PUBLICATION HISTORY:
Irish playwright Brian Friel's Translations was first performed in September 1980 at the Guildhall in Derry, Northern Ireland. Its production was managed by a theater company founded by Friel and actor Stephen Rea.
SUMMARY:
Act I: The action is set in a small Irish town called Baile Beag in August 1833. At the "hedge-school" held in an old barn in general disarray and filth, Manus, the son of the old schoolmaster, Hugh, is managing things before his father arrives. Manus tries to get Sarah, a woman with a speech impediment, to correctly pronounce basic phrases of introduction. Meanwhile, another pupil, Jimmy (also known as the Infant Prodigy) spouts phrases of Greek and Latin. Otherwise, we are to assume they are all speaking in Irish. Soon Maire, a young, attractive woman appears. Manus tells Maire about how someone named Biddy Hanna asked him to write a letter to her sister in Nova Scotia, and how Biddy Hanna was so clueless as to have asked Manus to write, "Thank God one of them new national schools is being built" without realizing that he was the son of the schoolmaster. Maire brings news of English soldiers living in tents in the town. Soon Doalty and Bridget arrive; Doalty is drunk and boasts about his ruse, shifting the poles of a "machine" that the English soldiers were using to confuse them. Manus explains that his father is late because of a christening he was attending. Maire and Manus seem to have intimate relations, and she asks him if he's going to apply for a job at the new national school. Manus says no because his father is going to apply for it and he doesn't want to be in the way of his father. Maire hints that she wants to go to America to escape from her rather large family ("There's ten below me to be raised and no man in the house.") The group talks about the new school, which will be mandatory for children 6-12 and which will operate in English. Hugh arrives, and conducts his "lesson" by imparting them news and stopping at certain words to ask his pupils about their Latin origins. He tells of the christening, the arrival of Captain Lancey of the Royal Engineers and his partner Yolland--the Englishmen, who are conducting an ordnance survey of the area, and of how he will be running the new national school. Suddenly, Owen, Manus's brother who hasn't been back in six years comes in and receives a hearty welcome for all. He is a "city man," and announces that he has brought with him Lancey and Yolland. Owen brings them in and serves as a (mis)translator as Lancey and Yolland explain their project. Lancey says that they will be making a comprehensive map of the entire country, in order that they might better assess taxation policies. Owen's somewhat lazy translations help the Englishmen to convince the Irish that the project will be for their own good. The act ends with Manus expressing concern that Yolland can't even pronounce Owen's name, calling him "Roland," and Owen reassuring him that it is just a "name."
Act II, Scene 1: The act opens with Owen and Yolland working together to Anglicize the names of local Irish landmarks. Owen criticizes Yolland's "romantic" view of the Ireland; unlike Lancey, whom Yolland describes as "[t]he perfect colonial servant," Yolland's imagination is prone to wandering, idealizing Owen's family and friends and ascribing a kind of Edenic status to the Irish landscape. He still can't pronounce Owen and proves generally unaware of Owen correcting him because he's so caught up in his own speechifying. An encounter between Hugh and Yolland ensues in which Hugh reveals that he has never heard of Wordsworth. This becomes an opportunity for Yolland to idealize Irish literature and myth. Yolland tells Hugh that he's learning to speak Irish, though Hugh doesn't much care. After Hugh leaves on some errands, Yolland confesses to Owen that he fears that the colonial project is "an eviction of sorts" and is ethically uncomfortable with his own part in the project. Owen shrugs off Yolland's "romanticizing" and essentially says that the old Irish place names are part of myths that people who live there don't even remember anymore. Yolland finally listens to Owen when he says his name isn't Roland. He is ashamed and horrified but Owen puts him at ease. Manus arrives and announces he has gotten a job at a school on an island called Inis Meadhon fifty miles away. Manus is reluctant to speak English even though he knows it because he resents colonialists like Yolland. Maire also comes by, and Manus tells her the good news as well. They all congratulate Manus. Maire and Yolland communicate with some difficulty, through Owen--she says there will be a dance at Tobair Vree, a name which Yolland has just learned and he is clearly overjoyed that he knows it. Drunk by this time, Yolland shouts out a bunch of Irish names of places and humorously throws in Bombay and Eden into the mix.
Act II, Scene 2: Maire and Yolland hold hands after the dance, and though they don't understand each other, they both talk. Maire comically tells him her only phrase in English: "In Norfolk we besport ourselves around the maypoll." Yolland lists off Irish place names, Maire corrects him. Eventually they kiss, and Sarah sees them.
Act 3: In the schoolhouse, Owen continues to work on place names. Manus comes in with a travel bag, about to leave. Apparently something has happened to Yolland because Yolland is missing. Manus asks Owen to tell the people at Inis Meadhon that he might be a while before going to the school. Manus leaves, and Sarah stutters sympathetically, "I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry, Manus." Doalty and Bridget arrive on the scene, bringing news of more English soldiers arriving and how Hugh, drunk, had been yelling out names at them ("Visigoths! Huns! Vandals!"). Maire comes in, talking of Yolland. She also doesn't know where he is, but caught in her own romance, starts listing off place names in England associated with Yolland. Lancey comes in and asks Owen to translate to everyone that if Yolland is not found in a day, they will shoot all the livestock in the town. In forty-eight hours, they will evict people and level their lands. Bridget rushes off to hide livestock while Doalty thinks about fighting the English. Jimmy and Hugh arrive, with Jimmy talking about how he's going to marry Pallas Athena. Hugh remarks while looking at James, how "it is not the literal past, the 'facts' of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language. James has ceased to make that discrimination." Hugh then concludes that they need to keep "renewing those images" to keep a culture alive. Hugh says he will teach Maire English because in his mind, he's made a kind of compromise wherein he wishes the Irish to claim English for themselves because it will be the only living language. James blathers on about endogamein and exogamein, marrying in and out of one's tribe (he's referring to himself in considering marriage with Athena, but also his comments clearly apply to Maire). The play ends with Hugh trying to quote ineffectually from the Aeneid, focusing on a passage telling of how Juno wanting to make her city the capital of all nations, but couldn't because of the destined rise of Troy.
CRITICAL APPROACH/ANALYSIS:
Though Friel has been cited as saying that Translations is really just about language, it is clear that contained in the concern about language are very specific identity politics relating to Northern Ireland's encounter with England from colonial times into the times during which Friel was writing. Friel's own biography provides a useful context for the identity politics which Translations works through. Born in 1929 in Killyclogher (rural Northern Ireland), Brian Friel was actually registered as "Bernard Patrick," "Bernard" being a part of a trend to discourage Gaelic sounding names. "Bernard Patrick" might be a kind of symbol of a destabilized identity which mediates between his father's rural nationalism and his own move towards a more moderate "citified" position which critiqued, among other things, the backwards educational systems perpetuated by the Catholic Church which feared, above all, Anglicization. Translations certainly comments on the inadequacy of the kind of education which Hugh and Manus provide; the students learn in a filthy barn, the snippets of Latin and Greek which Hugh throws out at his pupils are meaningless and farcical. But at the same time Friel critiques a position which gives in entirely to the Anglicization processes promoted by the imperialists. Maire's budding Anglophilia is deeply satirized by her equally meaningless romance with Yolland, and Lancey's extreme measures deployed to find Yolland are absurdly punitive. Yolland's romanticization of Ireland and conflation of the poor, rural landscape with Eden is also satirized. It seems hat Hugh's idea at the end of the play that the English language must be accepted but re-colonized/re-appropriated by Irishmen is the moderate position towards which the play finally settles on. The image of Greece's destruction and the inevitable rise of Troy provides an allegory for Northern Ireland's destruction and inevitable Anglicization. Friel seems to advocate, finally, some kind of compromise position, but perhaps Hugh's forgetfulness as he recites the lines signals that this is in no way an easy compromise to hammer out.
Showing posts with label comedy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comedy. Show all posts
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
Edition: The Satanic Verses: A Novel
PUBLICATION HISTORY:
The Satanic Verses was published in 1988 (Rushdie's fourth novel). Its publication met with great controversy, resulting famously in a fatwa placed against Rushdie by leaders of radical Islam like the Ayatollah Khomeini. Rushdie's portrayal of the prophet Mohammed (as Mahound) was particularly controversial and considered to be blasphemous.
SUMMARY:
I. The Angel Gibreel
Two men, Gibreel Farishta, and Saladin Chamcha, are the sole survivors of a hijacked plane, the Bostan AI-420 bound for London, miraculously falling from the sky and emerging unscathed. Gibreel was a famous Indian actor, who had little regard for the women he bedded down with. One woman, Rekha Merchant, plunged to her death from a tall building along with her children in an act of protest against Gibreel. As he falls from the plane, Gibreel sees Rekha on a magic carpet, vowing to follow him with her vengeance. This section gives details on Gibreel's childhood and rise to fame, his spontaneous recovery from spontaneous hemorrhaging, among other things. Chamcha's history is one of rejecting his homeland, desiring to leave behind his past and become a true Englishman after one particularly traumatic encounter of sexual abuse. After a few years of education in London, Chamcha becomes estranged from his Indian parents, particularly his father. Chamcha's mother dies choking on a fishbone while refusing to hide during a Pakistani air raid; no one had come to her rescue because they were all hiding. Chamcha's father re-married another woman of the same name, and Chamcha goes of to settle permanently in London, becoming a voice-actor (and unable to land screen roles generally due to racism). Chamcha, bent on his own Anglicization and assimilation, marries a white, English girl, Pamela Lovelace. On a trip back to Bombay, a woman named Zeeny Vakil tries to "convert" Chamcha back to his roots but fails, despite a love affair that the two embark on. Chamcha is on his way back to London from this trip when the plane crashes.
II. Mahound
In a town called Jahilia, "built entirely of sand," the poet and satirist Baal is forced to write verses for the Grandee Abu Simbel against the prophet Mahound and his followers. Mahound's primary disciples are Khalid, a water-carrier, Salman, a Persian immigrant, and Bilal, a slave. Mahound preaches monotheism against the primarily polytheistic town and so does not have much luck. Abu Simbel suggests to Mahound a compromise: if his all-powerful Allah will accept three of the city's lesser Gods, he might win more followers and continue to live there. Mahound's uncle tells him he should consult the archangel Gibreel. Mahound goes in search of the archangel, who is reluctant to be summoned by this demanding Mahound. Hardly knowing what he is doing, Gibreel delivers the message that Lat, Uzza, and Manat are to be accepted gods, not on the level of Allah, but under him. When Mahound returns to the city, the message is met by taunts and rioting; he is rescued by Hind, Abu Simbel's wife, who tells him that Al-Lat demands equality with Allah. Mahound sees Gibreel again, and this time he gets the idea that the first message was actually from Shaitan, the evil archangel (Gibreel knows that it was him both times, actually). He goes back to Jahilia to reveal this new message. Again, Mahound and his followers are persecuted, and forced to leave the city altogether.
III. Ellowen Deeowen
Rosa Diamond, a woman of 88 years, claims to see ghosts, so she isn't all that surprised when she picks up Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha (both transformed into a kind of good angel, bad angel during their falls). Gibreel has a sort of halo surrounding him, and Chamcha has horns. The police come and arrest Chamcha, and for some reason, Gibreel is transfixed by Rosa and does nothing to help Chamcha. The central story in Rosa's life has been her brief encounter with one Martin de la Cruz, a married man with whom she had a brief tryst in Argentina, while herself being married to Henry Diamond. The narrative strongly suggests that Gibreel was Martin in a past life, and that is why Rosa has such power over him. Gibreel stays with her for a while, even making love to the old woman a little bit before she dies. Meanwhile, Chamcha is taken to a hospital detention center where he is shocked to discover that there are other changes to his form other than the horns (including new hoof-like feet). It turns out that there are other animal-men in the ward, and together, they hatch up a plan of escape. After the escape, Chamcha returns to his wife, Pamela, whom he finds in bed with his friend, Jumpy Joshi, a frail man who had always been unpopular with the ladies. Gibreel, after Rosa's death, gets on a train, where he runs into a man named Maslama, who recognizes him as Gibreel Farishta, famous actor but also treats him like some kind of deity. The scene shifts to Allie (Alleluia) Cone, a woman who climber Mount Everest with whom Gibreel is in love. In a classroom-full of young girls, Allie thrills them with stories of her climb and ghosts in the mountains. Gibreel finds Allie in London.
IV. Ayesha
In Gibreel's dreams, an exiled Imam (likely based on Ayatollah Khomeini) in London. Gibreel carries him to Desh, where he wars with the Empress Ayesha. Gibreel fights on the Imam's side, and defeats Al-Lat, Ayesha's deity. The rest of this section is about Mirza Saeed in London on his fortieth birthday, and how he sees outside of his window a beautiful girl named Ayesha eating butterflies in the garden. He is filled with great desire, and out of guilt, commences on a period of making love passionately to his wife Mishal. Mishal gets breast cancer, and has little time left to live. At the same time, Mishal has struck up a close friendship with Ayesha. Ayesha eventually says that the angel Gibreel has told her that the town must take a pilgrimage to Mecca, and that the Arabian Sea will part for them as they walk across. Mishal's cancer will be cured if she goes on the pilgrimage, Ayesha promises.
V. A City Visible but Unseen
Mishal in this section is the daughter of one Muhammad Sufyan, the proprietor of Shaandaar Cafe. His wife's name is also Hind. Sufyan and Hind have a rather unhappy marriage, characterized, among other things, by bad sex. Chamcha arrives before this family looking for a place to live; they allow him to stay. He talks to Mimi, his previous co-worker, on the phone to see if he might get a job again. The show which he had been on, The Aliens Show, was unfortunately cancelled. Gibreel, on the other hand, has been making new films, including one where he is an archangel in a city of sand, conveying messages to a prophet. Gibreel has told the media that he is alive because he never got onto the plane. During the time of Chamcha's stay, Mishal (who is just seventeen) confesses that she has been having sexual relations with a lawyer named Hanif Johnson. Both Mishal and her sister Anahita are fairly considerate of Chamcha, beauties tending to a beast. Eventually, Chamcha grows too big for the house and must leave--by this time, he has made quite a splash in London, a sort of devil-cult has grown up around him, his image plastered onto various commercial venues. Chamcha is moved to a nightclub where there is more space. The narrator offers Allie Cone's history in this section: her father was of Polish ancestry, and like Chamcha, wanted to blend in so he changed their names from Cohen to Cone. Allie had a sister, Elena, who had become a successful model but who had died in an "acid bath" at the age of twenty-one. Allie's career capitalized on her image as the "ice queen," and like Gibreel, managed to have many rather meaningless sexual liaisons. Allie found a different sort of passion with Farishta, however. Gibreel soon thinks that he hears God telling him to do work for him, to leave Allie. He commences on some delusional attempts to convert people, humorously thinking that he will redeem the city, a London A-Z map in his pocket. Rekha continues to show up to mock him. Eventually, Gibreel ends up once again with Allie after being hit by a car during his "missionary work." The man who hit him, Whisky Sisodia (who has a stutter), a filmmaker who thinks that Gibreel should return to the big screen. Gibreel is soon fully back in the business at Sisodia's urging, though Allie and Gibreel become more estranged as a result of his career. The doctors generally think that Gibreel's "visions" are due to schizophrenia.
VI. Return to Jahilia
This section is again narrated as part of Gibreel's dreams. Many changes have come to Jahilia; it is now no longer a "city built of sand," but a rather destitute, "prosaic" town. Hind has not aged at all, though her husband Abu Simbel has--she is the de facto ruler. Salman, the Persian immigrant, is telling Baal the poet that Mahound will soon return from exile. Salman's account of Mahound is now negative, having lost faith in the prophet's power because the rules that he receives from Gibreel always seemed so oddly convenient to him. Salman had tested the "word of God" by replacing words in Mahound's verses as he wrote them down to see if Mahound would notice. He didn't. After Mahound's return, Jahilia is subject to a number of new, strict rules. Baal spends a lot of time behind The Curtain, a whorehouse. The whorehouse happened to have twelve whores, and Mahound twelve wives. The members of the brothel decide to each act the part of one of Mahound's wives and to receive visitors as such. Baal is charged with marrying all of them, and thus becomes a gross parody himself of Mahound. Eventually, the brothel is shut down. The madame commits suicide, and the girls are taken to prison. Baal confessesto what has been happening behind the Curtain, and is sent to be beheaded. Soon afterwards, however, Mahound falls ill and dies.
VII. The Angel Azraeel
Chamcha finds his way to Pamela's house again and insists that he live there. She doesn't resist, though they don't rekindle a relationship--Chamcha allows Jumpy Joshi to continue to live there with his wife. Chamcha continues to work hard to reinstate his good-old English life, but generally fails. At a meeting where people were giving testimony in hopes to exonerate a man named Simba, Chamcha realizes that he lusts after Mishal Sufyan. He thinks he sees the angel Azraeel behind her though, signaling that she's off limits. Chamcha approaches Gibreel at a strange party (themed Dickensian times) and goes over to face his adversary, thinking to take revenge on him for betraying him at Rosa Diamond's. Before their encounter, the narrator embarks on a rather long exegesis on good and evil, and of how the two of them might be "different types of self," Gibreel a type which wished to remain continuous, and Chamcha a type which constantly preferred and selected for discontinuity. The actual encounter is a bit anticlimactic after all of this; Chamcha pretends to be an old friend, telling Gibreel about how his wife had left him for Jumpy Joshi. Gibreel, who had recently become very jealous because his career prevented him from watching Allie's every moment, goes after Joshi and hits him over the head and throws him into the Thames river (he survives). Chamcha is later invited into Allie and Gibreel's temporary home in Scotland. Chamcha works to make Gibreel crazy, impersonating voices of Allie's supposed lovers over the phone. Gibreel had been revealing many things in confidence to Chamcha about Allie's body when they made love, so Chamcha made the best of this information in his calls. Gibreel is particularly disturbed by Chamcha's impersonation of a poet who composes verses that suggest Allie is cheating on him. He can't get them out of his head and pretty much goes insane. The rest of the section is the scene of apocalypse: Simba is wrongly accused of being a murderer of Grandmothers (the Granny Ripper) and dies in jail. Race riots break out and buildings burn down. Gibreel takes on the role of Azraeel, angel of destruction, blowing his trumpet all over London. Gibreel and Chamcha meet again in the burning Shaandaar Cafe, where Gibreel forgives Chamcha and rescues him. In the fires, Joshi and Pamela die, as do Hind and Muhammad Sufyan.
