In Mildred Pierce, the title character transforms the patriarchal space of the suburb into one which suits her ambitions. This takes place in the historical context of economic depression, of women’s rising social power and independence, and of the resultant male anxiety. The suburbs, originally passed off as female-coded spaces, are seen as detached, and alienating at the beginning of Mildred’s story. However her actions are not destructive or dismissive; she does not build a new home or move to the city. Instead she adapts the isolating space of the suburb to the needs and demands of her personal and entrepreneurial agendas. She creates a network of supportive women who help her (temporarily) overcome the isolating fabric of the suburb. She changes the physical space of the suburban home into a successful restaurant. Finally, she turns her skills as a homemaker into assets which become money-makers. I will argue that Mildred Pierce successfully transforms the suburbs into a space which works for her rather than against her, though she is ultimately punished for doing so and reinscribed into a patriarchal power structure.
In an article on the evolving roles and activities of suburban women, Kim V. L. England illustrates the adaptive skills of women in the suburbs. Using a study of thirty women in suburban Columbus, Ohio conducted in the late 1980s, she identifies some of the tactics women have used to incorporate their professional ambitions into the suburban lifestyle. She begins by summarizing previous and contemporaneous writings on the positions of women in the suburbs. From this she concludes that “because societal expectations about gender identities are literally fossilized into bricks and mortar they will continue to partially constrain the possibilities open to women” (England 40). She argues for “the suburbs as contextualizing how women define and reconstruct their identities and their neighbourhoods to better facilitate the integration of their various roles” (30). Her conclusions are based on observations made some five decades after the events in Mildred Pierce are set. Mildred’s proto-feminist timing only amplifies the transgressive nature of her actions. In the context of the 1930s her financial ascent is scandalous, and it is necessary to reincorporate her into a patriarchal structure before the novel’s end.
From the beginning, the Pierce household is characterized as one in which monetary concerns prevail. Shortly after Mildred is introduced it is made known that her baking is for commercial purposes as she tells Bert: “I’m making this cake for Mrs. Whitley, and she’s going to pay me three dollars for it” (Cain 6). Mildred qualifies this statement with the implications of the following: “I don’t see anybody working around here but me” (6). Thus it is already clear that in light of Bert’s ineffectuality, Mildred has converted the female space of the kitchen into a place of economic production. Later in this scene, as Mildred indicts him for his affair with Maggie Biederhof, the narrator is quick to point out that Bert’s infidelity is translated into economic terms. “She had little to say about love, fidelity, or morals. She talked about money, and his failure to find work” (7). This concern for money is partly a symptom of the early 1930s having been a time of economic depression in the United States. However, this also reflects a larger social movement of women who became more aware of money and their own possibilities as wage-earners. As the novel opens Mildred has already reversed the typical power structure within her home, becoming the bread-winner while Bert is passive and dependant.
After Bert’s passage out of the house and Mildred’s usurping of his car (71-3), she sets out to reconstruct the male space outside their home into one which can be profitable for her. The reapropriation of the car in this suburban novel is doubly important. Firstly, it is a symbol of social mobility, and a necessary tool for financial independence and ascension in the suburbs. Without it, Mildred could not accomplish her “various daily activities usually being associated with widely dispersed locations” (England 28). Secondly, it furthers Bert’s symbolic castration. Not only can he not provide for his family financially, but he can no longer move around independently. The car becomes a tool of empowerment for Mildred, allowing her to commute to her job at Mr. Chris’ diner, and to widen her network of pie distribution. Just as suburban expansion was first promoted by car manufacturers, so the development of Mildred’s suburban enterprise is made possible by her having a car.
The network of supportive women which Mildred creates around her is also a crucial asset in the business’ expansion. As England writes, for the suburban women she interviewed “localized social relations were an important part of their coping strategies. For instance, relationships with other women (…) were important for finding paid work and making child care arrangements” (England 39). Mildred’s support network consists of Ida and Mrs. Gessler primarily. Their support is never made more explicit, nor cast in such heroic light, as when they come to Mildred’s rescue on the opening night of her restaurant. Mildred “saw her opening turning into a fiasco (…) Then beside her was Ida, whipping off her hat, tucking it with her handbag beside the tin box that held the cash, slipping into an apron” (Cain 144). Moments later, “Mrs. Gessler laid her hat beside Ida’s and went out” (145). The community of women evolves into a company of women under the ‘Mildred Pierce’ neon sign.
