Wonderer Journal, Vol. 01, Issue 1, Winter 2020

WONDERER issue

vol. 01 issue 01 december 2020

Literary Journal

WONDERER JOURNAL Vol. 1 December 2020 Wonderer Journal is an open access, academic journal of literary studies dedicated to undergraduate students eager to engage in scholarly research, debate and writing. This first issue has taken eight months to realise.

The founding editorial board of Wonderer Journal is composed of staff members, PhD candidates and undergraduate students from the School of English and Drama at the Queen Mary.

Founding Editors (All listed):

Undergraduate Editors:

Editor-in-Chief: Ioana Radulescu Chairperson: Chloe Lim Associate Editor: Julie Tanner

Danielle De Leon Jake Rix Natasha Shewring Sadie Quinn Milo Wilson

Senior Editors: Dr Jenni RĂĽback Vincenzo Torromacco Prof. James Vigus Denise Wong Prof. Zara Dinnen Covers by: Nina Batinica Logo by: Dragos Toaca

Design team: Mara Lecoiu Alexandra Enache

WONDERER JOURNAL Note to contributors All inquiries should be addressed to: wonderer.journal@qmul.ac.uk Wonderer Journal is an open access biannual publication, accepting submissions for the Summer issue in March and for the Winter issue in September. All papers considered for publication undergo the process of double-blind review. The Journal adheres to the MHRA referencing style guide for Modern Humanities.

For more information about the submission guidelines, please consult our website: https://www.wondererjournal.co.uk/ Wonderer Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The papers published in this journal may be copied or redistributed in any medium format. Adaptations, transformations or building upon the material is acceptable provided that appropriate credit is given to the contributors and the Journal. You may not use the material published in Wonderer Journal for commercial purposes. Information ab h c ec c e W de e J a a e a a a ab e a he e d f the issue.

All papers are stored in the Queen Mary Research Online an open access institutional repository for research output. For more information, please visit: https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/

© Wonderer Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, Winter (2020) · Queen Mary, University of London · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER1

Wonde e Jo nal fi i e is dedicated to the late Prof. Catherine Silverstone, the first honorary member of our team, with whose vibrant support we were greatly encouraged and welcomed into the arms of the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary

Foreword by the Associate Editor

You are reading the inaugural issue of Wonderer, the international literary journal for undergraduates.

Wonderer Journal a b f BA E g h de de e e, ed , a d publish alongside other likeminded students. Founding editors Chloe and Ioana soon formed a team comprised of fellow undergraduates, as well as PhD candidates and members of staff in the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary. Curiosity and collegiality are Wonderer f ca c e , b h f h ch ha e bee ee f its conceptual development in 2019 all the way through to the illuminating peer-review stage in summer 2020.

The process of wondering has been inflected and challenged by circumstances specific to 2020. Most of us have daydreamed about our once-ordinary routines, now foggy lockdown walks. We have experienced personal battles with concentration: watching television whilst perusing our phones but absorbing neither; turning a page and then turning back again hopefully being kind to ourselves about these things.

Wonderers are familiar with these rhythms, such as the pleasures to be found in interpreting texts but also in the moments-in-between-reading, where we wander through related and unrelated thoughts.

I hope that Wonderer f eade e he e ays submitted by our contributors and the opportunities they offer to wonder and to wander.

(Julie Tanner, Associate Editor)

Note from the co-founders

Making Wonderer f e ha bee a e e ch g e e e ce. F reviewing the papers submitted by our talented, adventurous contributors, to piecing together a diverse collection of compelling articles with our intuitive, persevering editors, the Wonderer team has been able to establish a strong community of united thinkers in order to produce a stellar inaugural issue. We want to thank each and every person who has been involved in the process, and we hope our work can inspire more undergraduates across the world to wonder.

(Chloe Lim, Chairperson)

You are about to begin reading Wonde e Jo nal first issue.

I a. Y a e e ha e ead a c ec f e a . The e d f university, of citing sources and secondary reading, and oh Lord! formatting footnotes.

How could we possibly convince you to grab a cup of tea, make yourself comfortable in your slouchy armchair, open this eBook and consume pages-full of spirited debates on the best literature out there (or let it consume you, for that matter)?

I

e a g. I

h g e e. I d a d de h a .

e

a a

ce. I

f e h. I

h

gh -

It has been an honour to serve this editorial board for the creation of the first issue, and I am grateful to have had the chance to work with wonderful people on this project. From all the journal articles that I have read in my life, these were an absolute pleasure to edit, since all the contributions demonstrated a perceptive and critical approach to the literary texts.

Now, turn the page.

(Ioana Radulescu, Editor-in-Chief)

Contents 1

Locating Temporality and Finding Hope in South African Fiction Um-E-Aymen Babar

15

An Exploration of Familiarisation and Defamiliarisation in A e a de P e The Rape of the Lock, J a ha S f The Lad D e g R , a d E a Ha d Fantomima Fahima Begum

27

Double or Dual-Natured?: Consciousness and Race in Nella La e Passing Jumua Begum Abida

40

The Wild and the Not-So-Wild: Environments, Settings, and Narrative in Middlemarch and Wuthering Heights Samuel Blackburn

52

M Fa he B eed H :S A S ege a Ma : A S i o Book of Daniel Danielle De Leon

68

Ego, Id, Queerness, and Identity: An Assessment of Converging The e ca F a e Ka he e Ma f e d Bliss Hemali Depala

G a d F a I ade ac Tale a d E.L. D c The

80

Envisioning Futures of Cultural Re a ce Th gh W e Resistance to Pa a ch T Da ga e bga Nervous Conditions Sarah Dewi Ayishah Garrod

94

Ge de A h a Beh Oroonoko: A Comparative Analysis of Representation in Oroonoko and Imoinda Renu Gupta

105

Ta g Rhe c Se Felix Ionescu

122

Seo Godes circe: Figuring the Ecclesia in the Cynewulfian Corpus Jasmine Jones

151

The F c f he P a a f Mad e The D a fa Mad a a d The Madness of George III: The Effects of Tragedy and Comedy Leda Maiello

162

Ideations and Tangibilities of Place: Migration Fiction and Postwar Black Britain Joseph Edward Mason-Jones

: Ne

che S e a d Ph

h

185

Witnessing, Evidence, and The Body in Contemporary Egyptian Literature About Revolution Alisha Jayne McSporran

200

Read g U d , W Maya Padamsee

221

Waiting for GĂśdel Ioana Radulescu

231

Fractured Reflections: How Lacan, Derrida & Nietzsche Sought to Overcome Barriers of the Contructed Self Jake Rix

241

Gender Disassociation and Identity Displacement as an Effect of Victorian Depictions of Disability: John Halifax, Gentleman and The W he ed A Jasmine Rothon

gH

e: A a De a

Clear Light of Day

253

The f h ca be d e age : E g Childhood as an Echo of Adulthood in the Works of Thackeray, BrontĂŤ and Gaskell Jasmine Rothon

264

Disturbing Identity: Migrants and Refugees as Abject Agents in Fa h A Edge of Heaven Erin Waks

276

Modernist Geographies: The Interconnection Between Space and Identity in Virginia Woolf and Jean Rhys Rose-Anne Wright

291

Notes on Contributors

[N/A]

How to cite Wonderer journal correctly

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) ¡ Copyright Š 2020 ¡ DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69161

Locating Temporality and Finding Hope in South African Fiction Um-E-Aymen Babar

The Cry of Winnie Mandela and The Reactive both provide a narrative in which we can explore how temporality registers through different mediums: denied intimacy, defamiliarisation, and the fragilit of the home. Both novels portra the routine nature of being stuck

hich

manifests as a temporality. This impedes the social, political and emotional progression of the protagonists. They live precariously within these fragile boundaries revealing their inescapable states, but it also allows them to create hope and new meanings for themselves. Thus, The Reactive and The Cry of Winnie Mandela become texts that are less about the impossibility of liminal positions and more of an attempt to reimagine new and ordinary worlds. We witness both the devastating impact of being stuck but not without a remodelling of these fears, and a journey out of this waiting room.

The Cry of Winnie Mandela presents a complex paradigm of waiting and temporality, forcing us to reconsider the meaning of homes, patriarchal norms and intimacy. Ndebele offers a narrative that breaks of the ordinar

1

ith the stance of protest [

] advocating a conscious rediscover

.1 We are presented with four women who are forced into a liminal zone where

G a a Pec e , P -a a e d a a e , in Colonial Discourse/Postcolonial Theory, ed. by F. Baker and others (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), p. 167.

2

they await the return of their men. These women are descendants of Penelope, the wife of the hero Odysseus in Greek mythology. The social polarities of the male and female, public and private, home and the world, all become fundamental thematic trajectories for these women as the navigate the social positioning [

] as

aiting

ido s .2 We see this in the story of the

second descendent, Delisi e Dulcie S Khosana. Her husband obtains a scholarship to stud overseas to become a doctor. In the tenth ear of his absence, his moment s

ife, having ielded to a

eakness , falls pregnant. Upon his return, the husband is furious, accuses her of

infidelity and abandons her. 3 A fe months later he divorces her and marries a nurse. Doublequalified. The settle do n to a successful medical career. A doctor ith his nurse [

] When

things open up in the country, they leave to live among whites. The earliest wave of blacks to move into the hite suburbs. The have finall escaped (Ndebele, p. 18). Here e itness the inequalities of the social dichotomies mentioned above.

Her job as a domestic science teacher allo s for her to fund her husband s stud , but hen he fails and loses his scholarship, she borro s mone from herever she can find it [ ] sells off furniture to help pa for his fees (Ndebele, p. 18). She funds his education in the hope that her husband will become the first black doctor in the township. However, whilst she waits in a state of limbo, her husband is able to move forward and progress academically and later financiall . Despite also sharing her husband s dream, he remains the sole beneficiary of her efforts. Delisi e does not gain financiall from her husband s education as he remarries. The promise of her husband becoming the first black medical doctor in the East Rand township never materialises, denying her a sense of pride and happiness. Her waiting becomes more permanent as the orld around her does not let her forget her mistake, the orld ill al a s kno

2

the mother of the child, for a

oman can never escape the messages of her bod

Meg Samuelson, (U ) e W e : Political Widowhood , in A Life and The Cry of Winnie Mandela , Remembering the Nation, Dismembering Women? (Durban: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2007), pp.

195 228 (p. 196). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

3 Njabulo Ndebele, The Cry of Winnie Mandela (Cape Town: David Philip Publisher, 2004), p. 20. Further references to this edition are given are quotations in the text.

3

(Ndebele, p. 22). It is suggested that her own gender and body have betrayed her. This positioning also reveals ho

omen are incorporated into a sphere that both is, and is not, in

civil society. The private sphere is part of the civil society but is separated from the

civic

sphere (Samuelson, p. 199). Despite occupying a space both in the private [home] and public [ ork] sphere, the departure for her no

ife is forced into a doubl oppressive sphere

here there

ould be no

(Samuelson, p. 206). Her inabilit to move for ard also denies her

intimacy, not only in sexual terms, but also through vulnerability, touch, intimate conversations, a sense of closeness and being unable to remarry. She can no longer access these privileges. Furthermore, the husbands escape to the white suburbs reveals the broader workings of gender and race politics as his move signifies

ealth, success and an escape (Samuelson,

p. 206).

The role of motherhood and domesticity in The Cry of Winnie Mandela creates a gendered trope of the nation,

here

omen and

aiting becomes s non mous:

omen-

in- aiting (Samuelson, p. 210). The four descendants are unsure of their husband s return.

They are forced to wait in a temporal state where their lives are unable to progress as they cannot have children, be intimate with their husbands or work to become financially independent. Their symbolic value is no longer exercised through a family unit or married life.

Instead, we witness their roles, both as women and as human, become entirely sacrificial; The descendants are left to look after the famil home, their children or caring for their husband s elderly parents. This discourse presents women as inadequate and incomplete as they cannot progress without a male companion. The shame of remarriage, infidelity and divorce reveals a deeper level of structural violence that binds these

omen to patriarchal norms. Ndebele s

critique of this social inequalit is evident in his decision to not include Winnie s maiden name, Madikizela, in the title. The Cry of Winnie Mandela is then, as Antjie Krog argues, about

4

having [

] to live a life, to forge a life, ithin that famous, et confined, name .4 Furthermore,

the association bet een cr

and Mandela in the title is a significant comment on Winnie s

married life as well as a shared commonality between the four descendants in the novel (Krog, p. 56). It is once these women leave their confined homes and names that they find hope. This suggests that the married life for the women in waiting was a major source of unhappiness. It is onl

ithin themselves and other

omen that the

ill be able to find eternal

companionship (Ndebele, p. 146).

Freud s ps choanal tical concept of the uncann allo s us to e amine the domestic sphere as a defamiliarised zone (Samuelson, p. 234). The familiar, heimlich, is native, belonging to the home , and therefore that

hich is not kno n becomes frightening. 5 For the

men, the private sphere becomes unfamiliar, as they no longer occupy it, and the public sphere becomes their home into which the are granted entr [

] as representatives [ ] and political

activists (Samuelson, p. 234). The homes become a one-way passage whereby the wife guards the home left vacant b

andering men, their statis thro n into relief b male mobilit , as he

is free to leave and return whenever he wishes (Samuelson, p. 234). The instability of these gendered boundaries also shows motherhood and intimacy to be another site of conflict:

In those moments, a woman feels so vitally in the presence of her body. Feeling clean without the promise of joy. This is it. One of the many definitive moments of waiting. Moments of intimacy defined by cravings without definition. Where is he? What is he doing? When will it end? This waiting. This unending sensation of uncertainty. This love increasingly without object. If a woman in this situation has children, they really are no company. They are an obligation of love, objects of the continuance of effort. They cannot stand in for an absent man.

(Ndebele, p. 7)

4

A e K , W a e He Pe e e D W e S ? , English in Africa, 36 (2009), 55 60 (p.

56). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

5 S d F e d, T e U ca , The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, trans. and ed.

by James Strachey (London: Hogarth, 1955), p. 222.

5

The women are forced to endure this temporalit

ithout consolation or reassurance about

the husband s return (Ndebele, p. 14). Here intimac manifests in comple

a s, its meaning

not al a s positive nor separate from the broader orkings of po er and politics. 6 While her solitude increases her intimacy with herself, it also confines her to a domestic sphere, which excludes her from the political sphere. This void of intimacy cannot be filled with anyone else, the love for children here is presented as an obligation , suggesting that the love for their men is voluntar and thus the oman s position in aiting is also voluntar (Bu baum, p. 7). Both forms of intimacy, a child and a husband, are presented as burdens, rendering the women into a passive state. This vulnerability is a direct result of the gendered politics that have left these omen at the merc of those in po er , the men (Buxbaum, p. 525). The belief that the domestic and political cannot exist synonymously is the inherent flaw in the patriarchal paradigm. It is onl

b

risking intimac

and embracing vulnerabilit

in the sphere of

relationships (and) encounters ith others that can allo the protagonists to seek refuge from these attachments (Buxbaum, p. 525).

In South Africa Nelson Mandela had been presented as the father of the nation . 7 Both his public and personal life became strategically performative. He wore the same borrowed suit for five years whilst working in Johannesburg. The political dynamic of their married life was also defined b gender. Winnie s outspokenness in the public sphere ver conventionalit of her position as the lo al

as authorised b the

ife. Parado icall , being her husband s

spokesperson enabled her to become a leader in her o n right (Munro, p. 92). This allo ed her to change her position from mother of the nation into an active revolutionar role , a place that was previously reserved for men (Munro, p. 92). Her initial role implies a domesticity that removes her from the sphere of public engagement (Munro, p. 92). This domesticit is

6

La a B ba , R ac c e a S Af ca f c , Fiction in the Age of Risk, 31 (2017), 523 36 (p. 524). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

7 B e aM , Ne ,W e, a d e P c f Ge de , The Cambridge Companion to Nelson Mandela, ed. by Rita Barnard (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2014), pp. 92 112 (p. 92). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

6

not only about nurturing a maternal role. Instead, it is defined by waiting silently for the husbands return. During Mandela s imprisonment, Winnie fought against police harassment and arrests. She became a global feminist icon in a postcolonial nation that

as historically

a male-centred space, narrated into modern self-consciousness by male leaders, activists, and writers, in which women are more often than not cast as symbols or totems, as the bearers of tradition (Munro, p. 92). The lives of the four descendants are, at first, presented as real. Part One of the novel gives personal accounts of how the four descendants waited. In Part Two, this narrative shifts into an unrealistic fictional narration where the women are in the company of Winnie and Penelope. This change complicates the narrative as it risks changing their real stories into symbolic ones, making it harder for the women to escape their liminality. However, this unrealistic narrative also allows Ndebele to create a new sense of home and hope. We see this in the character transformation of the fourth decedent Marara Joyce Baloy. Despite her husband s infidelit , she remained lo al until he died and even buried him in an e pensive casket because she feared the humiliation of an unfaithful wife. The rediscovery of hope for Marara lies in redefining what home and intimacy mean for her:

I have become uncomfortably aware that I may no longer have the keen and vital sense of feeling for home as a specific place and a house with so many rooms, so many brothers and sisters and relatives, ith famil and communit e periences [ ] This kind of home for no has been a mere convenience for me to live in from one day to the next. This thought has frightened me as I have begun to wonder about the fate of intimacy. Can there be any society without private lives

without homes wherein individuals can flourish through histories of

intimacy?

(Ndebele, p. 85)

7

Marara provides a complete restructure of what home and intimacy means. It is no longer a physical space associated with family or waiting. Her redefinition provides a way out of traditional values and her self-awareness ensures she is no longer cast as a symbol of waiting.

In Part One of the novel, the realistic stories of the

omen come under the headings The

First Descendent , The Second Descendent , The Third Descendent and The Fourth Descendent . Ho ever, in Part T o,

here the stories are more s mbolic than realistic,

Ndebele uses the real names of the women. This suggest that these stories can become a reality for these

omen, providing a ne

sense of hope to the narrative. In his lecture Leadership

Challenges: Truth and Integrit in an Act of Salesmanship , Ndebele argued that imagining hole societies [

hen re-

] the ver likel outcome ( as) not a solution but a compounding

of the problem (Krog, p. 58). Therefore, the seemingl unrealistic narratives of the four descendants provides a more constructive way out of temporality than Part One of the novel.

It is in the apparent improbabilit of the unlikely outcome that its power lies. The improbable scenario is soon found to evolve its o n comple solutions (Krog, p. 58).

This temporality also creates an unstable discourse, whereby the women must either choose to wait for the return of their husband or move on, and by picking neither they become more stuck , unconsciousl contributing to their o n liminal positions. The decisions that the women ponder over reveal how a patriarchal script constrains them:

Our fourth descendent did not know whether what kept her from having an affair was the fear of such terrible consequences, or

hether she reall believed in the sanctit of marriage [ ]

After he was buried, she could feel on her shoulders the eyes of the neighbourhood, the eyes of men and women. What would this proud oman no do [ ] The

ill be looking to see ho

soon I remarr in order to confirm that I ve been having affairs an

a [ ] If the cannot find

the proof, the ll invent it.

(Ndebele, p. 26)

8

Her liminal position denies her of intimacy and does not allow her to move forward, despite her husband s death. No matter

hat decision she chooses to make, it

ill be used as a force

to keep her in a position of limbo, unable to find a way out. Ironically, the perpetrators of this gendered violence are both men and omen , ho could either be potential husbands or share the feeling of being stuck . This emphasises her state of loneliness as well the expectations of her societ . The loss of the husband entails the loss of an entire orld and therefore a loss of confidence about ho

to live on, even at the microlevel of bodil comportment .8 The

temporality of the women in The Cry of Winnie Mandela makes the reader question the social pressures that force these omen to maintain their binding to modes of life that threaten their well-being (Berlant, p. 16). The narrative recasts the object of desire [male/husband] not as a thing (or even a relation) but as a cluster of promises magnetised by a thing that appears as an object but is reall a scene in the ps choanal tical sense (Berlant, p. 16). The Cry of Winnie Mandela does

hat historical narratives cannot: turn missed appointments and bad feelings

into new appointments with the unfolding experience of alternative lives and possible futures .9 B anal sing South Africa s postcolonial condition

ith the aim of locating hope in

temporality, it gives us a glimpse into a future free from the residue of colonial and apartheid constraints (van der Vlies, p. 19). It allo s us to read South Africa s temporal state as a sign of hope. In Masande Ntshanga s The Reactive, temporality manifests as denied intimacy.

However, it is caused by chemical abuse. The narrative follows Lindanathi who purposefully injects himself

ith HIV before leaving his job: That s ho I became a reactive. I never had

the reactions I needed for m self, and I couldn t react to ou hen ou called me for help, so

8

La e Be a , I d c : Affec e P e e , Cruel Optimism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), pp. 1 22 (p. 16). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

9 A d e a de V e , S a A e : O C e a Wa d , Present Imperfect: Contemporary South African Writing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 150 72 (p. 20). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

9

I gave my own bod something it couldn t flee from.

10

His medical compensation allows him

to purchase anti-retroviral, which he then sells to buy various intoxicants. Lindanathi and his friends, Ruan and Cecelia, spend most of their time into icated sniffing Industrial strength glue, popping Ibuprofens, or scoring dagga. Days pass in a haze, and the reader is offered engaging descriptions of Nathi s e perience of disjunctive temporalit Lindanathi s life becomes defined through

(van der Vlies, p. 158).

aiting: Then night came. Then daytime. Then

night-time again. Then da time. It ent on like this for a hile (Ntshanga, pp. 136 37). This blurred timeframe is also evident in Mannete Mofolo s

ait for her husband as time and

distance blur into oblivion, revealing their inability to overcome this passive state (Ndebele, p. 15). Furthermore, the narrator e plains that his full name, Lindanathi means isiXhosa and returns to this at the end of the novel

ait for us in

hen he addresses his brother: So in the

end, I guess this is to ou, Luthando. This is our older brother, Lindanathi, and I m read to react for us , suggesting that he is preordained to this temporality (Ntshanga, p. 184).

Lindanathi s injection also forces him into a state of vulnerabilit thus allowing him to purchase drugs as an escape. He is able to make his reality unfamiliar, unheimlich, as he continuousl avoids his uncle Bhut Vu o s te t message that reads: Lindanathi

ou ve

come of age (Ntshanga, p. 137). Nathi deletes the message, returning to the glue but the relief he is searching for does not come and instead the anxiety remains (Ntshanga, p. 138).

Ntshanga explain that The Reactive

as about people living in the vicinit of great trauma,

and about people who are waiting for something, but ho aren t quite sure of hat that thing is (van der Vlies, p. 158). Nathi and his friends are in a state of suspension, unable to move for ard. This stagnant situation is reflected in Cissie s aunt s death. She tells Nathi: M aunt died toda [

] It happened just over an hour ago [

] M head is doing this thing here m

aunt isn t dead et (Ntshanga, p. 79). Her inabilit to mentall process the death reveals the

10

Masande Ntshanga, The Reactive (London: Jacaranda, 2017), p. 161. Further references to this text are given after quotations in the text.

10

two different timeframes; one in reality and the other unable to keep up. This reaffirms the temporalit in the narrative as ell as Cissie s inabilit to process intimate emotions.

The trauma of waiting is also reflected in The Cry of Winnie Mandela, when Mamello Molete s husband does not return home and marries a hite oman, she becomes insane [

]

Insanity is knowing that looking back at the past is looking for the impossible, and that you cannot escape from that impossibility, an impossibility that has been happening and building up all along, until it becomes a a of life (Ndebele, p. 33). We see this numbness, and perhaps even insanity, when Nathi purposefully injecting himself with the HI virus to become reactive.

It reveals his attempt to find a

a out of inaction, a

a of restaging a reaction in is bod

that he should have had in the orld (van der Vlies, p. 169). This further emphasises the two different timeframes in The Reactive. Lindanathi blames himself for his ounger brother s death, admitting: I kne

that, reall , I

as scared of being close to LT. The rumours about

him had spread and he d been set apart. I didn t

ant people to mi us up, to look at me the

same a the did him (Ntshanga, p. 160). His fear of contagion reflects the social suspicions and rumours that Luthando was gay. His guilty conscience compels him to self-infect, leading him to a state of vulnerability that denies him intimacy until he returns to his family at the end of the novel. Ho ever, there is a slight danger in Ntshanga s narration as Nathi s HIV injection becomes metaphorical for a journey into temporality.

In The Cry of Winnie Mandela, the sense of belonging and the home are ph sical manifestations of temporality. They are no longer places of comfort and embrace and instead become gendered tropes for

omen-in- aiting. Ho ever, in The Reactive, Lindanathi s

kinship with Cissie and Ruan creates a stable home in which platonic and intimate relations can e ist: the three of us sitting together in her flat in Ne lands, the three of us knitting our fingers together [

] closing out e es and becoming one big house (Ntshanga, p. 116). This

emotional refuge allo s Nathi to create a home

ithin temporalit and also encourages him

to begin an honest relationship when he returns to live with his family. This sense of hope is

11

onl ever made possible b Lindanathi activel risking vulnerabilit and the intimacy that might follow with the bodies of others

a willingness to be open to difference without fear, to

relinquish an attachment to embodied subjectivit to her just a da after (the ) met and

e ve

(Bu baum, p. 525). He discloses his status

orshipped at the altar of her caution ever since

(Bu baum, p. 183). Nathi is able to depart from his statis an iet

and seek refuge in, rather

than fleeing from, an Other (van der Vlies, p. 169). In doing so, he recommits to life and his promise to his younger brother Luthando. The ending of The Reactive highlights the new possibilities opened up for inter-personal relations

hen vulnerabilit

is embraced [

]

intimac is risked, and temporalit escaped (Bu baum, p. 532). There is a similar resolution in the ending of The Cry of Winnie Mandela. In the final chapter, the four descendants and Winnie rent a minibus and head east for Durban. They stop for a hitchhiker who turns out to be Penelope from Homer s Odyssey,

ho is travelling around the

orld to places where

women have heard of me, attempting to free them from the burden of unconditional fidelity I placed on their shoulders (Ndebele, p. 145). B inviting otherness ithin to accompan them on their journe , the omen recognise themselves in the foreigner (Samuelson, p. 225). This journe allo s the four descendants a rediscover of the ordinar , the familiar, heimlich, as well as intimacy and emotional attachments (Samuelson, p. 214). Thus, not only does the minibus signify a new home, but it also works as a metaphorical journey out of temporality, on the road the

ill continuousl be moving for ard. The home transforms into a space in

hich omen are in po er of both journe and destination, challenging the notion of home as an entirely physical space. There is a clear change within the characters as they go from being prisoners of the dream of romance

ith an unending sensation of uncertaint

to

gaining a ne sense of freedom and share this hope ith millions of other omen (and men) ho are on this journe

(Ndebele, pp. 26, 7, 142). This is also a notion challenged in The

Alphabet of Birds, here South Africa is not a place to call home, or a historical place so much

12

as a condition to be escape from

or to come back to .11 In A Master from German , the

feeling of home also manifests through intimac . During se , Joshka is searching for a ne destination, one inside another bod that

(Naud , p. 65). This re-imagining of new homes reveals

hilst lives are stuck , homes unstable and intimacy denied, there is always a place of

refuge, which often manifests in unconventional ways. When the objects that initially impeded their progress are removed, the characters are able to embrace new possibilities. These texts reveal the dangers of temporality but also offer hope for the future. However, there remains a potential risk in their optimistic attachments:

Optimism is cruel when the object/scene that ignites a sense of possibility actually makes it impossible to attain the expansive transformation for which a person or a people risk striving for; and, doubly, it is cruel insofar as the very pleasures of being inside a relation have become sustaining regardless of the content of the relation, such that a person or a world finds itself bound to a situation of profound threat that is, at the same time, profoundly confirming.

(Berland, p. 2)

As long as the characters continue their pilgrimage to eternal companionship , the

ill also

continue to gain more hopeful moments (Ndebele, p. 146). Thus, the promise of happiness is not in a single place or person. It is found on the journey that requires constant movement and disconnection from previously oppressive histories and narratives.

In the afterword to At Risk, Ndebele claims that this self-e posure allo s for the public sharing of vulnerabilities as the basis for the restoration of public trust [

] and makes possible

a world of new interpersonal solidarities that extend into broader, more affirming social solidarities .12 The endings of The Reactive and The Cry of Winnie Mandela, offer a restorative 11

S.J. NaudĂŠ, The Alphabet of Birds (Cape Town and Johannesburg: Penguin Random House, 2014), p. 11.

Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

12 Liz McGregor, At Risk: Writing on and Over the Edge of South Africa (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2007), p. 245.

13

narrative. The protagonists all have different tales of temporality, but they lead to similar experiences; they live in unstable homes, waiting in the unknown and they are denied intimacy and affection. These novels also reconstruct the temporality paradigm, providing the protagonists with a new meaning of home and intimacy. The four descendants, Winnie Mandela, Penelope and Lindanathi are not left waiting. This reimagining reveals the fragility of these boundaries, but more importantly, it shares the hope and possibilities of creating new ones.

Works cited Berlant, Lauren, Introduction: Affect in the Present , in Cruel Optimism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), pp. 1 22 Buxbaum, Lara, Risking intimac in contemporar South African fiction , Fiction in the Age of Risk, 31 (2017), 523 36 Freud, Sigmund, The Uncann , in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, trans. and ed. by James Strachey (London: Hogarth, 1955) Pechey, Graham, Post-apartheid narratives , in Colonial Discourse/Postcolonial Theory, ed.

by F. Baker and others (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994) Krog, Antjie, What the Hell is Penelope Doing in Winnie s Stor ? , English in Africa, 36 (2009), 55 60 McGregor, Liz, At Risk: Writing on and Over the Edge of South Africa (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2007) Munro, Brenna, Nelson, Winnie, and the Politics of Gender , in The Cambridge Companion to Nelson Mandela, ed. by Rita Barnard (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2014), pp. 92 112 NaudĂŠ, S.J., The Alphabet of Birds (Cape Town and Johannesburg: Penguin Random House, 2014) Ndebele, Njabulo, The Cry of Winnie Mandela (Cape Town: David Philip Publisher, 2004) Ntshanga, Masande, The Reactive (London: Jacaranda, 2017)

14

Samuelson, Meg, (Un)homel Women: Political Wido hood , in A Life and The Cry of Winnie Mandela , in Remembering the Nation, Dismembering Women? (Durban: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2007), pp. 195 228 van der Vlies, Andrew, Stasis An iet : On Contemporar Waithood , in Present Imperfect: Contemporary South African Writing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp.

150 72

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69142

An exploration of Familiarisation and Defamiliarisation in Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock, Johnathon S if ' The Lad ' D e ing R

m,

and Eliza Haywood's Fantomina Fahima Begum

Samuel Johnson in The Rape of the Lock observed that ne familiar things are made ne

things are made familiar, and

.1 Through this concept, the literary techniques of familiarisation

and defamiliarisation are used in the texts of Fantomina b Eli a Ha

ood, The Lad s

Dressing Room b Johnathon Swift and The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope. The satires take the approach of making objects unfamiliar to dra

the reader s attention and tr to

incorporate change into society. By using these two literary techniques, the authors are attempting to highlight social injustices and to make social commentaries. By defamiliarising concepts such as feminine beauty, evident in The Lad

D e ing Room and Fantomina, the

satires make the form of women more complex. Rather than making their women conform to stereotypical norms, the defamiliarisation causes the female leads to stand out. Thus, one can argue that defamiliarisation is used to make the female form memorable in a different format

Samuel Johnson, The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, 4 vols (London: printed for Bathurst and 35 others, 1779-81), IV (1794), p. 188. Google eBook.

1

16

than what is usually seen; the use of familiarisation is a reinforcement which makes the unfamiliar objectification of feminine beauty and actions stand out. Additionally, defamiliarisation, the idea of making objects unfamiliar, makes the satires female roles significant and effective. For example, in The Lad hich surround feminine beaut

D essing Room, the objects of disgust

are portra ed through Stephon s violation of privac .

However, to see the defamiliarisation of women in this instance, the familiarisation of the chamber pot is significant. They need to relate defamiliarisation to familiar objects and bodily fluids to change societ s perception. In contrast, Fantomina plays to the stereotypes of women. She was considered as a stereotypical woman who was a danger to male gender because of her use of multiple disguises and aim to trick men. Alternatively, perhaps the familiarisation of her actions also causes defamiliarisation. Even though she plays to female stereot pes, she brings up a areness to the social stereot pe of

omen. Ha

ood s female

lead is used to show that women cannot all be forcefully fit into one group. Haywood draws attention to Pope s claim that most Women have no Characters at all and goes onto sho its inaccuracy with her strong female lead. 2 Haywood uses familiarisation and defamiliarisation to both fight female stereotypes and play to them to highlight social inequality. However, the concept of familiarisation is used differently in The Rape of the Lock; this is particularly seen at the scene of which he forcefully cuts her hair. The other two satires use familiarisation to make defamiliarisation stand out, while The Rape of the Lock uses familiarisation to produce social harmony and explore the inner working of the elite class.

The context of Russian formalism is essential in understanding the effects of defamiliarisation and familiarisation. Russian formalism is best described as a school of literary theory and analysis emerging around 1915. Its work attempted to give literature observable

Felicity A. Nussbaum, Brink of All We Hate: English Satires on Women, 1660-1750 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984), p. 2. ProQuest eBook. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

2

17

features, and this is where the concept of defamiliarisation was created. Defamiliarisation is a key concept that helps understand how satires are used by Haywood, Swift and Pope to comment on the societal effect these te ts had. B defamiliarising objects and people s behaviour, the three satires create a space for change. Defamiliarisation functions as the tool the authors use to highlight new perceptions and old beliefs in a new format. Combining the concepts of familiarisation and defamiliarisation allows these texts to comment on society in general but also help in redirecting societal viewpoints that surround gender inequality and social unity.

The effect of defamiliarisation in The Lad

D e ing Room can be seen through the

concept of female beauty and appearance. On the offset, we are told that Five Hours spent in Dressing

Celia

hich portra s the idea that female beaut surrounds vanit . 3 She takes a

long time to put on this faรงade of an appearance, thus, the defamiliarisation comes from the remnants of this faรงade. As Tita Chico puts it in her book Designing omen the trope of the dressing room allo s for the projection of duplicit .

4

Women in the eighteenth century were

surrounded by the concept of beauty and expected to have this particular appearance. The use of the dressing room came around in the mid-seventeenth century and became a room of their o n to have privac . Thus, Strephon s invasion of this privac becomes the cause of the defamiliarisation surrounding omen s beaut . Strephon claims that the room as littered ith various Combs for various Uses, Filled up ith Dirt (S ift, p. 430). This sho s that her use of beauty products and the final outwards appearance does not match the waste that is left behind. Her dressing room becomes a means for both satirical comedy and to highlight the unrealistic social expectations of women. The products and clothing are all methods of illusion

Jona han S if , The Lad s Dressing Room , 2nd edn (London: Roberts, 1732), pp. 430 33 (p. 430). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

4 Tita Chico, Designing Women: The Dressing Room in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Culture, ed.

by Greg Clingham (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2005), p. 15. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

3

18

to hide hat feminine beaut trul is. The unfamiliar objects of Handkerchiefs forgot and Snot and The Stockings

Marks of stinking Toes portra ho

Snuff

omen are in private

and cause difficulty in perceiving women in these rose-coloured glasses of perfection (Swift, p. 431). His invasion has brought to light this image of women men would not be familiar with.

As previously mentioned, the dressing room was a room for privacy, often built separately from the house. It was a form of sanctuary women had. Thus, this satire uses defamiliarisation effectively in addressing the reality of women rather than this fantasy society has constructed.

Female beaut is revised through Strephons reactions to the things Celia has left behind, her bodil

aste .5 Furthermore, the satire seems to use defamiliarisation to lo er omen s status

in societ even more. Strephon claims she has Ointments good for scabb Chops (S ift, p.

431). This idea of Chops is about the mouth of a beast suggesting that she is animalistic rather than feminine. Swift uses misogyny to defamiliarise Celia to show how society faces deception at the hands of outward beauty. His work becomes a method to protect men by showing the true nature of women so they cannot be blinded by both physical appearance and lust.

The use of familiarisation in The Lad

D e ing Room is used to portray a human link

to make the unfamiliar objects relatable. It allows the defamiliarised objects to stand out. The reference to the chamber pot and everyday objects leads the reader's mind to natural human instincts and needs. While e ploring Celia s room, Strephon comes across her chamber pot.

Tita Chico claims Celia's chamber pot, like her bod , has a beautiful fa ade (Chico, Privac and Speculation , p. 46). Strephon lifts the Lid, there needs no more, He smelt it all the Time before (S ift, p. 432). At this point of the satire, e are ell a are that Celia s appearance is assembled through the help of her cosmetics and now Strephon has discovered that she has bodil functions. He claims Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits! (S ift, p. 433). Due to a lack of

Tita Chico, Pri ac and Spec la ion in Earl Eigh een h-Cen r Bri ain , Cultural Critique, 52 (2002), 40 60 (p. 46). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

5

19

drainage, women in the eighteenth-century did their business in a chamber pot until it was disposed of through windows days later. For the contemporary audience, this holds elements of familiarisation surrounding the method of going to the toilet as a majority of people owned and used one daily. However, this familiarisation draws attention to the defamiliarisation of gender inequalit . Strephon s outraged reaction highlights that omen ere held to a standard where even their bodily functions were ignored to give an appearance of being flawless. Celia is the embodiment used to educate the masses that

omen s bodies

ork in the same

a

men s do. In Designing Women, Tita Chico claims that this te t suggests that defecation is normal [

] these characters are na ve, if not do nright delusional, for being horrified (Chico,

Designing Women, p. 132). Strephon s surprise to Celia having normal human needs causes him to drop his hand in the chamber pot, foul his Hands in Search of Hope

this use of

humour contributes to the effective use of familiarisation (Swift, p. 432). By making a joke and mockery of him dropping his hand in her faeces advocates Chico s claim that

omen have

normal ever da functions and that it should not be a taboo hidden subject. Strephon s claims that O ma she better to learn to keep Those Secrets of the hoar deep indicates that men continue to hold this unrealistic perfect view of women (Swift, p. 432). This satire uses satirical comedy to ensure that unreasonable female expectations are brought to the surface to pave a way for societal change. Furthermore, the literary technique listing is used to portray familiarisation to make

omen appear just as human as men. Celia s room is full of S eat,

Dandruff, Po der, Lead, and Hair , all things that people possess (S ift, p. 430). In this case, S ift s satire uses familiarisation to take

omen off this unrealistic pedestal and effectively

shows that feminine beauty is also surrounded by human bodily functions.

Like The Lad

D e ing Room, Fantomina uses the concept of feminine beauty to

portray familiarisation. However, while Swift uses the construct of feminine beauty in society to bring defamiliarisation to the character of Celia and her bodily functions, Haywood uses her

20

character to play to the stereotypes men had of eighteenth-century women. We are introduced to the female character as someone who is deceitful. She uses multiple character changes to seduce her lover Beauphlaisir, her Hair and E e-bro s black d, made it impossible for her to be kno n; this indicates that

omen use their appearance to manipulate unsuspecting men

and become a cause for their downfall. 6 Here Ha

ood uses the familiarisation of

omen s

reputation in a patriarchal society to comment on societal attitudes. Women to men were something to be owned and many writers throughout the century warned men of the dangers of feminine beaut . She is described as admirabl skill d in the Art of feigning, that she had the Po er of putting on also hat Face she plaeas d, portra ing the idea that the place of the female body is occupied by the materials with which it is adorned, or ultimately shored up: from dress to paint to plaster. 7 In other

ords, it is not realit ; Fantomina s action to tr and

seduce Beauphlaisir shows femininity is a façade used to entrap men. As Felicity A. Nussbaum claims the satires frequentl remind one single male soul that his plight is not unique that all men are likel to be jilted or made fools of b Ha

ood s female lead

omen (Nussbaum, p. 42). This is seen through

hen she pla s the role of a

ido er to get Beauphlaisir to take her

with him. Time provided herself of another Disguise to carr on a third Plot, in the Impossibilit of den ing a Place in his Chariot to a Lad , ithout ielding one in his Heart (Ha

hich resulted

ho he could not behold

ood, pp. 8 9). It is this familiar concept that women

pra on men causing them to be grouped into this female se

hich embod all that is

offensive to the larger society most frequentl as a threat to the patriarchal order (Nussbaum, p. 4).

Eliza Haywood, Fantomina; or, Love in a Maze, 2nd edn, 3 vols (London: Browne and Chapman, 1725), III (1725), p. 7. Digital.library.upenn.edu eBook. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

7 La ra Bro n, Reading Race and Gender: Jona han S if , Eighteenth-Century Studies, 23 (1990), 425–43, p.

428.

6

21

On the other hand, the focus on female lustful actions draws attention to the familiarisation of the actions of the seduced and seducer. However, it swaps gender expectations in these roles. Women were often seen throughout this period to be these lustful agents who easily gave into the desires of her body. However, this satire produces the idea that Beauphlaisir has become the seduced rather than the seducer making men weak in the face of se . This is clear to see hen he is fir d ith the first Sight of her and His ild Desires burst out in all his Words and Actions (Ha

ood, p. 8). Ha

ood uses this form of male desire to

produce defamiliarisation. Felicit A. Nussbaum claims men could generalise that unlike men, all omen personified lust , but here Beauphlaisir is personifying lust (Nussbaum, p. 15). His actions here he devour d her Lips, her Breasts ith greedl Kisses advocates that he is being overwhelmed by his passion and desire for the female body (Haywood, p. 8).

Ha

While

ood s female lead has had sex with only Beauphlaisir, he believes to have had sex with

multiple women. This portrays that he is driven by lust and as a result, is tempted by all the disguises that are created b this

oung lad

(Ha

ood, p. 1). Defamiliarisation of gender

roles is used in this satire effectively to show men to be the weaker sex; Beauphlaisir cannot seem to control himself. It is arguable that Celia/Fantomina cannot control herself either because she continuously changes outfits to entice him, but he is not innocent in it either. The language that surrounds his actions proves men are just as lustful as women; one cannot say one sex to be weaker as through defamiliarisation Haywood portrays both to have this insatiable desire for sex. Haywood uses satire to empathise social hypocrisy while simultaneously questioning the social injustice that surrounds women.

Furthermore, by using familiarisation surrounding the prejudice of women being deceitful is used by Haywood to portray the deceitful nature of men rather than women. The defamiliarisation focuses on the unfamiliar region that questions the nature of men. In The Lad

D e ing Room

e

itness Strephon s deceit

hen he enters Celia s private space.

22

However, the deceit and sly nature of men can be seen clearer in Fantomina . When Beauphlaisir first meets the

ido

he began to think he should have but a dull journe

due

to her performance of mourning; e see him formulating a plan to allure her, she ho seem d equally susceptible of Sorrow, might not also be so too of Love (Ha

ood, p. 10). Beauphlaisir

is using her loneliness and possible need of love for his benefit. Felicity A. Nussbaum claims men

describe omen as inherentl gidd , ho ever, the familiarisation of the stereot pical

female selfishness and lust-filled appetite is being used to represent the defamiliarisation of men and their true nature (Nussbaum, p. 5). Beauphlaisir did not, ho ever, offer, as he had done to Fantomina and Celia, but b a thousand little softning Artifices guess he as enamour d (Ha

gave her leave to

ood, p. 10). One ma argue, that this is an action of a man ho

cares about the woman he is about to sleep with, but I would argue that it is a sly rouse to sleep with the widow. Here Haywood is showing that men may not change their physical appearance, but they alter their characteristics to get what they desire. Men use deceitful tactics like Beauphlaisir satisfy their sexual desires. Beauphlaisir uses a ruse of care and love and Celia is using a disguise to fulfil her sexual longing. Thus, the use of familiarisation surrounding deceit is used by Haywood effectively to draw attention to men and oust their inappropriate behaviour.

Additionally, Haywood is portraying that both men and women are controlled by their lust.

The defamiliarisation of Ha

ood s female character s disguises effectivel

creates a

framework surrounding the behaviour and nature of men. Not only is this satire in my eyes questioning the a people treat omen, but it also questions the a men s po er in society is through the same techniques of seduction and deceit that they believe solely lies in women.

The Rape of the Lock portrays familiarisation through the actions of Lord Petre. Other satires at the time such as The Lad feminine beaut and actions to portra The mock-epic

D e ing Room and Fantomina used defamiliarisation of omen in a ne light; this satire s approach is different.

riting of this satire is based on a true incident among Pope s acquaintances.

23

Robert, Lord Petre, cut off a lock of Arabella Fermor s hair and the families fell into strife as a result. Pope was asked to write a light poem that would put the episode into a humorous perspective and reconcile the t o families to rid of an strife. As Richard I. Cook claims the only "duty" the poet urges us to follow in The Rape of the Lock is the dut of good humour .8 This is seen through the e aggeration of actions over the cutting of the lock. For e ample, the pit ing Audience melt in Tears and The Sister-Lock now sits uncouth, alone makes it appear as though some foul death or murder has occurred. 9 Pope is ridiculing the energy and passion that is often applied to serious situations and is now being used on an insignificant moment.

This links to what Cook means, the melting in tears and the concept of the relational link of the hair creates an overdramatic scene where the reader cannot do anything but laugh. The use of anthropomorphism by giving the lock of hair humanistic trait is melodramatic, and we as readers cannot help but see the humorous side of here one is asked to See the poor Remnants of this slighted Hair! (Pope, IV). Furthermore, her reaction and the repetition of restore the lock to advocate that tr ing to arouse sorro ful emotions for a lock of hair is just foolish (Pope, V). As Cook argues, the quarrel Pope describes is social rather than moral (Cook, p.

109). Thus, the use of familiarisation with the context of this satire brings a way to show people not to take things so literally and laugh at misfortunes. I would argue this is particularly shown through the defamiliarisation of the title. B calling the satire The Rape of the Lock instead of something like Cutting off a Lad s Hair Pope not onl illustrates e aggeration over the action of cutting the hair, he also reinforces the idea that the anger between the two families is unnecessarily dramatic. Pope here is attempting to make people laugh and fix social bonds rather than change stereotypical views like the other two satires.

Richard I. Cook, Gar h s Dispensar and Pope s Rape of he Lock , CLA Journal, 6 (1962), 107 16 (p. 110).

Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

9 Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock , in The rape of the lock: An heroi-comical poem. In five canto s (London: printed for Bernard Lintott, 1714), IV V, in Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive <http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/works/o3695-w0010.shtml> [accessed 8 December 2018]. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

8

24

Additionally, The Rape of the Lock differs from Fantomina and The Lad

D e ing

Room because of its core focuses. Pope uses familiarisation to comment on the lives of the elite class. The other two satires reiterate a desire for change in social attitudes, but Pope only includes this social disorder as an additional topic. Instead, Pope is fascinated by the society of the elite and uses the literary technique zeugma to upset understood hierarchies which creates defamiliarisation. As Cook argues, it is true that Pope clearly implies a moral disorder in the society he portrays, but he is by no means insistent about the fact, and it reflects only a part of his purpose in the poem (Cook, p. 109). Pope s ke aims are first, to sho people that life does not need to be taken seriously all the time, and second, to comment on the trivialities and vanities of the upper class in general. Both of these points are represented through the use of eugma

hen describing Hampton Court Palace as a place

here dost sometimes counsel

take and sometimes tea (Pope, III). The t o opposing terms tea and counsel are modified b the use of take

hich insinuates that the ro al palace caters to both serious matters

regarding the state and frivolous social events. By defamiliarising the elite Pope shows how small insignificant activities such as tea are cast with great importance. Thus, Pope is ridiculing the elite for their seriousness of everyday life and is attempting to tell his contemporary society to be more facetious.

Furthermore, the e ploration of vanities and attempt to find humour in one s self is evident in his portrayal of Belinda. She is used to satirise the fashionable women during this period who were considered to be solely obsessed with their appearances. Pope describes That all her Vanities at once are dead: Succeeding Vanities she still regards (Pope, I). This comments on ho

omen s souls are consistent ith the vanities the possess; that their self-

worth is bound to excessive pride in only their appearance. This form of familiarisation illustrates how the upper-class

omen are surrounded b a desire of the flesh. Belinda s Jo

in gilded Chariots, when alive, And Love of Ombre, after Death survive (Pope, I). Pope uses

25

the familiarisation of the stereotypical female gender to introduce the defamiliarisation of using it as a method of light-hearted comedy. This is further shown through the mock-epic writing of Belinda s catalogue of belongings, Here Files of Pins e tend their shining Ro s, Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-dou

(Pope, I). This represents an echo of a catalogue of

weaponry in epics. The dramatic comparison is used by Pope to mock the inner lives of the elite class and dra

attention to ho

seriousl the take minute things. Thus, Pope s use of

Belinda is to demonstrate how everyday activities of the elite can be seen as ridiculous and how these insignificant activities can become a form of light entertainment in society.

In conclusion, the usages of familiarisation of femininity in The Lad

D e ing Room

and Fantomina are used to show the misunderstood female nature through defamiliarisation.

From Strephon s surprise of the aftermath in Celia s dressing room to Ha

ood s female

character playing to the stereotypical conventions of female deceit, both Swift and Haywood effectively use these conventions to portray a satire which attempts to fix the double-gender standards in society. Similarly, Haywood uses familiarisation to prove the deceitful nature of men. Ha

ood s use of the female stereot pe is applied to Beauphlaisir to highlight his own

deceitful nature. Ergo, familiarisations in The Lad

D e ing Room and Fantomina are used

to bring female stereot pes to the centre of attention and demand social change. Pope s The Rape of the Lock uses the concept of familiarisation to settle the dispute surrounding Pope s group in society. The familiarisation here is different from the other two satires. Rather than attempt to change social expectations and stereotypes, Pope attempts to reinstate relationships, explore the inner workings of the elite, produce a way to take life less seriously, and to learn to laugh at one s self.

26

Works cited Brown, Laura, Reading Race and Gender: Jonathan S ift , Eighteenth-Century Studies, 23 (1990), 425 43 Chico, Tita, Designing Women: The Dressing Room in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Culture, ed. by Greg Clingham (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2005) Tita, Privac and Speculation in Earl Eighteenth-Century Britain , Cultural Critique, 52 (2002), 40 60 Cook, Richard I., Garth s Dispensar and Pope s Rape of the Lock , CLA Journal, 6 (1962), 107 16 Haywood, Eliza, Fantomina; or, Love in a Maze, 2nd edn, 3 vols (London: Browne and Chapman, 1725), III (1725) Johnson, Samuel, The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, 4 vols (London: printed for Bathurst and 35 others, 1779-81), IV (1794) Swift, Jonathan, The Lad s Dressing Room , 2nd edn (London: Roberts, 1732) Nussbaum, Felicity A., Brink of All We Hate: English Satires on Women, 1660-1750 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984), p. 2. ProQuest eBook Pope, Alexander, The Rape of the Lock , in The rape of the lock: An heroi-comical poem. In fi e can o (London: printed for Bernard Lintott, 1714), IV V, in Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive <http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/works/o3695-w0010.shtml> [accessed 8 December 2018]

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69279

Double or Dual-Natured?: Consciousness and Race in Nella Lar en Passing Jumua Begum Abida

Nella Larsen s Passing explores the relationship between race and consciousness in the sociopolitical climate of the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was a period in the early 20th century whereby the great migration occurred as thousands of black people migrated from the South into the North and Midwest regions of the United States, inhabiting the neighbourhood of Harlem in New York. The notion of consciousness is embedded throughout the novel in exposing the duality of the black/white identity in relation to consciousness, notably centred on the Harlem Renaissance.

This essa

ill look into the philosophical reading of Hegel s The Phenomenology of

the Spirit as the first philosophical theor . In Hegel s The Phenomenology of the Spirit, consciousness is explored in its indi id al state thro gh the I , b t also thro gh a t ofold significance

hereb there e ists a do ble mo ement bet een t o conscio snesses that

comm nicate ia the reciprocation of the I , therefore, recognising themsel es as mutually recognising one another .1 This is explored through a bilateral relation which Hegel refers to as the Lordship and Bondage (Hegel, p. 111). Further in his Freedom of Self-Consciousness,

1

G W.F. H , S -C c , The Phenomenology of the Spirit (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), pp. 104 38 (pp. 111 12). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

28

Hegel explores aspects of the Unhappy Consciousness s ggesting that it is the conscio sness of self as a dual-nat red, merel contradictor being (Hegel, p. 126). Ultimatel , Larsen s Passing emphasises the significance of racial passing as the catal st for the d al-natured conscio sness , as the no el is centred on the reunion of two childhood friends: Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield. Both characters have a deep-rooted interest in each other s li es, ho e er, both lives are now distinguished by colour and race, as Clare becomes desperate to pass as white, to save her wealth and marriage. This concept is significantly important when discussing Clare Kendr s conscio s state, as Larsen pro es Clare s conscio s state as one hich is d alnat red . On the other hand, Larsen ses this d al-nat red mental state to highlight the irony and struggle of trying to claim to her black roots.

In addition, this essa

ill compare Hegel s theor of the t o-fold significance and

do ble mo ement to D Bois s theor of do ble conscio snesses in The Souls of Black Folk. W.E.B. D Bois pro ides a m ch narro er theor of do ble-conscio sness in The Souls of Black Folk, hereb he racialises the black conscio sness as one hich is born ith a eil , th s, similar to Hegel s idea of bondage , generating a po er relation as the black conscio sness is meas red thro gh the e es of others . 2 David Farrell Krell argues further in his philosophical article; The Bodies of Black Folk: From Kant and Hegel to D Bois and Bald in , hereb he compares the similarities of Hegel and D Bois. Krell s ggests that one would like to study The Souls of Black Folk against the backdrop of Hegel s Phenomenology of Spirit, not merely because of the Phenomenology s famo s dialectic of lordship and bondage b t also beca se of the do bling and the dawning of self-consciousness in both Du Bois and Hegel. For both thinkers, self-awareness is the gift of a redoubled sight, with the ision of the one filtered and refined b the ision of the other.

2

3

Both Hegel and Du Bois

W.E.B. D B , O O S a S , The Souls of Black Folk (Oxford University Press: 2007), pp.

7 14 (p. 8). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

3 Da d Fa K , T B d B ac F : F Ka a d H D B a d Ba d , boundary 2, 27 (2000), 103 34 (p. 105). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

29

explore the idea of race and colour in relation to a power relation; Hegel does so through his depiction of the mental battle of the d al-nat red conscio s mind hich in effect takes on the shape of D Bois s ph sical conseq ences of the black conscio s being meas red through the e es of the others (Krell, p. 105).

Larsen s Passing follows a dynamic narrative of two characters living with conflicting et similar tho ghts

ith regards to the colo r line . Thro gh Larsen s emplo ment of the

free-indirect discourse, the narrator dips in and out of the conscious minds of Irene and Clare who are presented as direct foils to each other, or in other words, they are female gothic do bles. Most significantl , the concept of passing refers to the process of transcending from black to white in American society. 4 This idea of transcending from black to white in society is e plained thoro ghl

b

Al in James Henr

ho addresses the notion of mimetic

relationship bet een Clare Kendr in Passing and the history of the black culture and community. Henry suggests that

Clare performs mimesis. She (must) pass for white and therefore must learn upper class femininity and its cultural performance. Unlike Irene, who, in the opening scene of the novel, forgets that she s engaged in an act of passing, Clare remains incessantly self-conscious of her unstable racial identity and of her inability to represent wholeness/whiteness. She is the semblance [that] is a promise of nonsemblance . Clare fla lessl passes and pro ides the semblance of a white phenotype and culture, but she never embraces her own mimesis as the truth. Clare does not identify herself as white but neither is she one of the many other dominated black women who populate the novel. In marking Clare as occupying a limbo space possibly a space of abjection

Larsen crafts a mimetic relationship to the figure of the

prehistoric black woman before her domination.5

4

Nella Larsen, Passing (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), p. 25.

A Ja H , S c 3: T ac F d , B ac P Black Women: Anti-b ac A c a d F a M 5

or

R B d

d,

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;N a La R a , in Through the

30

Ho e er, this process of passing in bet een the colo r line generates comple la ers of hypocrisy, irony and a d al-nat red conscio sness

ith a foc s on the contin o s rec cling

of the inescapable and inferior position of black people in society. Larsen indicates that this endless struggle occurred due to the compliance of following such a socially constructed hierarch in the 1920 s, as

passing carries the connotation of being accepted for something

one is not .6 Th s, sing Hegel and D Bois s theories collaborati el , Larsen s no el e plores the relationship between the black self-consciousness which is projected differently by the two diverging self-consciousnesses of Irene and Clare.

Hegel arg es that in order to attain sense-certaint and perception of the selfconscio s tr th , self-conscio sness is nderstood firstl thro gh the prono n I as an object and a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;being-in-itself (Hegel, p. 104). However, it does not simply end there, as for one individual self-consciousness to survive and recognise itself, it must encounter another selfconsciousness that is a separate consciousness of its own. However, this second consciousness is considered the other as it immediatel places a t ofold significance on the first selfconsciousness as the first self-conscio sness has lost itself, for it finds itself as an other being , b t also, in the other sees its o n self (Hegel, p. 111). Th s, the other a tomaticall becomes the

nessential negati el , characterised object

conscio sness m t all

hich contains its o n indi id al sense of

hile allo ing both conscio snesses to alidate each other s e istences, b

recognising each other (Hegel, pp. 112 13). Consequently, both competing

conscio snesses form an immediate po er relationship as the

form the Lordship and

Bondage , as one becomes the Lord and the other becomes the bondsman (Hegel, p. 115).

Therefore, this relationship concl des that the [s]elf-consciousness achieves its satisfaction Second Looking Glass: Inventing the Minority Bildungsroman (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of California, 2012), pp. 40 1.

6 C E. B ac , T V La : Rac a d S a N a La ' Pa , College Literature, 22 (1995), 50 67 (p. 52).

31

only in another self-consciousness (Hegel, p. 110). This recognition of the self-consciousness, ho e er, leads to a q estion of its identit

and a tr e ret rn into itself , therefore d plicating

its self-consciousness within itself to form the Unhapp conscio sness (Hegel, p. 126). The Unhapp

conscio sness becomes the conscio sness of self as a d al-natured, merely

contradictor being di iding itself into the changeable and

nchangeable

hich are alien

to each other (Hegel, pp. 126 27). A similar sense of division between the one and same selfconsciousness can be seen in D Bois s theor . D Bois narrows this division down to a racialised form of identit

hich comes into conflict ith itself. Ho e er, the conflict does

not come from an other competing self-consciousness, but it comes from accepting or recognising the black self-conscio sness as letting him see himself thro gh the re elation of the other orld (D Bois, p. 8). Therefore, D Bois identifies the black self-consciousness as a do ble conscio sness that has a t o-ness

an American, a Negro; t o so ls ,

ith a

perpet al sense of al a s looking at one s self thro gh the e es of others (D Bois, p. 8).

Hegel s theor of the d al-nat red Unhapp Conscio sness and D Bois s do ble conscio sness pro ides an insight into the conflict bet een an indi id al self-consciousness in relation to its identit . Larsen emplo s Clare Kendr as a character

ho is in an endless

competition between her African and American identity, resulting in her competing for one or the other. This Unhapp conscio sness res lts from tr ing to form an immediate unity but ith t o opposites; the simple Unchangeable, it takes to be the essential Being; but the other, the protean Changeable, it takes to be the nessential (Hegel, pp. 126 27). The contradiction arises from the inabilit to process both states as nessential, despite calling one the essential , and the other, the

nessential. The self-consciousness recognises that it needs both the

Changeable and the Unchangeable states as essentials to form an immediate nit properly. Consequently, it leaves the self-consciousness in a state of contradiction and in opposites (Hegel, p. 127). Similarl , D Bois arg es that it is the contradiction of do ble

32

aims. The double-aimed str ggle of the black artisan (D Bois, p. 9). Hegel might pro ide the psychological and spiritual notion of the self-conscious mind in relation to its duality, but Du Bois provides the socio-political explanation for such a conflict. Du Bois argues that the black self-conscio sness carries its American Negro histor of his strife onto his back in order to access his tr er self (D Bois, p. 9). This means that he

o ld not Africanise America for

America has too m ch to teach the orld and Africa , b t neither o ld he bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the orld (D Bois, p. 9). This inevitably leads to a competition, in an attempt to grasp both identities; one of the Negro souls which aims to carry on the strife of black people, and the other of the American, which aims to show off knowledge that is beneficial for the entire world.

Yet, the black artisan fails to carry the burden of both identities in fear of rejection.

