Tag: Political

Mimicry and Subversion: the Representation of the Neo-Victorian femme fatale in Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride

 ‘You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.’

Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride, p.392

As Barbara Creed argues, ‘All human societies have a concept of the monstrous-feminine, of what it is about women that is shocking, terrifying, horrific, abject.’[1] Throughout both late Victorian and neo-Victorian literature, concepts of the monstrous-feminine are inextricably linked with masculine fears of unveiled female sexual agency. More specifically, the characterisation of the female as dangerous and horrifying is intimately linked to notions of the sexually-independent female. This is the fear internalised by the femme fatale figure, a monstrous woman who refuses to remain subordinate to androcentric notions of the ‘ideal woman’, as presented in such works as Coventry Patmore’s 1854 narrative poem Angel in the House.[2] This typecasting of the femme fatale as monstrous proliferates throughout Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride. Despite the femme fatales continual shapeshifting’[3] in representation throughout the texts, the femme fatale remains a persistent figure of monstrosity; the femme fatale embodies, amongst others, fears of devolution, emasculation and decadence. Despite this, however, she remains a figure that evokes ‘dread’ desire’ and irresistible longing in her victims. [4] This monstrous power is evoked by the femme fatale’s subversion and monopolisation of the male gaze. [5] Through this, her fatality is achieved. The femme fatale, through this subversion, uses the gaze on her victims to ensnare them. Whilst the femme fatale gains power and influence through this subversion, ordained societal codes of masculine superiority come to be entirely obliterated; this results in the representation of the femme as fatale. Through a discussion of The Robber Bride, it becomes apparent that the femme fatale’s success at internalising the male gaze correlates with her level of monstrosity. Those that entirely refute and overpower the male gaze and, in turn, androcentric ideals are proven to be far more monstrous in their entirety than those who remain trapped in patriarchy.

In stark contrast to Victorian conceptions of the fatal woman, Atwood’s contemporary femme fatale bears no fatal flaw or hamartia. Zenia, a fin-de-millennial reworking of the femme fatale, is a creation of total monstrosity; she is described by Atwood herself as a horrific ‘Lady Macbeth’ figure who harbours no morally redeeming features.[6] Unlike Victorian femme fatales such as H. Rider Haggard’s Ayesha, whose passion results in her demise before she can truly be fatal, Zenia is a femme fatale that proves entirely deadly to the men and women she encounters. Unlike her Victorian counterpart, she never falls victim to the male gaze she attempts to monopolise. Instead, Zenia garners complete control over the male gaze, ensnaring her victims in their own perceptions of femininity. The power embodied in this gaze is made paramount by Roz, who declares that ‘you are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.’[7] This is the gaze of patriarchal domination and oppression, which acts to reduce and ‘mould’ women into positions of inferiority and subordination at the hands of superior masculinity. Through Roz’s declaration, Atwood essentially suggests that women are ‘moulded’ into figures of the ‘proper feminine’ by the patriarchally oppressive gaze of androcentric society.[8] As Jean Noble observes, male power ‘lies at the heart of an unequal gendering gaze directed from men towards women’; women thus become ‘defined and constituted by that male gaze.’[9] Noble’s argument is clearly corroborated by Atwood, who continues to ponder ‘male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies?’; ‘even pretending you’re unseen, pretending you have a life of your own […] unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole’ (p.392). In this sense, it becomes apparent that the women of the novel are under the continual scrutiny of male driven society; this continual examination appears to be not too dissimilar from Panopticism. As theorised by Jeremy Bentham and later expanded by Foucault, the theory is based on the notion of ‘all-seeing’ architectural buildings. Bentham argued that these buildings would result in behavioural changes, as the individual censors their behaviour accordingly under the ever-watchful gaze.[10] Tony, Charis and Roz are all victims of this Panopticism, continually monitoring and changing themselves to please their respective partners.

However, Zenia successfully evades this Panoptic gaze through her refusal to remain trapped in these constructed ‘male fantasies’ (p.392). It is through evasion of the Panoptical gaze of patriarchy that Zenia becomes so monstrous. Zenia essentially subverts societal norms through mimicry and subversion, trapping her victims in reflections of the male fantasies that preoccupy their lives. Through mimicry and subversion, Zenia takes possession of the male gaze in a manner that proves entirely fatal to those surrounding her. As observed by Barbara Creed, ‘the femme fatale performs in order to capture and control the male gaze’.[11] Upon capturing this gaze Zenia, like Ayesha, becomes a figure of monstrosity through her unbalancing of patriarchal society. However, Zenia is never placed up ‘on a pedestal’ (p.392) by her creator in the same way as Ayesha; Ayesha’s power is hampered by her creator, Haggard, who destroys Ayesha’s monstrous power through unbridled passion. In contrast, Zenia is never hampered by such passion. She is instead a figure of unstoppable monstrosity, using the male gaze to act independently on her own immoral desires. It is this power that gives Zenia the ability to monstrously destroy her victims. In this sense, Zenia embodies Luce Irigaray’s theory of mimicry. Irigaray suggests that ‘there is […] perhaps only one ‘path’, the one historically assigned to the feminine: that of mimicry. One must assume the feminine role deliberately. Which means […] to convert a form of subordination into an affirmation, and thus to begin to thwart it.’[12] The only way to deconstruct patriarchal conceptualisations of femininity, Irigaray suggests, is to adopt these male fantasies of the feminine ideal and overplay them. Only through this overplaying is subversion reached. Acting on Irigaray’s discourse, Zenia becomes a figure of gross monstrosity through her successful mimicry of male fantasies. As Roz declares, ‘The Zenia’s of this world have studied this situation and turned it to their own advantage; they haven’t let themselves by moulded into male fantasies, they’ve done it themselves’ (p.392). This mimicry not only affects the men she manipulates, but also the women she targets along the way. In fabricating personal histories and personas designed purposely to speak to the innermost desires and traumas of the three women, Zenia deploys her destruction. In doing, Zenia entirely refutes the subordinate patriarchal position that Ayesha ultimately falls victim of; she instead subverts and mimics male perceptions of the feminine ideal to enact and destroy their lives. Once these fantasies are performed to the men she ensnares the result is complete emasculation and a shattering of male superiority. Mitch is suggested to have committed suicide over the loss of Zenia whilst Billy disappears entirely. Like Holly and Leo, none of the men are the same after meeting her. Atwood thus portrays a far deadlier version of the femme fatale. Zenia is a femme fatale whose monstrosity lies in her successful mimicry of each individual victim’s respective fantasy of the ideal woman.

References

[1] Barbara Creed, The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (London: Routledge, 2012), p.1.

[2] See Coventry Patmore, The Angel in the House (London: John W. Parker and Son, 1858).

[3] Heather Braun, The Rise and Fall of the Femme Fatale in British Literature, 1790-1910 (Lanham, MD: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2012), p.109.

[4] H. Rider Haggard, She (London: Vintage, 2013), p.204. All further references to Haggard’s text are to this edition, and page numbers will be presented parenthetically in the body of the essay.

[5] In feminist theory, the male gaze is defined as the act of depicting the world and women from a masculine and heterosexual point of view; this is apparent throughout both visual art and literary history. Under this gaze, women are often presented as objects of male desire, deriving the construction of their identity from these male fantasies. This is the concept of the male gaze, as first developed by the feminist film critic Laura Mulvey, that my essay will focus on and expand in relation to the supposedly ‘monstrous’ power possessed by the femme fatale. For more information on the male gaze, see Laura Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ in Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, ed. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp.833-44.

[6] Margaret Atwood, Interview for South Bank Show, interviewed by Gillian Greenwood (ITV, 1993).

[7] Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride (London: Virago Press, 1994), p.392. All further references to Atwood’s text are to this edition, and page numbers will be presented parenthetically in the body of the essay.

[8] For more information on the notion of the ‘proper feminine’ as opposed to the ‘improper’, see Lyn Pykett, The ‘Improper Feminine’: The Women’s Sensation Novel and the New Woman Writing (London: Taylor and Francis, 1992).

[9] Jean Bobby Noble, Masculinities without Men?: Female Masculinity in Twentieth-Century Fictions (Vancouver, BC :University of British Columbia Press, 2010), p.47.

[10] See Michael Foucault, ‘The Means of Correct Training’ and ‘Complete and Austere Institutions’ [from Discipline and Punish], in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (London: Penguin, 1991), pp.188-204, 214-24.

[11] Barbara Creed, Darwin’s Screens: Evolutionary Aesthetics, Time and Sexual Display in the Cinema (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2009), p.122.

[12] Luce Irigaray, ‘The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine’ in The Irigaray Reader, ed. Margaret Whitford (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), pp.118-32, p.124.

Written by Steph Reeves.
© The Literature Blog, 2018. All Rights Reserved.

Wilderness, Ecofeminism and Patriarchy in Sarah Orne Jewett’s ‘A White Heron’

‘Once upon a time there yet existed a world in which a small girl could choose the nurturing power of nature rather than the materialistic exploitations of industrial America’.

– Theodore Hovet, ‘Once Upon a Time’, p.68

Throughout the literary tradition of the American short story and, most interestingly, short stories belonging to the nineteenth century, concepts of the wilderness are inextricably linked to the underlying gender politics of American society. More specifically, the wilderness accentuates the constraints of the patriarchally-endorsed social system of the period that sought to oppress and constrain female identity. In Sarah Orne Jewett’s 1886 A White Heron, the wilderness becomes collocated with the characterisation of their respective female characters; characters find themselves dominated under the fallacy of ‘frontier mythology’, a belief that resulted in the assumption of masculine superiority over women and nature. In this text, female characters are identified with the natural wilderness to accentuate the constraints of a society that demarcated women as inferior. However, it is through this same collocation with the natural world that women challenge and rebel against these rigid gender constructs. The female characters defy enforced gender norms, using their relationship with nature to resist patriarchal subordination.

From the very beginning of Sarah Orne Jewett’s short story, Sylvia’s alignment with nature is demonstrated through her harmonious relationship with the wilderness that surrounds her. This harmony extends into the nature that lies beyond human ownership in the narrative; not only does Sylvia have a peaceful relationship with the nature found on her Grandmother’s farm, but also the wilderness that extends into the heart of the woodland.[1] This relationship is so profound that, even with the absence of light on her walk home with her Grandmother’s dairy cow, Mistress Mooly, ‘their feet were familiar with the path, and it was no matter whether their eyes could see or not.’[2] Sylvia is clearly conflated with her companion in the passage; her eyes, as well as her feet, become shared with the animal she directs home. Such harmony is placed in direct contrast to the discordance experienced by Sylvia during her early years in the city; Jewett’s narrative states that the ‘little maid […] had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing town’ (p.119) before being removed to her Grandmother’s farm. Although attempting to grow in the ‘crowded’ environment of burgeoning capitalist industrialisation, Sylvia ultimately finds herself unable to flourish in her birthplace.[3] In this way, Jewett emplaces an opposition between the city and the wilderness; despite her numerous attempts to grow and mature in her original city home, Jewett suggests that the virginal young ‘maid’ (p.119) cannot reach her full potential in the town. This appears to almost immediately change when she is removed to her Grandmother’s farm, where she is able to flourish and be counted by ‘the wild creaturs’ as ‘one o’ themselves’ (p.122). As Elizabeth Ammons expands, ‘Sylvia is nature’s child […] repelled by the city but so at home in the woods that the birds and the animals share their secrets and the earth itself’.[4] Aligned with nature, Sylvia finds herself in direct opposition to the world of the city she left behind.

‘Repelled by the city’, Sylvia finds herself similarly repulsed by the appearance of the hunter, a figure whose ‘clear whistle’ through the forest leaves her ‘horror stricken’ (p.120).[5]

Further aligned with nature through the compound noun ‘woods-girl’, Sylvia’s horrified reaction to the hunter is revealed to have stemmed from the hunter’s likeness to the ‘great red-faced boy who used to chase and frighten her’ (p.120) during her time in the city. From this introduction, the hunter is immediately polarised from the wilderness he walks through; in his comparison to the ‘red-faced boy’ (p.120), who is described in language laden with violent sexual undertones that Richard Brenzo declares suggests an ‘obvious […] fear of rape’, the hunter is placed in complete opposition to the tranquillity of the woodland.[6] This secularisation is compounded through the hunter’s ‘clear whistle’ (p.120); unlike ‘a bird’s whistle, which would have a sort of friendliness’ (p.120), the hunter’s whistle is defined by its ‘determined, and somewhat aggressive’ tone (p.120). The hunter thus becomes an invading presence; his whistle directly contrasts with the lyricism of the bird song, breaking the harmonious tranquillity of the woodland and introducing discordance into Sylvia’s peaceful walk home. It is the ‘determined’ nature of his whistle that further leads to Sylvia’s denouncement of him as an ‘enemy’ (p.120).

However, despite the clear discordance that the hunter’s presence creates in the landscape, the hunter remains oblivious to his effect on Sylvia and the surrounding wilderness. Rather Jewett suggests that, regardless of the cost that his actions have on the wilderness, the ‘young sportsman’ (p.125) will continue his pursuits if only for his own personal gratification. The hunter enforces his own masculine superiority over the landscape he wanders through; this extends to the inhabitants he encounters along his way. The power of his whistle, enough to silence and overpower the wilderness surrounding him, also overpowers and silences Sylvia herself. In this way, the hunter displays notions of heightened masculinity; his characterisation appears founded in ‘frontier’ notions of rugged masculinity. Frontier mythology, derived from Euro-American colonisation and expansion across Northern America throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, essentially led to America becoming ‘a wide-open land of unlimited opportunity for the strong, ambitious, self-reliant individual to thrust his way to the top.’ [7] Characterised by a rejection of Eurocentric ideology, the movement resulted in the creation of American nationalism and democracy; simultaneously, it also led to a romanticized notion of rugged masculinity that placed man as both the caretaker and conqueror of this ‘new America’.[8] Enacting his own version of rugged masculinity, the hunter attempts to conquer both Sylvia and the wilderness through displays of masculine violence and control.

Through the hunter’s alignment with ‘frontier’ notions of masculine supremacy, the world of A White Heron clearly becomes enmeshed in ecofeminist criticism. First theorised and coined by Francoise d’Eaubonne in 1874, ecofeminist theory examines the collusive relationship between women and nature in order to demonstrate how social norms exert unjust dominance over both. [9] Historically typecast as chaotic, women are characterised throughout literature by their inferiority to the supposedly more rational and ordered male gender. Due to such literary archetypes, these depictions result in the creation of a masculine fallacy in which men are suggested to be dominant over both women and the wilderness. As Miles and Shiva assert, there is a ‘relationship of exploitative dominance between man and nature (shaped by reductionist modern science since the 16th century), and the exploitative and oppressive relationship between men and women that prevails in most patriarchal societies […]’.[10] This ‘exploitative and oppressive relationship’ is embodied in the hunter’s actions; the hunter conquers and controls the wilderness through an ‘oppressive’ killing of the woodland inhabitants.[11] When interpreted using an ecofeminist discourse, it becomes apparent that the hunter’s desire to control the wilderness is further enmeshed with his desire to conquer Sylvia. In an action not too dissimilar to the animals the hunter preys upon Sylvia does not ‘dare to look boldly at the tall young man’ (p.121). Like his prey, Sylvia similarly shies away from the hunter; she becomes subordinated through her fear of the ‘enemy’, an outsider that comes to threaten the very foundations of her Eden-like world.