VIII. The Parting of the Arabian Sea
This section returns to Ayesha's pilgrimage. Mirza tries to stop the pilgrimage, especially as it becomes clear that his wife is exhausted. Eventually, the old start dying, including Khadija, Sarpanch Muhammad Din's wife, and Ayesha says that there is no time to give her a proper burial. As more and more people die on the journey, doubts increase. There is a flood, and many of the pilgrims disappear afterwards. Mirza is about to convince Ayesha to give up, when miraculously, a bunch of butterflies bring back all of the remaining pilgrims. Doubts surface again, however, when Ayesha allows a baby found in the road to be stoned to death because it was likely "illegitimate." Desperate to make sure his wife is okay and an unbeliever, Mirza tries to make a deal with Ayesha, saying that he'll find a way to fly all of the pilgrims to Mecca--he suggests that she ask Gibreel, having the sneaking suspicion she'll give in because she might not be as confident about her notion that the sea will part as she was at the beginning. Ayesha resists the offer, and they reach the sea. As the pilgrims walk into the sea, they become dead, drowned bodies, but afterwards, eyewitness accounts by the survivors said that they had indeed seen the sea part. Mirza is the only one who did not see the sea part. Mirza subsequently starves himself to death, and on his last night of life, (fancies that) he sees the sea splitting apart, himself joining the rest.
IX. A Wonderful Lamp
Chamcha is called back to Bombay to see his estranged father who has only a few days to live, having contracted cancer. On the plane, Chamcha runs into Sisodia. Back in his childhood home, father and son are reconciled. Changez, Chamcha's father, dies with terror on his face for a moment, but then his mouth curved up into a smile. Chamcha wonders what it all means. His father's rather "radiant death" brings Chamcha together with Zeeny--he somehow feels that he has found himself and no longer needs to take on multiple identities. He joins Zeeny in a Communist Party event: a human chain of people linking hands throughout the whole city. This demonstration is interrupted by the news that Gibreel and Allie Cone were in Bombay, and that Allie had been thrown out of a window, and Sisodia shot, while Gibreel disappeared once again. Chamcha (the inheritor of his father's wealth) finds Gibreel in his house. Gibreel tells him in garbled and broken sentences how he had been plagued by the verses that he heard and that it was not he that pushed Allie over the edge but Rekha. At the very end, Gibreel takes Chamcha's father's (magic) lamp, which contains a gun. Gibreel places the gun in his own mouth and shoots himself. The novel ends with Zeeny calling Chamcha away, telling him, "Let's get the hell out of here" (which has a double meaning given Chamcha's association with the Satanic).
CRITICAL APPROACH:
Rushdie himself offers perhaps the most helpful comments as to how to read his book:
"If The Satanic Verses is anything, it is a migrant's-eye view of the world. It is written from the very experience of uprooting, disjuncture and metamorphosis (slow or rapid, painful or pleasurable) that is the migrant condition, and from which, I believe, can be derived a metaphor for all humanity."
Rushdie's comment does the work of linking post-colonial concepts (migrancy, uprooting, metamorphosis) with post-modern concepts (disjuncture, metaphor for all humanity). As many critics have noted, perhaps the aesthetic achievement of The Satanic Verses is proving that a post-colonial novel can be simultaneously post-modern, implying, more importantly, that the lives of post-colonials might actually serve as not marginal, but central and universal. The multiply hybrid nature of these characters (on almost every imaginable level--race, culture, class, gender, religion, sane/insane, human/animal, human/angel) represents the instability of identity in a post-modern world. It isn't at all a story of center and margin, the results of the colonial encounter. Characters in Bombay and London in The Satanic Verses feel equally migrant, uprooted, and in a word, unstable in a world where individuals just can't be pinned down by systems previously believed to be stable like Culture or Language.
The Satanic Verses goes even further, however, than to deconstruct the ways in which people identify themselves by culture or language. Its radicalism is in its deconstruction, through magical realism, of man's very material being--Rushdie's novel takes post-modernism to its logical extreme. If such categories as culture or language fail to identify us for who we really are, then perhaps what we believe to be the very materiality of our bodies can't identify us for who we really are either. The concept is radical, but it is also funny (Rushdie himself has noted the intended playfulness and comic elements of his work). Gibreel's surprise when the questions of Mahound intrude upon his body or Chamcha's horrified discovery his new goat's body in the hospital detention center are comic scenes wherein human bodies realize that what they thought to be fixed boundaries in fact were not. Immaterial bodies like Rekha's ghost, for example, are also decidedly comic rather than horrifying; she keeps showing up at Gibreel's side, nagging and mocking him but not being particularly scary.
What might be the function of comedy and playfulness in this work? In the scene before Chamcha and Gibreel's confrontation at the "Dickensian Times" party (also funny), the narrator breaks in to offer a suggestion:
"What follows is tragedy. --Or, at least the echo of tragedy, the full-blooded original being unavailable to modern men and women, so it's said. --A burlesque for our degraded, imitative times, in which clowns re-enact what was first done by heroes and the kings."
Essentially, the tragedy of good versus evil to be played out between Gibreel and Chamcha has been repeated so many times that there isn't room for anything else but imitation and parody. Relatedly, the post-modern divorce between sign and signified and the rejection of the possibility of getting to any sort of stable Truth claim about the Human Condition which the divorce perpetuates prevents belief in grand struggles of good and evil. Everything then becomes rather light and playful, when the depths of Truth either don't exist or aren't accessible to the world.
PUBLICATION HISTORY:
The Satanic Verses was published in 1988 (Rushdie's fourth novel). Its publication met with great controversy, resulting famously in a fatwa placed against Rushdie by leaders of radical Islam like the Ayatollah Khomeini. Rushdie's portrayal of the prophet Mohammed (as Mahound) was particularly controversial and considered to be blasphemous.
SUMMARY:
I. The Angel Gibreel
Two men, Gibreel Farishta, and Saladin Chamcha, are the sole survivors of a hijacked plane, the Bostan AI-420 bound for London, miraculously falling from the sky and emerging unscathed. Gibreel was a famous Indian actor, who had little regard for the women he bedded down with. One woman, Rekha Merchant, plunged to her death from a tall building along with her children in an act of protest against Gibreel. As he falls from the plane, Gibreel sees Rekha on a magic carpet, vowing to follow him with her vengeance. This section gives details on Gibreel's childhood and rise to fame, his spontaneous recovery from spontaneous hemorrhaging, among other things. Chamcha's history is one of rejecting his homeland, desiring to leave behind his past and become a true Englishman after one particularly traumatic encounter of sexual abuse. After a few years of education in London, Chamcha becomes estranged from his Indian parents, particularly his father. Chamcha's mother dies choking on a fishbone while refusing to hide during a Pakistani air raid; no one had come to her rescue because they were all hiding. Chamcha's father re-married another woman of the same name, and Chamcha goes of to settle permanently in London, becoming a voice-actor (and unable to land screen roles generally due to racism). Chamcha, bent on his own Anglicization and assimilation, marries a white, English girl, Pamela Lovelace. On a trip back to Bombay, a woman named Zeeny Vakil tries to "convert" Chamcha back to his roots but fails, despite a love affair that the two embark on. Chamcha is on his way back to London from this trip when the plane crashes.
II. Mahound
In a town called Jahilia, "built entirely of sand," the poet and satirist Baal is forced to write verses for the Grandee Abu Simbel against the prophet Mahound and his followers. Mahound's primary disciples are Khalid, a water-carrier, Salman, a Persian immigrant, and Bilal, a slave. Mahound preaches monotheism against the primarily polytheistic town and so does not have much luck. Abu Simbel suggests to Mahound a compromise: if his all-powerful Allah will accept three of the city's lesser Gods, he might win more followers and continue to live there. Mahound's uncle tells him he should consult the archangel Gibreel. Mahound goes in search of the archangel, who is reluctant to be summoned by this demanding Mahound. Hardly knowing what he is doing, Gibreel delivers the message that Lat, Uzza, and Manat are to be accepted gods, not on the level of Allah, but under him. When Mahound returns to the city, the message is met by taunts and rioting; he is rescued by Hind, Abu Simbel's wife, who tells him that Al-Lat demands equality with Allah. Mahound sees Gibreel again, and this time he gets the idea that the first message was actually from Shaitan, the evil archangel (Gibreel knows that it was him both times, actually). He goes back to Jahilia to reveal this new message. Again, Mahound and his followers are persecuted, and forced to leave the city altogether.
III. Ellowen Deeowen
Rosa Diamond, a woman of 88 years, claims to see ghosts, so she isn't all that surprised when she picks up Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha (both transformed into a kind of good angel, bad angel during their falls). Gibreel has a sort of halo surrounding him, and Chamcha has horns. The police come and arrest Chamcha, and for some reason, Gibreel is transfixed by Rosa and does nothing to help Chamcha. The central story in Rosa's life has been her brief encounter with one Martin de la Cruz, a married man with whom she had a brief tryst in Argentina, while herself being married to Henry Diamond. The narrative strongly suggests that Gibreel was Martin in a past life, and that is why Rosa has such power over him. Gibreel stays with her for a while, even making love to the old woman a little bit before she dies. Meanwhile, Chamcha is taken to a hospital detention center where he is shocked to discover that there are other changes to his form other than the horns (including new hoof-like feet). It turns out that there are other animal-men in the ward, and together, they hatch up a plan of escape. After the escape, Chamcha returns to his wife, Pamela, whom he finds in bed with his friend, Jumpy Joshi, a frail man who had always been unpopular with the ladies. Gibreel, after Rosa's death, gets on a train, where he runs into a man named Maslama, who recognizes him as Gibreel Farishta, famous actor but also treats him like some kind of deity. The scene shifts to Allie (Alleluia) Cone, a woman who climber Mount Everest with whom Gibreel is in love. In a classroom-full of young girls, Allie thrills them with stories of her climb and ghosts in the mountains. Gibreel finds Allie in London.
IV. Ayesha
In Gibreel's dreams, an exiled Imam (likely based on Ayatollah Khomeini) in London. Gibreel carries him to Desh, where he wars with the Empress Ayesha. Gibreel fights on the Imam's side, and defeats Al-Lat, Ayesha's deity. The rest of this section is about Mirza Saeed in London on his fortieth birthday, and how he sees outside of his window a beautiful girl named Ayesha eating butterflies in the garden. He is filled with great desire, and out of guilt, commences on a period of making love passionately to his wife Mishal. Mishal gets breast cancer, and has little time left to live. At the same time, Mishal has struck up a close friendship with Ayesha. Ayesha eventually says that the angel Gibreel has told her that the town must take a pilgrimage to Mecca, and that the Arabian Sea will part for them as they walk across. Mishal's cancer will be cured if she goes on the pilgrimage, Ayesha promises.
V. A City Visible but Unseen
Mishal in this section is the daughter of one Muhammad Sufyan, the proprietor of Shaandaar Cafe. His wife's name is also Hind. Sufyan and Hind have a rather unhappy marriage, characterized, among other things, by bad sex. Chamcha arrives before this family looking for a place to live; they allow him to stay. He talks to Mimi, his previous co-worker, on the phone to see if he might get a job again. The show which he had been on, The Aliens Show, was unfortunately cancelled. Gibreel, on the other hand, has been making new films, including one where he is an archangel in a city of sand, conveying messages to a prophet. Gibreel has told the media that he is alive because he never got onto the plane. During the time of Chamcha's stay, Mishal (who is just seventeen) confesses that she has been having sexual relations with a lawyer named Hanif Johnson. Both Mishal and her sister Anahita are fairly considerate of Chamcha, beauties tending to a beast. Eventually, Chamcha grows too big for the house and must leave--by this time, he has made quite a splash in London, a sort of devil-cult has grown up around him, his image plastered onto various commercial venues. Chamcha is moved to a nightclub where there is more space. The narrator offers Allie Cone's history in this section: her father was of Polish ancestry, and like Chamcha, wanted to blend in so he changed their names from Cohen to Cone. Allie had a sister, Elena, who had become a successful model but who had died in an "acid bath" at the age of twenty-one. Allie's career capitalized on her image as the "ice queen," and like Gibreel, managed to have many rather meaningless sexual liaisons. Allie found a different sort of passion with Farishta, however. Gibreel soon thinks that he hears God telling him to do work for him, to leave Allie. He commences on some delusional attempts to convert people, humorously thinking that he will redeem the city, a London A-Z map in his pocket. Rekha continues to show up to mock him. Eventually, Gibreel ends up once again with Allie after being hit by a car during his "missionary work." The man who hit him, Whisky Sisodia (who has a stutter), a filmmaker who thinks that Gibreel should return to the big screen. Gibreel is soon fully back in the business at Sisodia's urging, though Allie and Gibreel become more estranged as a result of his career. The doctors generally think that Gibreel's "visions" are due to schizophrenia.
VI. Return to Jahilia
This section is again narrated as part of Gibreel's dreams. Many changes have come to Jahilia; it is now no longer a "city built of sand," but a rather destitute, "prosaic" town. Hind has not aged at all, though her husband Abu Simbel has--she is the de facto ruler. Salman, the Persian immigrant, is telling Baal the poet that Mahound will soon return from exile. Salman's account of Mahound is now negative, having lost faith in the prophet's power because the rules that he receives from Gibreel always seemed so oddly convenient to him. Salman had tested the "word of God" by replacing words in Mahound's verses as he wrote them down to see if Mahound would notice. He didn't. After Mahound's return, Jahilia is subject to a number of new, strict rules. Baal spends a lot of time behind The Curtain, a whorehouse. The whorehouse happened to have twelve whores, and Mahound twelve wives. The members of the brothel decide to each act the part of one of Mahound's wives and to receive visitors as such. Baal is charged with marrying all of them, and thus becomes a gross parody himself of Mahound. Eventually, the brothel is shut down. The madame commits suicide, and the girls are taken to prison. Baal confessesto what has been happening behind the Curtain, and is sent to be beheaded. Soon afterwards, however, Mahound falls ill and dies.
VII. The Angel Azraeel
Chamcha finds his way to Pamela's house again and insists that he live there. She doesn't resist, though they don't rekindle a relationship--Chamcha allows Jumpy Joshi to continue to live there with his wife. Chamcha continues to work hard to reinstate his good-old English life, but generally fails. At a meeting where people were giving testimony in hopes to exonerate a man named Simba, Chamcha realizes that he lusts after Mishal Sufyan. He thinks he sees the angel Azraeel behind her though, signaling that she's off limits. Chamcha approaches Gibreel at a strange party (themed Dickensian times) and goes over to face his adversary, thinking to take revenge on him for betraying him at Rosa Diamond's. Before their encounter, the narrator embarks on a rather long exegesis on good and evil, and of how the two of them might be "different types of self," Gibreel a type which wished to remain continuous, and Chamcha a type which constantly preferred and selected for discontinuity. The actual encounter is a bit anticlimactic after all of this; Chamcha pretends to be an old friend, telling Gibreel about how his wife had left him for Jumpy Joshi. Gibreel, who had recently become very jealous because his career prevented him from watching Allie's every moment, goes after Joshi and hits him over the head and throws him into the Thames river (he survives). Chamcha is later invited into Allie and Gibreel's temporary home in Scotland. Chamcha works to make Gibreel crazy, impersonating voices of Allie's supposed lovers over the phone. Gibreel had been revealing many things in confidence to Chamcha about Allie's body when they made love, so Chamcha made the best of this information in his calls. Gibreel is particularly disturbed by Chamcha's impersonation of a poet who composes verses that suggest Allie is cheating on him. He can't get them out of his head and pretty much goes insane. The rest of the section is the scene of apocalypse: Simba is wrongly accused of being a murderer of Grandmothers (the Granny Ripper) and dies in jail. Race riots break out and buildings burn down. Gibreel takes on the role of Azraeel, angel of destruction, blowing his trumpet all over London. Gibreel and Chamcha meet again in the burning Shaandaar Cafe, where Gibreel forgives Chamcha and rescues him. In the fires, Joshi and Pamela die, as do Hind and Muhammad Sufyan.
VIII. The Parting of the Arabian Sea
This section returns to Ayesha's pilgrimage. Mirza tries to stop the pilgrimage, especially as it becomes clear that his wife is exhausted. Eventually, the old start dying, including Khadija, Sarpanch Muhammad Din's wife, and Ayesha says that there is no time to give her a proper burial. As more and more people die on the journey, doubts increase. There is a flood, and many of the pilgrims disappear afterwards. Mirza is about to convince Ayesha to give up, when miraculously, a bunch of butterflies bring back all of the remaining pilgrims. Doubts surface again, however, when Ayesha allows a baby found in the road to be stoned to death because it was likely "illegitimate." Desperate to make sure his wife is okay and an unbeliever, Mirza tries to make a deal with Ayesha, saying that he'll find a way to fly all of the pilgrims to Mecca--he suggests that she ask Gibreel, having the sneaking suspicion she'll give in because she might not be as confident about her notion that the sea will part as she was at the beginning. Ayesha resists the offer, and they reach the sea. As the pilgrims walk into the sea, they become dead, drowned bodies, but afterwards, eyewitness accounts by the survivors said that they had indeed seen the sea part. Mirza is the only one who did not see the sea part. Mirza subsequently starves himself to death, and on his last night of life, (fancies that) he sees the sea splitting apart, himself joining the rest.
