells Pitapat, “I do not like the smell of food in my bedroom” (261). Why does she not want food in an obvious domestic space, especially when she was someone who lived on the streets and food was hard to come by? An obvious answer is that perhaps Southworth is just setting up the later scene with Black Donald’s invasion of Capitola’s chamber. So I went on and re-read the scene of her “awful peril” and looked at that domestic space again as representative of Capitola's body.

First of all, the bedroom is in a far distant corner of the house. It takes a lot of time to get to that space. There are many passageways one has to go through, corners to turn, and empty rooms to pass. Pitapat is the only one who regularly goes there besides Capitola. Mrs. Condiment goes there only twice. General Warfield is only there once. So I find it very interesting that Black Donald and his gang members have no problem finding that space and can make it there without getting caught. The gang members all hide under the bed, which is a personal and intimate space representing Capitola. Since a bed is usually one shared with one who is a lover or child, their close proximity to it shows how Capitola could become like them or be with them. But she manages to get rid of them before she is violated in that personal space.

Black Donald, on the other hand, actually gets laid in Cap’s bed after he is retrieved from the pit. Even though they are not in the bed together, they have still shared the same bed, which invites further exploration of the pre-pit scene. I see it as a seduction scene that Southworth rewrites to empower Capitola instead of Black Donald. He thinks that by locking the door he has captured her, an uninvited entrance that can be read as a near rape and/or kidnapping. But unlike other maidens in similar scenes, Capitola does not faint or scream. Instead she remains cool--as a cucumber. Black Donald’s equation of her with an object of consumption, and the ensuring scene in which he eats ham, then cheese, and then bread while swigging away on the brandy is a precursor to the consumption he plans of Capitola’s physical body in a seduction or rape. The inevitability of the sexual consumption seems even more imminent when they start making the egg nog, since they prepare it together and the eggs themselves represent fertility and female sexuality. Capitola tells him, “it takes two to make egg-nog” and then she shudders when he takes off his coat, a definite physical response of excitement and/or fear (367). Then after Black Donald consumes the egg nog, it seems he will go on further to consume Capitola, but then Southworth shifts the power dynamic when Black Donald moves his chair onto the rug that conceals the trap door. Sitting in a chair, he is over the pit, under the trap door. This pit, or old cellar, is a yonic symbol or space that represents femaleness and Black Donald falls into it because he will not yield to Capitola’s attempts to convert him into a Christian male. Perhaps if he had listened to her pleadings to reform and given into her female power, he would not have had to enter a dark and scary space. However, Southworth doesn’t kill him in that space--instead, he is reborn, violently, from entering Capitola‘s domestic space--the bedroom and the pit underneath. And like a helpless baby emerging from a mother’s womb, he has to be helped out of the space and lays in bed for an extended period of time before he can walk to the judge and await his trial. When Capitola gives him the tools to break his chains, she is again acting like a figurative mother who gives her child the tools needed to go out into the unknown world. In this way we can read the bed room as a representation of Capitola herself and her body. She is the bedroom and the bedroom is her.