Luella Miller by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman is a Gothic short story about a woman who brings death to anyone who works for her by losing their “jest” and eventually dying. It is one of Freeman’s most lauded works and forms a highlight of the collection The Wind in the Rose Bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural. First published in 1902, it is a haunting story where the setting is uncanny and calls for a serious psychological study of the titular character.
Luella Miller | Summary
The story begins with the description of a one-story house “close to the village street” where Luella Miller, who has been dead for years now, lived. She had a bad name for herself, and everyone shuddered at her name and the view of the house. Only one woman had actually known her- Lydia Anderson. She is well over eighty and has never married. She is the one who stands testament to Luella’s bewitching spell.
Luella had apparently been an unusual beauty in New England. While she is uneducated, she herself came to New England to teach. Lottie Henderson used to do all her teaching, while she did her embroidery work. She died within a year of Luella’s joining the school. One of the boys helped her with the teaching after Lottie died, and he went mad. She used to be Luella Hill, but she married Erastus Miller. He worships his wife and does all the work around the house- bringing her breakfast, doing the washing and cleaning- never asking his wife to do anything. He later suffers from consumption of the blood and grows weaker and weaker until he dies. He works till his last breath, selling wood and looking very feeble. Erastus’s sister Lily does Luella’s sewing for her, and Lily is very good at it. She lives with Luella after Erastus’ death.
Lydia Anderson tells the story of Lily Miller, who is young and lives with her brother’s widow. Within six months, her health deteriorates. While Lily speaks extremely fondly of Luella, the latter does not lift a finger while the former’s body grows weak and she is in desperate need of help. After Lily’s death, her aunt Abby Mixter comes to live with Luella. She too begins to lose her health just like Lily and Erastus before her. She looks after Luella like her own child and never visits her married daughter even when she sends for her. When her daughter finally comes, she breaks down looking at her mother’s health. The daughter, Mrs. Sam Abbot, accuses Luella of killing everyone before her mother. Abby Mixter also dies. She does not accept help from Lydia even when the latter visits Luella’s place, where she finds Abby comforting a crying Luella.
Lydia Anderson gets very angry at Luella and forcibly makes her swallow a glass of valerian. She tends to Abby Mixter, who looks worn out. When the doctor arrives, Luella meekly asks if Aunt Abby has “got up”, to which Lydia remarks that she must make her coffee herself. Luella is oblivious to Abby’s sickness and that makes Lydia extremely mad. The young doctor protects Luella from Sam Abbot’s furious accusations. Lydia predicts that he will be the next person who latches on to Luella, and she swears to take action this time.
After about a month, when the doctor is out of town and is already pursuing Luella, Lydia goes to confront Luella in her parlor. Maria Brown had taken Aunt Abby’s place, an unmarried woman who considered it shameful that someone who isn’t able to help themselves should be shamed. Lydia tells Luella that she brought a curse upon anyone who latched themselves to her and slowly sucked the life out of them. Luella tells Lydia that she cannot do any work around the house and Maria “has to do it”. Lydia tells her that she would kill the doctor too and that she has no business looking at another man after her husband. Maria Brown too, dies soon afterword, perishing just the way the others had.
Luella grows paler and paler, making it clear that she had been avoiding the doctor with no one to help her. When one day he goes to her unannounced and comes out engaged to her, she looks as healthy as ever. Sarah Jones, a girl from the city, comes to do her work. However, both the doctor and Sarah die just like the others, confirming that Luella is the village pariah.
Luella sickens again, and Lydia watches again, without offering help. She brings her bundles of groceries to do right by Erastus’ wife but ignores Luella’s cries from inside. Two weeks later, Lydia witnesses Luella’s ‘helpers’ escorting her out of the house while she seems to fly among them. She was found later, dead in her bed.
Long after, on a moonlit night, Lydia Anderson- eighty-seven now- runs from her house in front of Luella’s and dies there. The house then burns down leaving nothing but cellar stones and a lilac bush. In summer, morning glories grow, emblematic perhaps of Luella herself.
Luella Miller | Analysis
The story never overtly says that Luella is a bloodsucking vampire, but she acts more like a metaphor for one. Luella Miller is a parasitic creature who sucks the life out of the living, while the story insinuates that she can barely help it and it is her very nature. Luella Miller thus forms a classic Gothic horror story with common themes present in vampire stories at the time Wilkins was writing.
It must be noted that Freeman’s own mother died of overworking in 1880 after being a housemaid. In this sense, one can interpret Luella Miller as a critique of the upper, aristocratic class which raises its women to be pretty and incapable of any housework, resulting in the exploitation of the proletariat, in the Marxist sense of the word. The anger over the injustice that her own mother had to go through must have dominated Freeman’s writing, especially in relation to this story. The story then is a critique disguised as horror as the vampire is Luella herself, while she has no vampire-like qualities. She is bewitchingly beautiful and free of the kind of horrific features that dominate vampire narratives. Something about Luella continually incapacitates her until she finds it hard to walk herself.
Lydia and Luella seem to be bound together in a strange commonality; the former is a vital part of the community but unmarried, and one needs to latch herself to someone to survive. Luella perhaps did not have her effect on Lydia because of how strikingly opposite she is to the former; she is as ‘useless’ to the community as Luella and they are both disallowed from any personal development. They are not round characters.
Luella Miller | Character Sketch
Luella Miller
The titular character is a woman of haunting beauty, however, anyone who latches on to her loses their life which is slowly sucked out of them. Luella has many upper-class qualities to herself; she is always prim and proper and is constantly infantilized by Lydia. In addition, people work themselves to death tending to her. She is a parasitic character who sucks life out of anyone who comes close to her, and it seems that she is unable to help it.
Lydia Anderson
Lydia Anderson is the mirror character and ‘protagonist’ of Freeman’s story. She is an unmarried woman who enjoys a vigorous youth, even at eighty-seven years of age. She was the first person to refuse help to Luella and ironically, dies outside her house on a moonlit night at eighty-seven.
Literary Devices
- Simile: Simile is used in the following lines- “I have wondered lately if she knew it—if she wasn’t like a baby with scissors in its hand cuttin’ everybody without knowin’ what it was doin’.”
- Metaphor: Luella Miller seems to be a metaphor for a vampire, even though it is never stated overtly. Her powers for ebbing life out of someone have been associated with witchcraft, but she sucks life out of people much like the typical trope of a vampire.
Luella Miller calls for a fascinating study of the trope of vampires; the titular monster is a beautiful woman who seemingly ebbs life out of anyone she latches on to for help with her house. She withers away as she finds no one to take care of her towards the end of the story and only Lydia Anderson did not get influenced by the effect she had on others. The story reads like a critique of the upper-class which trained its women to be pretty and proper, incapable of any work. It is one of Freeman’s widely lauded stories.
