Critics have continuously characterized Peter Taylor’s work, as a social critique of the South and how it shows “the effects of cultural inheritance on its people” (Bryant 66). In his story, “The Old Forest,” Taylor examines the regional history and social structures that shaped his own past and how breaking the architecture that has existed for generations is not easily accomplished. Although it takes place in 1937, with progressive girls and college students filling the city of Memphis with intellectualism and open sexuality, the social constructions of the past, most specifically the descendents of plantation owners and rich socialites, are not easily forgotten. Lines have been drawn between those residing in the progressive city and Nat Ramsey’s community of debutantes and patriarchal dominance. Nat’s fiancé, Caroline Braxley is unwillingly thrown into the conflict as Nat finds himself in a questionable situation with a city girl, Lee Ann. As Caroline struggles to secure her marriage to Nat, she is faced with obstacles of gender, social class, and her own emotions. Taylor exposes the essential truth behind Caroline of how she uses her knowledge of her expected roles to survive in a changing societal context. Caroline embodies a middle path through the conflicting generations and social movements that allows her to follow her desires and gain the future she wants without excluding herself from the values she has learned to accept.
      Caroline Braxley does not have a significant role in the beginning of Nat’s narrative. Instead, she is background noise in his quest for individual knowledge and self-awareness in the changing Memphis community. Nat only refers to her as “the society girl I was going to marry” (254) and puts her into an early category of the “innocent, untutored types that we generally took to dances at the Memphis Country Club and whom we eventually looked forward to marrying” (250). Nat does not give these debutantes the attention that he so admiringly puts toward the city girls. Thus, Caroline is simply a beautiful girl who he found “remarkable…capable and handsome” (254). Among his passive descriptions of the woman he was to spend the rest of his life with, readers are shown a more progressive side to Caroline that Nat has not realized yet. He praises her for liking “any sort of individualism in men” (255) but fails to realize that this quality is similar to the city girls he finds so attractive. Caroline’s role in Nat’s life so far seems no more than an organized and boring relationship that he escapes from with his adventures with the Memphis demimondes.
      Caroline, as expected, holds many qualities of the life expected of her by her parents and friends. When Nat is hurt, Caroline makes a “proper sick call” to his house and Nat presumes nothing more than for her to assure his presence for supper. Although there are hints of romance between them, Nat reveals to readers only a structured and scripted relationship between him and Caroline. Nat, however, also shows how much control Caroline has in their marriage, especially in her insistence that she manages the wedding and pushes him away for that memorable day only a week before their wedding because she has so much work to do. Throughout the story, she also holds the power to end or delay their engagement, a topic that seems to both scare and excite Nat. As Nat continues to give her more and more power in the relationship, ultimately following her every direction, his respect for her also grows. Caroline is seen as much more mature and organized than Nat from the beginning, but her strength does not reveal itself until it is truly needed when she confronts the outside world.
      Until the moment comes in Caroline’s life, she is seen by Nat as just one of the upper-class women who “took themselves seriously…and took seriously the forms of the life they lived” (269). It is in this analysis that Nat explains the roles that women in his society were expected to play, and what he expected from Caroline. She was to be a “moral woman” (269) who would fight against the lower classes of women for the rights to men, with the “power to test the strength and nature of another kind of woman’s power” (269). Taylor shows readers the very serious “struggle of women for power among themselves” (269) that plays such a large role in the lives of Caroline and her fellow debutantes. She had spent her life in a way to prepare for her expected future in her social class:

      Making a marriage and bringing up a family there in Memphis—a    marriage and a family of the kind their parents had had—they knew also from a fairly early time that they would have to contend with girls and women of certain sorts before and frequently after they were married. (268)