Sylvia, despite her superior knowledge of the wilderness, finds herself placed in a position of inferiority due to the imposition of nineteenth-century social values onto the wilderness. Through this same imposition, Sylvia finds her autonomous voice muted. Although having physically witnessed the heron, the presence of stranger essentially silences her. As the two search the forest for the ‘elusive’ white heron (p.124), Sylvia ‘did not lead the guest, she only followed, and there was no such thing as speaking first’ (p.124). The hunter, imposing violence onto the one peaceful setting, imposes a patriarchal social system on the landscape he walks through. [12] As Robert Brault expands:

as the educated outsider, he [the hunter] seeks to impose his value system on a community in which he does not participate. The ornithologist, and the patriarchal society that created him, define culture/civilisation as superior to nature/culture, justifying a hierarchy of domination that destroys the reciprocal relationships developed through years of living interaction.[13]

 

Sylvia, once free to roam the wilderness around her, finds herself ultimately trapped within this ‘value system’ that seeks to destroy her ‘reciprocal relationships’ with the natural landscape.[14] Sylvia finds herself silenced in the same way as the ‘piteous’ ‘thrushes and sparrows’ that the hunter kills, who drop ‘silent[ly] to the ground, their songs hushed and their feathers stained […]’ (p.124). As Theodore Hovet furthers, ‘there seems little doubt that a symbolic connection exists between the birds killed, stuff, and mounted on the [hunters] wall and the fate of the woman possessed by the modern American male and placed on the domestic pedestal’.[15] Sylvia, silenced by the hunter’s patriarchal power, thus finds herself threatened with this fate that would leave her possessed solely by him, the embodiment of ‘the modern American male’.[16]

However, it is this same ‘fate’ that is inscribed on nineteenth-century women that allows Sylvia to challenge and refute her patriarchally subordinate position; Sylvia essentially uses her silence as resistance to the hunter’s imposition of destructive social values on the natural landscape. Through the removal of her ‘song’ (p.129), Sylvia resists the temptations presented by the capitalist patriarchal society that the hunter embodies; she refutes the offers of money and sexual fulfilment that the young man proffers her. This rejection is demonstrated through Sylvia’s refusal to ‘tell the heron’s secret and give its life away’ (p.124), despite finding the white heron’s nest in ‘the dead hemlock-tree by the green marsh’ (p.127). In the same way as the heron, who is found to have built its nest in the dead remains of a highly poisonous plant of European origin, Jewett suggests that Sylvia will also rise above the poisonous temptations of the hunter’s violently sexualised world.[17] In refusing to reveal the heron’s location, Sylvia ultimately finds herself able to make a nest out of what is left of the world that essentially ‘dies’ for her when the hunter leaves ‘disappointed’ and empty-handed (p.128); she is consequently able to restore harmony to the wilderness. In doing so Sylvia refuses to be ‘placed on the domestic pedestal’, made into yet another ‘wretched geranium’ (p.120) that is stifled in a city founded on a fallacy of masculine supremacy and fuelled by capitalist egotism.[18] ‘Once upon a time’, as Hovet concludes, ‘there yet existed a world in which a small girl could choose the nurturing power of nature rather than the materialistic exploitations of industrial America.’[19]

References:
Cover Image- Front cover illustration by Barbara Cooney, as taken from the 1964 edition of Jewett’s text. 

[1] In A White Heron, Jewett creates clear distinctions between the different kinds of wilderness in the narrative. Within the story, the natural world of the farmland comes to be distinguished from the nature that lies beyond human ownership; this is shown in the woodland in which the heron makes its nest. This motif is later internalised in the representation of the white heron itself. For more information, see Nicole Steurer, The Function of Nature in Sarah Orne Jewett’s “A White Heron”’ (Munich: GRIN Publishers, 2003).

[2] Sarah Orne Jewett, ‘A White Heron’ in The Oxford Book of American Short Stories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 118-128, p.119. All further references to Jewett’s text are to this edition, and page numbers will be presented parenthetically in the body of the essay.

[3] The Industrial Revolution, beginning after the end of the American Civil War, led to the creation of burgeoning commercialism. This, alongside the rapid increase in job opportunities, led to the creation of metropoles and the rise of both capitalist ideology and more specified social roles for men and women to abide by. For more information, see Richard Franklin Bensel, The Political Economy of American Industrialisation, 1877-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

[4] Elizabeth Ammons, ‘The Shape of Violence in Jewett’s “A White Heron”’, Colby Quarterly, 22 (1986), pp.6-16, p.7.

[5] Ammons, ‘The Shape of Violence in Jewett’s “A White Heron”’, p.7.

[6] Richard Brenzo, ‘Free Heron or Dead Sparrow: Sylvia’s Choice in Sarah Orne Jewett’s ‘A White Heron’, Colby Library Quarterly (1978), pp.36-41, p.37.

[7] Richard Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860 (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1973), p. 5.

[8] For more information on the Myth of the Frontier, see Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York City, NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1948).

[9] Heather Eaton and Lois Ann Lorentzen, Ecofeminism and Globalization: Exploring Culture, Context, and Religion (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004).

[10] Maria Miles and Vandana Shiva, Ecofeminism (London: Zed Books, 1993), p.3.

[11] Miles and Shiva, Ecofeminism, p.3.

[12] For more information on the social positions afforded to women in nineteenth-century America, see Tiffany K. Wayne, Women’s Roles in Nineteenth-Century America (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishers, 2007).

[13] Robert Brault, ‘Silence as Resistance: An Ecofeminist Reading of Sarah Orne Jewett’s “A White Heron”’ in New Directions in Ecofeminist Literary Criticism, ed. Andrea Campbell (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), pp.74-90, p.87.

[14] Brault, ‘Silence as Resistance’, p.87.

[15] Theodore R. Hovet, ‘“Once Upon a Time”: Sarah Orne Jewett’s “A White Heron” as a Fairytale’, Studies in Short Fiction, 15 (1978), pp.63-68, p.67.

[16] Hovet, ‘“Once Upon a Time”, p.67.

[17] Oxford Dictionary Online. Available at: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/hemlock [Accessed 20/03/2018].

[18] Hovet, ‘“Once Upon a Time”’, p.67.

[19] Hovet, ‘“Once Upon a Time”, p.68.

Written by Steph Reeves.
© The Literature Blog, 2018. All Rights Reserved.

The Presence of the Past in Alan Garner’s Red Shift

‘Think of the odds. In all space and time. I’m scared.’
-Alan Garner, Red Shift, p. 8.

Throughout Alan Garner’s novel Red Shift, the protagonist Tom frequently engages with elements from the past which help him to overcome difficulties in the present day. Garner splits the text into three narratives, the first explores Tom and Jan’s story as the present narrative, accompanied by two other tales from the past, one set in civil war England and the other in Roman Britain. Although Garner presents three separate narratives from varying time periods, connections are made between the different points in history because remnants of the past exist in Tom’s present.

It can be suggested that Garner’s presentation of the three narratives in such a way assumes a link between the past, present and future which are inextricable. The idea that it is impossible to separate the three time periods is valid, because it is hard to discuss time without having an awareness of each form. Linda Hall supported the past, present and future as being inextricably bonded and argued that the security of the present and future is determined by the fate of the past (p. 154).[1] Hall’s suggestion is good but the reliance on the fate of the past is context dependant. For example, in Red Shift by Alan Garner, the modern protagonist Tom has a close friendship with another character called Jan, which is depicted through extracts written in a dialogue style. The entries are short and mainly exhibit conversations between Jan and Tom.

