Pedagogy of the undressed: Sherwood Anderson's Kate Swift

Studies in Short Fiction, Fall, 1999 by Belinda Bruner

Kate's bared body is the "strong sweet new current of power" (148) for which the Reverend has been praying. He becomes more confident in himself after seeing Kate through her window. He is more aware of temptation and his sermons are more charismatic. Even though his lust increases, he is happy to find that the Lord delivers him from temptation every time, for example, by one evening sending Aunt Swift to the window instead of Kate. The Reverend is shocked by Kate's smoking but reminds himself that she has lived an adventurous life, having spent time in Europe and New York City. This is one way that he begins to have more compassion for human imperfection. His own imperfection, that of lust for a woman, is manifested by the hole he makes in his window. The image that is cracked away, the heel of the boy looking into the face of Christ, is a pagan symbol but an apt one: the Reverend's Achilles' heel. He prays: "Please, Father, do not forget me. Give me power to go tomorrow and repair the hole in the window" (152). When God does not move him to do so, he decides that God must be testing him with a temptation. As he continues to contemplate the test, he decides that he deserves to know passion and that he will not be a hypocrite. He considers leaving the ministry and seeking women:

   Man ... has no right to forget that he is an animal ... I will besiege this
   school teacher ... if I am a creature of carnal lusts I will live then for
   my lusts ... I will see this woman and will think the thoughts I have never
   dared to think. (154)

This time when the Reverend goes to wait and watch for Kate, she appears naked and weeping, and kneels down to pray, looking like "the figure of the boy in the presence of the Christ on the leaded window" (155). The Reverend smashes the whole window with his fist and runs into the street. He goes to George Willard to tell of his message from God brought to him in the body of a woman:

   God has appeared to me in the person of Kate Swift, the school teacher,
   kneeling naked on a bed. Do you know Kate Swift? Although she may not be
   aware of it, she is an instrument of God, bearing the message of truth.
   (155)

The Reverend's comments suggest that the objectified teacher may be holding the truth and yet unaware of her role. Kate is humiliated for a greater good and is cast as a martyr by Anderson's simple imagery. The fragile, beautiful vision is used to portray truth and then smashed like a fallen idol. Now the Reverend knows that even the naked and carnal pray, that he can lust and still serve God. He has also learned not to try to patch up a hole but to replace the entire spectacle. He credits God through the body of Kate for his insight, but in reality he has learned this truth by and for himself.

The Reverend's voyeuristic act is not unlike that of a student. The student, or the observer, processes many ideas and thinks through many fantasies of which the teacher is unaware. The teacher is a vulnerable object, moving, breathing, speaking for the class before her, his or her body a tablet upon which students will write their story of a night, a semester, a lifetime. A strong and generous person should take this position, with an awareness of the power not only to manipulate and suggest, but also the humility of being formed and designed, of being part of the student's learning material. Kate is seductive and compelling as a manifestation of her ability to educe--to lead people out of their delusions toward an understanding of their real lives. A teacher must be able to know when a student is ready for such learning. Wing Biddlebaum dreams that he is on a pedestal toward which young men come to sit and learn. Wing is afraid of that dream. Kate embodies it, and suffers perhaps as much as Wing because she never learns of the stories she brings out in people, the places to which she leads. Her seduction arouses, empowers, and ennobles others, but humiliates Kate. She is the teacher who makes herself available at her own risk: