In his day Richard Harding Davis (1864 – 1916) was a celebrated journalist who specialized in covering natural disasters and wars, often putting himself in dangerous situations in order to get a good story. He also wrote several novels and plays, and many short stories, based on his experiences outside the USA, covering wars and traveling in Central and South America. He was commercially very successful. ‘A Charmed Life’ is set in the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the male protagonist, Chesterton, is an American journalist in Cuba covering the action. As as story it is typical of his work: it has tremendous confidence in male values of heroism, very conventional in its portrayal of gender stereotypes and the confidence of an America that was transforming itself into a world superpower. There are elements of the story then which make it seem rather old-fashioned to a reader is the early twenty-first century. However, the story is cleverly constructed and depends for its effect on dramatic irony, and it gives a penetrating insight into American attitudes at the time it was written.
The Spanish-American War, unlike modern conflicts, was an exclusively a male affair. Miss Armitage attempts to assert her authority over Chesterton, telling him at one point, “YOU CAN’T GO!” | (Davis, 3) Her view is ignored, of course, and it even seems to increase Chesterton’s sense of power and desire because we are told that that “he held her close” but with “great caution, as though in his joy he might crush her in his hands” (Davis, 5) – thus establishing men as the stronger sex and women as weak and fragile. Chesterton argues that nothing bad can happen to him because God has allowed him to love Miss Armitage, and she suggest that her love will be like a charm to him, preserving him from danger during the war: because of Miss Armitage’s love for him, Chesterton will lead the “charmed life” of the title.
Davis’s attitude to war in the story is also somewhat old-fashioned: the story does not focus on the suffering of individual soldiers, as much literature from the First World War or the Vietnam War tends to. Instead David tells us in almost light-hearted tones that the war ran its ‘Happy-go-lucky course” and, while it lasts, Chesterton does indeed seem to lead a charmed life – always in important places to get good stories and report first-hand exciting action from the battlefield. Davis tells us that, “At each moment of the war that was critical, picturesque, dramatic, by some lucky accident he found himself among those present. He could not lose.” (Davis, 7). Davis’s attitude to war is triumphant, easy-going, full of confidence.
The significance of the story’s title and the dramatic irony really come in to play when the war is over, and Davis shows his skill as a short a story writer with the structure of the story. We should remember that dramatic irony simply means a situation where the readers know more than the characters in any given text. The war is over and Chesterton decides to rush home immediately to Miss Armitage – such is his love and passion for her. He decides to ride through the night to reach a ship that is leaving Mayaguez at six the following morning. He ignores the advice of the American general who warns him that not all the Spanish troops will have heard that the war is officially over, and the danger of guerillas on the road, but Chesterton’s confidence is supreme: “If I don’t catch that transport I sure WILL die… but nothing else can kill me! I have a charm! (Davis, 12)
Essentially what follows in the story are situations where Chesterton almost dies, but is saved because he does something which is prompted by thoughts of Miss Armitage or does something which is possible only because of her. The power of the story lies in the dramatic irony – the fact that Chesterton remains totally oblivious to the danger that he is in and which actually culminates in the very last sentence of the story. Chesterton does indeed meet Spanish troops who have not heard that the war is over. There is a frenzied discussion between two Spanish snipers about whether to shoot him or not. Chesterton is saved because he drops a matchbox which has special sentimental value for him because it was the first tiny present Miss Armitage bought him – before they even realized they were in love. Chesterton’s search on the ground for the matchbox leads to his scrabbling around on the ground trying to find it – an act which convinces the snipers that he is a scout and they will not shoot him for fear of alerting the larger force they assume is behind him.
The next lucky escape involves a rope bridge across a ravine. Chesterton’s pony refuses to cross, sensing that the bridge is dangerous. Chesterton urges the pony on, but he still refuses to cross. At that moment, Chesterton looks down and sees a white orchid (Miss Armitage’s favorite flower) and so he descends the ravine and crosses by the ford instead, having plucked the orchid for his lover. Moments later there is the crash of the rope bridge falling down, which Chesterton, in his unknowing innocence, assumes must be a tree falling in the jungle,
The final incident is more complicated. Chesterton needs to change ponies if he is to reach the departing ship on time. He comes across a village where he pays for a new pony. Unknown to Chesterton, because he cannot speak Spanish, the family he buys his new pony from plan to ambush him and kill him as he leaves the town. However, events intervene. In the local inn a child is close to death. Chesterton gladly gives the parish priest some opium from the medicine case that Miss Armitage forced him to take and, because of this act of kindness and altruism, Chesterton’s life is spared. Hi is blissfully unaware of these narrow escapes from death. There is further irony at work: on each of three brushes with death, he HAS been saved by Miss Armitage – the matchbox she gave him, her love of white orchids, and the medicine chest she insisted that he take.
At the very end of the story Davis piles on the irony. Miss Armitage reveals that there was one night when she was especially concerned for his safety. Together they work out that it was the night when peace had been declared, the night of Chesterton’s three lucky escapes from death. The last sentences of the story are packed with irony and with Chesterton’s unknowing innocence about his situation: “The war was over. I’m sorry, but THAT night I was riding toward you, thinking only of you. I was never for a moment in danger.” (Davis, 31).
The introduction spoke about American attitudes at the time the story was written. The story is optimistic and the war against Spain was, in fact, over in ten weeks. We can cannot Chesterton’s ‘charmed life’ with the general idea of American manifest destiny which began as the notion of expansion into the interior of north America, but by 1898 had expanded to give the United States the sense that its ‘manifest destiny’ was to spread democracy and freedom throughout the world. Chesterton’s lucky survival, in fact the fact that he survives at all can be seen as an endorsement of of the idea of ‘manifest destiny.’ In the story it is Chesterton’s destiny to return to Miss Armitage unscathed; in world affairs America’s interventions, at that time, were seen as blessed and prone to success.
Work Cited
Davis, Richard Harding. ‘A Charmed Life.’ Kindle edition. Web. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1821
