"The Extinct Angel" review

Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote this short story in reference to "The Angel in the House" by Coventry Patmore in 1854. Many authors and publishers took to this poem and wrote their own responses to this "Angel." Gilman started her short story by poking fun at the idea of the Angel and mocking the origin of it.

There was once a species of angel inhabiting this planet, acting as a "universal solvent" to all the jarring, irreconcilable elements of human life.

I have never been so confused by one sentence in my life. That first line literally sounded like it came out of the mouth a Bible thumping cult leader. Yes, I did giggle; but, I was a little curious as to where the story was going.

She goes on to say that every family had an angel. These angels were only meant to take care of human responsibilities that were inconveniences, even if they were tedious little chores around the house. Come on, now. I can't tell if Gilman really believed in this theory or if she was really just poking fun at the original poem.

It was the business of the angel to assuage, to soothe, to comfort, to delight.

Okay, now she's convincing me that my house is obviously incomplete. The angel belonging to my house is seriously slacking. Who can I speak to about this?!

By an unfortunate limitation of humanity the angel was required, in addition to such celestial duties as smiling and soothing, to do kitchen service, cleaning, sewing, nursing, and other mundane tasks. But these things must be accomplished without the slightest diminution of the angelic virtues.

The dishes in my kitchen sink, the unfolded piles of laundry, and the unvaccummed floors in my house are laughing at me. Somebody please help me acquire one of these bad boys!

I'm not going to dissect every word in this short story because I will just get more jealous of the homes in the 1800s.

The story really isn't that long. I have it downloaded as a PDF and it's only a page and a half. I wish it was longer because I need some more details on the subject.

But little by little, owing to the unthought-of consequences of repeated intermarriage between the angel and the human being, the angel longed for, found and ate the fruit of the forbidden tree of knowledge.

And in that day she surely died.

The species is now extinct. It is rumored that here and there in remote regions you can still find a solitary specimen--in places where no access is to be had to the deadly fruit; but the race as a race is extinct.

Poor dodo!

This is the very ending of the story. It came out of no where. The first place my mind went was Adam and Eve. Nothing else in the story remotely even suggested that this was their story. It did say that the angels helped humans get into heaven, but as far as the Bible says, only the people who follow and preach God's word get into heaven.

I'm not a religious person, so don't quote me on that. For those that are, it's easy for them to say that not everyone can go to heaven and that's why there's a hell. How is it even possible that these so called angels get every single household into heaven? Just because they soothe our discomforts doesn't mean we're worthy of the golden roads and puffy clouds. Can I get an Amen?

There was only one other publisher in history to mock "The Angel in the House" poem. Virginia Woolf wrote a lecture about killing the Angel and becoming her own woman. That lecture is what inspired me to branch out and research more about other assumptions of this so called Angel.

The two women view this theory very differently and I'd love to know what the readers of those literature pieces think about the Angel.