At the beginning of the book Jan announces to Tom that she is leaving Cheshire their current place of residence to live in Germany. Tom then contemplates how he met Jan and exclaims, ‘Think of the odds. In all space and time. I’m scared’ (p. 8).[2] Here Tom shows an awareness towards time by discussing the odds of fate in allowing him and Jan to first meet. As a context, Tom’s interest in movements across time allows him like Hall to understand that events within different time periods can intertwine and influence one another. He finds comfort knowing that the fate of the past originally brought him and Jan together. However, in the future he now fears that Jan’s move to Germany will put a strain on their relationship and contemplates if fate will allow their paths to cross again. As a young boy, Tom expresses an advanced understanding about the progression of their relationship through time, suggesting that he finds a sense of security using experiences from the past to deal with situations in the present.

However, although Tom expresses an enjoyment in his awareness of the past, the time period is not presented explicitly as a safe haven because it does not exist in a format which Tom as the modern protagonist can physically escape to. For example, in the narrative set in Roman Britain an army invade a settlement killing all members bar a young girl who they rape and take hostage. One of the weapons used in the killing is an axe which belongs to a man called Macey and then in the present it is eventually discovered by Tom and Jan. Tom explains ‘It was an axe. Beaker Period. It was a votive axe. The best ever found’ and again, ‘It was an artefact. Not a toy. It was three thousand five hundred years old, and it’d survived’ (p. 131). The extensive knowledge that Tom displays towards the axe emphasises its position as an anachronism. Tom identifies that the axe does not belong in the present and labels the object as an artefact. The observation is significant because it creates a connection between Macey’s story in the past and Tom’s in the present, the axe was used by Macey and now years later has been found by Tom. Therefore, even though Tom cannot physically experience the therapy of escaping through time, he can still gain an understanding of the past through his life in the present, which for him provides some level of comfort.

As a form of comfort, the past presents Tom with an era which he can engage with because history is repetitive. For example, the third narrative in Red Shift is set in civil war England and it is based on the character Thomas Rowledge who lives with his wife Margery in Cheshire. Prior to Tom and Jan in the present, Thomas and his wife Margery also discover the axe which they label the ‘thunderstorm’.

A little time after coming across the axe, Thomas and Margery experience some trouble with some Royalist Troops. For their personal safety, they are forced to leave their village and take the axe with them. It is decided they will bury the axe in the chimney of their new home which they propose to build in a new village called Mo Cop, ‘And when it’s built, you’ll put the thunderstone in the chimney, for luck’ (p. 154). This action is significant because it places the axe in a position ready for Tom and Jan to discover it in the future. For Tom as the modern protagonist his narrative exists in the present, but for Thomas and Margery in civil England, Tom’s time period is their future. Therefore, the ‘personal and cultural continuity’ of the axe across history from the past into the present, expresses Tom’s relationship with the past as consistent. Tom can mentally engage with the past constantly depending on when he wishes to do so.

For Tom his interest in the past helps him to consciously deal with situations in the present both in a consistent and comforting matter. Therefore, to ensure the modern-day protagonist continues to benefit from his interest in the past, it is important that he continues to apply his knowledge to the present day in a way which will help him to shape his future.

References
Featured Image– Front cover, taken from the First Edition of the novel.

[1] Linda, Hall “House and Garden”: The time-slip story in the aftermath of the second world war (United States: Green Wood Publishing, 2003).

[2] Alan, Garner Red Shift (New York: Collins Publishing Group, 1975). All further references are to this edition and are given parenthetically in the body of the essay.

Written by Imogen Barker.
© The Literature Blog, 2018. All Rights Reserved.

The Haunting Influence of the Past in Noel Coward’s This Happy Breed

‘you can say your prayers till kingdom come if you like,/
but you can’t expect me to, not after all I’ve seen. I don’t ‘old with/
a God who just singles a few out to be nice to, and let’s all the/
others rot.’
-Noel Coward, This Happy Breed, p. 9.

Time, a continual progression of events in the past, present and the future, clearly informs the events of Noel Coward’s 1939 play This Happy Breed. In particular, Coward enforces the idea of past experiences having a direct effect upon one’s perception of both the present and the future. His play, set in a post-War Britain struggling with the aftershocks of World War One, details the hindering of family life through an inability to let go of the past; this inability is mirrored further through the hindered progression of British society within the novels confines. It is perhaps through Coward’s representation of his main protagonist Frank Gibbons that this is demonstrated most prolifically. Frank’s importance clearly drives from his experiences as a World War One soldier; this preoccupation with past trauma subsequently comes to affect his life in the present. Both Frank and his neighbor, Bob Mitchell, demonstrate inabilities to escape past experiences. In Scene Two’s stage directions, Coward informs the reader that ‘they are both in ordinary suits but wearing their war medals. They are both a little bit drunk.’1 Despite having returned to their ‘ordinary’ lives in pre-war Britain, both men decide to wear their war medals; this juxtaposition shows a clear collusion of the mundane with the horrific experiences of the war itself. This collusion is adopted by Frank, who continues to reminisce almost fondly on his time in the war. However, it is made apparent that this collusion of past and present does not have a positive impact on the men; despite Frank’s reminiscing, both veterans develop patterns of binge-drinking. Throughout each scene in the play, the men can be found attempting to avoid past traumatic memories by remarking ‘Let’s have a drink. I’m feeling a bit low’ (p. 120). The men, caught between continual remembrances of the past and an ardent wish to forget, find themselves caught in a web of post-traumatic stress; this stress threatens to hinder their cognitive function, impairing the regulation of their memory information.2

The ongoing relationship between past and present informs the sense of cynicism prevalent throughout This Happy Breed. Frank, although presented as a relatively positive figure when speaking of the past, refuses to follow Ethel and Sylvia’s religious reliance on an omnipotent, all-loving God. His lack of faith is shown in a dispute between himself and his wife, in which he declares:

‘you can say your prayers till kingdom come if you like,/
but you can’t expect me to, not after all I’ve seen. I don’t ‘old with/
a God who just singles a few out to be nice to, and let’s all the/
others rot’ (p. 9).

The process of re-Christianization in Britain, prevalent during the interwar years and exemplified in Frank’s hypochondriac sister Sylvia, proved a shock to many returning soldiers who felt that their religious ties had been severely weakened by the experience of war.3 Not only did past trauma deter soldiers from religious faith, but it also hindered faith in both government and the future of Britain itself. Noel Coward detested the idea of appeasement to the foreign enemy, using his fictional characters to represent the voice of a nation who believed it would never stop war from happened again. The nations division on the issue of appeasement is shown through the dialogue between Sylvia and Frank in Act Three, Scene Two. As Sylvia talks of appeasement, ‘they’re cheering because we’ve been saved from war’; however, Frank retorts this by replying ‘I’ll believe that when I see it’ (p. 116). Frank’s past experiences on the front line are clearly suggested by Coward to give Frank greater knowledge of the political proceedings; this subsequently results in the audience placing trust in his prediction of the near future. The audience finds themselves, like Frank asking ‘when the next war’ll be?’ (p. 84). Throughout the play, Coward clearly questions the reliance of the British people on the government to prevent a life of war. World War One severely dampened Britain’s spirit, despite a reliance on a high-spirited mentality. This high-spirited mentality is often now viewed by historians as part of the ‘Myth of the Blitz, which saw a union of all social classes in their quest to defeat Nazism; British citizens attempted to make sense of the frightening and chaotic reality of wartime life, often comparing it to incompatible heroic mythology in order to keep morale high.4 Coward appears to explore the true reality of British nationalism and spirit through his text, doing so by introducing the audience to the tired people of London and the nation. The citizens future is shown to rely on the prevention of war reoccurring. Given the perspective of afforded to the modern reader, is historically shown that this did not occur; history, in the form of a second war with Germany, repeats itself.

Coward’s society, tired and cynical, also informs the youth present in his narrative. As Reg and Sam rally in the General Strike of 1926, it becomes apparent that the war has destroyed the spirit and youth of the country. As Frank remarks to Reg:

‘…a kid of your age talking about blood and sweat and capitalism. When I was rising twenty I had a damn sight more cheerful things to talk about than that, I can tell you’ (p.50).

The nation, hampered by the actualities of war, finds itself grown old before its time. Unlike past generations who were encouraged to spend their leisure time in carefree dance halls and cinemas, the youth during and post war were forcibly made to join organisations that encourage self-discipline.5 Evidently, the pasts implication of the war had a domino effect on the future of the country and its generations to come. The reader watches Sam and Reg mirroring the men before them, attempting to heroically save the future of their country by reinforcing their masculinity through violence, just as Frank and Bob did.

Coward maintains Frank’s cynicality throughout the play, providing the audience with a realistic description of the crumbling state of society. As it is remarked in the dialogue, ‘Now that’s all over (war) and we’re going on as best as we can as though nothing had happened [..] the country suddenly got tired- it’s tired now’ (p. 51). London, in particular, thus becomes a city failing to regain its strength; the damage of war is shown to have drained the city of its past spirit, whilst remaining fearful of looming war and the uncertainty of appeasement. Coward clearly draws on the reality of London’s emergence as a shell-shocked nation after the events of World War One; the traumatic shock extended past just those who served on the frontline and permeated into almost every family the home who still feared air-raids and the loss of their loved ones.6 The country had hit a stand-still during the aftermath of war; fear was a doctrine internalized by everyone who continued to live in the past and fear the future. People find themselves lost and without place in community, waiting for deployment and purpose to move forward.

Coward’s This Happy Breed thus demonstrates the difficulty of both the individual and collective to shake the effects of the past from their respective futures. This difficulty is formed by the way in which the characters attempt to escape their disjointed and corrupted worlds by switching from the present to the past through literature and inebriation. Coward’s depiction of the Gibbons family is one that can be related to by his wartime audience. The play functions as almost a guide in accepting the reality of the past and the need for family ties as they await the fate of London’s future.

References
Featured Image- Cover Image taken from a poster promoting the 1944 adaptation of the play, as directed by the David Lean. This Happy Breed, dir. David Lean (Prestige Pictures, 1944)

1. Noel Coward, This Happy Breed (London: Samuel French, 1945), p.79. All other references are to this edition and are given parenthetically.

2. D. H. Barrat and others, ‘Cognitive Functioning and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder’, The American Journal of Psychology, 153 (1996), pp. 1492-1494.

3. Michael Snape, Secularisation in the Christian World (London: Routledge, 2016) p. 312.

4. Angus Calder, The Myth of the Blitz (London: Random House, 1992) p.14.

5. Sonya O. Rose, Which People’s War?: National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) p. 90.

6. Suzie Grogan, Shell Shocked Britain: The First World War’s Legacy for Britain’s Mental Health (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2014) p. 1.

Written by Ashleigh Edwards.
© The Literature Blog, 2018. All Rights Reserved.

Freedom in Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange

‘What I do I do because I like to do.’
-Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange, p. 31.

Anthony Burgess’ novella, published in 1962, invites discussion on the question of what is true freedom, and how much of it should we be permitted to have? T. H. Green’s definition of true freedom includes negative freedom, as well as positive.1 This is indicative of the idea that when freedom is desired, this idea of true freedom may not be implied. Instead, he suggests a sense of freedom with limitations, in which individuals are not free to do entirely as one wishes due to the potential negative consequences of this, as the more desirable concept.

Burgess’ protagonist, Alex, demonstrates Green’s idea of true freedom, as he is initially free from coercion or restriction and regulation. He also seemingly possesses the freedom to do as he pleases, committing monstrous crimes for his own pleasure. Although, as a society, we may supposedly crave a full sense of freedom, it is clear through characters such as Alex, that this complete sense of freedom may be detrimental to the community and therefore limitations must be enforced. The character narrates that ‘what I do I do because I like to do’, exemplifying his freedom of choice at the beginning of the novella and his application of this full sense of freedom.2 On the issue of morality, Burgess tells us in his introduction that ‘The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities’.3 Through the obscenities and gruesome crimes that the protagonist and his gang commit, we learn that with freedom comes moral choice and with good comes evil. Therefore, if we, as a society, allow freedom to be used for good, then it inevitably will be used in the same way for evil.

Once Alex’s actions have been altered by the aversion therapy, the state have influenced and limited his sense of true freedom, manipulating his freedom to act as he chooses, as well as removing his freedom from coercion. However, Sumner argues that Alex’s choices were never free for him to make, as he has always been manipulated by the state. He contests that the character’s criminal actions, and even the cause of these, being the desire for criminality, are ‘socially or institutionally conditioned.’4 This idea suggests that, although Burgess depicts the authoritative state to deprive Alex of his free will, and freedom to choose to act independently, in fact, the protagonist did not possess this to begin with. Sumner argues that Alex acts against the state, as his personal form of resistance. He furthers these ideas, claiming that ‘In a social and political register, Alex is forced to choose between totalitarianism and anarchy. That choice is false and, if anything, testifies to a lack of individual freedom. If there are no good options, then individual choice is a mere abstraction; one might as well flip a coin.’5 Although the character seemingly actively chooses to behave violently and break the law, Sumner argues that this, in fact, is his choice between two options dictated to him by the authority, and therefore, he does not possess the true concept of freedom. Alex is a product of the totalitarian state and he is therefore conditioned to behave violently as his form of resistance.

References
Featured Image: Front Cover of Penguin’s 2013 edition. See Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (London: Penguin Classics, 2013).

1. T. H. Green in Adrian Blau, ‘Against Positive and Negative Freedom’, Political Theory, 32. 4 (2004) http://www.jstor.org/stable/4148106 [accessed 2 May 2018] p. 549-50.

2. Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (London: Penguin Group, 1972), p. 31. All other references are to this edition and are given in parenthesis in the main body of the text.

3. Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (New York: W.W Norton & Company, 1986), p. XIII.

4. Charles Sumner, ‘Humanist Drama in A Clockwork Orange’, The Yearbook of English Studies: Literature of the 1950s and 1960s, 42 (2012) http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5699/yearenglstud.42.2012.0049 [accessed 1 May 2018] (p. 57-7).

Alienating the Foreign ‘Other’ in Patrick Hamilton’s The Slaves of Solitude

‘And what right, pray, had a German woman, a German Miss – at such stage of international proceedings, in the fourth year of a bitter warfare between the two nations – to allude, in such a way, to an English woman – an English woman on her own soil?’
-(Patrick Hamilton, The Slaves of Solitude, p.131)

Throughout literature created during the time of the London Blitz, a continual preoccupation with foreignness is displayed. More specifically, foreignness is continually represented as a threat to English nationalism and security. This is clearly demonstrated in Hamilton’s Slaves of Solitude in which Miss Roach, threatened by the German national Vicki Kugelmann, persistently attempts to isolate her from British society. On first encountering Vicki, Miss Roach declares ‘The German girl’ (p.49) as ‘quiet, cultivated, and intelligent, and because isolated in the town (for different reasons but in much the same way as herself) admirably cut out as a friend’ (p. 49).1 Despite her clear approval of Vicki’s personality, this appears to be entirely quantified by Miss Roach’s instant demarcating of her as ‘Other’; Vicki, ‘the German girl’, finds herself immediately alienated from British culture. Further, in Miss Roach’s allusion to Vicki as a ‘girl’, Hamilton creates a power imbalance through the suggestion of Vicki as younger and therefore inferior to the matronly titled ‘Miss Roach’. Separated from British society through her German nationality, Vicki is ultimately isolated; her foreignness as a German national is determined to be a difficulty that results in her exclusion from British society.

This societal exclusion is further heightened due to Vicki Kugelmann’s rumoured connections with Nazi Germany. It is these rumours that Miss Roach attempts to exploit; in her repeated efforts to gain Vicki’s verbal approval of the Nazi regime, Miss Roach tries to use Vicki’s foreignness as a weapon to further alienate her from society. These attempts appear to be successful; after describing the fraught political situation as ‘a very complicated world…. A very complicated situation altogether’ (p. 195), Vicki finds herself instantly set upon by Miss Roach who fiercely demands:

‘Does being cosmopolitan in outlook… mean that you think things are so complicated that you support the Nazis in all the murder and filth and torture they’ve been spreading over Europe, and still are?’ (p. 197).

As a result of this, Miss Roach instantly seeks to alienate Vicki as a Nazi supporter who keenly approves of the ‘murder, filth and torture’ (p. 197). Associated in this manner with the extreme political principles of the foreign enemy, Vicki finds herself the victim of intense suspicion and societal isolation. Despite attempts by figures such as Mr Thwaite to allay suspicions surrounding Vicki, these prove entirely ineffectual; rather, such defence results in Vicki becoming increasingly more defined by her German heritage. During one such conversation with Miss Roach, Thwaite’s declares:

‘”There’s no need,” said Mr. Thwaites, “to insult a German woman in her own-” Mr. Thwaites stopped himself just in time. He had, in his confusion of mind, been going to say “in her own country”. But this, although it sounded so good on the surface, wouldn’t do. In her own country was exactly where the German woman was not. (p. 198)

In his attempts to correct Miss Roach, Mr. Thwaites ultimately finds himself unwillingly reiterating the supposed problem of Vicki’s nationality. Although accepted by some members of the English society in which Vicki resides, the error made by Mr. Thwaites  regarding her home country acts as a continual reminder to the reader that Vicki is unable to escape her position as a foreign ‘Other’. Hamilton, through the competing of Miss Roach and Vicki for the affections of Lieutenant Pike, further accentuates the conflict of Vicki’s position in British society. Miss Roach, believing Vicki to be her love rival, finds herself musing over ‘the German girls’ intentions:

‘And what right, pray, had a German woman, a German Miss – at such stage of international proceedings, in the fourth year of a bitter warfare between the two nations – to allude, in such a way, to an English woman – an English woman on her own soil? (p. 131)

Clearly, Hamilton creates a situation that sharply mirrors the external war taking place between the two warring factions. Miss Roach, identified in the latter quote as a representative of British nationalist, finds herself in perpetual conflict with German ‘invader’, Vicki. Standing on her ‘own soil’ (p.131), it becomes apparent that Miss Roach believes herself to have the upper hand; as a British woman in her own home country, she believes herself to have a clear advantage over the ostracised foreignness that Vicki symbolises. This contrast between the local battle of two opposing women fighting for a lovers affection with the wider social context of horrific war serves to remind the reader that the war is ever present; even when the conflict cannot literally be seen, it remains underlying at all times.

In this way, it becomes apparent Vicki is a figure who is denounced as ‘Other’ to the British nationality embodied by both Miss Roach and the society in which Vicki finds herself living. In doing so, Hamilton explores the discrepancy in nationalities which ultimately leads to conflict and alienation of foreign nationals as figures of suspicion and threat. Thus, in Slaves of Solitude foreignness is clearly examined through the contrast between Britishness, the cultural norm, and foreign nationalities that are presented as ‘Other’ and threatening. In doing so, the comparison of foreignness highlights the direct and subtle points of difference between individual characters which are determined by one’s nationality.

References
Featured Image: Front cover of Abacus’s 2017 edition of Patrick Hamilton, The Slaves of Solitude. 

1. Patrick Hamilton, The Slaves of Solitude (Cardinal: Sphere Books, 1991). All further references to Hamilton’s text are to this edition and will be presented parenthetically.

For Further Reading on Slaves of Solitude, see:

  • Bernard Bergonzi, Wartime and Aftermath: English Literature and its Background 1939- 1960 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
  • Sean French, Patrick Hamilton: A Life (London: Faber and Faber, 1993)
  • Kristine Miller, A British Literature of the Blitz: Fighting the People’s War (New York: Palgrave, 2009)

Written by Imogen Barker.
© The Literature Blog, 2018. All Rights Reserved.

Rampant Masculine Aggression in Shakespeare’s Richard II

‘Not all the water in the rough rude sea/
Can wash the balm from an anointed king./
The breath of worldly men cannot depose/
The deputy elected by the Lord./
…if angels fight,/
Weak men must fall; for heaven still guards the right.’
-Richard II, Richard II (Act 3, Scene 2, l. 49-58)

In Richard II, masculine aggression arises from disinheritance. It is only after Henry Bolingbroke’s banishment, as well as the subsequent unlawful stripping of his rightful lands, that a violent assertion of masculine authority is demonstrated. In due course, Bolingbroke’s masculine aggression essentially annihilates both the natural succession of kingship and patrimonial order. However, it is the aggressive stance assumed by Richard II himself that clearly precipitates Bolingbroke’s actions. At least superficially, Bolingbroke is shown to have a rightful cause for his rebellion against Richard. He declares ‘I am a subject, and I challenge law’; ‘personally I lay claim/ to my inheritance of free descent.’1 In the use of ‘free descent’ Bolingbroke clearly invokes the legitimate laws of inheritance, as passed through generations by primogeniture, to highlight Richard’s illegal blocking of what should legally be given freely. Richard’s illegal and unconstitutional robbing of Bolingbroke’s inheritance thus places Bolingbroke in a morally higher position. As a result, Richard comes to be viewed as a man driven by masculine aggression; refuses to be subordinate to any but his own wishes and desires, as opposed to a rational ruler. As Maus explains, ‘widespread resentment’ ‘in upper aristocracy’ arose from Richard’s questionable and rash attempts to raise money for petty wars. To do so, Richard retained the power ‘to tax to private individuals who can confiscate […] as they please, provided the king gets a share of the spoils.’2 This essentially led to ‘widespread resentment’ ‘in upper aristocracy’.3 In this way, Richard’s revoking of Bolingbroke’s lands is ‘an encroachment’ that ‘seems to them [the aristocracy] worse than homicide, because it directly threatens the social structure upon which their status depends.’4 Richard’s morally incomprehensible act of disinheriting Bolingbroke essentially highlights his complete refusal to remain subordinate to order and succession. He becomes little more than the ‘landlord of England’ (II.i.l.113), a king driven to further conflict by a violent desire to indulge in vain displays of supposed masculine domination. The fracture lines, caused by Richard’s dominant desire for power at any cost, are thus laid for Bolingbroke’s complete destruction of succession and order.