IX. A Wonderful Lamp
Chamcha is called back to Bombay to see his estranged father who has only a few days to live, having contracted cancer. On the plane, Chamcha runs into Sisodia. Back in his childhood home, father and son are reconciled. Changez, Chamcha's father, dies with terror on his face for a moment, but then his mouth curved up into a smile. Chamcha wonders what it all means. His father's rather "radiant death" brings Chamcha together with Zeeny--he somehow feels that he has found himself and no longer needs to take on multiple identities. He joins Zeeny in a Communist Party event: a human chain of people linking hands throughout the whole city. This demonstration is interrupted by the news that Gibreel and Allie Cone were in Bombay, and that Allie had been thrown out of a window, and Sisodia shot, while Gibreel disappeared once again. Chamcha (the inheritor of his father's wealth) finds Gibreel in his house. Gibreel tells him in garbled and broken sentences how he had been plagued by the verses that he heard and that it was not he that pushed Allie over the edge but Rekha. At the very end, Gibreel takes Chamcha's father's (magic) lamp, which contains a gun. Gibreel places the gun in his own mouth and shoots himself. The novel ends with Zeeny calling Chamcha away, telling him, "Let's get the hell out of here" (which has a double meaning given Chamcha's association with the Satanic).
CRITICAL APPROACH:
Rushdie himself offers perhaps the most helpful comments as to how to read his book:
"If The Satanic Verses is anything, it is a migrant's-eye view of the world. It is written from the very experience of uprooting, disjuncture and metamorphosis (slow or rapid, painful or pleasurable) that is the migrant condition, and from which, I believe, can be derived a metaphor for all humanity."
Rushdie's comment does the work of linking post-colonial concepts (migrancy, uprooting, metamorphosis) with post-modern concepts (disjuncture, metaphor for all humanity). As many critics have noted, perhaps the aesthetic achievement of The Satanic Verses is proving that a post-colonial novel can be simultaneously post-modern, implying, more importantly, that the lives of post-colonials might actually serve as not marginal, but central and universal. The multiply hybrid nature of these characters (on almost every imaginable level--race, culture, class, gender, religion, sane/insane, human/animal, human/angel) represents the instability of identity in a post-modern world. It isn't at all a story of center and margin, the results of the colonial encounter. Characters in Bombay and London in The Satanic Verses feel equally migrant, uprooted, and in a word, unstable in a world where individuals just can't be pinned down by systems previously believed to be stable like Culture or Language.
The Satanic Verses goes even further, however, than to deconstruct the ways in which people identify themselves by culture or language. Its radicalism is in its deconstruction, through magical realism, of man's very material being--Rushdie's novel takes post-modernism to its logical extreme. If such categories as culture or language fail to identify us for who we really are, then perhaps what we believe to be the very materiality of our bodies can't identify us for who we really are either. The concept is radical, but it is also funny (Rushdie himself has noted the intended playfulness and comic elements of his work). Gibreel's surprise when the questions of Mahound intrude upon his body or Chamcha's horrified discovery his new goat's body in the hospital detention center are comic scenes wherein human bodies realize that what they thought to be fixed boundaries in fact were not. Immaterial bodies like Rekha's ghost, for example, are also decidedly comic rather than horrifying; she keeps showing up at Gibreel's side, nagging and mocking him but not being particularly scary.
What might be the function of comedy and playfulness in this work? In the scene before Chamcha and Gibreel's confrontation at the "Dickensian Times" party (also funny), the narrator breaks in to offer a suggestion:
"What follows is tragedy. --Or, at least the echo of tragedy, the full-blooded original being unavailable to modern men and women, so it's said. --A burlesque for our degraded, imitative times, in which clowns re-enact what was first done by heroes and the kings."
Essentially, the tragedy of good versus evil to be played out between Gibreel and Chamcha has been repeated so many times that there isn't room for anything else but imitation and parody. Relatedly, the post-modern divorce between sign and signified and the rejection of the possibility of getting to any sort of stable Truth claim about the Human Condition which the divorce perpetuates prevents belief in grand struggles of good and evil. Everything then becomes rather light and playful, when the depths of Truth either don't exist or aren't accessible to the world.
Friday, April 29, 2011
The Hidden Hand by E.D.E.N. Southworth
Edition: The Hidden Hand (Oxford Popular Fiction)
PUBLICATION HISTORY:
The Hidden Hand was serialized in The New York Ledger beginning in February, 1859. At the time, Southworth was the most widely-read woman novelist and also the Ledger was the most widely-circulated newspaper, making The Hidden Hand a clear best-seller. In 1857, Robert Bonner of the Ledger recognized Southworth's selling power and asked for exclusive rights to serialize her fiction. Furthermore, The Hidden Hand was serialized two more times before its book publication in 1888, and reissues continued for thirty years after that.
SUMMARY:
The old Major Ira Warfield, alternatively known as "Old Hurricane," lived alone at his mansion in the mountains of Virginia known as Hurricane Hall. The estate is surrounded by gothic natural surroundings. Warfield is a grumpy old man, who prefers not to leave the comforts of his home. At the beginning of the novel, he is telling his slave Wool to warm his bed as he will soon retire for the evening. It is late, but a parson arrives in the night, with the urgent message that Warfield must go with him to hear the last testament of a dying old woman. Warfield has been recently appointed a Justice of the Peace and his duty charges him to go. The two men go out then into the cold, stormy night. The old woman turns out to be Nancy Grewell, a mid-wife who has disappeared from the area for thirteen years. She tells a harrowing story of being caught up in the night by two villains. The villains charge her with delivering the twin babies of a masked woman: her baby boy dies, but the girl survives. The woman enjoins Nancy to hide and take away her living girl, bequeathing Nancy with a wedding ring of hers which reads "Eugene--Capitola." Nancy and the baby (whom she says she had hidden with her all along) are sold on board a ship bound for New York which is wrecked. The only survivors are herself, the baby (whom she has named Capitola), and a young sailor named Herbert Greyson. In New York, Greyson helps them get situated, and Nancy and her charge make do in an area called Rags Alley. The woman says that she raised the girl, and after thirteen years, has finally managed to make enough to come back to Virginia to tell this story. Before she dies, Warfield promises to take on Capitola as his own charge; it is clear that he is more intimately involved with this story than is revealed, since he and Nancy whisper knowingly about the house where the masked woman gave birth.
In New York, Capitola actually comes upon Warfield--dressed as a newspaper boy, since that was the only way she was able to make enough money to keep herself. The tenement houses in Rags Alley had been torn down for over a year so she had been cast out. Major Warfield also makes the acquaintance of Herbert Greyson through Capitola, who turns out to be Warfield's nephew--his mother had become estranged from her brother when she made a marriage which Warfield objected to. Warfield wanted to do well by Herbert, and promises to send him to West Point, and also to do well by a widow, Marah Rocke, and her son who had taken in Herbert and his mother long ago, and who had continued to care for him after his mother died. When Herbert tells Marah the good news, she is elated and seems to know more about Warfield than she will reveal at present. Meanwhile, back at Hurricane Hall, Capitola hears a ghastly story from Mrs. Condiment, the housekeeper, about how a former tenant, Henry Le Noir, had let six Indian warriors to their deaths through a trapdoor, and of how Le Noir's family was later murdered by the vengeful sons of these warriors and thrown into the same pit. Apparently one son of Le Noir's escaped.
Unfortunately, when Old Hurricane actually hears that the widow's name is Marah Rocke, he rages and takes back his offer. It turns out that she was once his young wife when he was an officer, and he had found her with a younger man, Gabriel Le Noir. Marah's version of the story, however, was that he had stolen into her room one night when Old Hurricane was out late and she had already been asleep. Marah is then thrown into despair once again that her lover does not believe her even after eighteen years, and begins to waste away. Concerned, Traverse goes to Doctor Day, who had been generously allowing Traverse to study with him for free. The doctor realizes that Marah was wasting away largely because of lack of human sympathy. With his beautiful daughter Clara's prompting, the doctor takes in both Traverse as an apprentice and Marah Rocke as a housekeeper. Naturally, by this time, Traverse has fallen in love with Clara. Capitola, meanwhile, feels trapped by her new guardian's rules; despite the bounty which he has lavished on her, she is used to having the freedom of roaming about. She breaks his rules and rides out further than she should have alone, and meets with an unsavory young man. She manages to outwit this young man and run away from him; back at Hurricane Hall, Warfield fumes and sputters. On another night when Warfield rides out on an errand alone, he comes home to Capitola parodying his fuming and sputtering.
The scene shifts to a meeting of outlaws, "Black Donald" and his gang, at an old woman's inn. This is the house where Capitola was born, and where Nancy Grewell had been taken many years ago. Gabriel Le Noir has stopped by to speak with Black Donald, telling him that his son (the young man outwitted by Capitola) had found Capitola Le Noir, apparently the daughter of the woman whom Nancy tended. The conversation makes known too that Capitola is a heiress to a fortune, and Le Noir says that Black Donald and his gang must hunt down and kill her. Black Donald manages to exact a large sum for the work: ten-thousand dollars, which he dreams he will put to go use in order to move west, join Congress, the Senate, and maybe even become president one day. Gabe reluctantly agrees. Black Donald hatches a plan to do some surveillance, pretending to stop by Hurricane Hall as a peddler of fine goods when the women are home alone. They get to talking about Black Donald, and Capitola bravely says that she'd like to see him. Black Donald takes off his disguise, and Capitola latches on to him screaming for his arrest. Black Donald runs away, though he could have killed her, he doesn't because he thinks her worth having some fun with before killing.
More is revealed about Gabe Le Noir's past when Old Hurricane tells the parson about the murder of Eugene Le Noir, Capitola's father and Gabe Le Noir's brother. Gabe killed Eugene and got his wife out of the way in order to secure his own inheritance of the large estate at Hidden House. Black Donald sends three outlaws to capture Capitola, who ends up being too smart for them, having seen them under her bed in her mirror's reflection. She manages to trap the outlaws in the house and call for help; luckily, Herbert has just come by and the three outlaws are carted off to prison. As all of these things were happening, Doctor Day had sent Traverse to Washington for college, and he manages to get a diploma in just three years. Doctor Day has plans for Traverse to set up his career further west, and to thereafter take Clara as his wife. The young couple is overjoyed. Black Donald soon manages a ruse to spring his comrades from jail by disguising himself as an elderly preacher. Tragedy soon strikes when the Doctor has met with an accident with a cart--eventually, he dies from his injuries, but not before telling Traverse that Gabe Le Noir is Clara's guardian (the will having been made years ago). Neither Traverse nor the Doctor know much about Gabe, and because he was the Doctor's wife's half-brother and a reputable man, the Doctor didn't think much of it. Verbally, though, the Doctor has told two people, Traverse and a Doctor Williams, that he would like Clara to continue to live with Marah Rocke. Marah of course knows Gabe, and worries about what to do when Gabe comes upon the scene.
Gabe refuses to honor the verbal directions of Doctor Day and the court decides in favor of him. Clara goes to live at the Hidden House estate. Capitola hears of a young woman staying at Hidden House and gets curious; she sneaks out and spends the night there. On her way, she runs into the clairvoyant old woman, "Old Hat" who tells her that she will destroy someone dear to her in order that she will rise in the world. Capitola scoffs. At Hidden House, Clara and Capitola (Day and Night) become fast friends, and luckily for Capitola, Gabe is not home. During the night, Capitola fancies she sees the ghastly figure of a woman who takes her ring. When she leaves Hidden House, she has indeed lost her ring.
At Hidden House, Clara fancies hearing a body being dragged downstairs, screaming. Soon, Craven Le Noir, Gabe's son, falls in "love" with Clara, or rather he and his father are plotting to get her inheritance. She escapes matrimony by a plan hatched by Capitola in which the two of them trade places. Clara goes to Marah, while Capitola goes with a veil with Craven to the altar. In front of a large audience at the wedding, Capitol offers compelling testimony against Gabe Le Noir and his son; in court, she makes a similar statement which leads to Clara being restored to Willow Heights, her father's property, taking Marah with her. Unfortunately, Traverse who is trying to make his career in the West doesn't hear about this, and having been unsuccessful in establishing a practice, enlists to go into the army bound for the Mexican War in order to pay off his debts. Herbert and the Gabe Le Noir (who is a colonel) also go off to war.
Back at Hurricane Hall, Craven Le Noir has fallen in love with Capitola and eventually proposes to her. She refuses him, and he slanders her reputation. She then challenges him to a duel and shoots him in the face with split peas in order to teach him a lesson. Capitola triumphs yet again when Black Donald makes another attempt to carry her away: she manages to trick him into sitting in an armchair placed over the trapdoor in her room. She springs it upon him and he falls, though he survives the fall (the trapdoor goes down to a cellar). Black Donald is taken to prison and receives a sentence for execution. Meanwhile, the scene shifts to the Mexican War, where Colonel Le Noir and another officer conspire to deprive Traverse of sleep, hence orchestrating his falling asleep at an important post and his execution. Herbert manages to eloquently defend Traverse in court, however, and Traverse goes free. At the end of the war, Le Noir is on his deathbed from his war injuries. He becomes repentant and gives Traverse's letters from Clara and his mother to him, raises him to the honor of ensign, and also gives a parcel to Herbert to be opened after his death.
Traverse doesn't go home, though, because he wants to return having made his career first. He goes to New Orleans, where he cures a rich Frenchman who heads a mental institution. It turns out that Capitola's mother is at the mental institution: she has been kept at Hidden House by Gabriel Le Noir for nearly eighteen years until dragged out of the house to the mental institution recently (hence the screams Clara heard during her stay). Gabe's confession in the parcel which Herbert opens upon his death concurs what Traverse learns from Capitola's mother. Traverse, Herbert, and Capitola's mom all return to Hurricane Hall, where Herbert is set to marry Capitola, Clara to marry Traverse, and Marah and Warfield are reconciled as well. Capitola, however, can't be happy because Black Donald is to be executed on their wedding day. At the last minute, she comes up with a plan to spring him from prison, giving him some tools that he had left behind in the woods. Donald becomes a reformed robber, and confesses to Capitola that he wouldn't have killed her anyways. The ending remarks that they didn't quite live "happily ever after," as each of the women would make necessary corrections of their men when they would be out of line.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS/APPROACH:
Issues of serial publication: The success of periodical literature for a middle-class audience like The Hidden Hand was owed at least in part to the contexts of its circulation. Its serial publication was a closely-orchestrated event; it was common that before one novel's serialization was ended, advertisements would show up for the next. Specifically with respect to The Hidden Hand, the Ledger's Bonner sneakily bought room to print two installments of The Hidden Hand in the National Era, then announced that readers would need to buy the "great family paper," the Ledger, to read the rest.
Yet, cliffhangers are perhaps not as common as what one might expect from serial fiction whose subject was sensational, melodramatic, and (respectably) lurid. For example, Black Donald's plunge down the trapdoor happened in the middle of an installment, and readers are let in on the secret that he has survived the plunge in this installment before Capitola finds out later. I argue that there is a certain satisfaction for readers in observing characters finding out truths that readers already know, perhaps akin to something like being excited for someone's reaction to their own surprise party. This is, I believe, a more often overlooked feature of serialization--withholding not the truth of a mystery, necessarily, but characters' reactions to the truth. The Hidden Hand employs this trick throughout; indeed, the narrator herself acknowledges at the end when everything is revealed to Capitola about her past that the reader already knows all of this. It doesn't make it any less satisfying to witness the revelation to Capitola, however.
Genre, audience, and respectability: Certainly the sensational aspects of crime, murder, hired outlaws, mental institutions, etc. rendered some readers critical of such literature. A character like Capitola, too, breaks gender stereotypes and is clearly the "heroine" of the story, equally effectual in neutralizing Major Warfield's strict patriarchal authority (usually by revealing it to be humorous with strategies like parody), countering marriage proposals, and capturing a feared outlaw.
Yet Southworth's Hidden Hand is ultimately within the bounds of middle-class respectability. Readers are left to imagine what outlaws carrying away a young girl will do to her, what would be "worse" than murder, but these things are always left unsaid. In the end, any readerly assumption of Black Donald's lurid and sadistic tendencies is neutralized by his saying that he was not planning on killing her at all, and that he was just in love with her like any other honorable suitor. Capitola's gender-bending is often in the service of her own chastity, as Nina Baym points out in this article: she dresses up as a newsboy in order to protect her chastity, and this is why gender-bending ends up being okay. And ultimately, though she has boyish tendencies, she isn't just a boy with a girl's exterior, she is more sympathetic (and hence, womanly) than men, as evidenced in her capacity to love Black Donald and see him for who he was beyond his occupation as an outlaw. Her weapons against men are never violence but humor and strategem, and when she actually thinks that she has hurt Black Donald in springing the trapdoor, she is clearly distressed, like an "ideal woman" would be, if she had hurt someone. Thus, Capitola certainly crosses boundaries, but perhaps not quite as radically as one might perceive at first.
PUBLICATION HISTORY:
The Hidden Hand was serialized in The New York Ledger beginning in February, 1859. At the time, Southworth was the most widely-read woman novelist and also the Ledger was the most widely-circulated newspaper, making The Hidden Hand a clear best-seller. In 1857, Robert Bonner of the Ledger recognized Southworth's selling power and asked for exclusive rights to serialize her fiction. Furthermore, The Hidden Hand was serialized two more times before its book publication in 1888, and reissues continued for thirty years after that.
SUMMARY:
The old Major Ira Warfield, alternatively known as "Old Hurricane," lived alone at his mansion in the mountains of Virginia known as Hurricane Hall. The estate is surrounded by gothic natural surroundings. Warfield is a grumpy old man, who prefers not to leave the comforts of his home. At the beginning of the novel, he is telling his slave Wool to warm his bed as he will soon retire for the evening. It is late, but a parson arrives in the night, with the urgent message that Warfield must go with him to hear the last testament of a dying old woman. Warfield has been recently appointed a Justice of the Peace and his duty charges him to go. The two men go out then into the cold, stormy night. The old woman turns out to be Nancy Grewell, a mid-wife who has disappeared from the area for thirteen years. She tells a harrowing story of being caught up in the night by two villains. The villains charge her with delivering the twin babies of a masked woman: her baby boy dies, but the girl survives. The woman enjoins Nancy to hide and take away her living girl, bequeathing Nancy with a wedding ring of hers which reads "Eugene--Capitola." Nancy and the baby (whom she says she had hidden with her all along) are sold on board a ship bound for New York which is wrecked. The only survivors are herself, the baby (whom she has named Capitola), and a young sailor named Herbert Greyson. In New York, Greyson helps them get situated, and Nancy and her charge make do in an area called Rags Alley. The woman says that she raised the girl, and after thirteen years, has finally managed to make enough to come back to Virginia to tell this story. Before she dies, Warfield promises to take on Capitola as his own charge; it is clear that he is more intimately involved with this story than is revealed, since he and Nancy whisper knowingly about the house where the masked woman gave birth.
