Calisher’s “The Scream on Fifty-Seventh Street” is a short story about a widow in her early 40s who learns to live without her husband of 20 years who dies. She moves back to Manhattan after 20 years of living in the suburb. At the beginning of the story, the protagonist, Mrs. Hazlitt, hears a scream somewhere on the street at night. After that, she becomes obsessed with this scream and tries to find out its origin, asking neighbors and trying not to look mad. The woman feels so lonely that she yearns to hear that sound again. In the end, she goes mad and is “waiting for the scream to come again” (Calisher, 1962, p. 169). This short story reveals such themes as madness, manlessness, and isolation and makes the readers think about the feminine roles of those times.
While reading the story, I thought it was about aging and adjusting to a new period of life. Thus, the author emphasized the protagonist’s age, saying that she has been married to her husband for twenty years (Calisher, 1962, p. 142). Her fair hair “allowed to gray gently, disordered no more than was natural in the boudoir” (p. 162). The woman seemed to accept her narrowing-in older age, but everything changed later. The theme of madness became evident when the protagonist began to talk to herself and think about the scream’s accent: “Had the scream had an accent?” (Calisher, 1962, p. 162). Moreover, madness and isolation are interrelated in the short story. The woman became mad because of her loneliness and social isolation.
Manlessness is another subject that made me think of the role of women in the period when the short story was written. A woman without a man had serious problems and became mad because she did not know how to live outside of a traditional nuclear family. Calisher (1962) writes, “she must be stern with herself at the very beginnings of any such, of what could presage the sort of disintegrating widowhood, full of the mouse-fears and softening self-indulgencies of the manless” (p. 142). In the 1950s, the role of women in society was to be caring and loving wives and create an atmosphere of a home. When Mrs. Hazlitt’s husband died, she did not know how to live without him, without the sense of a family. She had no one to care about and to talk to, so she began to hear voices and sounds. I think that the protagonist of this short story became mad because of loneliness and the inability to live an independent life.
I would recommend reading this story to those who want to comprehend better the feminine status and role in the 1940s-the 50s. Women lived in a patriarchal world and were treated as appendices to their husbands. A woman could not express her opinion openly, decide what to do, and be socially active. Even though females had the right to vote, they were still treated unequally. As the protagonist of this story, women served their husbands and protected their homes from outer factors. However, when Mrs. Hazlitt’s husband died, she lost her mission and had to adjust to new conditions. Unfortunately, social isolation and an inability to create social connections and make independent decisions played a trick on the woman and contributed to her insanity.
I also think that women could express their hidden thoughts and worries only through writing. Thus, Calisher revealed the problem of that time, showing that lonely women were unprotected and received no support from society. Consequently, a woman could go crazy because of loneliness, inner fights, and social isolation. In conclusion, Calisher’s short story is a demonstration of female fears and the consequences of their struggles being unaddressed.
Reference
Calisher, H. (1962). The scream on Fifty-Seventh Street. In S. Cahill (Ed.), Women & fiction: Short stories by and about women (pp. 141-169). A Signet Classic.