War – The Literature Blog

The Transgression of heterosexual marriage in Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger

‘I was like a man, I suppose, wanting a lock of hair from the head of a girl he had suddenly and blindingly become enamoured of.’
-Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger, p.5.

Marriage is typically based on a mutual love and desire. However, in The Little Stranger, Waters subverts the social understanding of marriage, and instead uses marriage to satisfy a queer ulterior motive. Faraday’s sudden longing for Caroline is unsettling when contrasted to his earlier unfavourable descriptions of her appearance. He describes her as androgynous with ‘boyish shoes’ and her feminine body parts (hips and bosom) are described with negativity as ‘wide’ and ‘large’. Even after becoming engaged to Caroline, therefore supposedly feeling love and desire towards her, Faraday describes her face as masculine by using the words ‘strong’ and ‘angular’. The text says, ‘I couldn’t believe that I had ever found [her face] plain.’1 Faraday’s description of Caroline is hardly praising her beauty or expressing a profound attraction. Instead, he appears repulsed by her fleshly female form. A poetic literary technique, the blazon, dissects the female body and typically praises its

beauty. Faraday subverts the traditional blazon, which is commonly associated with Petrarchan love, and instead he describes Caroline in a basic and simplistic way. Faraday transgresses typical expectations of heterosexual relationships where desire and attraction are fundamental. His reoccurring criticism of Caroline’s appearance is implicit of no attraction, lust or desire towards her, which jars with his sudden desire to marry her. Instead, it is implied that Hundred’s Hall is the object of his desire. Caroline summarises this herself as she says, ‘Do you really [want me]’ ‘Or is it the house you want?’(p.448) The queer projection of desire onto the house transgresses typical expectations of marriage. Heterosexual love becomes spectral as desire is displaced onto a house, rather than Faraday’s own fiancé. The relationship, therefore, becomes merely functional as a way to guarantee possession of the house, and challenges social ideologies of romantic love.

Even as a small child Faraday is infatuated with Hundred’s Hall. On his first ever visit, he took an acorn out of the wall which he felt entitled to own. Faraday describes this event by saying, ‘I was like a man, I suppose, wanting a lock of hair from the head of a girl he had suddenly and blindingly become enamoured of.’(p.3) Faraday defines his feelings towards the house in relation to heterosexual desire, which transgresses the typical social ideologies of desire. Desire is displaced onto an object, rather than a person. The queer attraction to the Hall is intensified when Faraday describes the feeling of the acorn in his trouser pocket. The text says, ‘I felt the hard plaster lump in my pocket, now, with a sort of sick excitement.’(p.3) The hard lump in his pocket appears phallic, especially as he refers to a ‘sick’ excitement, immediately portraying Faraday’s perverse attraction to the house. The queer sense of desire Faraday feels towards Hundred’s becomes intensified as the novel continues, and when he sees an opportunity of gaining ownership (through marrying Caroline) he becomes obsessed with the idea. Heterosexual love and marriage become a socially acceptable way of satisfying his queer obsession of the house. Caroline becomes aware of Faraday’s ulterior motives for marriage. When Caroline calls off the engagement, Faraday asks, ‘[h]ow can you say all of these terrible things? After all I’ve done, for you, for your family?’ Caroline responds by saying, ‘You think I should repay you, by marrying you? Is that what you think marriage is- a kind of payment?’(p.448) Caroline appears to be aware of Faraday transgressing the social and cultural norms of marriage. For Faraday, marriage becomes a disguise and excuse which allows him to satisfy his queer obsession with the house.

References
Featured photo: Book cover of The Little Stranger, Sarah Walters. Reprint edition (May 4, 2010)

1.Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger (Virago Press: London, 2009) p.323 All further references are to this edition.

Written by Sarah Culham.
© The Literature Blog, 2018. All Rights Reserved.

The Robin Hood ballads: Regurgitating Traditional Tropes or Deeply Influenced by Historical Context?

‘Not a Frenchman will I spare
[…]
Not a Frenchman will he spare.’
– ‘Robin Hood’s Fishing’, ll.104-108

Although Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren point out that the tropes, the ‘augmentation of the outlaw band’ and ‘Robin Hood meets his match’ are prevalent in the Robin Hood tradition, certain late ballads are more influenced by their historical military context than any previous Robin Hood material in the tradition. (1) ‘Robin Hood’s Fishing’ is shaped by the Anglo-French relations of the seventeenth century and ‘Robin Hood Prince of Aragon’ reflects the powerful threat of the Ottoman Empire.

Joseph Ritson recognises that the ‘most surviving common broad-sheet ballads were printed between the Restoration of 1660 and the Revolution of 1688’. (2) The relationship between France and England throughout the whole of the seventeenth century is characterised by war and military conflict, but it is most aggressive during, and shortly after the time Ritson refers to. The Anglo-French war of 1627-29 was sparked by the French refusal to ally with England against the Habsburg Spain and Austria. In the second Anglo-Dutch war (1665-1667), the French allied with the English enemy. (3) Similarly, the War of the League of Augsburg (1688-97) brought William III to the throne and therefore caused England’s alliance with the Dutch against the forces of Louis XIV. (4) This Anglo-French rivalry is undoubtedly articulated in the late Robin Hood ballad ‘Robin Hood’s Fishing’. Stephen Pincus notes that ‘[t]he streets of London and provincial towns were littered with pamphlets, broadsides and poems offering glosses on witticisms about the most recent doings of European dignitaries.’ (5) This confirms that this ballad could be a form of political propaganda. In it, the enemy is politicised. Robin Hood states, ‘not a Frenchman I will spare’ (6) and the narrator repeats, ‘not a Frenchman he would spare’ (l.108). Although ‘Frenchman’ is in the singular, it is symbolic of the entire nation which, is confirmed through the celebration of the violence in the ballad. The narrator repeats how Robin took his ‘noble bow’ (l.125). Despite the fact that the ballad comes after Munday’s gentrified version of Robin Hood, the adjective ‘noble’ is not connected with Robin, but with his weapon, and therefore with the violence. The bow is no longer being used for sport and archery competitions as it is in the early ballads, but is turned into a war weapon. The narrative of the ballad is celebrating the violence because of the political nature of the enemy which adds something new to the larger tradition, and shows its contextual influences. (7)

This celebration of violence in the ballad coincides with the negative portrayal of the French enemy. The fishermen were ‘awar of a French robber/Coming toward them most desperately’ (ll.79-80). This description, with the reference to robbery and the adverb ‘desperately’, suggests French greed and links with the absence of the fish in sea; Robin, disguised as Symon ‘neither gott great nor smaw’ (l.52). This lack of fish metaphorically suggests an impending French threat to goods on English soil as well as in the sea. This threat is confirmed towards the end of the ballad when Symon ‘found within that ship of war/[t]welve hundred pounds in gold so bright’ (ll.163-164). Pincus writes that in the late seventeenth century there was a ‘well-known Francophobia of Londoners’ and this shows how the ballad is responding to this popular negative feeling towards France and its ruler Louis XIV, who emerged from the Second Dutch War as immensely powerful. (8) This French power is reflected in the contrast between the ‘fisher and the waryer free/[…] the noble ship’ (ll.158-159). The English ‘fisher’ is unlikely to defeat the ‘noble’ French ship and this unprecedented success, alongside the greedy portrayal of the French, shows the ballad to be acting as a form of political propaganda. The ballad portrays the French as an easy defeat whilst also encouraging hatred towards them. Although the date of the ballad is ambiguous, the violence within it confirms that the negative attitude towards the French is shaped by the contextual military conflict between England and France in the late seventeenth century.

By the late sixteenth century the Ottoman Empire had established a large area of territory. However, the seventeenth century marked a change for the Empire. Their focus was now to defend existing land and trade routes, rather than further expansion. (9) Historian Cathal Nolan states that ‘by 1650 […] the empire was one of the largest states in the world at 800,000 square miles and 20 million inhabitants’ and because of wars, such as the Austro-Ottoman War (1683-1689), ‘much of Europe came to view the Ottomans as a lasting and direct security threat where previously it had been a distant and unknown country’. (10) This threatening perception of the Ottoman Empire is articulated through the late Robin Hood ballad, ‘Robin Hood Prince of Aragon’. (11) This ballad is particularly concerned with a racial othering of the enemy. The ‘proud Prince of Aragon’ (l. 49) is joined by two giants ‘most horrid for to see’ (l.56). They have ‘grisly looks, and eyes like brands, […] with serpents hissing on their helms,/[i]nstead of feathered plume’ (ll.57-60). The description of their eyes ‘branding terror’ and the ‘serpents on their helms’ makes the giants explicitly monstrous and inhuman. This othering of the enemy is taken further through use of the conjunctive adverb ‘instead’ which allows the narrator to show what is perceived as normal. It is not until later in the ballad when Robin encounters the Prince of Aragon and calls him a ‘tyrant Turk’ (l.141) that the significance of this othering is revealed. The Turks of the Ottoman Empire and their impending threat is allegorically dramatized through the otherness of the giants. Like, ‘Robin Hood’s Fishing’, this ballad is responding to the English perception of a potential military threat. This time the threat is the Ottoman Empire, which still confirms the large influence of the historical context.

This ballad places a larger focus on the violence between Robin Hood and the enemy in comparison to ‘Robin Hood’s Fishing’. This could contextually suggest that the Ottoman threat is stronger than the French threat. In terms of setting, the enemy is already on English soil, not out at sea. The Prince of Aragon commands ‘bring forth my bride, or London burns’ (l.127). The narrative of the enemy is engaging directly with the Great Fire of London of 1666. This not only shows how the ballad is responding to its context but also supports the idea that it is a form of political propaganda, encouraging a national wariness towards the Ottoman Empire. This threatening persona of the enemy is mostly articulated through the violence in the ballad. At the battle, Little John ‘clove the giant to the belt,/[a]nd cut in twain his heart’ (ll.175-176) and to the other giant Will Scadlock ‘with his faulchion he run through/ [a] deep and gashly wound’ (l.181-182). The violence, which structurally takes up a large section of the ballad, is littered with adjectives associated with aggression such as ‘hewd’ (l.155), ‘deep and gashly’ (l.182), and verbs such as ‘struck’ (l.158), ‘slain’ (l.160), and ‘clove’ (l.175). In ‘Robin Hood’s Fishing’, Robin uses his ‘noble bow’ and shoots the Frenchmen from afar whilst being ‘bound to the main mast tree’ (RHF, l.105). Here, the ‘noble bow’ is replaced with the ‘faulchion’ which in itself is symbolic for the greater intimacy of the battle because it means Robin and the enemy must fight closer together than with the use of a bow. This change in weaponry coincides with the greater focus upon the descriptions of the wounds – ‘blood sprang from every vain’ (l. 56) – and suggests the Ottoman threat to be greater than the French threat because the narrative is much more focused on the action. Despite the difference in the way that the threats are portrayed, these late ballads still show how the military context shapes their themes.

References
Featured Photo: Image from page 20 of ‘Robin Hood; a collection of ancient poems, songs, and ballads, not extant, relative to that celebrated English outlaw, to which are prefixed historical anecdotes of his life’, accessed from https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14766209342, [accessed on 29/11/18].

1) Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren, ‘Later Ballads: Introduction’ in Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997), available online at <http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/later-robin-hood-ballads-introduction> [Accessed 11/04/2017]

2) Joseph Ritson, quoted in Rhymes of Robyn Hood by Richard Barrie Dobson and John Taylor (Stroud: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1989), p. 51.

3) Ronald H. Fritze and William B. Robison, Historical Dictionary of Stuart England (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996), pp.203-204.

4) John Childs, The Nine Years’ War and the British Army, 1688-1697: The Operations in the Low Countries, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), pp.21-25.

5) Stephen C.A Pincus , ‘From Butterboxes to Wooden Shoes: The Shift in English Popular Sentiment from Anti-Dutch to Anti-French in the 1670s’ in The Historical Journal, Vol. 38, No. 2 (1995), pp. 333-361 (p.335).

6) ‘Robin Hood’s Fishing’, in Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales , ed. Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997), l. 104 available online at <http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/gest-of-robyn-hode> [Accessed 28/02/2017]. All further references are to this edition and are given parenthetically within the body of the essay.

7) In the medieval ballad ‘Robin Hood and the Guy of Gisborne’, the violence is casual; Robin kills Sir Guy and cuts him in the face in order to make it seem as though it is him who is dead. ‘Robin Hood and the Guy of Gisborne’, in Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales , ed. Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997), available online at <http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/gest-of-robyn-hode> [Accessed 08/04/2017]. In Munday’s play The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, the enemies are personal. Prince John is a rival for the love of Maid Marian. Anthony Munday, The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon in Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales , ed. Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997), available online at <http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/downfall-of-robert-earle-of-huntington> [Accessed 08/04/2017].