Richard’s rupturing, and subsequent exploitation, of patrimonial social structures to indulge his own aggressive governance results in Bolingbroke’s own violent assertion of masculine brutality and authority. However, it soon becomes apparent that Henry’s supposedly legitimate claims arising from his disinheritance mask his unprecedented and illegitimate designs on the throne. His aggressive masculinity refuses to be subordinate to the natural order of kingship; rather, as Coppelia Khan argues, Bolingbroke ‘righteously invokes the principle of succession.’5 In his subsequent rebellion against Richard, Bolingbroke finds himself defying the autocratic and God-given right of kingship. He admonishes Richard’s claim that ‘not all the water in the rough rude sea/ can clean wash the balm of an anointed King’ (III.ii.l.49-56). In the latter quote, the alliterative ‘rough rude sea’ evidently becomes symbolic of Bolingbroke himself; a rash and bold force, Bolingbroke’s illegitimate claims and rebellious treachery are shown to be entirely destructive towards order and succession. In this, Bolingbroke defies the teachings presented in the 1571 Homilies of Disobedience and Willful Rebellion, which declared rebellion to be ‘the whole puddle and sink of all sins against God and man, against his Prince, his country, his countrymen, his parents […] against all men universally’.6 Clearly, Bolingbroke’s usurping of Richard is therefore treated as the ‘sink of all sins’. His refusal to be subordinate to ordained codes of order and succession lead to the deposing and horrific murder of Richard II. Consequently, Bolingbroke’s rampant assertion of masculinity has a devastating after effect on the prosperity of his future rule. His unnatural claim to the throne is only achieved through ‘blood’ that is ‘sprinkled to make me grow’ (V.vi.l.45-46). Bolingbroke’s violent claiming of the throne, coupled with his refusal to remain subordinate to the ordained order and succession of kingship, foreshadows his continued and troubled reign as King of England.

References

Featured Painting: John Gilbert, Richard II Resigning the Crown to Bolingbroke, 1875-76, Oil on Canvas, 161.5 x 123cm, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.

1. William Shakespeare, Richard II, II.iii.l.132-135, in The Norton Shakespeare, ed. by Stephen Greenblatt (New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008). All further references to Richard II are to this edition.

2. Katharine Eisaman Maus, ‘Richard II’ in The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Stephen Greenblatt (New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008), pp.973-982, p.976.

3. Katharine Eisaman Maus, ‘Richard II’ in The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Stephen Greenblatt, p.976.

4. Katherine Eisaman Maus, ‘Richard II’ in The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Stephen Greenblatt, p.976.

5. Coppelia Khan, Man’s Estate: Masculine Identity in Shakespeare (Berkely: University of California Press, 1981), p.78.

6. ‘An Homily Against Disobedience and Willful Rebellion’, as Quoted in E.M.W. Tillyard, Shakespeare’s History Plays (London: Penguin, 1991), p.173.

Written by Steph Reeves
© The Literature Blog, 2018. All Rights Reserved.

Racism in Eudora Welty’s American Short Story Where Is the Voice Coming From?

In the short story Where Is the Voice Coming From?, Eudora Welty writes from the perspective of a white, underprivileged and jealous man. Driven by feelings of hatred and frustration, the narrator recounts his murder of his black neighbour. Based on the true event of Medgar Evers in Mississippi in 1963, Welty exemplifies the racially fuelled conflicts that she witnessed throughout her lifetime in the American South; this is furthered through the basing of her fiction town, Thermopylae, on the capital Jackson. By basing her text on a true event, the author prompts the reader to question the fraught racial bias prevalent in American society by highlighting the horrific treatment of the black community. Narrated by the killer, Welty gives an insight into his motivations behind the murder; in doing so, she allows the reader to experience some level of sympathy for the character. As William Murray expounds, Welty avoids a straightforward assault on the people of Mississippi […] instead of a simple vilification of individuals, she delivers depictions of injustice that illustrate the complicity of the southern environment as a whole.’1 Rather than focusing on individual prejudice Welty, as Murray states, allows readers to place blame on the social systems for racial violence.

Welty demonstrates how the racial tensions in society incite hatred on both an individual and personal level. Her murderous white character believes that he commits his crime for personal reasons, refusing to accept that he was manipulated into possessing a discriminatory doctrine by the larger system that he is adhering to. The narrator repeatedly says ‘I done what I done for my own pure-D satisfaction’, exposing his naivety and passivity as he abides by the racist system in place; he fails to realise or admit that he did not act solely out of personal choice.2 The character epitomises the superiority that white men felt entitled to in the Southern state; he feels cheated by his black neighbour and is drawn to act on his jealousy. Although the character appears to believe that he acts on his own accord, this hatred is in fact sparked by a belief in white supremacy, a sense of entitlement enforced by society. His victim, Roland Summers, leads a desirable lifestyle which remains unattainable for our narrator despite his position as a white American citizen.

Welty uses the short story style to provide a  glimpse into the white perspective, as well as the hatred that aroused by the community and the media. At the beginning of the story, whilst viewing Roland Summers’ face on the television, the narrator says to his wife ‘“You don’t have to set and look at a black n*gger face no longer than you want to, or listen to what you don’t want to hear. It’s still a free country”’ (p. 396). Immediately, the narrator  illustrates his sense of superiority; he believes that he and his wife should not have to be subjected to viewing a black man on their TV screen. He goes on to state ‘I reckon that’s how I give myself the idea’ (p. 396). Although recognising that his crime was initially provoked by the media, he continues to adamantly declare that he formulated the idea himself. The attack, the narrator demands, is a personal attack.

Although the narrator is adamant that he acted alone, succeeding in this way to carry out his own sense of justice, it may be argued that he does feel a sense of remorse for his crime. Although the narrator continues to deny this remorse, Daniel Wood suggests that it is in the dropping of the murder weapon at the scene that implies a feeling of guilt.3 Despite his apparent pride and sense of achievement as he recounts the murder, this sense of guilt and remorse is made apparent through his continual attempts to justify his actions. Welty furthers this idea of the murderer’s remorse, through the format of the short story. The text acts as a recounted narration, and therefore a confession by the criminal. He also states that ‘I reckon you have to tell somebody’ (p. 399), insinuating that he felt burdened by his crime and unable to live with himself, without confessing. This is illustrated by Welty’s attempt to explain the murder by choosing not to demonise the murderer, but rather portray him to an extent as a victim of societal manipulation. Essentially the narrator is little more than a product of society, who fails to recognise societies control over himself. Welty therefore allows us to sympathise with her villain; this is particularly shown at the end of the story which concludes: ‘I set in my chair, with nobody home but me, and I start to play, and sing a-Down. And sing a-down, down, down, down. Sing a down, down, down, down. Down’ (p. 401). Welty succeeds in humanising her narrator by the end of the text, engaging the reader with a sense of responsibility for the racism that provoked the attack. In this way, Welty demonstrates that the racial tensions that existed require a shared responsibility by all members of society. As the narrator himself declares, ‘“At least I kept some dern teen-ager from North Thermopylae getting there and doing it first”’. In this, the narrator attempts to justify his actions by suggesting that the murder would have been committed with or without his involvement.

References
Featured Image- Portrait of Medgar Evers, taken in 1958 by Francis H. Mitchell. Associated Press/Ebony Collection.

1. William Murray. ‘Learning to Listen: The Way a Society Speaks in Eudora Welty’s “Where Is the Voice Coming From?” and “The Demonstrators”, Eudora Welty Review (8), 2016, p. 109.

2. Eudora Welty, ‘Where Is the Voice Coming From?’ in The Oxford Book of American Short Stories, ed. by Joyce Carol Oates (1974; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 395-401 (p. 397) All other references are to this edition and are given parenthetically.

3. Daniel Wood, ‘At a Loss for Words: Subtext, Silence, and Sympathy in ‘Where Is the Voice Coming from?’, Eudora Welty Review (3), 2011, pp. 110-111.

Written by Amy Fretwell
© The Literature Blog, 2018. All Rights Reserved.

The Theme of Time in Graham Greene’s The Ministry of Fear

“He was filled with horror at the thought of what a child becomes, and what the dead must feel watching eh change from innocence to guilt and powerless to stop it.”
–Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear, p.65.