D Bois f rther s ggests that the black conscio sness simpl

ishes to make it

possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fello s,

itho t ha ing the doors of Opport nit closed ro ghl in his face (D Bois, p.

9). Larsen provides the dual relationship between Africa and America through the interaction bet een Irene and Clare, similar to D Bois s theor of double consciousness as Clare asserts that it is m ch easier to [pass] gloating tone

ith

hite people (Larsen, p. 26). Yet, she contradicts this

ith anger, iron and fr stration as she immediatel follo s

ith I

as

determined to get away, to be a person and not a charity or a problem, or even a daughter of the indiscreet Ham. Then, too, I

anted things. I kne

I

asn t bad-looking and that I could

pass . [ ] When I sed to go o er to the so th side, I sed almost to hate all of o . Yo had all the things I anted and ne er had had (Larsen, p. 27). [

] the co ldn t forgi e the tar-

brush. They forbade me to mention Negroes to the neighbours, or even to mention the south side (Larsen, p. 28). Clare s tone of anger and iron is hinted in her se of the biblical reference to Ham . Clare alidates D Bois s earlier arg ment of tr ing to carr the American negro

33

histor of Strife onto her back. Thro gh her reference to Ham , she dra s attention to the biblical narration from Genesis 9:20 27, to sho

ho

sla e holders in the United States

applied this Biblical account to Africans and used it as a justification for slavery as a political means (Larsen, E planator Notes, p. 123). Like ise, the derogator term tar-br sh

as

used by Clare ironically as an indication towards her African ancestry, derived from the descripti e sa ing, Black as tar (Larsen, E planator Notes, p. 123). Furthermore, Paul Gilroy in his book The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness argues that

[the] development of black culture in America and Europe is a historical experience which can be called modern for a number of clear and specific reasons. For Hegel, the dialectic of master and slave was integral to modernity, and Gilroy considers the implications of this idea for a transatlantic culture.7

Th s, Gilro approaches D Bois s theor , agreeing that the concept of do ble conscio sness with which The Souls of Black Folks commenced [

] as initiall

sed to con e the special

difficulties arising from black internalisation of an American identit . 8 This can also be seen at the beginning of the novel through Larsen herself carrying over another African American identit as she q otes Co ntee C llen s Heritage :

One three centuries removed From the scenes his fathers loved, Spicy grove, cinnamon tree, What is Africa to me?

7

Pa G , Ab b , The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993) <https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674076068> [accessed 15 August 2020].

8 Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 126.

34

This poem e amines the role of c lt re in the shaping of identit and q estions the dialogic between an African past and a European-influenced present for African-Americans (Larsen, E planator Notes , p. 123). Conseq entl , Larsen refle i el p ts herself into this c cle of carrying the African history which Du Bois suggests, as she continues this method into literature through the epigraph. By doing so, she highlights the socio-political influences which res lted in a mass identification of a sense of do ble-conscio sness amongst blackconsciousnesses within the African American community.

Moreover, the significance of irony is central throughout the novel. Du Bois suggests that in order for one to attain his place in the orld, he m st be himself, and not another (D Bois, p. 11). The irony springs from the unreliable narrator Irene herself who stands up for the middle-class lifestyle, secure in her position and observing those around her with judgemental eyes. Larsen uses Clare as a character who challenges the acceptance of this comfortable position in societ b highlighting the challenges and sacrifices that a tr e African American m st ndergo, in order to attain self-realisation and self-respect (D Bois, p. 11). Yet, Irene ironically has lost her sense of black heritage, focusing on her middle-class lifestyle with the security it brings, and her refusal to reject changes

in effect she has passed into the

conventionalised, mechanised, non-h mane hite orld .9 However, this attitude which Irene holds is passed onto Clare, making her a scapegoat as a conseq ence of Irene failing to recognise her inabilit to attain her place in the t o-fold significance as she has ironicall

orld. As a res lt, Irene alidates Hegel s

lost her self-conscio sness, and finds itself in

an other being , and in the other sees itself. Upon meeting Clare for the first time, certain ineffaceable characteristics

9

ere noted b Irene in order to e genicall identif Clare as the

Ma Mab Y a , N a La ' Passing: A S d I , CLA Journal, 18 (1974), 235 41 (p. 236).

Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

35

African American woman.10 Clare appeared to ha e those dark, almost black e es [

] against

the i or of her skin (Larsen, p. 16). Ironicall , Irene points o t that

white people were so stupid about such things for all that they usually asserted that they were able to tell; and by the most ridiculous means. Finger-nails, palms of hands, shapes of ears, teeth, and other eq all sill rot. [

] No, the

oman sitting there staring at her co ldn t

possibly know that she was a Negro.

(Larsen, p. 17)

Intrig ingl , the shift in ga e is pla ed aro nd here as Larsen ses Irene s narration to observe the African American characteristics of Clare. Contrarily, what happens is the ironical re ersal of ga e as Irene s emplo ment of these sill

characteristics when identifying Clare

is a reflection of her o n self-consciousness. At this point, unconsciously, the two selfconscio snesses, Irene s and Clare s recognise themselves as mutually recognising each other in a po er relation. This is e plicitl made clear through the free indirect discourse as the narration e poses the tho ght of Irene being disco ered a Negro as Abs rd! and Impossible!

hich in t rn res lted in Irene feeling anger, scorn and fear (Larsen, p. 17).

This was an emotional response to the idea of being ejected from an place, e en in the polite and tactf l

a in

hich the Dra ton

o ld probabl do, that dist rbed her (Larsen, p. 17).

D Bois arg es parallel to this e act fear s ggesting that for the first time he so ght to anal se the burden he bore upon his back, the dead-weight of social degradation partially masked behind a half-named Negro problem (D Bois, p. 12). This fear of dead- eight or the apparently problematic issue of eugenics continues further down the generations as Larsen employs Gertrude Martin as another mouthpiece to expose such fears. Gertrude admits that she

10

Werner Sollors, Neither Black nor White yet Both: Thematic Explorations of Interracial Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 250.

36

as scared to death , in case one of her children might go a back and t rn o t dark as it s awful the way it skips generations and then pops o t (Larsen, p. 37). Th s, Irene ironicall identifies Clare through a eugenicist attitude without realising that she is further allowing social degradation to contin e as a conseq ence.

F rthermore, despite the mutually recognised black self-consciousnesses between Irene and Clare, a complication arises from this realisation

hich poses a threat to both

consciousnesses as Irene becomes a dominating figure in their relationship. Thus, the similarities in racial consciousness become blurred as there seems to be a deeper, personal problem hich Irene cannot deal ith. Clare is narrated nreliabl b Irene as passing from black to hite and as someone ho cared nothing for the race (Larsen, p, 47). However, Clare uses this strategy to challenge the readers into reconsidering her method of fighting for her race as in fact; she is determined to come back to her black heritage e en nder the fa ade of her white lifestyle with her racist husband. On the other hand,

Irene's major concerns in life are security, middle-class morality, and middle-class standing.

Anything that threatens these values must be destroyed. In turn, Irene has lost her black heritage of spontaneity, freedom from convention, and zest for life. She is uneasily aware that her life lacks the highest goals, but she rejects changes - in effect she has

passed into the

conventionalised, mechanised, non-humane white world.

(Youman, p. 236)

Therefore, the iron in Clare s death is a c clical contin ation of the societal oices hich e ist in modern society; the preservers of an artificial, middle-class lifestyle who thrive and the continued degradation of the black heritage which diminishes thro gh death as death is the nat ral negation of conscio sness (Hegel, p. 114). Irene foreshado s Clare s death earlier on as she had a tho ght hich she tried to dri e a a . If Clare sho ld die! Then-Oh, it was vile!

37

To think, es, to

ish that! [

] B t the tho ght sta ed

ith her. She co ld not get rid of it

(Larsen, p. 105). Clare had become a challenge for Irene as her independent selfconscio sness

as against Irene s al es of sec rit , middle-class morality and middle-class

standing . According to Hegel,

Death certainly shows that each staked his life and held it of no account, both in himself and in the other; but that is not for those who survived the struggle. They put an end to their consciousness in their alien setting of natural existence, that is to say, they put an end to themselves, and are done away with its extremes wanting to be for themselves, or to have an existence of their own.

(Hegel, p. 114)

Hence, Clare e poses the t o-ness of Irene, the constr ction of a gender po er relationship that she generates b not onl deciding j dgmentall ho life can be taken a a . Ironicall , Irene selfishl highlighting that it

as eno gh to s ffer as a

itho t ha ing to s ffer for the race as

selfish Clare is, b t also hen her balances Clare against her race ,

oman, an indi id al on one s o n acco nt, ell (Larsen, p. 101). Th s, Irene s tr e

consciousness is exposed as she is unable to socially integrate both her race and gender within her societ , res lting in her becoming selfish and killing the onl threat to her hich is Clare ho is able to pla along and carr the b rden of the black heritage right nder the e es of the hite men ho ha e constr cted higher and lo er races (D Bois, p. 12). As a res lt, both Irene and Clare remain each other s gothic do bles as strangers to each other in their morals, attitudes and self-consciousnesses, despite the racial similarities they both possess (Larsen, p. 64).

Conclusively, Hegel and Du Bois provide similar notions of explaining the t o-ness of the self-conscio s mind, or the notion of do ble conscio sness in disc ssion

ith the

38

individual consciousness and its relation to another consciousness. Du Bois racialises the theory further developing a gaze for the black consciousness, whereby the black consciousness is born

ith a eil . Both theorists enco nter the other self-conscio sness as a negati e

object either forming a po er relation s ch as the Lordship and Bondage or the po erless position of seeing oneself thro gh the e es of the other . Both t pes of bondages can be seen in Larsen s depiction of the black self-consciousness amongst her female characters Irene and Clare, who appear to be similar racially, yet completely different in their moral beliefs.

Intrig ingl , thro gh Larsen s se of the free indirect disco rse, Larsen challenges the readers to question the socio-political climate of the Harlem Renaissance, as she fits herself into the c cle of carr ing the histor of the black heritage , both through this literary voice but also through her employment of another poem in her epigraph from a black poet. Thus, Larsen reflexively becomes an active participant in carrying on the history of the African American struggle for an independent unveiled identity, paving a way towards change for the community.

Works cited Blackmer, Corinne E., The Veils of the La : Race and Se alit in Nella Larsen's Passing , College Literature, 22 (1995), 50 67 Du Bois, W.E.B., Of O r Spirit al Stri ings , in The Souls of Black Folk (Oxford University Press: 2007), pp. 7 14 Gilro , Pa l, Abo t this book , in The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993) <https://www.hup.harvard.edu/cat alog.php?isbn=9780674076068> [accessed 15 August 2020] Paul, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993) Henr , Al in James, Section 3: Traces of Freedom, or the Black Primiti e Re ised , in â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Nella Larsen s Rog e Black Women: Anti-black Aesthetics and the Formation of the

39

Minorit

Bild ngsroman , in Through the Second Looking Glass: Inventing the

Minority Bildungsroman (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of California, 2012), pp. 40 41 Krell, David Farrell, The Bodies of Black Folk: From Kant and Hegel to D Bois and Bald in , Boundary, 27 (2000), 103 34 Larsen, Nella, Passing (New York: Penguin Books, 1997) Sollors, Werner, Neither Black nor White yet Both: Thematic Explorations of Interracial Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) Yo man, Mar Mabel, Nella Larsen's Passing: A St d in Iron , CLA Journal, 18 (1974), 235 41

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69143

The Wild and the Not-So-Wild: Environments, Settings, and Narrative in Middlemarch and Wuthering Heights.

Samuel Blackburn

In Emil Bront s Wuthering Heights and George Eliot s Middlemarch, environments cultivate a general sense of commonalit and a wa of life between each novel s characters, which shapes their interactions, lifestyles, and prospects. However, to reshape specific characters, aside from how the general environment shapes them, each author employs the use of settings specific places that produce a psychological change in particular characters that is not possible in the wider, universal environment. For e ample, [t]here is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatl determined b what lies outside it closes George Eliot s Middlemarch, the narrator rounding off their Stud of Provincial Life with an affirmation of the communal and shared over the individual. 1 However, Eliot s novel also contains specific locations that differ in usage, and impact the characters in a way that is unique to them, rather than impacting all the characters. If the universal can be considered as a te t s environment, then these more specific spaces can be seen as settings. Emil Bront s novel Wuthering Heights also makes this distinction but challenges its application by virtue of its narrative aims.

For Brontë, the environment is a dramatic feature in itself, whereas Eliot conceives of it as a

1

George Eliot, Middlemarch, ed. by Rosemary Ashton (Great Britain: Penguin Books Ltd, 2003), p. 838.

Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

41

unifying, but a less active and drastic feature of the characters lives. In Middlemarch, the environment facilitates a web of connections that those individuals interact with and exist within, but does not govern or change them to the same extent as in Wuthering Heights. To achieve this change, Eliot sets the characters into specific settings that produce the intensity required for a shift in characters inner lives.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines environment as [t]he ph sical surroundings or conditions in which a person or other organism lives, develops, or in which a thing exists; the external conditions in general affecting the life, existence, or properties of an organism or object.

2

The environments of these texts are the provincial town of Middlemarch and the

Yorkshire moors in Wuthering Heights. These environments encompass the lives of all the characters

the e ternal conditions in general , not the specifics. But as well as general

environments, these novels also contain separate, distinct settings which produce a particular outcome, change, or realisation key to the plot that could not have occurred in the general environment of the novel. The OED defines setting as [t]he action of set in various transitive senses; putting, placing, planting. Also, the fact of being set , which implies a character being set somewhere for a specific purpose. 3 Unlike environment, it is not general. As set itself suggests, someone must be placed there, rather than the more general ph sical surroundings or conditions of environments. Whilst Eliot, in her Stud , is writing as a realist novelist to truly represent the everyday realities of her town, BrontĂŤ utilises the moorland environment to show extremes and the power of nature over all human life. While this does not challenge the distinction, it reveals how the different writers aims and literar movements or moments can impact their application.

2

environment , in OED Online (Oxford: Oxford University Press) <https://oed.com/view/Entry/63089?redirectedFrom=environment#eid> [accessed 14 May 2020].

3 setting , in OED Online (Oxford: Oxford University Press) <https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/176859?rskey=f92uPM&result=3&isAdvanced=false#eid> [accessed 14 May 2020].

42

Beginning with environment, that of Middlemarch is the town of the title, the subject of Eliot s Stud of Provincial Life , removed from London and urban life. In The Ecological Plot, John MacNeill Miller claims that, in Middlemarch, there is an awareness in the narration of a connectivity that being in a natural environment cultivates. Miller states that in this environment, there are relations that reall , universall stop nowhere, and [that the narrator focuses] instead on some manageable section of the web of ecological and social connection. 4 The narrator shows this awareness by associating community and rurality with nature, saying that [s]cenes which make vital changes in our neighbours lot are but the background of our own, yet, like a particular aspect of the fields and trees, they become associated for us with the epochs of our own histor

(Eliot, p. 326). B describing the human relations in the town

through the natural imager of fields and trees , Eliot s narrator affirms the environment s importance in cultivating a sense of interconnectedness in the social world. As Miller states, the narrator chose a manageable section of the web , as to narrate it all would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel s heart beat (Eliot, p. 194). Provincial life, b virtue of its inherent connection with nature, is more connected in every sense as Miller writes, this web s connections stop nowhere , sociall or ecologicall .