8) Stephen C. A. Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism: Ideologies and the Making of English Foreign Policy: 1650-1658, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 254.

9) Cathal C. Nolan, Wars of the age of Louis XIV, 1650-1715: An Encyclopaedia of Global Warfare and Civilisation (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2008), p. 344.

10) Nolan, Wars of the age of Louis XIV, 1650-1715, p. 344.

11) ‘Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon’ in Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales , ed. Stephen Knight and Thomas H. Ohlgren (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997), available at <http://d.lib.rochester.edu/robin-hood/text/child-ballad-129-robin-hood-and-the-prince-of-aragon> [Accessed 14/04/17]. All other references to this text are to this edition and are given parenthetically within the body of the essay.

Written by Estelle Luck.
© The Literature Blog, 2018. All Rights Reserved.

Conscience and Morality in Graham Greene’s Ministry of Fear

‘In childhood we live under the brightness of immortality – heaven is as near and actual as the seaside. Behind the complicated details of the world stand the simplicities […] that is why no later books satisfy us like those which were read to us in childhood – for those promised a world of great simplicity of which we know the rules’.
Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear, p. 88-9.

Graham Greene classified his novel The Ministry of Fear as an entertainment, due to its espionage plot. However, many critics would disagree, arguing that it contains serious underlying themes.[1] The narrative focuses on the protagonist Arthur Rowe’s struggle with grief and his journey as he comes to terms with his mercy killing of his wife. Focusing on the character’s own identity and conscience, Greene brings into question the meaning of morality and the definitions of good and evil as his protagonist struggles to perceive himself as an innocent man.

Opening with the presentation of a village fete, the protagonist enters a state of nostalgia; this is triggered by the innocence of the event and the childhood memories that this evokes. The author leaves the reader feeling empathetic; it becomes clear that the character Arthur Rowe is a lost man searching for his childhood innocence and naivety. In his search for release from the burden of guilt, the protagonist reverts to his past in an attempt to recreate the childlike innocence that he remembers, refusing to accept this as an unattainable goal. Throughout the novel, Greene focuses on the theme of childhood versus adulthood, as Arthur Rowe, an adult man, reminisces about his own childhood, avoiding the horrors that his adult-self has experienced. The protagonist often looks to children’s literature and, through these references, Greene indicates the problems that come with looking to fiction as moral guidance. Whilst describing his reading of these children’s stories, the narrator states that he does so ‘not so much because he liked them as because he had read them as a child, and they carried no adult memories’.[2] The protagonist is clearly using literature as a means of escape from his adult identity, rather than facing his guilt. He narrates that ‘in childhood we live under the brightness of immortality – heaven is as near and actual as the seaside. Behind the complicated details of the world stand the simplicities […] that is why no later books satisfy us like those which were read to us in childhood – for those promised a world of great simplicity of which we know the rules’ (p. 88-9). He recognises that adult literature is tainted and confused by complexity and ambiguity through experience, looking to simplistic childhood literature as a moral guidance.

In Book Two of the novel, Greene disorientates the reader by introducing Arthur Rowe as Digby; this disruption reflects the confusion and disorientation that the character also feels. Mary Ann Melfi notes that ‘subconscious growth in Rowe’s case is an inadvertent process wherein the subconscious takes control, working at its own pace. Here, the conscious mind relaxes, and the subconscious fulminates before manifesting itself.’[3] The protagonist’s forgetting of his identity works as a kind of healing process, administered by his own subconscious. His own pain and vulnerability become unbearable and, rather than facing his fears and facing himself, it is easier to forget and live a lie. The character’s conscience is so burdened with guilt that he entirely recreates his own identity, erasing the torturous memories of his wife’s death in a final desperate attempt to move forward. His disturbing memories have been erased and at this point in the narrative he is demonstrated to be at peace, viewing himself as an innocent man. The character of Digby represents the Arthur Rowe that would have been had he not killed his wife and suffered with the guilt. Arguably, the character has achieved his goal of innocent content through the erasure of his adult memories. However, this is shown to be only a temporary state, in which his subconscious is allowing him to heal and decipher his identity without the pain of facing his crime head on. As Arthur contemplates his childhood, he reflects on the fact that ‘he learned before he was seven what pain was like – he wouldn’t willingly allow even a rat to suffer it’ (p. 88). The reader learns of the character’s inability to witness pain and suffering due to his empathetic nature. As Digby, the protagonist feels great sympathy for the character of Stone; he remarks that ‘he felt capable of murder for the release of that gentle tormented creature’ (p. 141). Despite his identity being entirely forgotten and recreated, the sense of empathy that Arthur Rowe possessed seems ever-present. His core human nature remains the same, indicating a contingency and suggesting that even Digby, undisturbed by the burden of an ill wife, would have committed the same crime due to his own moral code. The protagonist’s tendency to empathise and pity others has ultimately led to his mental destruction; through Digby, it becomes clear that this is inherent in his human nature.