The protagonist of The Ministry of Fear, Arthur Rowe, is haunted by the mercy killing of his wife. Set in World War II, Greene presents the city of London as a physical manifestation of Rowe’s past. On one hand, London reflects his childhood past through the fete, the vicar, and the books which remind him of his boyish innocence. On the other hand, Rowe’s recent sinful past is visible in the shops and restaurants near his home which remind him of his life with his wife. In an attempt to escape his fear of the future and present situation, Arthur Rowe attempts to both retreat to and erase the past. Firstly, Rowe searches for his childhood in a local fete which ‘called him like innocence; it was entangled in childhood, with vicarage gardens and girls in white summery frocks and the smell of herbaceous borders and security’.1 The imagery of vicarages, white dresses and security reflects Rowe’s longing to return to his childhood where he can avoid his future. However, this description of the fete is concluded by Greene noting that the fete would have to close early ‘because of the blackout’ (p.11). This brings the protagonist back to the present, failing to allow Rowe to blissfully ignore his problems. Simply, Greene implies that retreating to the past and ignoring the present is not a realistic option for dealing with fear. This can be applied to the context of the text as Greene suggests that the Blitz cannot be ignored and must be acknowledged.

Choosing to stay in London during the Blitz, Rowe watches the city being destroyed and ‘notes with a kind of hope that this restaurant or that shop existed no longer – it was like loosening the bars of a prison cell one by one’ (p.22). Rather than escaping the Blitz, Rowe relies on the bombing to help him escape his recent past. After losing his memory and finally becoming a ‘happy man’, Greene momentarily separates Rowe from his recent past (p.107-109). As well as losing the memories of his marriage, the bomb also results in Rowe losing any memories or knowledge of the war and Blitz. ‘Digby’, the name Rowe is given when he wakes, is taught about the historical past by Dr Forester who he notes was ‘more than ever the headmaster, and Digby a pupil’ (p.114). Therefore, Rowe has been detached from his personal past and the historical present. While this memory loss provides Rowe with a happier life, Greene forces the knowledge of his recent past onto the protagonist at the very end of the text. Once again Greene fails to provide Rowe with the comfort of ignorance. Greene continuously creates and destroys various escapes for Rowe in order to emphasise the importance of the past on the present and future. In this way, Greene indicates that the past must be acknowledged and accepted in order to move forward.

References
Featured Image: Cover Image created by Peter Edwards for Heinemann’s 1960 Library Edition of the novel.

1. Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear (London: Vintage, 2001). All further references to Greene’s text are to this edition and will be given parenthetically.

Written by Dionne Rowe.
© The Literature Blog, 2018. All Rights Reserved.

Language as a Method of Control in Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange

‘These grahzny sodding veshches that come out of my gulliver and my plot,’ I said, ‘that’s what it is.’
‘Quaint,’ said Dr Brodsky, like smiling, ‘the dialect of the tribe.’
-Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange, p. 91.

Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange is narrated by protagonist Alex and is written in Nadsat, a new language created by Burgess. This language is used by Alex to demonstrate how he dominates the streets but then attempts to retain this control when he becomes subject to a government experiment that aims to modify his violent behaviour. Nadsat acts a buffer to the graphic violence Alex and his ‘droogs’ commit. When they break into a woman’s house, and attack her, Nadsat blurs the violence to the reader. He ‘upped with the little malenky like silver statue and cracked her a fine fair tolchock on the gulliver and that shut her up real horrorshow and lovely’ 1. The language limits associations the reader would normally have if Alex spoke in ‘proper’ English due to the confusing and new words. Burgess’s use of alliteration in ‘fine fair tolchock’ creates a playful and poetic image and, as he said himself, the use of Nadsat does ‘not sound as bad as booting a man in the guts.’2 The lack of complete understanding invites empathy and sympathy from the readers towards Alex in a situation where scenes of rape and violence would normally create horror and disgust. Blake Morrison discusses the effect of the language and suggests that ‘much of the excitement […] comes not from what Alex says, but how he says it: from his slovos.’3 Morrison recognises the reader’s reaction to Alex as he becomes the anti-hero in the novel that readers sympathise with and root for. Alex also plays on the reader’s empathy by referring to himself as ‘your little droog Alex’ (ACO, p. 61), and ‘Your Humble and Suffering Narrator’ (p. 97). The use of the word ‘your’ includes the reader in Alex’s journey, even when his ‘droogs’ leave him to be arrested and he is alone. It creates a relationship between the reader and Alex. As the novel progresses, he even shortens the reference to ‘Y.H.N’ (p. 126), implying that the relationship evolves as Alex becomes more isolated. Morrison suggests that ‘Alex insinuates and allies himself so intimately with his readers (‘O my brothers’) that we end up sharing every laugh (‘haw haw haw’) and cry (‘boohoohoo’).’4 Although readers know that Alex’s actions are wrong, the combination of the confusing Nadsat language and the pronoun ‘your’ creates a relationship that blurs the reader’s moral compass thus demonstrating how language can be used to manipulate and control the reader.

Whilst Nadsat can be used for Alex to control his narrative, it is also a way to gain control in a world where he finds himself being manipulated and controlled. When Alex talks to adults in the text, he mostly uses standard English to charm them but sometimes uses Nadsat. When he is partaking in the Ludovico technique, he has a conversation about what will happen when he leaves:

‘Oh I shall go home. Back to my pee and em.’ ‘Your -?’ He didn’t get Nadsat-talk at all, so I said: ‘To my parents in the dear old flatblock.’ ‘I see,’ he said.’
(ACO, p. 87)

Here, Alex is attempting to gain some control in a situation where he is being monitored and forced to watch videos against his will. The reader’s lack of understanding leads them to believe Alex has a superior knowledge. However, in the text those in authority treat him in a patronising way. Alex uses Nadsat even more so when in distress:

‘These grahzny sodding veshches that come out of my gulliver and my plot,’ I said, ‘that’s what it is.’ ‘Quaint,’ said Dr Brodsky, like smiling, ‘the dialect of the tribe.’
(ACO, p. 91)

When he becomes aware of the aim and process of the experiment, he uses Nadsat aggressively by including more words of the language in his speech. He attempts to use an alternative language to gain back the control he has lost. Dr Brodsky’s reaction of ‘quaint’ is patronising and dismissive, highlighting how ultimately the government are in control, no matter how hard Alex tries. Keith Booker comments on Nadsat and suggests that it ‘shows the imaginative superiority of Alex and his fellows.’5 The attempt to gain control highlights that Alex believes he has superiority with a different language but whilst he may have an advantage over the readers, the adults and those in power take no notice of Nadsat. Alex uses Nadsat to try and gain back some control when victim to their manipulation.

References

Featured Image: Cover Image created by David Pelham for Penguin’s 1972 edition of the novel. See Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (London: Penguin Group, 1972).

(1) Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (London: Penguin Group, 1996)

(2) Christian Bugge, ‘The Clockwork Controversy’, The Kubrick Site [n.d.] <http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0012.html&gt; [accessed 20th April 2018]. The rest of the quote follows as ‘But in a film little can be implied; everything has to be shown. Language ceases to be an opaque protection against being appalled and takes a very secondary place.’ Burgess has often showed distaste towards Kubrick’s film version as the violence is seen visually which takes away the element of cloaking that Nadsat achieves in the novel.

(3) Blake Morrison, ‘Introduction’ in Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (London: Penguin Books, 1996), pp. vii-xxiv (p. ix).

(4) Ibid., p. xii.

(5) Keith Booker, Dystopian Literature: A Theory and Research Guide (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1994), p. 96.

Written by Sophie Shepherd
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