Urban life, without ecology, is therefore less connected. GK Chesterton wrote of urban and rural living that in a large [urban] community we can choose our companions. In a small [rural] communit our companions are chosen for us.

5

Middlemarch shows that, just as the

narrator discriminates against parts of the web to focus on others in the rural town, by the end of the novel, characters have moved out of that environment and into the city; they can then apply that same selective method that the narrator demonstrates, but in their own lives. Ian Duncan defines a provincial location b its difference from the metropolis

4

by the fact that it

John MacNeill Miller, The Ecological Plot: A Brief Histor of Multispecies Stor telling, from Malthus to Middlemarch , Victorian Literature and Culture, 48 (2020), 155 85 (p. 174).

5 GK Chesterton, On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family, April 1996, <http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/heretics/ch14.html> [accessed 16 May 2020].

43

is not London. 6 Hence, if to be in a rural environment means one must live in a web, connected to nature and ever one around ou, conversel , Miller s conception of the web is lost when the rurality is swapped for the urban, human, and individualistic metropolis.

Duncan s definition and its implications for the web of ecolog correspond to the ending of the novel when Lydgate and Rosamond leave for London in order to pursue individual goals (and to escape the enclosed communit s gossip of Lydgate and the Bulstrode scandal). Awa

from Middlemarch, L dgate gained an e cellent practice, alternating,

according to the season, between London and a Continental bathing-place (Eliot, p. 834). The narrator thereby directly associates personal success with a lack of ruralit in London s urban and selective communit . Miller s assertion that Middlemarch chooses to focus on some manageable section of the web since the connections are so indefinite, is true of the narrator in the bulk of the novel. But b the end in Finale , L dgate assumes this power and controls his own web b leaving Middlemarch s environment of connectivit in favour of the opposite environment of London where he can form his own, individual community or web, as Chesterton outlined. The difference, then, between these environments is a matter of choice.

The rural environment of Middlemarch limits characters independence, but the are still free to leave at the end and choose their company. It is not so great as to limit them. Eliot is measured and scientific

fitting in with the novel as a Stud

in her presentation of

environment, showing how it impacts characters without turning it into a dramatic feature of extremes. Characters exist within it, are free to leave, and therefore understand its limitations.

Emil

Bront s Wuthering Heights, unsurprisingly, does not use the universal

environment in the same measured way as Eliot. Charlotte BrontĂŤ wrote of her sister Emily that the moors were what she lived in, and b , which seems to be true, by choice or not, of

6

Ian Duncan, The Provincial or Regional Novel , in A Companion to the Victorian Novel, ed. by Patrick Brantlinger and William B. Thesing (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002) pp. 318 55 (p. 322).

44

the characters in Wuthering Heights.7 Like Middlemarch, the Yorkshire moors are separate from London and urban life, but also from provincial life, towns, society, and civilisation. It is a natural environment that encompasses everything in the novel nothing that is narrated takes place directly outside it, the narration only ever hinting at events in London and the neighbouring towns. In his Signs of the Times (1829), Thomas Carlyle wrote that his contemporary age is the Age of Machiner , in ever outward and inward sense. [ ] We war with rude Nature; and, b our restless engines, come off alwa s victorious . 8 There, Carlyle associates the emerging industrial Age of Machiner

with human power over nature, and that

there is an outward and inward awareness of this dominion and efficienc . B setting her novel in the late 18th Century, narrated in 1801, BrontĂŤ can be seen to be avoiding the age Carlyle outlines and its power over nature, reversing it in favour of one where humans are at the merc of nature. Since Carl le s believes that there is an inward aspect to the Age of Machinery, there must be, conversely, an inward aspect to the age of nature. Wuthering Heights environment of indomitable nature (the term Wuthering defined b Lockwood as descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is e posed in storm weather ), is powerful, dangerous, remote, and shapes its characters to reflect this tumult in, as Carl le writes, ever outward and inward sense.

9

Butler Wood wrote that the characters in Wuthering Heights are intended as human embodiments of those fierce and relentless powers of nature , which is highlighted when Lockwood, an urban, civilised figure, first meets Heathcliff

the archetypal rural, roughened

figure.10 After seeing Lockwood struggle with a dozen nibbling sheepdogs, Heathcliff tells him 7

Currer Bell, Editor s Preface to the New [1850] Edition of Wuthering Heights , in Wuthering Heights, ed. by Pauline Nestor (England: Penguin Books, 2003), p. ii. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

8 Thomas Carlyle, Signs of the Times (1829) <http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/carlyle/signs1.html> [accessed 17 May 2020].

9 Emily BrontĂŤ, Wuthering Heights, ed. by Pauline Nestor (England: Penguin Books, 2003), p. 4. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

10 Butler Wood, Influence of the Moorlands on Charlotte and Emil Bront , BrontĂŤ Society Transactions, 32 (1922), 79 87 (p. 82).

45

The won t meddle with persons who touch nothing , impl ing guilt on Lockwood s part (BrontĂŤ, p. 7). Immediately, Heathcliff, in the tumult of Wuthering Heights that sits beyond heath and mud on a bleak hill top [where] the earth was hard with a black frost , is described as embodying those same frosty, unfriendly qualities, uninterested in politeness or consideration, as Butler implied (BrontĂŤ, p. 9). This effect of the environment is also demonstrated in the customs and lifestyle at Wuthering Heights. On his second visit, Lockwood s attempts at conversation are rebuked b Miss Catherine:

Were ou asked to tea? she demanded, t ing an apron over her neat black frock, and standing with a spoonful of the leaf poised over the pot.

I shall be glad to have a cup, I answered.

Were ou asked? she repeated.

No, I said, half smiling. You are the proper person to ask me.

She flung the tea back, spoon and all; and resumed her chair in a pet, her forehead corrugated, and her red under-lip pushed out like a child s read to cr .

(BrontĂŤ, p. 11)

Not only do the servants not make the tea, but she, the most senior woman of the house if all was in order, is e pected to do it. Cath does not abide b Lockwood s civilised customs him telling her,

ou are the proper person to ask me , at which she sulks and insults her guest. Like

the snowstorm that later means Lockwood must stay overnight at Wuthering Heights, she pays no attention to his ideas or plans, but rebukes them with the same indifference that nature has towards humans. Before Carl le s Age of Machiner

where humans are at the behest of

nature, at Wuthering Heights, Lockwood is at the behest of people whose indifference to him is shaped by that of the natural environment.

46

When he sta s the night, he too is altered b the environment s roughening force. When the ghost of young Catherine Earnshaw crashes her arm through the window, Lockwood pulled its wrist on to the broke pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bed-clothes

a considerable transformation from lecturing Catherine on tea

etiquette earlier that evening (Bront , p. 25). Butler s statement does not specify whether it is onl those who live in Wuthering Heights who embod nature s fierceness. It might be added that those who enter the Heights and the moors risk becoming shaped to embody these qualities due to the power of the environment. Eliot s representation of environment, in a realist novel that is posited as a study, shows environment to impact every character, but not overpower them completely. BrontĂŤ is showing, in this period before human dominance, how she conceives of nature. It is more impressionistic than Middlemarch, relating to her personal view of wildness and brutalit . As Charlotte Bront said of her, she lived in, and b

the moors,

encompassed completely by them, and that attitude seems to be represented in Wuthering Heights, especiall seen in Lockwood s transformation (Bell, p. ii). Eliot is observing and studying the universal impact of environment, whereas BrontĂŤ is creating a Romanticised impression of it. Either way, both stick to the OED definition of environment being general and impacting or interacting with everyone indiscriminately.

So, while both te ts environments affect ever one in the novels, however severel , BrontĂŤ and Eliot place characters in separate settings to trigger a certain change that was not possible in the general environment. As outlined, the OED definition of setting implies a more active placing, to set someone somewhere, and the authors choose specific, crafted settings to change characters. The term spaces is perhaps too coincidental or passive for this use, as settings are more akin to scenes in a play

a structured device to help the author reach

a narrative goal. Thrushcross Grange is a setting which is walled off from the uncivilised harmony of nature and humans at the Heights and the environment of the moors, and it has a

47

great impact on Cath . After a dog attack, she sta ed at Thrushcross Grange five weeks, till Christmas. B that time her ankle was thoroughl cured, and her manners much improved (Brontë, p. 53). Heathcliff says of seeing it, [w]e should have thought ourselves in heaven!

(Brontë, p. 48). The Grange is recognisably more civilised and to Heathcliff, who has known nothing but the cruel environment of Wuthering Heights, it seems heavenly, such is its difference. This is significant for the narrative as Cath s much improved manners turn her away from the Heights and its uncivilised customs, and thus Heathcliff who embodies them.

She remarks famousl , It would degrade me to marr Heathcliff, now , which in turn sets up their reunion as Cath dies, and Heathcliff s bitterness and revenge in volume two (Bront , p.

81). As a setting rather than an environment, Brontë can ensure that change occurs in only Cathy rather than everyone, and in a separate location to it, meaning the Heights retains the same roughness, allowing for the later contrast and conflict with Cathy.

However, there are e ceptions to the moors natural environment being all-powerful.

Surely, Cathy would revert to her old, roughened ways as soon as she leaves the setting of the Grange, as the environment is so powerful. Albeit not immediately, in her dying moments she does revert after seeing Heathcliff again, and is reminded of her past love for him in the moors environment, contrasting her civility at the grange. Realising this, she sa s, I wish I were out of doors I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hard , and free [

] Wh am I so changed?

[ ] I m sure I should be m self were I once among the heather on those hills (Bront , pp.

125 26). Helen Small sees Wuthering Heights and Cath s arc in particular as being centred on degradation, writing [i]f we are what we are, b nature, degradation and elevation are merel

superficial . 11 This passage shows that Cath s nature, the thing Small sees as the

foundations above which those superficial civilised or degraded aspects are constructed, is

11

Helen Small, Degraded Nature Wuthering Heights and the Last Poems of Emil Bront , in The Brontës and the Idea of the Human, ed. by Alexandra Lewis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 147 67 (p.

155).

48

associated with the heather on those hills not the civilit of the Grange. Cruciall , here she begins to realise her superficial shaping b the setting, and in questioning Wh am I so changed? realises that her true self, her nature, is one with her environment, not setting, a realisation prompted b Heathcliff s return. Nell Dean potentiall challenges this supremac of environment, as she is presented as rational and caring, unlike the environment, despite also existing within it. However, it must be remembered that Nelly narrates most of the novel, so can present herself as she wishes, and does so whilst inside the separate, heavenly, and civilised Grange setting, and with the civil-minded Lockwood. She does not challenge the superficiality of her setting, whereas due to her love for Heathcliff, Cathy does. Nelly can therefore be seen to be sheltering from the environment s power, rather than being an e ception to it.

Dorothea undergoes something similar to Cathy at the Grange when she is in Rome, but unlike Bront , Eliot presents this setting as more powerful than the novel s environment.

Adam Wright, in discussing Dorothea when she sees her room at Lowick Manor, states that she is perfectl content with the place or, more precisel , with her interpretation of the place.

12

In the environment of Middlemarch, Dorothea can form an opinion of the surroundings, such is its neutrality on matters of opinion and interpretation. Later, Eliot sets Dorothea in Rome, which is described as the cit of visible histor , where the past of a whole hemisphere e ists around her (Eliot, p. 192). Dorothea is placed in a location that does not allow an interpretation of itself other than the one it embodies. Wright does not note that the room at Lowick Manor, as well as being associated with her idealised vision of married life with Casaubon, does not inherently represent anything

it is a blank canvas in terms of ideas, which allows Dorothea

to impose her ideals upon it. Eliot s narrator grasps that a setting, not an environment, embodies

12

Adam Wright, The Representation of Place in Middlemarch , The George Eliot Review, 41 (2010), 51 9 (p.

52).

49

ideas, just as Thrushcross Grange embodies heaven and civilit , and shows that Dorothea s ideals cannot be imposed upon Rome s visible history:

But let them conceive one more historical contrast: the gigantic broken revelations of that Imperial and Papal city thrust abruptly on the notions of a girl who had been brought up in English and Swiss Puritanism, fed on meagre Protestant histories and on art chiefly of the handscreen sort; a girl whose ardent nature turned all her small allowance of knowledge into principles, fusing her actions into their mould, and whose quick emotions gave the most abstract things the quality of a pleasure or a pain; a girl who had lately become a wife, and from the enthusiastic acceptance of untried duty found herself plunged in tumultuous preoccupation with her personal lot.

(Eliot, p. 193)

Whereas before her small allowance of knowledge had allowed her to embod her opinions without fear of them being challenged, when Dorothea meets the grandeur of an Imperial and Papal cit

and all its cultural strength, this now becomes impossible for her to sustain. Those

meagre Protestant histories she based her acceptance of Casaubon on are suddenl opposed by this setting. Rome as a place of ignorance for Dorothea is solidified when she admits to Will Ladislaw, I am seeing so much all at once, and not understanding half of it (Eliot, p. 206).

Like Wuthering Heights, this setting has significance for the plot as it is where she sees Will Ladislaw again, and the inklings of attraction begin developing as remorse at her marriage grows. This is vital for the end of the novel and Casaubon s cruel will, dictating that she cannot marry him. Cathy also changes her mind on marriage in a setting, deciding fatally on Linton.

However, Bront s conception of environment eventuall overrules the setting s impact once it is left, whereas Eliot allows Dorothea to keep her changed conclusions as she returns to a less offensive, more neutral environment.

50

That distinction reveals the ultimate difference between Middlemarch and Wuthering Heights conceptions of environment, setting, and how they shape their characters. Brontë presents environment as more powerful, shaping those who enter it into its own image with its brutal, untameable nature. For Eliot, environment is synonymous with a way of life; to be provincial is to live by certain rules and considerations

but all of which are escapable. The

fact that environments are not based on choices but force all the characters into a certain lifestyle, and that settings are built upon producing a particular decision, realisation, or attitude that is opposed to the general environment, reveals how each function in the novels. The point of difference is that Brontë allows environment to overrule and shape everything, acting more like a universal, indiscriminate setting, or at least with similar power. Whereas Eliot has an altogether subtler approach, allowing characters to eventually reverse the premise of the question and shape their own environments by setting themselves where they wish.

Environments and settings, then, have narrative significance that can be used to different extremes, but still operate in each text within similar definitions

the universal environment

and the opposing, individual setting.