References
Featured Image: Front cover of the 1974 Penguin edition of the novel.

[1] James M. Welsh and Gerald R. Barrett, ‘Graham Greene’s Ministry of Fear: The Transformation of an Entertainment’, Literature and Film Quarterly, 2 (1974), p. 312.

[2] Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear (New York: Penguin Books, 1963), (pp.20-1). All other references are to this edition and are given in parenthesis in the main body of the text

[3] Mary Ann. Melfi, ‘The Landscape of Grief: Graham Greene’s ‘The Ministry of Fear’’, South Atlantic Review, 69 (2004) <http:// www.jstor.org/stable/20064577 > [accessed 19 April 2018] pp. 54-73, p. 64.

Written by Amy Fretwell.
© 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.

Deconstructing English Patriotism in Patrick Hamilton’s Slaves of Solitude

‘Slaves of Solitude is Hamilton’s attempt to make a connection between large historical forces, the evil that we read about in the newspapers, and the squabbles and petty struggles that make up quotidian individual existence.’
-Sean French, Patrick Hamilton: A Life, p.187.

Patrick Hamilton’s Slaves of Solitude uses narrative perspective to emphasise a scepticism towards English patriotism. The novel’s third person narrator is heavily subjective and slips into free indirect discourse to reveal Miss Roach’s inner thoughts and concerns. After an evening with the American Lieutenant and Vicki, the narrator shows how Miss Roach reflects on how she was called ‘an English Miss’. (1) The narrator informs readers that ‘[s]he had awakened at half-past three, and so she had been torturing herself for over an hour now.’ (p.128) It continues: ‘Why should she torture herself? Why should she let this filthy woman torture her? She mustn’t call her a filthy woman. She wasn’t filthy. But then, again, she was! (p.128). Despite the third person narrator, the repetition of ‘filthy’ and the contradictions in the passage show the extent of the narrator’s penetrative powers. It mirrors Miss Roach’s thought patterns and opinions of Vicki, revealing the extent to which she is troubled by Vicki’s behaviour. Later in the passage Miss Roach’s thoughts are articulated through free indirect discourse: ‘No – it wasn’t fair – it wasn’t fair ! […] Did Vicki, by the way, think that she – Vicki – wasn’t plain and middle aged?’ (p.130) The multiple exclamations and the use of italicisation show how the novel gives voice to Miss Roach’s frustrations. The narrator continues mirroring Miss Roach’s thoughts when it lists Vicki’s wrongdoings:

‘offending the friend she sought to make by the clumsiness of her idiom and manner of thought, […] her reluctance to pay for drinks, […] turning up late without making proper apologies, […] going to Mrs Payne behind Miss Roach’s back, and so on and so forth?’ (p.132)

The continuous and uninterrupted listing again suggests the narrator to be in tune with Miss Roach’s rambling thoughts. The narrative, in this chapter, is both broken up by pauses and questions, yet at points it progresses quickly and uncontrollably. Miss Roach cannot be rid of her thoughts and frustrations about Vicki even when ‘she [becomes] aware of a great purring [of planes] in the sky above and all around’ (p.133). Introducing the sound of planes in the background draws attention to the fact that Miss Roach is more concerned with her personal war with Vicki than with the World War happening outside. The extent of the narrator’s subjectivity is what breaks down the assumption that Miss Roach’s main concern is the War; she has concerns much closer to home and the War remains a remote issue.