In New York, Capitola actually comes upon Warfield--dressed as a newspaper boy, since that was the only way she was able to make enough money to keep herself. The tenement houses in Rags Alley had been torn down for over a year so she had been cast out. Major Warfield also makes the acquaintance of Herbert Greyson through Capitola, who turns out to be Warfield's nephew--his mother had become estranged from her brother when she made a marriage which Warfield objected to. Warfield wanted to do well by Herbert, and promises to send him to West Point, and also to do well by a widow, Marah Rocke, and her son who had taken in Herbert and his mother long ago, and who had continued to care for him after his mother died. When Herbert tells Marah the good news, she is elated and seems to know more about Warfield than she will reveal at present. Meanwhile, back at Hurricane Hall, Capitola hears a ghastly story from Mrs. Condiment, the housekeeper, about how a former tenant, Henry Le Noir, had let six Indian warriors to their deaths through a trapdoor, and of how Le Noir's family was later murdered by the vengeful sons of these warriors and thrown into the same pit. Apparently one son of Le Noir's escaped.
Unfortunately, when Old Hurricane actually hears that the widow's name is Marah Rocke, he rages and takes back his offer. It turns out that she was once his young wife when he was an officer, and he had found her with a younger man, Gabriel Le Noir. Marah's version of the story, however, was that he had stolen into her room one night when Old Hurricane was out late and she had already been asleep. Marah is then thrown into despair once again that her lover does not believe her even after eighteen years, and begins to waste away. Concerned, Traverse goes to Doctor Day, who had been generously allowing Traverse to study with him for free. The doctor realizes that Marah was wasting away largely because of lack of human sympathy. With his beautiful daughter Clara's prompting, the doctor takes in both Traverse as an apprentice and Marah Rocke as a housekeeper. Naturally, by this time, Traverse has fallen in love with Clara. Capitola, meanwhile, feels trapped by her new guardian's rules; despite the bounty which he has lavished on her, she is used to having the freedom of roaming about. She breaks his rules and rides out further than she should have alone, and meets with an unsavory young man. She manages to outwit this young man and run away from him; back at Hurricane Hall, Warfield fumes and sputters. On another night when Warfield rides out on an errand alone, he comes home to Capitola parodying his fuming and sputtering.
The scene shifts to a meeting of outlaws, "Black Donald" and his gang, at an old woman's inn. This is the house where Capitola was born, and where Nancy Grewell had been taken many years ago. Gabriel Le Noir has stopped by to speak with Black Donald, telling him that his son (the young man outwitted by Capitola) had found Capitola Le Noir, apparently the daughter of the woman whom Nancy tended. The conversation makes known too that Capitola is a heiress to a fortune, and Le Noir says that Black Donald and his gang must hunt down and kill her. Black Donald manages to exact a large sum for the work: ten-thousand dollars, which he dreams he will put to go use in order to move west, join Congress, the Senate, and maybe even become president one day. Gabe reluctantly agrees. Black Donald hatches a plan to do some surveillance, pretending to stop by Hurricane Hall as a peddler of fine goods when the women are home alone. They get to talking about Black Donald, and Capitola bravely says that she'd like to see him. Black Donald takes off his disguise, and Capitola latches on to him screaming for his arrest. Black Donald runs away, though he could have killed her, he doesn't because he thinks her worth having some fun with before killing.
More is revealed about Gabe Le Noir's past when Old Hurricane tells the parson about the murder of Eugene Le Noir, Capitola's father and Gabe Le Noir's brother. Gabe killed Eugene and got his wife out of the way in order to secure his own inheritance of the large estate at Hidden House. Black Donald sends three outlaws to capture Capitola, who ends up being too smart for them, having seen them under her bed in her mirror's reflection. She manages to trap the outlaws in the house and call for help; luckily, Herbert has just come by and the three outlaws are carted off to prison. As all of these things were happening, Doctor Day had sent Traverse to Washington for college, and he manages to get a diploma in just three years. Doctor Day has plans for Traverse to set up his career further west, and to thereafter take Clara as his wife. The young couple is overjoyed. Black Donald soon manages a ruse to spring his comrades from jail by disguising himself as an elderly preacher. Tragedy soon strikes when the Doctor has met with an accident with a cart--eventually, he dies from his injuries, but not before telling Traverse that Gabe Le Noir is Clara's guardian (the will having been made years ago). Neither Traverse nor the Doctor know much about Gabe, and because he was the Doctor's wife's half-brother and a reputable man, the Doctor didn't think much of it. Verbally, though, the Doctor has told two people, Traverse and a Doctor Williams, that he would like Clara to continue to live with Marah Rocke. Marah of course knows Gabe, and worries about what to do when Gabe comes upon the scene.
Gabe refuses to honor the verbal directions of Doctor Day and the court decides in favor of him. Clara goes to live at the Hidden House estate. Capitola hears of a young woman staying at Hidden House and gets curious; she sneaks out and spends the night there. On her way, she runs into the clairvoyant old woman, "Old Hat" who tells her that she will destroy someone dear to her in order that she will rise in the world. Capitola scoffs. At Hidden House, Clara and Capitola (Day and Night) become fast friends, and luckily for Capitola, Gabe is not home. During the night, Capitola fancies she sees the ghastly figure of a woman who takes her ring. When she leaves Hidden House, she has indeed lost her ring.
At Hidden House, Clara fancies hearing a body being dragged downstairs, screaming. Soon, Craven Le Noir, Gabe's son, falls in "love" with Clara, or rather he and his father are plotting to get her inheritance. She escapes matrimony by a plan hatched by Capitola in which the two of them trade places. Clara goes to Marah, while Capitola goes with a veil with Craven to the altar. In front of a large audience at the wedding, Capitol offers compelling testimony against Gabe Le Noir and his son; in court, she makes a similar statement which leads to Clara being restored to Willow Heights, her father's property, taking Marah with her. Unfortunately, Traverse who is trying to make his career in the West doesn't hear about this, and having been unsuccessful in establishing a practice, enlists to go into the army bound for the Mexican War in order to pay off his debts. Herbert and the Gabe Le Noir (who is a colonel) also go off to war.
Back at Hurricane Hall, Craven Le Noir has fallen in love with Capitola and eventually proposes to her. She refuses him, and he slanders her reputation. She then challenges him to a duel and shoots him in the face with split peas in order to teach him a lesson. Capitola triumphs yet again when Black Donald makes another attempt to carry her away: she manages to trick him into sitting in an armchair placed over the trapdoor in her room. She springs it upon him and he falls, though he survives the fall (the trapdoor goes down to a cellar). Black Donald is taken to prison and receives a sentence for execution. Meanwhile, the scene shifts to the Mexican War, where Colonel Le Noir and another officer conspire to deprive Traverse of sleep, hence orchestrating his falling asleep at an important post and his execution. Herbert manages to eloquently defend Traverse in court, however, and Traverse goes free. At the end of the war, Le Noir is on his deathbed from his war injuries. He becomes repentant and gives Traverse's letters from Clara and his mother to him, raises him to the honor of ensign, and also gives a parcel to Herbert to be opened after his death.
Traverse doesn't go home, though, because he wants to return having made his career first. He goes to New Orleans, where he cures a rich Frenchman who heads a mental institution. It turns out that Capitola's mother is at the mental institution: she has been kept at Hidden House by Gabriel Le Noir for nearly eighteen years until dragged out of the house to the mental institution recently (hence the screams Clara heard during her stay). Gabe's confession in the parcel which Herbert opens upon his death concurs what Traverse learns from Capitola's mother. Traverse, Herbert, and Capitola's mom all return to Hurricane Hall, where Herbert is set to marry Capitola, Clara to marry Traverse, and Marah and Warfield are reconciled as well. Capitola, however, can't be happy because Black Donald is to be executed on their wedding day. At the last minute, she comes up with a plan to spring him from prison, giving him some tools that he had left behind in the woods. Donald becomes a reformed robber, and confesses to Capitola that he wouldn't have killed her anyways. The ending remarks that they didn't quite live "happily ever after," as each of the women would make necessary corrections of their men when they would be out of line.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS/APPROACH:
Issues of serial publication: The success of periodical literature for a middle-class audience like The Hidden Hand was owed at least in part to the contexts of its circulation. Its serial publication was a closely-orchestrated event; it was common that before one novel's serialization was ended, advertisements would show up for the next. Specifically with respect to The Hidden Hand, the Ledger's Bonner sneakily bought room to print two installments of The Hidden Hand in the National Era, then announced that readers would need to buy the "great family paper," the Ledger, to read the rest.
Yet, cliffhangers are perhaps not as common as what one might expect from serial fiction whose subject was sensational, melodramatic, and (respectably) lurid. For example, Black Donald's plunge down the trapdoor happened in the middle of an installment, and readers are let in on the secret that he has survived the plunge in this installment before Capitola finds out later. I argue that there is a certain satisfaction for readers in observing characters finding out truths that readers already know, perhaps akin to something like being excited for someone's reaction to their own surprise party. This is, I believe, a more often overlooked feature of serialization--withholding not the truth of a mystery, necessarily, but characters' reactions to the truth. The Hidden Hand employs this trick throughout; indeed, the narrator herself acknowledges at the end when everything is revealed to Capitola about her past that the reader already knows all of this. It doesn't make it any less satisfying to witness the revelation to Capitola, however.
Genre, audience, and respectability: Certainly the sensational aspects of crime, murder, hired outlaws, mental institutions, etc. rendered some readers critical of such literature. A character like Capitola, too, breaks gender stereotypes and is clearly the "heroine" of the story, equally effectual in neutralizing Major Warfield's strict patriarchal authority (usually by revealing it to be humorous with strategies like parody), countering marriage proposals, and capturing a feared outlaw.
Yet Southworth's Hidden Hand is ultimately within the bounds of middle-class respectability. Readers are left to imagine what outlaws carrying away a young girl will do to her, what would be "worse" than murder, but these things are always left unsaid. In the end, any readerly assumption of Black Donald's lurid and sadistic tendencies is neutralized by his saying that he was not planning on killing her at all, and that he was just in love with her like any other honorable suitor. Capitola's gender-bending is often in the service of her own chastity, as Nina Baym points out in this article: she dresses up as a newsboy in order to protect her chastity, and this is why gender-bending ends up being okay. And ultimately, though she has boyish tendencies, she isn't just a boy with a girl's exterior, she is more sympathetic (and hence, womanly) than men, as evidenced in her capacity to love Black Donald and see him for who he was beyond his occupation as an outlaw. Her weapons against men are never violence but humor and strategem, and when she actually thinks that she has hurt Black Donald in springing the trapdoor, she is clearly distressed, like an "ideal woman" would be, if she had hurt someone. Thus, Capitola certainly crosses boundaries, but perhaps not quite as radically as one might perceive at first.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Lady Audley's Secret (adaptation) by C.H. Hazlewood
PUBLICATION HISTORY:
This play adaptation of Lady Audley's Secret was first performed at the Victoria Theater on May 25, 1863. Colin Henry Hazlewood was a playwright and comedian who wrote mostly for the Britannia and Pavilion Theaters. Lady Audley's Secret is one of his most popular adaptations.
SUMMARY/COMMENTARY:
The play's plot and affect differ significantly from the novel, owing to the changed or exaggerated characterizations of Lady Audley, George, Alicia, Robert, Sir Michael, and Luke. The result is a play that is essentially comedic--the exaggerated sparring between these characters and not suspense drives the action. The play opens with Phoebe and Luke in conversation on the "lime tree walk." Phoebe reveals she is marrying Luke with hopes of reforming his boorish behavior (also, it is a promise to her mother) while Luke plots to steal jewels from the rich Audleys during the occasion of Sir Michael's birthday. This opening scene already signals the importance of Luke to the drama: cast aside in the novel, Hazlewood's adaptation rescues him from the shadows. Sir Michael is much older, "a gray-headed gentleman of 70," and he is much more of a bumbling old man blind to everything which is going on around him. Alicia and Robert are lovers, and are engaged to be married.
George Talboys is significantly more of a cad, having subjected Helen Talboys (Lady Audley) to his indolent and impulsive losses of money. He also describes his marriage as "one of impulsive passion." The story is that he left England to secure an appointment abroad, and while abroad, he received news of Helen's death. Though this was a blow for George, he is certainly not devastated like the George of the novel. Robert and George attend Sir Michael's birthday celebrations, and there, they see a likeness of Lady Audley in Alicia's possession. Immediately, George reveals in an aside that he knows Lady Audley is his wife. He confronts her directly, and they spar. Lady Audley is much more unabashedly militant and determined to make her way in society: "Then you will war with a woman?" she asks, challengingly. George too is harsh and belligerent, and in the scene where they spar, Lady Audley directly uses an iron piece from the well to strike George into the well. She exultingly cries out: "Dead men tell no tales! I am free!" Luke, however, is an eyewitness, again underscoring his pivotal role in the drama.
Alicia and Robert's marriage plans are delayed by George's disappearance. It is six months since his disappearance. Luke comes onto the scene again and has the chance to confront Lady Audley while in a drunken state. He threatens her with blackmail, and extorts money from her. Robert too confronts Lady Audley, telling her that he has found Helen Talboys's likeness in George's luggage. Lady Audley is unfazed (throughout, she has been calculating, overbearing, hard, and strong--nothing like the over-feminine, soft Lady Audley of the novel; the only person blind to her calculating nature is the senile Sir Michael): "No; my motto has, hitherto, been death or victory; and to that end I am fixed." Lady Audley thus turns both Sir Michael as well as Alicia against Robert, telling Alicia that he has not been faithful to her in the attentions he has paid his aunt Lady Audley. Robert tries to get Luke to talk, meanwhile, but is unsuccessful even though he buys him many drinks. Lady Audley arrives at Luke and Phoebe's residence, tells Phoebe to go ahead, and deliberately burns down the house in a much stronger action than the desperate act which she commits in the novel. Robert comes back unscathed, and in this final confrontation with Lady Audley, she still says that she will "crush" him with her "wealth, boundless wealth." At this point, Luke makes a grand entrance, "supported by peasants and Phoebe." The ineffectual Robert tries to silence Luke and make the accusation himself, and Luke falls back, saying "Then I will be silent, silent for ever--ever--ever." This dramatic scene enacts the "silencing" of the working class man by the wealthy gentleman much more obviously than the novel, calling to it greater attention. Alicia runs in as Luke falls over, announcing the death of Sir Michael. Luke revives, and tries once again to tell the murder of George Talboys. As the words come out of his mouth, however, George enters--at which point Luke falls back dead (he has again been silenced, this time for good). George, however, points to Luke and tells Lady Audley that she should "thank that man that you have not my death upon your soul." It isn't until the very end here that Lady Audley truly goes mad, vacantly staring ahead of her and imagining Sir Michael's ghost. She ends the play with her mad speech and finally keels over dead.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Vanity Fair by W.M. Thackeray
PUBLICATION HISTORY:
Vanity Fair was published in twenty monthly parts from January 1847 to July 1848 by the editors of Punch Magazine and then subsequently bound for single-volume publication. A new edition was issued in 1853. The original subtitle for the piece was "Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society." Thackeray himself provided sketches for the installments. The frontispiece also advertises Thackeray as author of "The Irish Sketch Book," "Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo," "Jeames's Diary," and the "Snob Papers" in Punch, underscoring his reputation as a an author of shorter serial pieces in the periodical press.
SUMMARY:
The novel begins with the departure of two young women from Miss Pinkerton's school for young ladies: Amelia Sedley, a well-off, popular, and charming young woman, and her friend, Rebecca Sharp, an Anglo-French orphan who is used to doing what was necessary to take care of herself. Becky has been mistreated by the snobby Miss Pinkerton, who has only taken her on because Becky can speak French to the other charges. Becky openly tells Miss Pinkerton that since they do not get along, she ought to help her find work elsewhere. Thus, Miss Pinkerton finds a governess position for her. Because Amelia has become friends with Becky at Miss Pinkerton's, she invites Becky to her family home in Russell Square for a week. The Sedley's of Russell Square are generous (Mr. Sedley made his fortune as a stock-broker), and Rebecca schemes to get Joseph Sedley, Amelia's stout older brother who was making a fortune in India and back for a time. Joseph Sedley indeed falls for Rebecca, but things end up going south when George Osborne arrives, a childhood friend of Sedley's and Amelia's suitor. The narrative strand is interrupted briefly with a sketch-history of one Dobbins, a classmate of Osborne's who was bullied at school, and who stood up for Osborne one day against a bully; hence they became close friends. Osborne has invited Dobbins to go along with the two couples to Vauxhall for a night of revelry. At Vauxhall, Joseph gets ridiculously drunk and inappropriate with Rebecca. Although everyone has expected it, Joseph doesn't end up proposing to Rebecca because he is too hung over the next day. It turns out that Osborne has been opposing the marriage, thinking Rebecca too far beneath Joseph's station. Amelia has sympathy for Rebecca as she departs, showering her with gifts and money, and getting her family to do the same for her.
At Queen's Crawley, Sir Pitt's country estate, Rebecca contemptuously finds Sir Pitt to be crass and no match for her intellectually despite his great wealth. Lady Crawley, Sir Pitt's (second) wife, is submissive to his whims and having lost her youthful beauty, is generally disregarded by Sir Pitt. Rebecca is to be governess to Lady Crawley and Sir Pitt's two young daughters, Rose and Violet. Soon, Rebecca also makes the acquaintance of Sir Pitt's sons from his first marriage: the elder Mr. Pitt, a self-righteous preacher, and the younger son, Rawdon, a spoiled, bold Captain who takes a liking to Miss Sharp. As time passes, Rebecca manages to ingratiate herself with pretty much everyone in the Crawley circle. Sir Pitt finds her a much more able and interesting companion than his wife, Mr. Pitt finds her apt at understanding some of his scholarly pursuits, the rich Miss Crawley (Sir Pitt's sister) finds her clever, and Mrs. Bute Crawley, wife to the Rector Crawley (another brother of Sir Pitt's) extends an invitation to Rebecca to visit. As a result, Rebecca becomes party to many of the factors causing family tensions, including how Miss Crawley's preference for Rawdon alienates the Rector, who feels more entitled to her money than the young, irresponsible Captain. All of this section is narrated through a mixture of letters (primarily from Rebecca to Amelia) and narrative.