Works cited Bell, Currer, Editor s Preface to the New [1850] Edition of Wuthering Heights , in Wuthering Heights, ed. by Pauline Nestor (England: Penguin Books, 2003) Brontë, Emily, Wuthering Heights, ed. by Pauline Nestor (England: Penguin Books, 2003) Carlyle, Thomas, Signs of the Times (1829) <http://www.victorianweb.org/author/carlyle/signs 1.html> [accessed 17 May 2020] Chesterton, GK, On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family, April 1996 <http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/heretics/ch14.html> [accessed 16 May 2020]

51

Duncan, Ian, The Provincial or Regional Novel , in A Companion to the Victorian Novel, ed.

by Patrick Brantlinger and William B. Thesing (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002) pp. 318 55 Eliot, George, Middlemarch, ed. by Rosemary Ashton (Great Britain: Penguin Books Ltd, 2003) Miller, John MacNeill, The Ecological Plot: A Brief Histor of Multispecies Stor telling, from Malthus to Middlemarch , Victorian Literature and Culture, 48 (2020), 155 85 OED Online, environment , (Oxford: Oxford University Press) <https://oed.com/view/Entry/63089?redirectedFrom=environment#eid> [accessed 14 May 2020] OED Online, setting , (Oxford: Oxford University Press) <https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/176859?rskey=f92uPM&result=3&isAdvanced=fa lse#ei> [accessed 14 May 2020] Small, Helen, Degraded Nature Wuthering Heights and the Last Poems of Emil Bront , in The BrontĂŤs and the Idea of the Human, ed. by Alexandra Lewis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 147 67 Wood, Butler, Influence of the Moorlands on Charlotte and Emil Bront , BrontĂŤ Society Transactions, 32 (1922), 79 87 Wright, Adam, The Representation of Place in Middlemarch , The George Eliot Review, 41 (2010), 51 9

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69145

M Father Bleeds Histor : Survivor s Guilt and Filial Inadequac in Art Spiegelman s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale and E.L. Doctoro

s The Book of Daniel

Danielle De Leon

Inherited and intergenerational trauma weighs heavily on the mental health of the children they concern, partic larl in E.L. Doctoro Survivor's Tale. Both Doctoro

s The Book of Daniel and Art Spiegelman s Maus: A

and Spiegelman s male protagonists, Daniel and Artie

(Spiegelman himself), turn to language and literary expression as a way of coping with these troubling legacies: Daniel through his doctoral thesis and Artie through the graphic novel itself.

Daniel and Artie struggle with feelings of filial inadequacy in the shadows of their parents, specificall their fathers. The impact of their fathers legacies on the li es and e istences of both men is immense, creeping into every aspect and reappearing in countless different forms.

This, coupled with their inherited trauma, weighs heavily upon both men throughout their respective works and raises the questions of whether one can ever truly tell a story that does not belong to them and, by extension, whether, as a descendent or living remnant, it is ever possible to let go of intergenerational tra ma and s r i or s g ilt.

Doctoro

s The Book of Daniel a fictionalised novelisation of the lives of the children

of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg here renamed as Paul and Rochelle Isaacson in the wake of

53

their execution begins and ends with Daniel, the eldest of the Isaacson siblings, in the library working on his doctoral thesis, which situates the text almost entirely in a literary space

a

space of expression. The opening of the novel is explicitly concerned with establishing this o erarching conte t b foc sing intentl on the ph sical components of Daniel s thesis:

On Memorial Day in 1967 Daniel Lewin thumbed his way from New York to Worcester, Mass., in j st nder fi e ho rs [ ] This is a Thinline felt tip marker, black. This is Composition Notebook 79C made in U.S.A. by Long Island Paper Products, Inc. This is Daniel trying one of the dark co es of the Bro sing Room [

] On the floors abo e are the special collections of

the various school libraries including the Library School Library. Downstairs there is even a branch of the Public Library. I feel encouraged to go on.1

In this passage, Doctorow hints at the complexities in identity that Daniel goes on to face as the novel unfolds, partly due to the complicated legacy of his parents, through the use of both the third and first-person oices: This is Daniel and I feel enco raged to go on . This bl rring of identities creates a sense of narrative confusion whilst, to an extent, undermining Daniel s narrative authority. The narrative voice continues to shift over the course of the novel as Daniel struggles to tell both his own story and that of his parents. Although both stories are inextricably linked, he appears to struggle in his telling of them which, in turn, begs the question: how does one tell a stor that is not their o n? The dependenc of Daniel s stor on that of his parents is demonstrated through the narrative structure of the novel. There are consistent switches from Daniel s ad lt life to his childhood as the stories appear to intert ine. Moreo er, there are no direct signals as to when these shifts occur: the narrative switches suddenly. This constant switching between narrative voice as well as temporal setting generates a certain level of

1

E. L. Doctorow, The Book of Daniel (New York: Random House, 2007), pp. 1 2. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

54

conf sion for the reader at first and creates a sense of dissociation on Daniel s part as the narrator and, indeed, author of this thesis. Despite writing a doctoral thesis, for which an academic writing style is the prerequisite, Daniel seems unable to decide on a specific style of writing, instead exploring a variety of stylistic avenues biography, autobiography, epistolary that do not necessarily reconcile themselves to this prerequisite. The ending of the novel further cements this apparent lack of direction in the academic s mmar of Daniel s thesis: DANIEL S BOOK: A Life S bmitted in Partial F lfillment of the Req irements for the Doctoral Degree in Social Biolog , Gross Entomolog , Women s Anatom , Children s Cacophony, Arch Demonolog , Eschatolog , and Thermal Poll tion (Doctoro , p. 302). B describing his thesis as a Life S bmitted in Partial F lfillment , Daniel e presses a clear sense of inadeq ac b s ggesting that his life s

ork, and b e tension his life itself, is onl ever

partially fulfilling: he does not and cannot ever fully live up to the legacy set by his parents.

The sheer breadth of his doctoral degree presents a vastness of opportunity for Daniel, none of which he can ever completely realise, leaving his entire identit as a Partial F lfillment and nothing more.

Similarly, Artie the anthropomorphic mouse form of Spiegelman himself in Maus struggles with his telling of a story that is not his own. Unlike Daniel, whose childhood unfolds parallel to the downfall of his parents, Artie inherits the legacy attached to the Holocaust, which his father experienced first-hand, without having lived through it. Just as Daniel turns to writing as a way of processing and documenting his stories, Artie turns to writing and illustration as means of e pression and stor telling. Altho gh the stor of Artie s parents, Vladek and Anja, and their life in Poland during the war pre-exists Artie, this history is inextricably tied to his own. The first volume of Maus opens in Rego Park, N.Y. c. 1958 :

55 It

as s mmer, I remember. I

Ste e

til m skate came loose

as ten or ele en

I

as roller-skating with Howie and

M father as in front, fi ing something

Wh do o cr , Artie?

I-I fell, and my friends skated away w- itho t me.

He stopped sa ing. Friends? Yo r friends? food for a eek

If o lock them together in a room

Then o co ld see hat it is, friends!

ith no

2

The inclusion of this memory in the graphic novel demonstrates the ways in which legacy is very much an inherited thing. Vladek s response to Artie s tears in okes his highl troubling past in an almost uncomfortable way. His allusions to his experience of the Holocaust is entirel o t of the scope of ten or ele en

ear old Artie s nderstanding et Vladek draws

on it regardless. Thus, for Artie, this story although not his own directly is something that weighs on him from an early age: it is an example of intergenerational trauma and the interconnectivity of familial history. For the rest of his life, Artie must come to terms with the notion that this inherited trauma will never leave him. Spiegelman includes his personal str ggles in regard to the ethics of telling his father s stor in the opening of the second ol me of Maus: J st thinking abo t m book an sense o t of m relationship of A sch it ?

It s so presumptuous of me. I mean, I can t e en make

ith m father

Ho am I s pposed to make an sense o t

Of the Holoca st? (Spiegelman, II, p. 14). Spiegelman s se of the

ord

pres mpt o s here capt res his overarching feelings of guilt associated with trying to represent or depict a story he was never party to, especially seeing as this story concerns the Holocaust. Spiegelman reinforces this guilt within the panels of the graphic novel itself through examining his internalised inadequacy without reservation in the form of a conversation with

2

Art Spiegelman, Ma : A S i Tale, 2 vols (New York: Random House, 1986), I, pp. 5 6. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

56

his wife, Franรงoise, in which he acknowledges that in depiction, there must always be a certain level of aestheticisation it is inevitable:

I know this is insane, but I somehow wish I had been in Auschwitz with my parents so I could reall kno

hat the li ed thro gh! [ ] I g ess it s some kind of guilt about having had an

easier life than the did [ ] I feel so inadeq ate tr ing to reconstr ct a realit that as worse than my darkest dreams. And trying to do it as a comic strip! I guess I bit off more than I can che . Ma be I o ght to forget the hole thing. There s so m ch I ll ne er be able to nderstand or visualize.3

Spiegelman s str ggle

ith the ethics of representation, especially within the context of a

graphic novel, is a recurring theme in the second volume of Maus as the guilt of the first ol me s s ccess takes an immense toll on him and his o n sense of artistic integrit . As Spiegelman goes on to write, realit is too complex for comics [ or distorted [

] see

hat I mean [

] in real life o d ne er let me talk this long

interr pting (Spiegelman, II, p. 16). This instance of Artie joking she

] so m ch has to be left o t

o ld ne er let [him] talk this long

itho t

ith Fran oise abo t ho

itho t interr pting is a slight e ample of ho

Spiegelman lightens his bleak subject matter with slight comedy. However, he does this in such a subtle and trepidatious way that his hesitation over its implication is evident.

Both texts fall into the category of historiographic metafiction (a term coined by Linda Hutcheon) as a result of their overarching preoccupation with the act of writing, specifically within the context of historicity although it is important to note that the categorisation of Maus as a work of fiction is potentially problematic as a result of its biographical elements in

3

Art Spiegelman, Ma : A S i Tale, 2 vols (New York: Random House, 1986), II, p. 16. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

57

reference to the real lives and experiences of the Spiegelman family. With regard to the definition of historiographic metafiction, Hutcheon writes that:

the term postmodernism, when used in fiction, should, by analogy, best be reserved to describe fiction that is at once metafictional and historical in its echoes of the texts and contexts of the past. In order to distinguish this paradoxical beast from traditional historical fiction, I would like to label it historiographic metafiction .4

Amongst the features of historiographic metafiction that Hutcheon outlines is intertextuality.

In specific reference to The Book of Daniel, Hutcheon touches on the inextricable ties between Daniel and his biblical namesake, observing that although the narrative voices follow a similar form la, s itching back and forth from first to third person, the c stomar a thorit of the biblical omniscience is ironised into the modern Daniel's futile attempts at distance and selfmaster

(H tcheon, p. 23). The iron in q estion f nctions as a narrati e tool in The Book of

Daniel whereby Doctorow posits that self-refle i it and nderstanding is f tile in the face of such a tro bling legac . Like ise, Spiegelman s se of the hierarch kingdom as an illustrative vehicle

ithin the animal

he chooses to illustrate himself and other Jewish characters

as mice operates as a tool for attempted self-reflection within a grander scheme of order. Both texts tackle the notion of creating art in both cases, storytelling in the face of historical tragedy and, subsequently, the trauma it creates. Daniel grapples with pinning down his identity, using his doctoral thesis as a means of self-investigation, and Artie struggles with the ethics of aestheticisation with regards to the harro ing realit of his father s Holoca st experience. Examining both texts from such a postmodernist lens, however, leads to the

4

Linda H tcheon, Historiographic Metafiction: Parod and the Interte t alit of Histor , in Intertextuality and Contemporary American Fiction, ed. by P. O'Donnell and Robert Con Davis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), pp. 3 32 (p. 3). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

58

concl sion that

hat historiographic metafiction challenges is both any naive realist concept

of representation and any equally naive textualist or formalist assertions of the total separation of art from the

orld (H tcheon, p. 6). No form of representation, fictional or not,

ill e er

be free from aestheticisation. Art is the medium through which human experience is to be understood and shared; it is what allows both Daniel and Artie to ultimately come to terms with their present realities as informed by their pasts as it is, for both men, a direct product of their inherited trauma.

For Spiegelman, the kno ledge that he

ill ne er tr l

e perience manifests as a form of ongoing s r i or s g ilt, Vladek s death. The title of the graphic novel Ma : A S

nderstand his parents

hich appears to intensif after i

Tale begs the question:

ho, e actl , is the s r i or in q estion? Indeed, the immediate ans er appears to be Vladek, having been the only one of the two main characters to have actually survived the Holocaust.

Yet, Artie s e perience as the child of a s r i or does not necessaril disco nt him as a survivor, despite the perceived distance between himself and the historical tragedy in question.

As Erin McGlothlin

rites: the children of the ictims and perpetrators gre

p with the

simultaneous presence and absence of Holocaust memory in their everyday lives, and thus feel profo ndl stamped b its legac . 5 Artie s specific str ggle

ith this legac stems from the

fact that he, himself, did not endure the same experience as his parents; he develops a strong sense of filial inadequacy as a result of his second-generation experience, grappling with this sim ltaneo s presence and absence (McGlothlin, Second-Generation, p. 8). Nonetheless, Artie is a product of survival and, thus, bears the burden of its continuance.

Spiegelman s ill strations in the opening of Chapter T o of the second ol me of Maus show him sat at his desk surrounded by flies as he recounts the success of the first volume. In

5

Erin McGlothlin, Second-Generation Holocaust Literature: Legacies of Survival and Perpetration (New York: Camden House, 2006), p. 8. Google eBook. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

59

the last and largest panel on the page, Spiegelman draws his desk, chair, and himself on top of the dead and decaying bodies of several anthropomorphic mice, his chosen representation for Jews. This extended metaphor of representation whereby Jews are mice, Germans are cats, and Poles are pigs appears to fall apart slightly in this volume and continues to do so within these panels. For instance, Spiegelman illustrates himself as a man wearing a mouse mask as opposed to a fully realised anthropomorphism, as he had done in the first volume, thus highlighting the problems of this conceit as well as emphasising his own feelings of inadequacy and g ilt. Spiegelman s se of the cat and mo se anthropomorphisms as a means b

hich to

illustrate the victim-perpetrator dynamics of the story is, at first, a seemingly fitting conceit.

However, upon further examination, there are issues with its consistency

almost as if

Spiegelman seems to be losing control of this narrative, which is a large fear of his throughout.

In addition to the transition from complete anthropomorphism to a man in a mouse mask, Spiegelman also includes photographs, albeit only a few, within the graphic novel, most notably a photograph of his father post-war in a concentration camp costume, a disturbing so

enir that Artie s mother, Anja, held onto (Spiegelman, II, p. 134). Thus, the story is again

displaced, this time from anthropomorphism to reality, as opposed to vice-versa, and the conceit becomes almost paradoxical. Ultimately, despite the complexities and contradictions of the conceit, Spiegelman, through his use of this extended metaphor, defamiliarises how his readers nderstand the Holoca st and, specificall , ho the

nderstand Vladek s e perience

of it. This, in itself, hearkens back to the issues of the ethics of representation and the inevitable aestheticisation of suffering as it creates a vicious cycle from which Spiegelman cannot escape and must resign himself to. The juxtaposition of his success with the bodies at his feet is a visual representation of Spiegelman s internalised g ilt at profiting from this highl personal depiction of a suffering that he never directly experiences.

60

In order to contend with the troubling legacy left to him by his father, Artie is overcome with guilt for, as his psychiatrist Pavel sa s, [e posing his] father to ridic le (Spiegelman, II, p. 44). This ridic le seems to stem from Spiegelman s feelings of filial inadeq ac in the face of his father s legac : No matter

hat I accomplish, it doesn t seem like m ch compared to

survi ing A sch it (Spiegelman, II, p. 44). Spiegelman s ill stration of himself sat opposite Pavel with the physical stature and presence of a child as opposed to as the adult he is as well as his voicing of his feelings of inadequacy here reflect the opening of the first volume.