      Nat and Caroline have this perception of their world and social situations in their minds during the days following the accident. Although Nat found himself distracted with dreams of other lives he could possibly lead, Caroline knew she did not have the broad choices like the men in her world. This awareness of Caroline’s is a major contributor to her success in finding Lee Ann and using her knowledge of her own social boundaries to gain access to Nat’s underground society with the city girls. Caroline’s limited options in life made it possible for her to reach outside her comfortable surroundings, put herself in vulnerable situations, and fight for the life and man she loved. She does not need to fully rebel against her own way of life in order to feel power, she realizes that her power lies in her relationship with Nat and that is what maintains and strengthens their lifelong marriage. While Nat may have dreamed of a different life married to Lee Ann, “Caroline’s emergence as a central figure in the story is the result of her capacity to replace Lee Ann as an embodiment of reality for Nat” (Robinson, D 71). Caroline shows her strength of intelligence and womanhood in her societal understanding that Nat belongs with her and should not be allowed to ruin his or her future in pursuit of a city girl.
      Nat first realizes Caroline’s advanced maturity after the accident when she pushes him into the reality that “you are going to have to find Lee Ann [.] And you are probably going to need help” (268). He now sees her as one who will not simply stand by as he proves to do in the conflict. Caroline also exposes herself as a woman of limited options with a lot to lose if this conflict is not resolved. She does not want to break off her engagement from Nat, not only because she loves him, but because she has planned her life around this marriage and will not give it up easily. She knows about the other women, the city girls, but maintains her own social status and pride in herself when experiencing the hardship that Nat would not take control of. Nat’s inability to handle the situation and find a solution in their struggle against the city girls shows the gender reversal that occurs between Caroline and himself. Most significantly, as Caroline speaks with the city girls and Lee Ann, Nat is left alone in the car. He is completely helpless to what information or lies Caroline is told behind those closed doors. He is also weak in the way he does not question what might happen if he does not obey his fiancé. Caroline has taken complete control and ability of rebellion away for Nat and he accepts it without struggle. This reversal of gender roles shows the strength that Caroline has in fighting for what she wants.
      Caroline is also very aware of what she is doing, not simply acting on impulse, but rationalizing how to best solve the problem and behave toward the girls. Nat describes her “rolling up her sleeves, so to speak, to pitch in and settle this matter once and for all” (297). Caroline gives up on relying on the men in her world to solve the problem, and uses her womanly conduct and knowledge to get the answers they all needed to move on in life. In Caroline’s actions and reasons for her behavior, Taylor opens a “space for women in the South, especially those women who seek to liberate themselves from the paternalistic social structure” (Heldrich 48). There is also a clear break from the past, although Caroline does not fully defy her social expectations. There is a deep belief throughout this story that “the past cannot be ignored, and that the attempt to do so is ultimately destructive” (Robinson, D 76) and Caroline’s behavior of assertiveness helps reinforce the need for change from the past while accepting certain parts of the past.
      In Caroline’s interaction with each of the city girls, she comes to realize the power of societal boundaries much clearer. While she chooses girls who Nat has introduced her to in the clubs and “trying to make these girls acknowledge an acquaintance with her she had hoped to make them feel she was almost one of them” (297), she is adamantly denied any access into their lives or given any information about the girl who now controls her fate. Caroline shows contempt for their rude behavior, partly because she does not want to see herself too different from them because that reinforces her social boundaries and limits her ability to feel any kind of freedom.
      The title of the story and its subject should not be ignored. It plays a significant role in shaping the story’s themes of gender roles and generational changes. Throughout the story, the men of Memphis see the forest as a threat to their modernization of the city and progress toward the future. Women of the city, however, have been “determined to save this last bit of the old forest from the axes of modern men” (274). This minor battle in the background of the story highlights the need of women in southern society to have an escape from their male-dominated lives, “the great forests seemed woman’s last refuge from the brute she lived alone with in the wilderness” (274). The forest thus “represents a counterforce to masculine control” (Robinson, D 66-7) and continues to be a threat to the men of Memphis because of its direct relationship with women and their opposition to the patriarchal society.
      The role of men in the story is further illustrated in Nat’s experience searching for Lee Ann. Although the rich men have families of their own to look after and care for, they also feel the desire to protect the girls of the city who were not as fortunate as their own and do not have fathers to look after them. In taking on this responsibility, these men are also confronting the issue of women’s progress while trying to suppress it in their minds. Nat’s father expresses his disbelief in the lives of the city girls and the changing of the social code of the city, “That’s what the whole world is going to be like someday” (290). Taylor describes these men as “a generation of American men who were perhaps the last to grow up in a world where women were absolutely subjected and under the absolute protection of men” (289). These men are responsible also for shaping girls like Caroline into the women she has become. She acknowledges her place in the world as subject to men’s desires and wills.
      Caroline, however, does not let the oppression of her, and women in her society, become a huge obstacle in her life. She became very independent compared to the girls around her, stressing her desire to have separate interests and hobbies in life than Nat. Caroline also uses her place in society to get what she wants. Unlike the city girls, Caroline is privileged enough to be married to the man she loves without having the enormous threat of him being stolen away by society’s code of behavior. Rather, she only has to compete with women who would never be considered serious choices for marriage by any respectable man, which gives her greater power over Lee Ann and other who have become threatening to the debutantes. This fact also helps explain her small amount of jealousy toward the girls and their attention from Nat. Caroline is constantly aware of her own standing in Nat’s life and Southern society. Instead of sexual jealousy toward the city girls, Caroline dreams of having their freedom.
      It is therefore important to recognize the forest also symbolizing the choice of escape that Caroline has been denied her entire life. She envies Lee Ann for the self-control and life that she would never experience. As Nat sped the car down the highway, Caroline dreamed of having that freedom:

      [Lee Ann’s] freedom to jump out of your car, her freedom from                      you, her freedom to run off into the woods—with her capacity, which     her special way of living provided her, simply to vanish, to remove  herself from the eyes of the world, literally to disappear from the  glaring light of day while the whole world, so to speak, looked on.  (310)

Throughout her life, Caroline had never been able to feel the freedom of choice that Lee Ann had in the moment that changed their lives so drastically for four long days. Taylor portrays the forest as “the opposite of social constraints” (Shear 60) and Caroline’s lack of individual freedom within her upper class society is contrasted with the forest’s possibility of escape.
      After Caroline brings the conflict caused by the accident to a close, she finally breaks down and accepts the emotional pain and fear she had felt in the last four days. Nat is extremely surprised to see Caroline act in such a wailing and chaotic manner, but allows her to express her feelings in silence, which she later kisses him for. The episode in the speeding car is Caroline’s one chance to share her true feelings about the previous situation, her feelings about the girls, and her outlook on her own life. Her explanation of her personal limitations and individual power show the depth of courage it took for her to carry on her investigation of Lee Ann. Her struggles to overcome her lack of power in her role as a woman in Southern society had created an extra burden in her fight for a conclusion to the accident episode.
      Although she was forced to go beyond the social boundaries of her society, she did so in order to carry on the traditions of the past. This helps explain her inner torment concerning her imprisonment in her role as a woman, but her acknowledgement of the “difference from women like Lee Ann, and the achievement of that knowledge, however painful, confirms her strength and intelligence” (Robinson, D 76). It is her sharing this information and emotion with Nat that the “crisis transforms what might have seemed a marriage of convenience into a meaningful and durable relationship” (Robinson, D 67). Without Caroline’s hysterical outpouring of emotions, Nat would have possibly continued in his ignorance about the true condition of the women in his life and not been as loyal to Caroline throughout their marriage.
      Although she was not a major character in the beginning of the story, Caroline’s roles as a society girl and progressive woman become closer together as she struggles to maintain her own lifestyle and future. Peter Taylor’s tale of the weaker Nat Ramsey and his emboldened Caroline Braxley help highlight the “effect upon the human condition of changing times and of changing places—and into the ways in which these changes compel people to compromise their ideals or convictions, or inspire them to acts of moral courage and determination of which they might not have thought themselves capable” (Bawer 32). Caroline shows the power of the individual Southern woman who was capable of many things she would not have believed before faced with adversity and uncertainty about the future.
      Throughout the story, the old society of Nat and Caroline’s parents tried to enforce behavior limits and rules that were no longer possible to keep when faced with their contemporary problem. Caroline’s “checked emotions” (309) helped her keep the future she was destined to have without compromising her own integrity, but through her breakdown, Taylor reveals that the past and its codes cannot live undisturbed or unbroken forever. Her loss of emotional and physical control shows her ability to partially escape from her social expectations, but only in the presence of the man she knows will love her and away from the family and society that put so much pressure on her to stay in line. Caroline, who is supposed to be a symbol of the old society shows that there is no way to fully conform to the stereotypes of the past in her time and place. She lets go momentarily of her external obligations and fully reveals her inner fears of losing her power to save Nat and herself from the crushing forces of the past that existed all around them. Through Caroline, Taylor is able to show the raw emotions that make up those people so easily stereotyped in Southern literature. He reveals the truth behind her actions, not fitting her in a category of spoiled, rich snobs, but as a woman finding the strength to save herself from pain and suffering by saving the man she loved. It is by finding the power to maintain some sort of order in her life that Caroline combines her desire to break with the past with her obligation to stay true to her family and their expectations.



Works Cited
Bryant, J. A., Jr. “Peter Taylor and the Walled Gardens.” Journal of the Short Story in English 9 (Fall 1987): 65-72.
Heldrich, Philip. “Collision and Revision in Peter Taylor’s ‘The Old Forest’.” Southern Quarterly: A Journal of the Arts in the South 38.2 (Winter 2000): 48-53.
Robinson, David M. “Engaging the Past: Peter Taylor’s ‘The Old Forest’.” Southern Literary Journal 22.2 (Spring 1990): 63-77.
Robison, James Curry. Peter Taylor: A Study of the Short Fiction. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988. 78, 89-95.
Shear, Walter. “Peter Taylor’s Fiction: The Encounter with the Other.” Southern Literary Journal 21.2 (Spring 1989): 41-46.
- -. “Women and History in Peter Taylor’s Short Stories.” Southern Quarterly: A Journal of the Arts in the South 33.1 (Fall 1994): 41-46.
Taylor, Peter. “The Old Forest.” Growing Up in the South: An Anthology of Modern Southern Literature. Ed. Jones, Suzanne W. New York: Penguin Group Inc., 2003. 247-314.