This takes us to the fourth installment, which goes back to tell what has become of Amelia. As it turns out, not much has happened to her: she spends most of her time at home, pining away with love and sentiment for Osborne. Unfortunately for her, George spends most of his time with the boys of his Regiment, drinking and spending money. In his past, he has been used to being allowed to "sow his wild oats" and so Amelia's attachment feels constraining. Dobbin, feeling badly for Amelia, suggests to his friend that he pay more attention to Amelia. Meanwhile, George's father is having second thoughts about engaging his son to Amelia, as he fears Mr. Sedley's fortunes to be taking a turn for the worse.
The narrative switches back to Becky Sharp, who is attending to Miss Crawley. Miss Crawley has fallen "ill" from overindulging herself on food and drink. Miss Crawley's usual attendants, one Miss Briggs and one Mrs. Firkin, are jealous of Rebecca's ascendancy. While Miss Crawley keeps Rebecca, Sir Pitt's affairs have gone into disarray; he has been so dependent on her to do secretarial work. He demands that she return home, but Miss Crawley continues to keep her. Lady Crawley's sudden death brings Sir Pitt to Park Lane (Miss Crawley's residence) with a marriage proposal to Rebecca. Rebecca doesn't accept because she says she is already married. It gradually comes out that she has secretly married Rawdon. When Miss Crawley and Sir Pitt find out, she has already left to go live with him. The couple remains hopeful that Miss Crawley will come around to their marriage. The opportunistic Mrs. Bute Crawley takes advantage of Rawdon and Rebecca's fall from favor to take charge of caring for Miss Crawley's "illness." Mrs. Bute is extremely imperious, however, and it is clear that Miss Crawley, Miss Briggs, and Mrs. Firkin begin to resent her control.
It turns out that Mr. Sedley has meanwhile met with financial ruin as a result speculations that depended on Napoleon's continual exile--instead, he has returned to power. The older Mr. Osborne tries to push George to marry one Miss Rhoda Swartz, a mulatto heiress who was also at Miss Pinkerton's school. Dobbin, however, looking out for Amelia's interests and afraid that she will die of a broken heart, manages to convince George to keep his engagement. George marries Amelia without his father's consent, and though Dobbin manages to win over his sisters, he fails to win over Mr. Osborne, resulting in George being disowned. George and Amelia spend some time in Brighton after they get married, where they meet up with Rebecca and Rawdon. Amelia inevitably feels some jealousy for Rebecca, and their friendship is perhaps just a tad less sweet. The men of Dobbins and George's regiment are soon set to depart for Belgium in order to fight Napoleon. Rawdon will also go, though he is not set to fight on the front lines. Rebecca and Amelia prepare to go with the men. Jos also goes to Brussels, in order to accompany the women. Amelia has a hard time at Brussels, because she is snubbed by the society there while Rebecca and George flirt heavily. George even leaves Rebecca a note in her corsage. Amelia accuses Rebecca of her flirtation, as is disconsolate as the men leave for battle. Rebecca does well for herself after the men leave; Rawdon has left behind his horses and other property so that she will be financially secure should he die. During the course of battle, the cowardly Jos offers Rebecca a large sum for her horses, in order that he might flee. Rawdon does not die, however, but George does, in the famous battle of Waterloo.
At the beginning of the tenth number, the narrative returns to those who remain behind in England. Sir Pitt, distraught over Becky's departure, has taken up with Miss Horrocks, the butler's daughter. His older son, however, has decided to court Lady Jane (formerly Rawdon's intended) and both Jane and he have been making steady progress in gaining Miss Crawley's favor. Mrs. Bute Crawley makes one last effort, sending her son James to visit Miss Crawley. At first, Miss Crawley receives the handsome boy with some favor, but when a mistake leads to Miss Crawley thinking he had been drinking extravagantly at a tavern and when he smokes a pipe in her house, he is thrown out. Lady Jane and the younger Pitt are soon married, and Miss Crawley becomes affectionate with Lady Jane. Upon her death, she leaves her wealth to the younger Pitt and his wife.
Meanwhile, Mr. Osborne refuses to help out Amelia and her son, Georgy. In Paris, Rebecca and Rawdon do pretty well for themselves, living on Rawdon's winnings from gambling. The narrator suggests that Rawdon's dealings may be shady, and pretty soon they can't live in Paris anymore and go to London. Rebecca skillfully settles Rawdon's London debts, and they rent a house on Curzon Street from Raggles, a former servant who has worked hard to move up the social ladder. Becky and Rawdon can't pay the rent, however, and Raggles ends up going to debtor's prison. As all of this is happening, the narrative reveals that Rebecca isn't very much interested in her own son and treats him neglectfully. She manages to ingratiate herself with Pitt Crawley and Lady Jane, and also wins the favor of one influential and wealthy Lord Steyne. Sir Pitt the elder also soon dies, and Pitt the younger inherits his estate at Queens Crawley; the Horrocks's are thrown out. Rebecca tactfully ingratiates herself with Lady Southdown, Lady Jane's mother, and also Pitt.
Back home with her ruined parents, Amelia Sedley still gets attention from men who help her out with little gifts to Georgy. She even gets a marriage proposal from a Reverend Binny, but she decides to remain faithful to George. Dobbin continues to send her money, having gone to India, though saying that the money is left to her from George. She soon hears news that Dobbin is to be married to a woman named Glorvina who is a relation of Major O'Dowd, the commander of the regiment that Dobbin and George Osborne fought in. At the Osborne house, Maria gets married, and her older sister Jane is confined to being a spinster and taking care of the elder Osborne for the rest of her life. Dobbins receives a letter from his sister letting him know a rumor that Amelia is about to marry the Reverend. At long last, Mr. Osborne changes his mind and offers an inheritance to little Georgy and Amelia an allowance. She at first refuses, but in the end is forced to accept when her parents come to even greater financial ruin and she is unable to support her son's schooling and upbringing as a "gentleman." The terms are that he must go and live at the Osbornes. It is a tearful farewell for Amelia, but for Georgy, he is excited to begin life.
Meanwhile, Mr. Osborne refuses to help out Amelia and her son, Georgy. In Paris, Rebecca and Rawdon do pretty well for themselves, living on Rawdon's winnings from gambling. The narrator suggests that Rawdon's dealings may be shady, and pretty soon they can't live in Paris anymore and go to London. Rebecca skillfully settles Rawdon's London debts, and they rent a house on Curzon Street from Raggles, a former servant who has worked hard to move up the social ladder. Becky and Rawdon can't pay the rent, however, and Raggles ends up going to debtor's prison. As all of this is happening, the narrative reveals that Rebecca isn't very much interested in her own son and treats him neglectfully. She manages to ingratiate herself with Pitt Crawley and Lady Jane, and also wins the favor of one influential and wealthy Lord Steyne. Sir Pitt the elder also soon dies, and Pitt the younger inherits his estate at Queens Crawley; the Horrocks's are thrown out. Rebecca tactfully ingratiates herself with Lady Southdown, Lady Jane's mother, and also Pitt.
Back home with her ruined parents, Amelia Sedley still gets attention from men who help her out with little gifts to Georgy. She even gets a marriage proposal from a Reverend Binny, but she decides to remain faithful to George. Dobbin continues to send her money, having gone to India, though saying that the money is left to her from George. She soon hears news that Dobbin is to be married to a woman named Glorvina who is a relation of Major O'Dowd, the commander of the regiment that Dobbin and George Osborne fought in. At the Osborne house, Maria gets married, and her older sister Jane is confined to being a spinster and taking care of the elder Osborne for the rest of her life. Dobbins receives a letter from his sister letting him know a rumor that Amelia is about to marry the Reverend. At long last, Mr. Osborne changes his mind and offers an inheritance to little Georgy and Amelia an allowance. She at first refuses, but in the end is forced to accept when her parents come to even greater financial ruin and she is unable to support her son's schooling and upbringing as a "gentleman." The terms are that he must go and live at the Osbornes. It is a tearful farewell for Amelia, but for Georgy, he is excited to begin life.
Rebecca continues to evince little interest in her son, too busy with the tasks of social climbing. Rawdon, however, is quite affectionate with his son. Rebecca encourages Pitt in his career as an M.P., and he warms to her, preferring her to his wife. A meeting with the king marks the culmination of Rebecca's social climbing. Lord Steyne gives her money and invites her to dinner, where she is still snubbed, however, by some ladies of high backgrounds. Lord Steyne also gives money for little Rawdon to go to school. The Colonel Rawdon, meanwhile, gets into some trouble, going to jail for a debt. Becky doesn't really help him out and instead, his brother and Lady Jane help him out. When Rawdon returns home, he sees Becky with Lord Steyne and attacks him. He discovers that Becky has a stash of money and jewels. Both Steyne and Rawdon abandon Becky and plan a duel; the duel is called off thanks to the diplomacy of Wenham, Lord Steyne's man. Left alone, Becky asks Sir Pitt for help to reconcile her to her husband, but he fails. Rawdon goes to Coventry Island for a post, sending money back to Becky and little Rawdon.
When Dobbin and Jos come back to England from India, Dobbin tells Jos that he should stay and set up a home for Amelia and her father to move into. Mr. Sedley and Mr. Osborne both die; Osborne leaves half his money to Georgy and also some for Amelia. Amelia's position having been improved, she is able to reunite with her son. On a trip to Pumpernickel with Dobbin and Jos, Dobbin declares that Amelia has never appreciated his love. They run into the deserted Becky, who has been gambling and associating with unsavory characters. Amelia kind-heartedly takes Becky in. Dobbin, having heard of Becky's dealings on the Continent, warns Jos against Becky, who will likely try to get into his good graces again. After Dobbin departs again, Becky decides to give Amelia the letter that George Osborne had once slipped her--it asked Becky to run away with him. Disabused of her romantic notion of George, Amelia accepts Dobbin and he returns. Here the narrative stops, and moves to a kind of epilogue like section, in which Amelia and Dobbin live happily ever after, little Rawdon and Georgy become great friends in college and are both in love with Lady Jane's daughter, Becky pursues Jos in his travels and receives money from his life insurance after his mysterious death, Colonel Rawdon perishes of yellow fever in Coventry Island, his brother Pitt dies soon afterwards, and the estate of Queens Crawley goes to little Rawdon, who sends money to his mother but refuses to see her. Becky Sharp spends her life mostly around Bath and Cheltenham, giving liberally to Charity.
The novel closes: "Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? Or, having it, is satisfied?--Come children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out."
CRITICAL ANALYSIS/APPROACH:
The significance of Vanity Fair's original serial publication in monthly installments has been thoroughly explored in Edgar F. Harden's famous essay on "The Discipline and Significance of Form in Vanity Fair." Harden lays out in great detail the ways in which Thackeray sets up parallel structures in the his monthly numbers. The first two numbers offer a lesson in parallel structure useful for reading the rest of the novel--here are Harden's observations copied below:
The effects, of course, are varied depending on the parallels--in the above examples, contrasts in character might be drawn, for instance between Becky and Dobbin, who are both "underdogs" but Becky is a lot more opportunistic, or between Becky and Jos, in that Becky recovers much more quickly from the chili than Jos from the punch. Later in the novel, parallels might provide shocking contrasts, such as No. 8's ending with dawn and Amelia's embrace of George as he is about to leave, and No. 9's ending with "darkness" and George's corpse on the battlefield.
The elaborateness of Thackeray's organization is borne out in a more macro-view as well: Harden summarizes that there are nine blocks of material (sometimes the blocks are of 3 numbers, but mostly they are of 2), which might be further demarcated into two groups: four of the blocks and five of the blocks. The two groups are involved in a kind of "counterrhythm." The first group climaxes in the middle with successful marriages (Becky's and Amelia's) and concludes with George and Amelia's separation because of his death; the second group climaxes with Rawdon leaving Becky and ends with Amelia's marriage to Dobbin.
What, ultimately, is the larger significance of these detailed and disciplined parallels? I feel that Harden's speculation (especially after his impressive explication of structure) that Thackeray needed a way to discipline his writing so that it would fit the requirements of the 32-page numbered part (something that his writing for periodicals hadn't required) seems a bit of a letdown. I think it's interesting that both Thackeray's original subtitle for Vanity Fair, "Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society" and the volume's subtitle, "A Novel Without a Hero," kind of registers a sense of plurality in unity which the elaborate structure also bears out. "Pen and Pencil Sketches" signals plurality unified under the larger category of "Society"; "Without a Hero" prevents the unifying effects of a central character while the genre designation,"novel" unifies. Parallels in the narrative structure unify, while two major plot lines (one following Becky, the other Amelia) threaten to unravel the narrative structure. Thus, it seems that Vanity Fair continually points to the tension between plurality/dissolution and singularity/unity. Thackeray's own comment about how he wished to "make a set of people living without God in the world" in July 1847 suggests that without God, there needed to be some other organizational principle. Unlike exemplars of high realism like Eliot's Middlemarch, no omniscient narrator steps in place of God to provide an organizational principle--Thackeray's first-person narrator, though fairly knowledgeable, hints that he is one of the members who partook in the "society" in which his characters circulated--he heard unfavorable stories about Becky at the same dinner tables where Dobbin hears about her. It is not, then, the narrator that provides unity in Vanity Fair, but the novelist, who, for all intents and purposes, has usurped God in creating the parallel structures in the numbered parts.
The significance of Vanity Fair's original serial publication in monthly installments has been thoroughly explored in Edgar F. Harden's famous essay on "The Discipline and Significance of Form in Vanity Fair." Harden lays out in great detail the ways in which Thackeray sets up parallel structures in the his monthly numbers. The first two numbers offer a lesson in parallel structure useful for reading the rest of the novel--here are Harden's observations copied below:
- No. 1 begins with the girls' education at Miss Pinkerton's; No. 2 begins with the boys' education at Dr. Swishtail's
- No. 1 elaborates on Amelia's popularity versus Becky's unpopularity; No. 2 elaborates on Cuff the bully's popularity and Dobbin's unpopularity
- No. 1 shows a battle between Miss Pinkerton and Becky; No. 2 shows a battle between Cuff and Dobbin
- In No.1 Becky receives a dictionary from Jemima (which she throws back); in No. 2 Dobbin receives a prize-book after becoming recognized at school for his work
- Becky and Amelia ride to Russell square in No.1; Becky, Amelia, Jos, Dobbin, and George ride to Vauxhall in No. 2
- No. 1 has a retrospective account of Becky's past; No. 2 has a retrospective account of favorable views of Becky and Jos's future together
- In No. 1, Amelia and Becky tour the house at Russell Square and Becky vows to catch Jos; in No. 2 Jos and Becky tour Vauxhall and Jos fails to propose
- In No. 1 Mr Sedley mocks Jos; In No. 2 George mocks Jos, drunk at Vauxhall
- Becky is overcome by chili in No. 1; Jos is overcome by punch in No. 2
- No. 1 has Becky waiting for Jos as he leaves Russell Square; No. 2 has her waiting for Jos who sends a note saying he's leaving London
- No. 1 has Jos arriving in Russell Square; No. 2 has Becky arriving at Great Gaunt Street (Pitt's house)
- In No. 1 Mr. Sedley offers champagne at Russell Square; In No. 2, Sir Pitt offers beer upon Becky's arrival
- Jos prepares for Vauxhall in No. 1 and plans to propose to Becky; Becky prepares for Queen's Crawley in No. 2 and dreams about Rawdon
The effects, of course, are varied depending on the parallels--in the above examples, contrasts in character might be drawn, for instance between Becky and Dobbin, who are both "underdogs" but Becky is a lot more opportunistic, or between Becky and Jos, in that Becky recovers much more quickly from the chili than Jos from the punch. Later in the novel, parallels might provide shocking contrasts, such as No. 8's ending with dawn and Amelia's embrace of George as he is about to leave, and No. 9's ending with "darkness" and George's corpse on the battlefield.
The elaborateness of Thackeray's organization is borne out in a more macro-view as well: Harden summarizes that there are nine blocks of material (sometimes the blocks are of 3 numbers, but mostly they are of 2), which might be further demarcated into two groups: four of the blocks and five of the blocks. The two groups are involved in a kind of "counterrhythm." The first group climaxes in the middle with successful marriages (Becky's and Amelia's) and concludes with George and Amelia's separation because of his death; the second group climaxes with Rawdon leaving Becky and ends with Amelia's marriage to Dobbin.
What, ultimately, is the larger significance of these detailed and disciplined parallels? I feel that Harden's speculation (especially after his impressive explication of structure) that Thackeray needed a way to discipline his writing so that it would fit the requirements of the 32-page numbered part (something that his writing for periodicals hadn't required) seems a bit of a letdown. I think it's interesting that both Thackeray's original subtitle for Vanity Fair, "Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society" and the volume's subtitle, "A Novel Without a Hero," kind of registers a sense of plurality in unity which the elaborate structure also bears out. "Pen and Pencil Sketches" signals plurality unified under the larger category of "Society"; "Without a Hero" prevents the unifying effects of a central character while the genre designation,"novel" unifies. Parallels in the narrative structure unify, while two major plot lines (one following Becky, the other Amelia) threaten to unravel the narrative structure. Thus, it seems that Vanity Fair continually points to the tension between plurality/dissolution and singularity/unity. Thackeray's own comment about how he wished to "make a set of people living without God in the world" in July 1847 suggests that without God, there needed to be some other organizational principle. Unlike exemplars of high realism like Eliot's Middlemarch, no omniscient narrator steps in place of God to provide an organizational principle--Thackeray's first-person narrator, though fairly knowledgeable, hints that he is one of the members who partook in the "society" in which his characters circulated--he heard unfavorable stories about Becky at the same dinner tables where Dobbin hears about her. It is not, then, the narrator that provides unity in Vanity Fair, but the novelist, who, for all intents and purposes, has usurped God in creating the parallel structures in the numbered parts.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Letters from Iceland by W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice
Edition: Letters from Iceland
PUBLICATION HISTORY:
In 1936, Auden and MacNeice went to travel in Iceland, having been commissioned to write a book beforehand. The result was a hodge-podge collage of their own poetry and prose, and textual fragments compiled from other sources, published in 1937. This collage is put together as "chapters." Immediate historical contexts in 1936 included high unemployment rates in Europe, the Spanish Civil War, and Hitler's continuing rise.