Similarly, what was once the model suburban home becomes the headquarters of a model suburban business. When Mildred’s production needs surpass her kitchen’s capacity, she maximizes the female-coded space of the Pierce Homes model home by making its ground floor half-kitchen, half-dining room. The ‘reconstruction’ England refers to in her article is made literal in Mildred Pierce. As Cain puts it, Mildred’s changes were ‘transforming’ the model home (103). Thus, her antiquated oven becomes the “gigantic range that made her heart pump when she looked at it” (103), and the small driveway becomes “the gravel that had been dumped for the free parking” (112). Finally, the defunct Pierce Homes Inc. becomes the more profitable Mildred Pierce Inc.. This parallel is reinforced by the detail that the initial advertising for the opening of Mildred’s restaurant relied on “the Pierce Home lists, so that every person who had bought a home, or had even thought of buying a home, had been covered” (137). What was built as a place for selling suburban homes is rebuilt into a place for selling suburban homeliness.
Similarly, Mildred’s support network is incorporated into Mildred Pierce Inc. when Ida and Mrs. Gessler become managers of their own branches. Cain never specifies whether Ida’s branch opens in a suburban or residential area of Beverly (203-204). However Mrs. Gessler’s branch epitomizes the theme of converting stultifying suburban homes into bustling suburban dining establishments, which began with the Pierce Homes model home. Firstly it is in Laguna Beach, perched on a cliff “halfway between L.A. and San Diego” (205), putting it as far West as one can go in a nation long characterized by its Westward expansion. Secondly, the home’s spectacular setting and the upscale restaurant which Mrs. Gessler turns it into (206-7), evoke the economic hierarchy of suburbs which prompt Mildred’s move from Glendale to Pasadena (262). The dramatic changes which are made to the Laguna Beach house echo and amplify the modifications made to the Pierce Homes model home.
In the novel’s denouement, Mildred is multiply punished for the transgressive activities she has undertaken. Her manipulation of the physical space of the suburbs is compensated for by other peoples’ manipulations of her. Thus, Mildred ends the novel with much less than she had to begin with, having gained and lost everything she ever wanted in the process. “She had mortgaged the house on Pierce Drive, into which she had now moved” (295). Not only has she moved back into the coded-male space of the Pierce Homes development, but she has assumed the mortgage payments that were Berts’ at the novel’s beginning. She also “could no longer do business under her own name. That, it turned out, was still owned by the corporation” (293-4). Her name having become something profitable, and for having subverted the Pierce from Pierce Homes Inc., Mildred is robbed of her identity. The retribution for her throwing off of patriarchal power structures is made complete when her role as mother is also taken from her. She had ignored the portents of Ray’s death, a symbolic warning coming a few days before the opening of Mildred’s first restaurant. Finally she must “draw the knife across an umbilical cord” (298), severing her maternal ties to Veda, giving up her role as a mother.
The multiple roles which Mildred had assumed are thus taken and re-appropriated by patriarchy, as well as her name and voice. The suburban homes she had transformed to fit her commercial needs become reinscribed into the patriarchal space of the suburbs. This is made light of when Mr. Chris voices his distaste for the pies being sold to him (296). Run by Wally rather than Mildred Pierce, the pies coming from the Mildred Pierce Inc. kitchens simply aren’t as good. The return of Bert at the end of the novel completes a re-establishment of patriarchal law, as impotent and ineffectual as it has proved to be in Mildred Pierce. Though the last line of the novel is spoken by Mildred, it is in Bert’s words. Even her means of self-expression are usurped as she echoes: “Yes—let’s get stinko” (298).
Note: Written for the course English 492: Divergent representations of the suburbs in postwar American fiction and film taught at McGill University by Dr. Jason Polley in the Fall of 2006.
Works Cited
Cain, James A.. Mildred Pierce. New York: Random House, 1941.
England, Kim V.L.. “Changing Suburbs, Changing Women: Geographic Perspectives on Suburban Women and Suburbanization.” Frontiers: A Journal of Womens Studies 14.1 (1993): 24-43.
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