This deconstruction of a universal English pride in fighting against the collective German enemy continues when the narrator connects the language of battle and war with episodes in Miss Roach’s life. Towards the beginning of the novel Miss Roach goes for a drink with the Lieutenant and feels ‘pleasure at having the monotony of her evening blown to smithereens’ (p.28). The narrator notes how this would cause a ‘minor tumult […] in particular, in the breast of Mr Thwaites who was no doubt at this moment […] booming away in the lounge’ (p.28). The language of war and, in particularly, of the destruction of the Blitz, is used to describe how her first evening with the Lieutenant breaks her routine of eating at the boarding house. The narrator portrays Miss Roach’s encounter with the Lieutenant to be just as, if not more, dramatic as the War. Similarly, the narrator sympathises with Miss Roach when describing Mr Thwaites voice as ‘booming’, rendering him as destructive and threatening like the enemy bombs. The novel argues that individual conflicts, like the one between Miss Roach and Mr Thwaites, are more of an immediate concern for people than the remote War. Sean French argues that this novel is ‘Hamilton’s attempt to make a connection between large historical forces, the evil that we read about in the newspapers, and the squabbles and petty struggles that make up quotidian individual existence’. (2) However, Hamilton does more than merely connect the two. He places the emphasis on the individual and deconstructs the idea put forward by the government propaganda of a ‘united England’ with a shared experience of war.

The way in which Hamilton’s Slaves is divided into both chapters and numbered sections within chapters works to reveal an apprehension about a united England. The way in which the chapters are constructed stresses the importance of internal thought and experience rather than plot. The first chapter ends with Miss Roach in the ‘Odeon Cinema’ (p.27) and chapter two begins again with Miss Roach ‘sat in the white darkness of the Odeon Cinema at Thames Lockdown’ (p.27). The chapters link to one another, giving the impression that little progress has been made in terms of plot. However, ‘it was Saturday […] [a]nd three weeks has passed since she has rushed out from Mr Thwaites and hidden herself in here’ (p.27). Despite this jump in time, the chapter then continues by filling in the time in between both trips to the cinema. The narrator flashes back, talking in detail about when Miss Roach and the Lieutenant went to ‘the River Sun and took a seat at a table in a corner near the fire’ (p.29), her ‘panic’ at ‘the idea of being made to drink anymore’ (p.31), her ‘renewed freshness and eagerness’ (p.41) after ‘the kisses in the darkness by the river’ (p.41) and the Lieutenant’s ‘bombshell’ (p.42) of a marriage proposal to which she reflects and continually asks questions such as, ‘was it a joke – a sort of leg-pull?’ (p.43) The chapter addresses Miss Roach’s thoughts, opinions and contemplations before returning to the ‘white darkness’ (p.44) of the cinema. This lack of chronological movement shows, like the penetrating narrative voice, how the novel places an emphasis on the individual drama of thought and internal realities. It reveals that the plot consists of the characters’ wandering psychologies and again, reveals the scepticism about war being a primary concern for all of society.

References
Featured Image- First edition of the novel.

1, Patrick Hamilton, Slaves of Solitude (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 129. All further references to this text are to this edition and are given parenthetically within the body of the essay. The novel will be referred to as the shortened title Slaves.

The Myth of Innate Social Cohesion During the London Blitz

‘It’s intellectuals like ourselves who are the only free men. Not bound by conventions, patriotic emotions, sentimentality […] we haven’t what they call a stake in the country.’
-Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear, p.29.

The London Blitz caused large scale destruction and unrest in London which, naturally, fuelled anger towards the enemy. During this time of conflict there existed a myth of an innate social cohesion, where London was united against the perpetrator. Graham Greene’s The Ministry of Fear deconstructs this idea of a united Britain against a common enemy. Suzan R. Grayzel notes the large scale destruction during the Blitz. She argues:

Those whom air raids affected had to confront an essential feature of modern and total warfare: every home could now come under fire. As a result, civilians mattered in wartime as never before.1