SUMMARY:
The "Letters to Lord Byron," interspersed throughout in four parts form a kind of "central thread," according to Auden. In the second Letter to E.M.A., Auden says that he formulated his idea on the Byron letters while on a bus: "He's the right person, I think, because he was a townee, a European, and disliked Wordsworth and that kind of approach to nature, and I find that very sympathetic. This letter in itself will have very little to do with Iceland, but will be rather a description of an effect of travelling in distance places which is to make one reflect on one's past and one's culture from the outside. But it will form a central thread on which I shall hang other letters to different people more directly about Iceland." The first letter explicitly talks about its form (rhyme royal), and tells Byron why he has been chosen for correspondence. As is the case in the rest of the letters to Byron, the rhyme is intentionally bad as a tribute to Don Juan. The second letter tells Byron of England today; Auden articulates the modern malaise under lives controlled and made comfortable by such things as "antiseptic objects" or "central heating." Don Juan, he says, would find the century good nonetheless, for the variety enabled by technology: "Indeed our ways to waste time are so many, / Thanks to technology, a list of these / Would make a longer book than Ulysses." Continuing on, Auden tells Byron that they are more socialist, in that "Fortune's ladder is for all to climb," but that the spirit of the people has lost the appreciation for the individual hero. He even muses on whether Hitler is the heir to the Byronic hero--a scary thought, and Auden clearly expresses nostalgia for more colorful and spirited individuals who take the trouble to speak back to authority and establishments. The third letter continues the subject of modern Europe, specifically articulating for Byron the place of the modern artist. Unlike in the past, when an artist had a specific audience or a patron, today's artist didn't really have a place at all. Most occupations have a professional niche and utility, but artists don't belong as such. The fourth and final letter muses on a child from the future, asking "What's / An intellectual of the middle classes?" This becomes Auden's excuse to offer an account of his own life, beginning with information found on his passport, the ancestral lineage of his parents, his early fascination with Icelandic sagas, his dream to become a mining engineer, and finally his career a poet and his literary influences: Layard, Lane, Lawrence, and Gidet are mentioned. He tells Byron of the profession of teaching English at a boarding school, and how those who want to be authors today take this on because it generates enough income for a life independent compared to the "alternative" of occupying "an office stool" all day.
Auden's to Letter to Christopher Isherwood consists of a poem followed by a letter, where the letter answer's Isherwood's queries about Iceland. Some of Auden's thoughts are that the Icelanders are not a particularly ambitious people, that they are fond of satirical lampoons, and are uninhibited sexually. In a word, they seem a people that take life with a certain levity and without the kinds of "neuroses" common to the English: Auden concludes, "Scandinavian sanity would be too much for you, as it is for me."
In a Letter to Graham and Anne Shepard, MacNeice writes in verse couplets to answer the question as to why they are in Iceland. Iceland is simpler, for one, than England: "This complex world exacts / Hard work of simplifying; to get its focus / You have to stand outside the crowd and caucus." At another point, MacNeice offers his own "simple" answer: "Wystan said that he was planning to go / To Iceland to write a book and would I come too; / And I said yes, having nothing better to do." In Iceland there is a sense of rest from the rush and movement of England: "Here is a different rhythm, the juggld balls / Hang in the air--the pause before the souffle falls."
The For Tourists chapter is written as a typical travel guide, offering advice on currency, lodging, food, transportation, language etc. A bibliography includes travel guides, language books, and histories - mostly pertaining to romances and sagas.
Sheaves from Sagaland is probably the most fragmented and heteroglossic "chapter." It begins with categories followed by quotations drawn from a number of authorities (the first is, category "Iceland is Real," followed by "'Iceland is not a myth; it is a solid portion of the earth's surface.'"). The authorities are mostly British but with some French and German ones mixed in as well. The many categories are organized under larger headings- The Country, The Natives, The Tourist, and Home Again. After this section, there is a prose account "The 1809 Revolution" drawn mainly from "Hooker and MacKenzie." In 1809, Jorgen Jorgensen, a Danish traveler/adventurer tried to proclaim himself the new ruler of Iceland after its independence from Denmark. The revolutionary failed, and was taken to prison in London after the Danish government was reinstated. Following this historical account is another one, this time of a volcanic eruption in 1727. This account is in given by a preacher (who is quoted by Mackenzie). At the end of the chapter, there is a quick textual extracts from the Suarbar Parish Register from 1805, listing the names, occupations, ages, status of confirmation, literacy levels, conduct and general abilities of a number of inhabitants. After this, the chapter closes with a "bibliography."
Auden's Letter to R.H.S. Crossman, Esq. is in verse, and also includes some old, textual enclosures: a "Formula of Peace-Making, a Law of Wager of Battle, and The Viking Law
Auden writes two letters to E.M.A., the first describing various sights, scenes, and people. There is also a discussion of Iceland's poetry, particularly the odd circumstance that "any average educated person one meets can turn out competent verse." There seems to be no "modern" influence. Included in this letter is Auden's poem, "A Detective Story," explaining why people read detective stories. The second letter I have mentioned above--in it he describes his idea for the Byron letters. The second letter shares a chapter with a set of strange proverbs that seem translated (e.g., "Ale is another man," "If mending will do, why cut off") and also an old story/legend about a woman troll.
Eclogue from Iceland was written by MacNeice, and in couplets, gives the dialogue between two tourists in Iceland and a ghost they meet. One of the tourists is Irish, and the other is escaping from the Spanish Civil War, suggesting they are representations of MacNeice and Auden. The tourists see Iceland as a kind of escape from Europe. The ghost, however, advises them to struggle on with modern Europe: "Minute your gesture but it must be made--/ Your hazard, your act of defiance and hymn of / hate, / Hatred of hatred, assertion of human values, / Which is now your only duty." Escape isn't a permanent answer.
Hetty to Nancy: These are a set of letter written by Macneice, adopting a loquacious female voice to tell of his and Auden's camping adventures with four schoolboys and their schoolmaster. "Hetty" relates the adventures of herself, her friend Maisie, and four schoolgirls and their schoolmistress. Hetty mostly launches complaints about her travel companions, about not having brought enough of her own camping supplies, and about the spartan living conditions of small tents in severe, cold weather. Hetty views the landscape to be inhospitable, and speaks fondly of "civilization" back in England. She writes, "Iceland is a barren land for souvenirs. Of course one can always bring home little bits of lava for one's friends...but I am afraid I have the wrong sort of friends." She doesn't see evidence of anything particularly foreign or romantic about Iceland: "You can't imagine any of them behaving like the people in the sagas." "Hetty" and "Nancy" are apparently codes, respectively, of "straight" and "gay," the letters revealing that Nancy is a lesbian who likes rock-climbing, and Hetty is stereotypically "feminine," holding up things like lipstick and marriage.
Auden's Letter to Kristjan Andresson, Esq. is an account of Iceland which Kristjan had requested from Auden after his travels, wishing to know what Auden's impressions of his own country were. Auden begins with apologies and qualifications on a touristic view of Iceland. He says he won't talk about geography, since impressions on people are really what matters most. This introduction aside, Auden launches unabashedly into his impressions, dividing them into the following categories: Physique and Clothes, Character, Manners, Wealth and Class Distinctions, Education and Culture, and General. Some of the more memorable observations that Auden makes about Icelanders is that they are "very direct, normal, and free from complexes, but whether that is a good or bad thing, I cannot decide." He appreciates Icelanders' wide appreciation of literature, but laments their lack of taste in architecture, drama, painting or music. In thinking through Iceland's future, Auden does not think that Iceland can become a successful capitalist society, because though peasant proprietors are becoming more and more "urbanised," there are not enough of them to "build up a capitalist culture of their own." Socialism might be an alternative. Finally, Auden is ambivalent about cosmopolitanism and Europe's influence on Iceland: "I know the day of self-contained national culture is over, that Iceland is far from Europe, that the first influences of Europe are always the worst ones, and that the development of a truly European culture is slow and expensive. But I am convinced that the cultural future of Iceland depends on the extent to which she can absorb the best of the European traditions, and make them her own."
Letter to William Coldstream, Esq begins as a "little donnish experiment in objective narrative," where Auden narrates what happens to them in third person. This is followed by a free-verse poem talking about the writing and publication of this work. This chapter ends with a poem, "Iceland" by MacNeice.
Auden and MacNeice's Joint "Last Will and Testament" end the work. The two of them bequeath many abstract concepts to people, communicated often via humorously enjambed lines like MacNeice's "And to my stepmother I leave her rich / Placid delight in detailed living who adds / Hour to hour as if it were stitch to stitch." Auden appoints Edward Upward and Christopher Isherwood "my join executors / To judge my work if it be bad or good." Together they also "leave" things that are not theirs to leave, like "the false front of Lincoln Cathedral" to the P.M. Baldwin, or "National character and strength of will" to Winston Churchill Ballinrobe's dry harbour." The tone is irreverent; the bequeathals often make fun of contemporaries. One of the more cutting moments is what they "leave" I.A. Richards: "Item, to I.A. Richards who like a mouse / Nibbles linguistics with the cerebral tooth / We leave a quiet evening in a boarding-house." Towards the ending, however, their bequeathals become more serious: they leave, "[t]o all the dictators...the soft wind from the sweeping wing / Of madness, and the intolerable tightening of the mesh / Of history." And finally, near the very end, they end on a hopeful note: "We leave the unconceived and unborn lives / A closer approximation to real happiness / Than has been reached by us, our neighbours, or their wives."
MacNeice's Epilogue dedicated to Auden in a way summarizes what they have (not) seen in Iceland: "In that island never found / Visions blossom from the ground, / No conversions like St. Paul / No great happenings at all." Iceland's attraction, however, owes to its barrenness, in comparison to modern Europe: "Better were the northern skies / Than this desert in disguise--/ Rugs and cushions and the long / Mirror which repeats the song."
CRITICAL APPROACH/ANALYSIS:
Auden returned to Iceland in 1965, and wrote a foreword to the 1966 edition of Letters from Iceland (by then MacNeice had passed away). In this foreword, Auden traces his lifetime relationship with Iceland: "In my childhood dreams Iceland was holy ground; when, at the age of twenty-nine, I saw it for the first time, the reality verified my dream; at fifty-seven it was holy ground still, with the most magical light of anywhere on earth." He returns to the themes of Iceland as a place somehow untouched by "modernity," and the "only really classless society I have ever encountered." Though Iceland could never really be an "escape" for Auden facing the challenges of two world wars and massive historical and cultural shifts, it manages to retain a kind of magical hold on him in its perceived exemption from the complications of the modern world.
James Wilson's reading of Letters from Iceland's hodge-podge form argues that the work follows the high modernist treatment of art and fragment with some important departures from modernist canonical texts like Eliot's The Wasteland. Like The Wasteland, Letters is "polyglot" and hence fragmented: various in genre, in allusions, textual extracts, and finally, dual authorship. At the same time, the literary work itself as a whole is a "hermetically sealed" whole: in Wilson's summary of this high modernist tenet: "Art is always art, rather than something else, but everything else can always be absorbed within its integral form." For Letters, the integral form which brings together fragments is the travel account, whereas in The Wasteland it's the poem. Where Letters departs from The Wasteland is in its rejection of Eliot's seriousness. Letters takes up Byron as a father-figure, and particularly, such a humorous, irreverent work as Don Juan. Wilson suggests that while Eliot and Auden/MacNeice all seek to form something integral and communal in the fragmented modern era via the power of literary form, the latter achieves this through a comedic spirit which is an alternative to Eliot's serious religiosity.
PUBLICATION HISTORY:
In 1936, Auden and MacNeice went to travel in Iceland, having been commissioned to write a book beforehand. The result was a hodge-podge collage of their own poetry and prose, and textual fragments compiled from other sources, published in 1937. This collage is put together as "chapters." Immediate historical contexts in 1936 included high unemployment rates in Europe, the Spanish Civil War, and Hitler's continuing rise.
SUMMARY:
The "Letters to Lord Byron," interspersed throughout in four parts form a kind of "central thread," according to Auden. In the second Letter to E.M.A., Auden says that he formulated his idea on the Byron letters while on a bus: "He's the right person, I think, because he was a townee, a European, and disliked Wordsworth and that kind of approach to nature, and I find that very sympathetic. This letter in itself will have very little to do with Iceland, but will be rather a description of an effect of travelling in distance places which is to make one reflect on one's past and one's culture from the outside. But it will form a central thread on which I shall hang other letters to different people more directly about Iceland." The first letter explicitly talks about its form (rhyme royal), and tells Byron why he has been chosen for correspondence. As is the case in the rest of the letters to Byron, the rhyme is intentionally bad as a tribute to Don Juan. The second letter tells Byron of England today; Auden articulates the modern malaise under lives controlled and made comfortable by such things as "antiseptic objects" or "central heating." Don Juan, he says, would find the century good nonetheless, for the variety enabled by technology: "Indeed our ways to waste time are so many, / Thanks to technology, a list of these / Would make a longer book than Ulysses." Continuing on, Auden tells Byron that they are more socialist, in that "Fortune's ladder is for all to climb," but that the spirit of the people has lost the appreciation for the individual hero. He even muses on whether Hitler is the heir to the Byronic hero--a scary thought, and Auden clearly expresses nostalgia for more colorful and spirited individuals who take the trouble to speak back to authority and establishments. The third letter continues the subject of modern Europe, specifically articulating for Byron the place of the modern artist. Unlike in the past, when an artist had a specific audience or a patron, today's artist didn't really have a place at all. Most occupations have a professional niche and utility, but artists don't belong as such. The fourth and final letter muses on a child from the future, asking "What's / An intellectual of the middle classes?" This becomes Auden's excuse to offer an account of his own life, beginning with information found on his passport, the ancestral lineage of his parents, his early fascination with Icelandic sagas, his dream to become a mining engineer, and finally his career a poet and his literary influences: Layard, Lane, Lawrence, and Gidet are mentioned. He tells Byron of the profession of teaching English at a boarding school, and how those who want to be authors today take this on because it generates enough income for a life independent compared to the "alternative" of occupying "an office stool" all day.
Auden's to Letter to Christopher Isherwood consists of a poem followed by a letter, where the letter answer's Isherwood's queries about Iceland. Some of Auden's thoughts are that the Icelanders are not a particularly ambitious people, that they are fond of satirical lampoons, and are uninhibited sexually. In a word, they seem a people that take life with a certain levity and without the kinds of "neuroses" common to the English: Auden concludes, "Scandinavian sanity would be too much for you, as it is for me."
In a Letter to Graham and Anne Shepard, MacNeice writes in verse couplets to answer the question as to why they are in Iceland. Iceland is simpler, for one, than England: "This complex world exacts / Hard work of simplifying; to get its focus / You have to stand outside the crowd and caucus." At another point, MacNeice offers his own "simple" answer: "Wystan said that he was planning to go / To Iceland to write a book and would I come too; / And I said yes, having nothing better to do." In Iceland there is a sense of rest from the rush and movement of England: "Here is a different rhythm, the juggld balls / Hang in the air--the pause before the souffle falls."
The For Tourists chapter is written as a typical travel guide, offering advice on currency, lodging, food, transportation, language etc. A bibliography includes travel guides, language books, and histories - mostly pertaining to romances and sagas.
Sheaves from Sagaland is probably the most fragmented and heteroglossic "chapter." It begins with categories followed by quotations drawn from a number of authorities (the first is, category "Iceland is Real," followed by "'Iceland is not a myth; it is a solid portion of the earth's surface.'"). The authorities are mostly British but with some French and German ones mixed in as well. The many categories are organized under larger headings- The Country, The Natives, The Tourist, and Home Again. After this section, there is a prose account "The 1809 Revolution" drawn mainly from "Hooker and MacKenzie." In 1809, Jorgen Jorgensen, a Danish traveler/adventurer tried to proclaim himself the new ruler of Iceland after its independence from Denmark. The revolutionary failed, and was taken to prison in London after the Danish government was reinstated. Following this historical account is another one, this time of a volcanic eruption in 1727. This account is in given by a preacher (who is quoted by Mackenzie). At the end of the chapter, there is a quick textual extracts from the Suarbar Parish Register from 1805, listing the names, occupations, ages, status of confirmation, literacy levels, conduct and general abilities of a number of inhabitants. After this, the chapter closes with a "bibliography."
Auden's Letter to R.H.S. Crossman, Esq. is in verse, and also includes some old, textual enclosures: a "Formula of Peace-Making, a Law of Wager of Battle, and The Viking Law
Auden writes two letters to E.M.A., the first describing various sights, scenes, and people. There is also a discussion of Iceland's poetry, particularly the odd circumstance that "any average educated person one meets can turn out competent verse." There seems to be no "modern" influence. Included in this letter is Auden's poem, "A Detective Story," explaining why people read detective stories. The second letter I have mentioned above--in it he describes his idea for the Byron letters. The second letter shares a chapter with a set of strange proverbs that seem translated (e.g., "Ale is another man," "If mending will do, why cut off") and also an old story/legend about a woman troll.
Eclogue from Iceland was written by MacNeice, and in couplets, gives the dialogue between two tourists in Iceland and a ghost they meet. One of the tourists is Irish, and the other is escaping from the Spanish Civil War, suggesting they are representations of MacNeice and Auden. The tourists see Iceland as a kind of escape from Europe. The ghost, however, advises them to struggle on with modern Europe: "Minute your gesture but it must be made--/ Your hazard, your act of defiance and hymn of / hate, / Hatred of hatred, assertion of human values, / Which is now your only duty." Escape isn't a permanent answer.
