The Tenth of January

The short story “The Tenth of January” takes place well into the frigid winter months in the city of Lawrence. A city that the author writes is well known for its “simooms that scorch you and tempests that freeze you”, and it is these opposing and severe types of weather features that play into creating a dramatic backdrop to the story of Asenath Martyn’s tragic end. With winter, one usually associates things like cold, chills, freezing, ice, snow, and so on, this is so for Sene when she is out amongst this harsh frozen landscape learning that the boy she has secretly loved for two long years has too had a secret love but for someone else. At this discovery, Sene’s character becomes increasingly more introverted with the bubbling over of emotions she must have endured coupled with the immense heartbreak she felt. The setting adds to this feeling by implying the vivacity of the underwater creatures, carrying on with splendidly varying daily tasks, beneath a solid, hard exterior of capped frozen ice, leading one to believe that everything underneath is too absent of life and frozen in time until spring’s warmth comes. Like the river remains frozen and hard on the outside, so does Sene as November days turn into January nights, keeping her true feelings toward Del and Dick’s relationship beneath the surface, to herself, culminating in the burning of Pemberton factory. As Sene watches the beautiful and lovely Del pulled to safety and embraced in the arms of Richard, she finds solace in the thought that what “she had done was right, quite right. God must have known.” At that moment, “the tangled skein of her perplexed and troubled winter unwound suddenly”, she finally understood it all, “God had provided himself a lamb for the burnt-offering” and that was herself. She knew she could never nor was ever supposed to be with Richard Cross, he belonged to Del, and this fact allowed her to give the opportunity of rescue to Del. Finally the chilled heap of emotions and deep thoughts that had engulfed Sene’s mind all these months were able to manifest themselves in the flames of understanding like a waking bear at the first of spring. Sene was then able to accept her unavoidable death, “they had left her, tombed alive here in this furnace. . . Yet it gave her a curious sense of relief and triumph.”She no longer had to tirelessly struggle with the uncertainty of Richard and herself, their relationship, and Del. Now nothing remained, “only the smoke writhing up a pillar of blood-red flame.”