The large scale ruin and the effect on the civilians would assume a negative reaction to the Blitz. However, Arthur Rowe focuses on his own personal experience with disregard to the collective struggle. Buildings that once held memories are destroyed, and the destruction is liberating for Rowe who’s past, according to the narrator, both traps and defines him. Memories of his wife are intertwined with the streets of London and Rowe lives with the guilt of killing her. The narrator says, ‘after a raid he used to sally out and note 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.’2 The bars of the prison cell metaphorically represent his past and when London is bombed he is free; the physical destruction purifies him of his guilt. The stranger who attempts to kill Rowe in Mrs Purvis’ house summarises Rowe’s indifference to the destruction caused by the blitz. He says, ‘it’s intellectuals like ourselves who are the only free men. Not bound by conventions, patriotic emotions, sentimentality […] we haven’t what they call a stake in the country.’ (p.29) Rowe becomes immune to patriotic emotion and instead he is occupied with thoughts of his own past. Choosing to disengage with the political discourse of war does not render Rowe a free man. Instead, patriotic emotions are replaced with imprisoning feelings of guilt. He is ‘othered’ from a collective fight against one common ‘enemy’ as he fights his personal war against his past. Greene presents a system of living based on personal salvation and redemption, rather than a desire to be part of a larger ideology. The novel continues to feature a discourse of imprisonment surrounding him. Greene writes, ‘for more than a year now Rowe had been imprisoned- there had been no change of cell, no exercise yard, no unfamiliar warder to break the monotony of solitary confinement.’ (p.46) The language used by Greene renders Rowe an outsider trapped in the cell of his own mind, confined by his past. Greene depicts a conflict of language and ideas within the novel: Rowe is liberated and cleansed by the bombing, but equally, remains trapped by his past. This state of stasis Rowe experiences renders him an outsider from any social cohesion. By focusing on internal strife and finding relief in the bombing, Rowe is ‘othered’ from a patriotic unity against a common ‘enemy’. The definition of ‘other’, then, is not only a description of a foreign enemy, as would be assumed war time London. Instead, Rowe himself is the enemy, as he is wages a war against himself.

At the beginning of the novel, Rowe attends a fête, a place he would go every year as a child. Imagery of war is reoccurring throughout the fête, reminding the reader of the greater social events happening at the time. Greene writes, ‘of course, this year there would be no coconuts because there was a war on’ (p.11) and, ‘they would have to close early because of the black-out.’ (p.11) The novel depicts a community trying to cling onto life pre-war by hosting a fête. The event, however, cannot be separated from the discourse of war which penetrates each aspect of the day. Greene depicts the loneliness the people felt during the war by clinging onto an idyllic, British tradition and gathering together to create a sense of community. The novel shows that collectively people in Britain were endeavoring to re-create a piece of the past in order to escape their own horrific, brutal reality of life during the London Blitz. Instead of using the fête to escape the horror of the Blitz, Rowe uses it as a way to fantasize about his own past, and attempt to re-live his childhood experience. He immediately becomes ‘othered’ from the collective experience of the other fête goers. Instead, Rowe spends his time attempting to reconnect with his childhood innocence. In doing so, he momentarily rids himself from his present overriding feelings of guilt. The narrator defines Rowe’s perception of childhood as, ‘liv[ing] under the brightness of immortality […] God is good, the grown-up man or woman knows the answer to every question, there is such thing as truth, and justice is as measured and faultless as a clock.’ (p.95) In short, childhood is a simpler, blameless time with no moral ambiguity. For Rowe, the fête is symbolic of the past as the narrator says, ‘the fête called him like innocence: it was entangled with childhood.’ (p.11) The novel suggests that Rowe endeavours to reconnect with his lost sense of identity and reunite with who he was before he murdered his wife: an opportunity to cleanse himself from his past. The text says, ‘he came to these fêtes every year with an odd feeling of excitement as if anything might happen, as if the familiar pattern of his afternoon might be altered forever.’(p.13) Greene continues to recall Rowe’s desire to ‘mislay the events of twenty years.’ (p.13) The novel depicts Rowe in a state of stasis: unable to escape his past, with no clear direction for his future. The fête represents a longing for the past, as other people who attend the fête unite in their hatred of the war, and desire for some normality amongst the chaos. Rowe, on the other hand, isolates himself from the shared experience of escaping the Blitz. Instead, he uses the event to escape his own, personal past. His inability to forgive his own past means he fails to connect with his own present, rendering him an ‘other’, but at his own will.

References:
Featured painting: Nettie Moon, The Spirit of London during the Blitz, 1979, Oil on Canvas, 55 x 65.5 cm, Museum of London.

1.Susan R. Grayzel, At Home and Under Fire: Air Raids and Culture in Britain from the Great War to the Blitz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)

2.Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear (London: Penguin, 1943) All further references are to this edition and are given parenthetically within the body of the essay.

Written by Sarah Culham
© The Literature Blog, 2018. All Rights Reserved.

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.