Hetty to Nancy: These are a set of letter written by Macneice, adopting a loquacious female voice to tell of his and Auden's camping adventures with four schoolboys and their schoolmaster. "Hetty" relates the adventures of herself, her friend Maisie, and four schoolgirls and their schoolmistress. Hetty mostly launches complaints about her travel companions, about not having brought enough of her own camping supplies, and about the spartan living conditions of small tents in severe, cold weather. Hetty views the landscape to be inhospitable, and speaks fondly of "civilization" back in England. She writes, "Iceland is a barren land for souvenirs. Of course one can always bring home little bits of lava for one's friends...but I am afraid I have the wrong sort of friends." She doesn't see evidence of anything particularly foreign or romantic about Iceland: "You can't imagine any of them behaving like the people in the sagas." "Hetty" and "Nancy" are apparently codes, respectively, of "straight" and "gay," the letters revealing that Nancy is a lesbian who likes rock-climbing, and Hetty is stereotypically "feminine," holding up things like lipstick and marriage.
Auden's Letter to Kristjan Andresson, Esq. is an account of Iceland which Kristjan had requested from Auden after his travels, wishing to know what Auden's impressions of his own country were. Auden begins with apologies and qualifications on a touristic view of Iceland. He says he won't talk about geography, since impressions on people are really what matters most. This introduction aside, Auden launches unabashedly into his impressions, dividing them into the following categories: Physique and Clothes, Character, Manners, Wealth and Class Distinctions, Education and Culture, and General. Some of the more memorable observations that Auden makes about Icelanders is that they are "very direct, normal, and free from complexes, but whether that is a good or bad thing, I cannot decide." He appreciates Icelanders' wide appreciation of literature, but laments their lack of taste in architecture, drama, painting or music. In thinking through Iceland's future, Auden does not think that Iceland can become a successful capitalist society, because though peasant proprietors are becoming more and more "urbanised," there are not enough of them to "build up a capitalist culture of their own." Socialism might be an alternative. Finally, Auden is ambivalent about cosmopolitanism and Europe's influence on Iceland: "I know the day of self-contained national culture is over, that Iceland is far from Europe, that the first influences of Europe are always the worst ones, and that the development of a truly European culture is slow and expensive. But I am convinced that the cultural future of Iceland depends on the extent to which she can absorb the best of the European traditions, and make them her own."
Letter to William Coldstream, Esq begins as a "little donnish experiment in objective narrative," where Auden narrates what happens to them in third person. This is followed by a free-verse poem talking about the writing and publication of this work. This chapter ends with a poem, "Iceland" by MacNeice.
Auden and MacNeice's Joint "Last Will and Testament" end the work. The two of them bequeath many abstract concepts to people, communicated often via humorously enjambed lines like MacNeice's "And to my stepmother I leave her rich / Placid delight in detailed living who adds / Hour to hour as if it were stitch to stitch." Auden appoints Edward Upward and Christopher Isherwood "my join executors / To judge my work if it be bad or good." Together they also "leave" things that are not theirs to leave, like "the false front of Lincoln Cathedral" to the P.M. Baldwin, or "National character and strength of will" to Winston Churchill Ballinrobe's dry harbour." The tone is irreverent; the bequeathals often make fun of contemporaries. One of the more cutting moments is what they "leave" I.A. Richards: "Item, to I.A. Richards who like a mouse / Nibbles linguistics with the cerebral tooth / We leave a quiet evening in a boarding-house." Towards the ending, however, their bequeathals become more serious: they leave, "[t]o all the dictators...the soft wind from the sweeping wing / Of madness, and the intolerable tightening of the mesh / Of history." And finally, near the very end, they end on a hopeful note: "We leave the unconceived and unborn lives / A closer approximation to real happiness / Than has been reached by us, our neighbours, or their wives."
MacNeice's Epilogue dedicated to Auden in a way summarizes what they have (not) seen in Iceland: "In that island never found / Visions blossom from the ground, / No conversions like St. Paul / No great happenings at all." Iceland's attraction, however, owes to its barrenness, in comparison to modern Europe: "Better were the northern skies / Than this desert in disguise--/ Rugs and cushions and the long / Mirror which repeats the song."
CRITICAL APPROACH/ANALYSIS:
Auden returned to Iceland in 1965, and wrote a foreword to the 1966 edition of Letters from Iceland (by then MacNeice had passed away). In this foreword, Auden traces his lifetime relationship with Iceland: "In my childhood dreams Iceland was holy ground; when, at the age of twenty-nine, I saw it for the first time, the reality verified my dream; at fifty-seven it was holy ground still, with the most magical light of anywhere on earth." He returns to the themes of Iceland as a place somehow untouched by "modernity," and the "only really classless society I have ever encountered." Though Iceland could never really be an "escape" for Auden facing the challenges of two world wars and massive historical and cultural shifts, it manages to retain a kind of magical hold on him in its perceived exemption from the complications of the modern world.
James Wilson's reading of Letters from Iceland's hodge-podge form argues that the work follows the high modernist treatment of art and fragment with some important departures from modernist canonical texts like Eliot's The Wasteland. Like The Wasteland, Letters is "polyglot" and hence fragmented: various in genre, in allusions, textual extracts, and finally, dual authorship. At the same time, the literary work itself as a whole is a "hermetically sealed" whole: in Wilson's summary of this high modernist tenet: "Art is always art, rather than something else, but everything else can always be absorbed within its integral form." For Letters, the integral form which brings together fragments is the travel account, whereas in The Wasteland it's the poem. Where Letters departs from The Wasteland is in its rejection of Eliot's seriousness. Letters takes up Byron as a father-figure, and particularly, such a humorous, irreverent work as Don Juan. Wilson suggests that while Eliot and Auden/MacNeice all seek to form something integral and communal in the fragmented modern era via the power of literary form, the latter achieves this through a comedic spirit which is an alternative to Eliot's serious religiosity.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
PUBLICATION HISTORY:
The Importance of Being Earnest was Wilde's final play: it opened on Valentine's day in 1895 at St. James's theater in the West End. Having achieved much success with previous plays, Earnest was an immediate hit. Its success, however, was interrupted by Wilde's conviction, brought on by Lord Alfred Douglas's father, of homosexual offenses. The play stopped running prematurely as a result of the scandal caused by Wide's trial.
SUMMARY;
Act I: It is morning in Algernon Moncrieff's flat in the West End. His manservant, Lane, allows him to eat cucumber sandwiches that have been prepared for Lady Augusta Bracknell, his aunt. Jack Worthing appears, whom Algernon knows as Ernest. Jack has come to propose to Gwedolyn, Augusta's niece. Algernon makes some critical remarks on marriage, and then tells Jack that he needs to clear up some issue about one Cecily. Algernon brings out the cigarette case which Jack has left there, and demands to know why it says "From little Cecily with her fondest love to her uncle Jack." Jack confesses that she is the granddaughter of Mr. Thomas Cardew, the man who adopted him. She is his charge, and because one has to adopt a "high moral tone" when a guardian, Jack has invented a brother named Ernest as an excuse for him to visit town. Algernon says that he is a "Bunburyist," which refers to his own similar ruse to get out of unpleasant engagements--"Bunbury" is his fake invalid country friend, whom Algernon uses when Lady Bracknell comes in and asks him to dinner. Lane lies to Augusta about the cucumber sandwiches, saying that there were none at the market. While Augusta and Alberta go to the music room, Jack propose to Gwendolyn, who agrees to marry him because she likes the name Ernest. Lady Bracknell quizzes Jack on his background to determine if he is an worthy match for her niece. She is horrified when he tells her that he was left in a handbag at Victoria station and then taken up by Thomas Cardew. Gwendolyn tells Jack that she may not be able to marry him, but that she is eternally devoted. She asks for his country address, which Algernon takes down.
Act II: This act opens with Cecily in conversation with Miss Prism, her governess. Miss Prism acts prim, strict, and proper, but it is clear that she is interested in one Dr. Chasuble, the rector, as she talks to him about the ills of celibate life, encouraging him to marry. Cecily suggests that the two take a walk together. As Cecily is alone, Mr. Ernest Worthing (who is actually Algernon) arrives. They are taken up with each other. Meanwhile, Jack has come back and encounters Dr. Chasuble and Miss Prism outside. Jack tells the two of them that Ernest as died of a severe chill while in Paris. Cecily emerges from the house, announcing that Jack's brother, Ernest, has come. Cecily makes Jack and Algernon reconcile, and when the two shake hands, she is pleased. Though Jack wants him to leave, Algernon stays on and proposes to Cecily. Cecily lets him know that they are actually already engaged--prior to their even meeting, she has written fantasy love letters and made records in her diary of their engagement. Realizing that she, like Gwendolyn, is in love with the name Ernest, decides to leave to get christened as Ernest. While he is gone, Gwendolyn arrives, seeking Jack (whom she thinks is Ernest). At first the women take well to each other, until there is the misunderstanding that they are both engaged to Ernest Worthing. At that point, the women view each other with barely veiled hatred over tea and cake, until Jack and Algernon both come in. At this point, the men have to admit that neither of them are named Ernest. The women immediately run to each others' side and leave the men. Algernon begins to eat muffins in his distress, while Jack looks on, disgusted.
Act III: Gwendolyn and Cecily decide to confront Algernon and Jack. They decide to forgive the men, who say that they will make the sacrifice of christening themselves Ernest. Lady Bracknell suddenly arrives at the country manor, causing problems because she will not sanction a marriage between Jack and Gwendolyn. After finding out that Cecily is well off, she does encourage Algernon to marry Cecily, however. Jack counters Lady Bracknell by saying that he will only countenance the marriage of Algernon and Cecily if she will countenance his marriage to Gwendolyn. They are at an impasse until Miss Prism's name comes up. Lady Bracknell demands to see her. It is revealed that Miss Prism, twenty-eight years ago, accidentally put her three-volume novel into a baby carriage, and a baby into a handbag, which she left at Victoria station. That baby was Jack, and belonged to Mrs. Moncrieff, Lady Bracknell's sister. It turns out then, that Algernon and Jack are brothers. Jack additionally finds out that his name is indeed Ernest (which is also the name of Jack and Algernon's biological father). The play ends with reconciliation: Jack will marry his cousin Gwendolyn, and Algernon will marry Cecily. Chasuble and Miss Prism also finally reveal their attachments to one another.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS/APPROACH:
Like many of Wilde's other works, the characters in Earnest challenge traditional notions of morality with sayings that turn traditional morality on its head. The women marry not for love, for romance, or for sentiment, but for a name. Each of the characters spout witticisms which say the opposite of what is to be expected. There are countless examples, but here are just a few:
-Algernon on the lower classes: "Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?"
-Jack on truth and courtship: "My dear fellow, the truth isn't quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice sweet refined girl."
-Gwendolyn to Jack: "The simplicity of your character makes you exquisitely incomprehensible to me."
-Cecily regarding her diary: "It is simply a very young girl's record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication."
All of these examples are certainly humorous, but they also do the work of revealing the traditional morality which they refer to to be equally absurd. In the first quotation, the traditional morality being mocked is the notion that the upper classes ought to set an example for the lower classes. The second quotation mocks the hypocrisy of the "sweet" and "refined"; indeed, these are rather social "lies" themselves and so ought to be treated in kind. The third quotation reverses the notion that those who are simple, frank, and candid are comprehensible, again revealing potential hypocrisies in those who like to pose as "simple." Finally, the fourth quotation critiques traditional notions of what ought to be private and public. Cecily is by no means a young, innocent girl whose thoughts and impressions ought to be protected from the vulgar public eye--in fact, she desires that these thoughts to be widely seen.
Thus, the "serious" work (the play was subtitled "A Trivial Comedy for Serious People") that Earnest does is to explode myths of traditional morality, and in doing so, level a charge against hypocrisy. The main characters in the play may be liars and primarily concerned with money, their names, eating well, and other aspects of life that are generally considered "superficial" but they are not hypocrites like many who espouse traditional morality. Even those that adopt more traditionally "moral" stances, Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble, come around in the end. The importance of being "earnest," then, is the importance of not being a hypocrite.
The Importance of Being Earnest was Wilde's final play: it opened on Valentine's day in 1895 at St. James's theater in the West End. Having achieved much success with previous plays, Earnest was an immediate hit. Its success, however, was interrupted by Wilde's conviction, brought on by Lord Alfred Douglas's father, of homosexual offenses. The play stopped running prematurely as a result of the scandal caused by Wide's trial.
SUMMARY;
Act I: It is morning in Algernon Moncrieff's flat in the West End. His manservant, Lane, allows him to eat cucumber sandwiches that have been prepared for Lady Augusta Bracknell, his aunt. Jack Worthing appears, whom Algernon knows as Ernest. Jack has come to propose to Gwedolyn, Augusta's niece. Algernon makes some critical remarks on marriage, and then tells Jack that he needs to clear up some issue about one Cecily. Algernon brings out the cigarette case which Jack has left there, and demands to know why it says "From little Cecily with her fondest love to her uncle Jack." Jack confesses that she is the granddaughter of Mr. Thomas Cardew, the man who adopted him. She is his charge, and because one has to adopt a "high moral tone" when a guardian, Jack has invented a brother named Ernest as an excuse for him to visit town. Algernon says that he is a "Bunburyist," which refers to his own similar ruse to get out of unpleasant engagements--"Bunbury" is his fake invalid country friend, whom Algernon uses when Lady Bracknell comes in and asks him to dinner. Lane lies to Augusta about the cucumber sandwiches, saying that there were none at the market. While Augusta and Alberta go to the music room, Jack propose to Gwendolyn, who agrees to marry him because she likes the name Ernest. Lady Bracknell quizzes Jack on his background to determine if he is an worthy match for her niece. She is horrified when he tells her that he was left in a handbag at Victoria station and then taken up by Thomas Cardew. Gwendolyn tells Jack that she may not be able to marry him, but that she is eternally devoted. She asks for his country address, which Algernon takes down.
Act II: This act opens with Cecily in conversation with Miss Prism, her governess. Miss Prism acts prim, strict, and proper, but it is clear that she is interested in one Dr. Chasuble, the rector, as she talks to him about the ills of celibate life, encouraging him to marry. Cecily suggests that the two take a walk together. As Cecily is alone, Mr. Ernest Worthing (who is actually Algernon) arrives. They are taken up with each other. Meanwhile, Jack has come back and encounters Dr. Chasuble and Miss Prism outside. Jack tells the two of them that Ernest as died of a severe chill while in Paris. Cecily emerges from the house, announcing that Jack's brother, Ernest, has come. Cecily makes Jack and Algernon reconcile, and when the two shake hands, she is pleased. Though Jack wants him to leave, Algernon stays on and proposes to Cecily. Cecily lets him know that they are actually already engaged--prior to their even meeting, she has written fantasy love letters and made records in her diary of their engagement. Realizing that she, like Gwendolyn, is in love with the name Ernest, decides to leave to get christened as Ernest. While he is gone, Gwendolyn arrives, seeking Jack (whom she thinks is Ernest). At first the women take well to each other, until there is the misunderstanding that they are both engaged to Ernest Worthing. At that point, the women view each other with barely veiled hatred over tea and cake, until Jack and Algernon both come in. At this point, the men have to admit that neither of them are named Ernest. The women immediately run to each others' side and leave the men. Algernon begins to eat muffins in his distress, while Jack looks on, disgusted.
Act III: Gwendolyn and Cecily decide to confront Algernon and Jack. They decide to forgive the men, who say that they will make the sacrifice of christening themselves Ernest. Lady Bracknell suddenly arrives at the country manor, causing problems because she will not sanction a marriage between Jack and Gwendolyn. After finding out that Cecily is well off, she does encourage Algernon to marry Cecily, however. Jack counters Lady Bracknell by saying that he will only countenance the marriage of Algernon and Cecily if she will countenance his marriage to Gwendolyn. They are at an impasse until Miss Prism's name comes up. Lady Bracknell demands to see her. It is revealed that Miss Prism, twenty-eight years ago, accidentally put her three-volume novel into a baby carriage, and a baby into a handbag, which she left at Victoria station. That baby was Jack, and belonged to Mrs. Moncrieff, Lady Bracknell's sister. It turns out then, that Algernon and Jack are brothers. Jack additionally finds out that his name is indeed Ernest (which is also the name of Jack and Algernon's biological father). The play ends with reconciliation: Jack will marry his cousin Gwendolyn, and Algernon will marry Cecily. Chasuble and Miss Prism also finally reveal their attachments to one another.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS/APPROACH:
Like many of Wilde's other works, the characters in Earnest challenge traditional notions of morality with sayings that turn traditional morality on its head. The women marry not for love, for romance, or for sentiment, but for a name. Each of the characters spout witticisms which say the opposite of what is to be expected. There are countless examples, but here are just a few:
-Algernon on the lower classes: "Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?"
-Jack on truth and courtship: "My dear fellow, the truth isn't quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice sweet refined girl."
-Gwendolyn to Jack: "The simplicity of your character makes you exquisitely incomprehensible to me."
-Cecily regarding her diary: "It is simply a very young girl's record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication."
All of these examples are certainly humorous, but they also do the work of revealing the traditional morality which they refer to to be equally absurd. In the first quotation, the traditional morality being mocked is the notion that the upper classes ought to set an example for the lower classes. The second quotation mocks the hypocrisy of the "sweet" and "refined"; indeed, these are rather social "lies" themselves and so ought to be treated in kind. The third quotation reverses the notion that those who are simple, frank, and candid are comprehensible, again revealing potential hypocrisies in those who like to pose as "simple." Finally, the fourth quotation critiques traditional notions of what ought to be private and public. Cecily is by no means a young, innocent girl whose thoughts and impressions ought to be protected from the vulgar public eye--in fact, she desires that these thoughts to be widely seen.
Thus, the "serious" work (the play was subtitled "A Trivial Comedy for Serious People") that Earnest does is to explode myths of traditional morality, and in doing so, level a charge against hypocrisy. The main characters in the play may be liars and primarily concerned with money, their names, eating well, and other aspects of life that are generally considered "superficial" but they are not hypocrites like many who espouse traditional morality. Even those that adopt more traditionally "moral" stances, Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble, come around in the end. The importance of being "earnest," then, is the importance of not being a hypocrite.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant
Edition: Miss Marjoribanks
PUBLICATION HISTORY:
Margaret Oliphant, already a well-known writer at the time, published Miss Marjoribanks in 1866. Oliphant's series for Blackwood's, "The Chronicles of Carlingford," had been in progress and Miss Marjoribanks was the fifth novel in the series. Though Oliphant was a well-known literary figure of her time, she has only recently received critical attention from modern scholarship.
SUMMARY:
PUBLICATION HISTORY:
Margaret Oliphant, already a well-known writer at the time, published Miss Marjoribanks in 1866. Oliphant's series for Blackwood's, "The Chronicles of Carlingford," had been in progress and Miss Marjoribanks was the fifth novel in the series. Though Oliphant was a well-known literary figure of her time, she has only recently received critical attention from modern scholarship.
SUMMARY:
After the death of Mrs. Marjoribanks, her daughter Lucilla, away at school, imagines for herself a heroic role as comforting daughter to her dear, widowed father. Full with the dramatic intention of fainting into her father's arms, it turns out that the stoic Dr. Marjoribanks doesn’t really need emotional comfort. She is sent back to school, and she resolves that after finishing with school that she will go on the Grand Tour in order to prepare herself to come back and "revolutionize" the middle-class town of Carlingford. Back from the Grand Tour, Lucilla gets to work, dismissing her visiting cousin Tom's confession of love to her and repeating to all that she wishes only to be "a comfort to [her] papa" and that she will likely not marry for ten years. Lucilla's "work" involves re-doing the drawing room, and creating society around an event which came to be known as Thursday "evenings" (not parties, she insists). At one of these so-called evenings, Lucilla brings out Barbara Lake, a drawing-master's daughter, with whom Lucilla sings a duet. Meanwhile, a wealthy and respectable gentleman (likely in line to be M.P. of Carlingford upon the death of the old member, Chiltern) shows some interest in Lucilla and she begins to think this might be a useful match for her since she was so interested in "political economy" (at least in the sphere of social gatherings). Barbara too, is interested in Cavendish. For Lucilla, however, marrying Cavendish is just a passing idea, and while Barbara resents Lucilla and tries to inspire her jealousy, Lucilla remains calm and concerned only with the social management at Grange Lane. At one of her Thursday evenings, an Archdeacon from out of town shows up (he is a guest of Mr. and Mrs. Chiley, an older couple) and mysteriously, Cavendish runs out before the Archdeacon sees him.
Mr. Cavendish is missing for a long while, and Barbara falls ill with Cavendish's departure. Rose, sister to Barbara and a young artist, called the "pre-Raphaelite" in the narrative, goes to Lucilla to talk about Barbara, but Lucilla thwarts her by talking of the Archdeacon and inviting Rose to the upcoming Thursday evening. Lucilla imagines that Rose will be able to talk to the Archdeacon about art, and that this would provide a good pretense for mixing the sexes at the party; with the exit of the great flirt Cavendish, Lucilla has had much trouble with integrating the sexes. Rose, idealistic about artists as occupying a kind of "classless" position in society, is suddenly faced with the prospect/anxiety of making this theory work in practice. On Thursday evening, the Archdeacon is about to reveal something about one "Mr. Kavan's" falsehoods but Lucilla effectively silences him, realizing that he might be talking of "Cavendish." Lucilla diverts everyone's attention by bringing out a sketch which she presumed to be Rose's (it's actually her brother Willie's) and the Archdeacon praises it, drowning out Rose's protests that it isn't hers. Rose learns that what's important to society is not the art but the person talking about the art, and the narrative cruelly ends the chapter with comments that Lucilla is actually the supreme artist: "the young Preraphaelite was at this moment no better than a graphic little pencil in the greater artist's hand." Soon after this episode, Mr. Cavendish returns, going to see Lucilla when the Archdeacon was out of town for a few days, and nearly proposes to her but for Mrs. Chiley accidentally interrupting. Mrs. Woodburn, Cavendish's sister, scolds him for being cowardly and encourages him to propose again, in order to make good connections and to be done with his spotty past (the details of this past are not revealed, at this point, to the reader). Wandering around, Cavendish finds himself at the Lakes' house, meeting with a rather emotional Barbara.
One day when Lucilla took the Archdeacon into a school where she had set up one Mrs. Mortimer to manage (a widow, first recommended to her by the rector Mr. Bury as a chaperone to her). It turns out that the two know each other. Lucilla gracefully exits the scene, but later learns from interviews with Mrs. Mortimer and the Archdeacon that the Archdeacon has for years been trying to convince Mrs. Mortimer (a distant cousin of his) to take up a lawsuit against an unnamed impostor who took Mrs. Mortimer's inheritance. Lucilla clearly suspects the impostor was Mr. Cavendish, but the narrative doesn't reveal this suspicion openly. Meanwhile, Rose Lake asks Lucilla for help because Barbara has been secretly going out evenings with Mr. Cavendish. Lucilla tries to track down Cavendish. Lucilla tracks down Cavendish while he was on a walk with Barbara, stealing him from under her nose and dismissing her as less important than the matters that she had to discuss with him. Lucilla effectively tells Cavendish that she knows all about his past but that he must trust her to fix everything. Reluctantly, Cavendish attends the next Thursday get together, where Lucilla successfully manages the situation between the Archdeacon, Mrs. Mortimer, and Cavendish without the rest of Carlingford even knowing what happened. Lucilla's management renders the Archdeacon's accusations less salient. After the ordeal, the Archdeacon and Mrs. Mortimer realize their love for one another, and become engaged. Lucilla then pushes Cavendish to marry Barbara (since he will no longer quite occupy the high opinion that he had before) hoping to bring about two marriages, but instead, Cavendish goes off to the Continent, not to return for ten years. Barbara also leaves, to Rose's horror, to become a governess.
The narrative shifts to ten years later, the "second part" of Lucilla's "career." Lucilla sets up one Ashburton for M.P. of Carlingford after the death of Chiltern. Her strategy is to profess repeatedly that she didn't understand politics, but in doing so, effectively rendering political positions moot. Ashburton successfully runs on a platform of being a "good man" who would serve Carlingford's interest. During the election season, Cavendish suddenly returns, and gets mad at Lucilla for having turned the town against his candidacy. As all of this is happening, Aunt Jemima, Tom's mother and Dr. Marjoribanks's sister-in-law comes to town, and behind the scenes, has fantasies that Lucilla and Tom will eventually get together. All of these proceedings are interrupted by Dr. Marjoribanks's sudden death. Unfortunately, it turns out that he has squandered his money in bad investments and hasn't left Lucilla with much at all. Against the advice of all of her friends in Carlingford, Lucilla decides to stay at the house, instead of moving out where a single woman could better support herself. The election goes on, and at first it seems that Cavendish was gaining an advantage (having secured the Rector Bury's support by saying that he was a penitent). Cavendish lost some face because he had gone over to the Lakes's house when Barbara had returned, and was seen having spent some time on a Saturday evening with her. During this meeting, Cavendish feels tender towards her, because she, like him, had grown stout ("gone off") and she, unlike Lucilla, doesn't judge him for his changed appearance. Perhaps because of this episode, Ashburton ends up winning, and thinking himself victor in this area, he fancies winning Lucilla as well. Just as Ashburton is about to propose to her, Tom comes to town, and Lucilla decides to accept him (though in a sort of passive way--Tom asks her to choose "him or me," referring to Ashburton or himself, and Lucilla says simply that it is not to be Ashburton). Her passivity, however, is only for a moment: she tells Tom that he is to buy Marchbank, a more humble estate in a neighboring area, and that they are to move there. There, Lucilla might have something to do: namely, to work to make the lives of the poor people of the village better, and perhaps eventually to make Tom the M.P. of the county. In a word, Lucilla Marjoribanks needs things to do, and this is something that Tom would offer her and not Ashburton. The narrative concludes with Lucilla scanning Marchbank before her: "[T]here rose up before her vision of a parish saved, a village reformed, a county reorganised, and a triumphant election at the end..."
Mr. Cavendish is missing for a long while, and Barbara falls ill with Cavendish's departure. Rose, sister to Barbara and a young artist, called the "pre-Raphaelite" in the narrative, goes to Lucilla to talk about Barbara, but Lucilla thwarts her by talking of the Archdeacon and inviting Rose to the upcoming Thursday evening. Lucilla imagines that Rose will be able to talk to the Archdeacon about art, and that this would provide a good pretense for mixing the sexes at the party; with the exit of the great flirt Cavendish, Lucilla has had much trouble with integrating the sexes. Rose, idealistic about artists as occupying a kind of "classless" position in society, is suddenly faced with the prospect/anxiety of making this theory work in practice. On Thursday evening, the Archdeacon is about to reveal something about one "Mr. Kavan's" falsehoods but Lucilla effectively silences him, realizing that he might be talking of "Cavendish." Lucilla diverts everyone's attention by bringing out a sketch which she presumed to be Rose's (it's actually her brother Willie's) and the Archdeacon praises it, drowning out Rose's protests that it isn't hers. Rose learns that what's important to society is not the art but the person talking about the art, and the narrative cruelly ends the chapter with comments that Lucilla is actually the supreme artist: "the young Preraphaelite was at this moment no better than a graphic little pencil in the greater artist's hand." Soon after this episode, Mr. Cavendish returns, going to see Lucilla when the Archdeacon was out of town for a few days, and nearly proposes to her but for Mrs. Chiley accidentally interrupting. Mrs. Woodburn, Cavendish's sister, scolds him for being cowardly and encourages him to propose again, in order to make good connections and to be done with his spotty past (the details of this past are not revealed, at this point, to the reader). Wandering around, Cavendish finds himself at the Lakes' house, meeting with a rather emotional Barbara.
One day when Lucilla took the Archdeacon into a school where she had set up one Mrs. Mortimer to manage (a widow, first recommended to her by the rector Mr. Bury as a chaperone to her). It turns out that the two know each other. Lucilla gracefully exits the scene, but later learns from interviews with Mrs. Mortimer and the Archdeacon that the Archdeacon has for years been trying to convince Mrs. Mortimer (a distant cousin of his) to take up a lawsuit against an unnamed impostor who took Mrs. Mortimer's inheritance. Lucilla clearly suspects the impostor was Mr. Cavendish, but the narrative doesn't reveal this suspicion openly. Meanwhile, Rose Lake asks Lucilla for help because Barbara has been secretly going out evenings with Mr. Cavendish. Lucilla tries to track down Cavendish. Lucilla tracks down Cavendish while he was on a walk with Barbara, stealing him from under her nose and dismissing her as less important than the matters that she had to discuss with him. Lucilla effectively tells Cavendish that she knows all about his past but that he must trust her to fix everything. Reluctantly, Cavendish attends the next Thursday get together, where Lucilla successfully manages the situation between the Archdeacon, Mrs. Mortimer, and Cavendish without the rest of Carlingford even knowing what happened. Lucilla's management renders the Archdeacon's accusations less salient. After the ordeal, the Archdeacon and Mrs. Mortimer realize their love for one another, and become engaged. Lucilla then pushes Cavendish to marry Barbara (since he will no longer quite occupy the high opinion that he had before) hoping to bring about two marriages, but instead, Cavendish goes off to the Continent, not to return for ten years. Barbara also leaves, to Rose's horror, to become a governess.
The narrative shifts to ten years later, the "second part" of Lucilla's "career." Lucilla sets up one Ashburton for M.P. of Carlingford after the death of Chiltern. Her strategy is to profess repeatedly that she didn't understand politics, but in doing so, effectively rendering political positions moot. Ashburton successfully runs on a platform of being a "good man" who would serve Carlingford's interest. During the election season, Cavendish suddenly returns, and gets mad at Lucilla for having turned the town against his candidacy. As all of this is happening, Aunt Jemima, Tom's mother and Dr. Marjoribanks's sister-in-law comes to town, and behind the scenes, has fantasies that Lucilla and Tom will eventually get together. All of these proceedings are interrupted by Dr. Marjoribanks's sudden death. Unfortunately, it turns out that he has squandered his money in bad investments and hasn't left Lucilla with much at all. Against the advice of all of her friends in Carlingford, Lucilla decides to stay at the house, instead of moving out where a single woman could better support herself. The election goes on, and at first it seems that Cavendish was gaining an advantage (having secured the Rector Bury's support by saying that he was a penitent). Cavendish lost some face because he had gone over to the Lakes's house when Barbara had returned, and was seen having spent some time on a Saturday evening with her. During this meeting, Cavendish feels tender towards her, because she, like him, had grown stout ("gone off") and she, unlike Lucilla, doesn't judge him for his changed appearance. Perhaps because of this episode, Ashburton ends up winning, and thinking himself victor in this area, he fancies winning Lucilla as well. Just as Ashburton is about to propose to her, Tom comes to town, and Lucilla decides to accept him (though in a sort of passive way--Tom asks her to choose "him or me," referring to Ashburton or himself, and Lucilla says simply that it is not to be Ashburton). Her passivity, however, is only for a moment: she tells Tom that he is to buy Marchbank, a more humble estate in a neighboring area, and that they are to move there. There, Lucilla might have something to do: namely, to work to make the lives of the poor people of the village better, and perhaps eventually to make Tom the M.P. of the county. In a word, Lucilla Marjoribanks needs things to do, and this is something that Tom would offer her and not Ashburton. The narrative concludes with Lucilla scanning Marchbank before her: "[T]here rose up before her vision of a parish saved, a village reformed, a county reorganised, and a triumphant election at the end..."
CRITICAL APPROACH/ANALYSIS:
The narrative voice of Miss Marjoribanks throughout adopts a position of ironic distance from Lucilla's manifold activities, rendering the tone of the work overall to be rather comic. Though the narrator is ostensibly a "biographer" or "historian" for Lucilla Marjoribanks, this narrator's claims to seriously admire Lucilla's equanimity and her "career" are clearly tongue-in-cheek. Even when the narrator explicitly defends Lucilla against potentially unjust feelings from the reader, it is tongue-in-cheek: in short, we aren't meant to take Lucilla's projects seriously and the ironic distance always make her seem self-important.
And yet, Miss Marjoribanks is also a clear critique of the constraints placed upon women by Victorian society. Lucilla is the portrait of a talented and smart woman who has no other outlet for her need to manage things and do things than the social politics of Carlingford. Because the social politics of Carlingford are so trivial, we are meant to laugh at Lucilla, but her pathetically comic situation is very much the fault of the society. For example, she doesn't have a vote, and isn't allowed to be interested in political issues, so all that is left to her is the comical (but successful!) management the election by setting up and helping Ashburton to win a popularity contest. In the end, she can't marry Ashburton, because if she did, she would have no outlet for her energies. Marrying Tom means that she can be the boss of him, and through him, she will be able to exert her organizational skills on the population at Marchbank.
The narrative voice of Miss Marjoribanks throughout adopts a position of ironic distance from Lucilla's manifold activities, rendering the tone of the work overall to be rather comic. Though the narrator is ostensibly a "biographer" or "historian" for Lucilla Marjoribanks, this narrator's claims to seriously admire Lucilla's equanimity and her "career" are clearly tongue-in-cheek. Even when the narrator explicitly defends Lucilla against potentially unjust feelings from the reader, it is tongue-in-cheek: in short, we aren't meant to take Lucilla's projects seriously and the ironic distance always make her seem self-important.
And yet, Miss Marjoribanks is also a clear critique of the constraints placed upon women by Victorian society. Lucilla is the portrait of a talented and smart woman who has no other outlet for her need to manage things and do things than the social politics of Carlingford. Because the social politics of Carlingford are so trivial, we are meant to laugh at Lucilla, but her pathetically comic situation is very much the fault of the society. For example, she doesn't have a vote, and isn't allowed to be interested in political issues, so all that is left to her is the comical (but successful!) management the election by setting up and helping Ashburton to win a popularity contest. In the end, she can't marry Ashburton, because if she did, she would have no outlet for her energies. Marrying Tom means that she can be the boss of him, and through him, she will be able to exert her organizational skills on the population at Marchbank.
Lucilla constantly counters feminine stereotypes throughout the novel. Lucilla's reactions to socially difficult or charged moments are always calmer than those of everyone else around her. Frequently, the narrative asserts this in a negative sort of way, for example, saying that the reader might expect Lucilla to be staying up all night thinking about awkward social situations, but that she in fact slept well. Lucilla has many "masculine" personality traits as well, not the least of which was "curiosity"--in moments where she might have a little bit of social anxiety, her curiosity ends up trumping anxiety and her decisions to meddle are more often than not a consequence of her intense curiosity.
Finally, it might be worth mentioning that even the less impressive women in Oliphant's narrative, like Barbara Lake, counter feminine stereotypes. Though horridly sentimental in her attachment to Cavendish, it turns out that she doesn't really care all that much for Cavendish at all, the narrative reveals. Indeed, Barbara's attachment to Cavendish comes out of her sense of rivalry with Lucilla: Barbara from the start resents Lucilla's "helping" her, and Lucilla's patronizing attitudes. The narrative gives: "For to tell the truth, if Miss Marjoribanks was not jealous, the victory was but half a victory after all." Barbara doesn't get that much satisfaction when Cavendish is interested in her if Lucilla wasn't jealous.
Finally, it might be worth mentioning that even the less impressive women in Oliphant's narrative, like Barbara Lake, counter feminine stereotypes. Though horridly sentimental in her attachment to Cavendish, it turns out that she doesn't really care all that much for Cavendish at all, the narrative reveals. Indeed, Barbara's attachment to Cavendish comes out of her sense of rivalry with Lucilla: Barbara from the start resents Lucilla's "helping" her, and Lucilla's patronizing attitudes. The narrative gives: "For to tell the truth, if Miss Marjoribanks was not jealous, the victory was but half a victory after all." Barbara doesn't get that much satisfaction when Cavendish is interested in her if Lucilla wasn't jealous.
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