Vladek appears to minimise Artie s sadness o er his friends b all ding to his o n e periences at Auschwitz and essentially creates a hierarchy of suffering that Artie will never truly understand. Thus, the intense strain of living in the shadow of a monumentally troubling legacy is sho n to eclipse Artie s life in s ch a a that remains inescapable across both ol mes of Maus. Spiegelman s se of the graphic no el as a means of stor telling and as a coping mechanism are an attempt to gain control of this tro bling inheritance: Sam el Beckett once said: E er

ord is like an nnecessar stain on silence and nothingness. [ ] On the other

hand, he SAID it (Spiegelman, II, p. 45). The er a thoring of the graphic no el allo s Spiegelman the one thing he needs the most a structured understanding of his father and their intertwined history by placing him in total narrative control, not only in regard to the words and dialogue, but the visual, illustrative depictions too. For example, the use of the cat and mouse conceit is the vehicle through which Artie can come to terms with and understand the d namics of his father s tra ma. The graphic no el form allo s Spiegelman a significant fluidity in his storytelling whereby time, as a narrative device, functions in such a way that Vladek s past is ne er holl separated from the present; the ill stration and narration of these e ents allo s Artie, to a certain e tent, e perience his father s past in the onl Spiegelman combines Vladek s present da

narration

a he can.

ith ill strations of past e ents,

61

transitioning smoothly from the illustrated now to the illustrated then. As Erin McGlothlin writes, the shift

suddenly transports the reader from a visual depiction of a present site of verbal narration of the past to a visual depiction of the narrated moment of the past itself. The visual seems to signif the abr pt chasm bet een past and present [ ]

hile Vladek s telling of the stor

appears to hold the two events together, linking the past and the present in the process of narration.6

McGlothlin draws comparison between the visual structure of the panels depicting the selection process at A sch it Birkena

and the panels depicting Vladek s present-day

retelling of the event: The obser er in the last panel, [Josef] Mengele, mirrors Artie s post re in the pre io s panels almost e actl , and, j st as Mengele determines and records Vladek s f t re fate [

] Artie atches and records Vladek s stor of the selection (McGlothlin, No

Time like the Present , p. 178). While this observation is not a comparison of the two characters, it does, as McGlothlin

rites,

establish a

is al analog e bet een the

representation of an original scene of victimisation and trauma and the retelling of the event, insisting that the t o are not distinct, m t all e cl si e processes (McGlothlin, No Time like the Present , p. 178). Th s, in a sense, Artie s stor telling f nctions as a f el for his o n sense of s r i or s g ilt and the process of realisation whereby he can understand and come to terms with the fact that this is to be expected, psychologically speaking. Spiegelman ackno ledges that g ilt itself is an incredibl s bjecti e feeling and e perience; Artie s therapist Pavel, himself a survivor of A sch it , tells Artie that he feels j st sadness

6

hen

Erin McGlothlin, No Time like the Present: Narrati e and Time in Art Spiegelman s Maus , Narrative, 11 (2003), 177 98, <https://www.jstor.org/stable/20107309> [accessed 15 August 2020] (p. 178). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

62

asked if he, too, e periences an form of s r i or s g ilt (Spiegelman, II, p. 44). For Artie, p tting his father s stor into ords and images and onto paper grants order to it. This process allows him to gain some control over this narrative, as well as his guilt, which, although not his o n to begin ith, is left to him b his father in the echoes of Vladek s narration.

Contending with this troubling legacy is a great burden on both siblings in The Book of Daniel but takes its toll most noticeably on Susan, whom Daniel visits at a sanitorium where she has been instit tionalised in the opening of the no el. In describing S san s mental state, Daniel acknowledges the familiarity of it, suggesting that this is a shared experience between the siblings as a result of their shared trauma:

He thought he knew what it was, that sense of being overcome. You suffocated. The calamity of it. He had had such spells. People looked at you in a funny way and spoke to you down corridors. Yo didn t kno intentions, a forgetting of

hat to do. Something

as torn, there

as a coming apart of

hat o co ld e pect from being ali e. Yo co ldn t la gh. Yo

were in dread of yourself and it was dread so pure that one glance in the mirror scorched the heart and charred the eyes.

(Doctorow, pp. 8 9)

This notion of shared tra ma, demonstrated thro gh Daniel s o n relation to his perception of S san s str ggle, is enhanced b Doctoro

s se of the second person prono n

the sit ation for the Isaacson siblings is highl specific, the se of the

o

o . Altho gh

prono n generates

a sense of universality about this personal trauma and places the reader in a position of relating, to an extent, with Daniel and Susan. Despite the shared nature of this trauma, Daniel and Susan are affected in vastly different ways. Upon his visit to her in the sanitorium, Susan tells Daniel The re still f cking s (Doctoro , p. 9). The identit of the in the novel where Daniel writes:

is not made clear ntil later

63

THEY RE STILL FUCKING US. She didn t mean Pa l and Rochelle. That s

hat I

o ld

have meant. What she meant was first everyone else and now the Left. The Isaacsons are nothing to the Ne

Left. And if the can t make it

ith them who else is there? YOU GET

THE PICTURE. GOODBYE, DANIEL (Doctorow, p. 153)

Thus, the troubling legacy of the Isaacsons implements itself in vastly different manners in the lives and attitudes of their children. For Daniel, this legacy is something to contend with; it is something that he holds against his parents, Pa l and Rochelle . In Daniel s mind, his parents are primarily guilty of having chosen their executions over their children and, ultimately, of leaving him to deal with this burden which infringes upon his ability to carve out his own identity and destiny:

Nothing I do will result in anything but an additional entr in m file [ ] I am depri ed of the chance of resisting my government. They have no discoveries to make about me. They will not regard an thing I do as pro ocati e, disr pti e or ins lting [ ] No matter

hat political or

symbolic act I perform in protest or disobedience, no harm will befall me. I have worked this o t. It s tr e. I am totall depri ed of the right to be dangero s. If I

ere to assassinate the

President, the criminality of my family, its genetic criminality, would be established.

(Doctorow, p. 72)

Daniel, like Artie, exhibits anger towards his parents across the novel, although this anger is something that begins to dissipate the more Daniel investigates the murky truth surrounding his parents. As stated previously in reference to S san s declaration of The re still f cking s , Daniel admits that he

o ld ha e meant his parents, Pa l and Rochelle; he

64

would hold them accountable. He believes that he is predestined and programmed to have no impact on the world as a result of the legacy he inherits. This legacy robs him of the choice to be pro ocati e, disr pti e or ins lting ; Daniel is depri ed of the right to indi id alit and self-acco ntabilit . Daniel s anger seems to stem from this sense of fr stration and depri ation that, in his mind, can, time and time again, be directly linked back to his parents, the choices the made, and their ntimel e ec tion. Daniel s personal sense of neglect heightened by his constant positioning as S san s protector, mirroring the positions of their biblical namesakes from the Books of Daniel and Susanna manifests as anger towards his parents for failing, as it were, to be there for them and for permanently altering the course of the Isaacson children s f t res. As Aaron Derosa rites: certainl , [Daniel s] ab si e relationship to ards his wife and child, his manic disposition, and even the wilful repression of his past all point to the lingering damage the Isaacson e ec tions ha e ca sed . 7 Derosa goes on to argue that the Isaacson children do, in fact, cope in m t all e cl si e

a s : in contrast to Daniel, S san

ie s their legac as something to tilise for positi e change (Derosa, p. 478). S san s ggested that she Fo ndation] [

o ld

elcome Daniel s participation in [The Pa l and Rochelle Isaacson

] beca se it

o ld indicate [ ] a nanimit of famil feeling, a proper

ass mption of their legac b the Isaacson children (Doctoro , p. 79). Where S san does all that is in her power to try to embrace the Isaacson legacy, Daniel does all that he can to angrily refute it. The notion of legacy is a complicated one and, in light of this, the Isaacson siblings seem

nable to reconcile their differing beliefs. Daniel s pessimistic and tra matic

understanding of legacy extends to his perception of his sister, the only biological family he has left, and the uncomfortable parallels of her hospitalisation and death with the execution of his parents; the Isaacsons are executed via the electric chair and Susan is subject to electroshock

7

Aaron Derosa, Apocr phal Tra ma in E. L. Doctoro s The Book of Daniel , Studies in the Novel, 41 (2009), 468 88 <www.jstor.org/stable/29533954> [accessed 18 August 2020] (p. 476). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

65

therapy in the hospital prior to her death. Ultimately, despite all her attempts to redirect the fate predestined for her by their legacy, Susan is unable to escape the cycle in which Daniel believes the are locked into. S san s e ent al s icide attempt and s bseq ent death from related complications illustrate her almost innate inability to process trauma healthily as she turns to inflicting harm on herself as a means of coping, just as Daniel turns to physically abusing his wife, Phyllis. Nearly two decades after the executions of Paul and Rochelle Isaacson, the Isaacson children still find themselves drowning in their wake.

Troubling legacies and inherited trauma provide an immense level of difficulty in the lives of the children that they affect. Literary and artistic expression is the only way in which both protagonists, Daniel and Artie, can assert their own control over the narratives into which they are born. Although neither appears to ever reach a solid resolution in coping with this trauma, both reach a point of conclusion whereby they are able to accept their part in the story the inherit. Vladek s final ords to Artie and the image of his and Anja s tombstones indicate a sense of clos re to both the graphic no el and to Artie s str ggle

ith his filial inadequacy

thro gh Spiegelman s all sion to the parental tradition of the bedtime stor : I m tired from talking, Richie , and it s eno gh stories for no

(Spiegelman, II, p. 136). Spiegelman

accepts his father s mistaking of him for his brother Richie , ho died in the Holocaust. Where Artie might have fought this misnaming earlier, he now accepts that this legacy troubles not only him, but his father, too, and, rather than let this inherited trauma consume him, it is better to let it be. Likewise, Doctoro

concl des Daniel s str ggle b ha ing him finall lea e the

library at the end of the novel:

Yo mean I ha e to get o t?

That s right, man, mo e o r ass, this b ilding is officiall closed.

Wait

66 No ait, man, the time is no . The ater s sh t off. The lights are going out. Close the book, man, hat s the matter ith o , don t o kno

o re liberated?

I ha e to smile. It has not been ne pected. I ill alk o t to the S ndial and see hat s going down.

(Doctorow, p. 302)

Daniel s lea ing the librar corresponds to his freedom, it corresponds to the lifting of the b rden of his legac . For the first time in his life, Daniel is liberated . And, as the nkno n speaker points out, it is as if Daniel has, until now, been unaware of this. The power to free oneself from inherited trauma is latent within Daniel and, for that matter, within Artie, too. The key to attaining self-liberation is, as both protagonists come to realise, the recognition and understanding of it. Some things can never be undone, as both Daniel and Artie know too well, but it is the choice to persevere beyond that narrative that empowers both men, something that is perhaps best encapsulated by the final words of The Book of Daniel, which are taken from the Biblical te t itself: O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the e d

G

h

a Da iel: f

he

d a e cl ed

a d ealed ill he i e f he e d

(Doctorow, p. 303).

Works cited Derosa, Aaron, Apocr phal Tra ma in E. L. Doctoro

s The Book of Daniel , Studies in the

Novel, 41 (2009), 468 88 <www.jstor.org/stable/29533954> [accessed 18 August 2020] Doctorow, E. L., The Book of Daniel (New York: Random House, 2007)

67

Hutcheon, Linda, Historiographic Metafiction: Parod and the Interte t alit of Histor , in Intertextuality and Contemporary American Fiction, ed. by P. O'Donnell and Robert Con Davis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), pp. 3 32 Erin McGlothlin, No Time like the Present: Narrati e and Time in Art Spiegelman s Maus , Narrative, 11 (2003), 177 98, <https://www.jstor.org/stable/20107309> [accessed 15 August 2020] —— Second-Generation Holocaust Literature: Legacies of Survival and Perpetration (New York: Camden House, 2006) Art Spiegelman, Ma : A S —— Ma : A S

i

i

Tale, 2 vols (New York: Random House, 1986), I

Tale, 2 vols (New York: Random House, 1986), II

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69146

Ego, Id, Queerness, and Identity: An Assessment of Converging Theoretical Frameworks Ka he

e Ma f e d Bliss Hemali Depala

Katherine Mansfield was a prominent modernist short story writer of the twentieth century, a con emporar of James Jo ce, Virginia Woolf, and D.H. La rence. Mansfield s Bliss (1918), arguably her most successful work, has achieved particular salience in literary and theoretical studies, greatly discussed by critics within the frameworks of early twentieth century psychology and queer phenomenology. Previous critics, notably Robert Heilman and Edward Shanks, have identified Bliss as a precise study of mood and sensation within a traditional loveriangle plo , he s or s final clima re elling in Ber ha s sha ered feeling of ma rimonial bliss.1 Mansfield s fic ion is riddled epiphan

i h se

al n ances: he cen ral dilemma of Ber ha s

is predica ed on her realisa ion ha her belo ed Pearl F l on ind lges in her o n

feeling of bliss, di erging from he same poin as Ber ha s o n their shared affection for Harry. Many, including Heilman and Shanks, have overlooked the complex intricacies of Ber ha s feeling of absol e bliss and her s bseq en mari al disill sionmen , foc sing

1

Wal er Anderson, The Hidden Lo e Triangle in Mansfield s Bliss , Twentieth Century Literature, 28 (1982), 397 404 (p. 397).

69

primaril on her la en homose attemp s o nego ia e

al desire for Pearl ra her han Ber ha s fragmen ed ps che ha

i h her idealised

bliss

agains

he normalised backdrop of

heteronormativity.2 Thus, taking Bliss as an exemplary text, this essay endeavours to explore the short story through the lens of psychoanalysis and queer theory in order to better understand how both critical approaches coincide to provide a deeper understanding of the function of female sexual identity, particularly its repression.

Bliss explores the central consciousness of our female protagonist Bertha Young, a middle-class housewife and mother, as she prepares to host a dinner party for a group of eccen ric g es s, among hem her ne

find , Pearl F l on (Mansfield, p. 95). Mansfield s shor

story proves paradigmatic to the discussion of repressed desire and female sexual identity, a narrative which traces a burgeoning desire that it simultaneously deems impossible, becoming a prominent psychological study into the female subconscious. Sigm nd Fre d s 1926 book, The Question of Lay Analysis provides a structural theory of the mind through which to e amine Mansfield s Bliss, offering an insight into instinctual desires, repression, and the f nc ions of childhood se ali

in he cons r c ion of a heal h

alludes to the existence of a mental region primaril

men al appara s . 3 Freud

concerned

ih

nifica ion and

s n hesis , kno n as he ego (Fre d, p. 18). The ego ass mes a fron age of he more obsc re id, o ing i s charac eris ics o he modif ing infl ences of he e ernal medi m on hich he abut (Freud, p. 17). However, Freud highlights that the functions of the id remain unconscious, composed entirely of different urges which pursue their own purposes. Freud conceptualises a model in which the ego seeks to mediate between the instinctual desires of the id, seeking immediate gratification, and the expectations of the external world. The discipline of

2

Katherine Mansfield, Bliss, in The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield (London: Penguin, 1981), pp. 91 106 (p. 91). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

3 Sigm nd Fre d, La Anal sis , in The Question of Lay Analysis, trans. by James Strachey, in The Essentials of Psychoanalysis, ed. by Anna Freud (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986), pp. 9 46 (p. 21). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

70

psychology emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century, a foundational beginning for the intellectual context of psychoanalysis. As many critics, Perry Meisel among them, have as

el recognised, Fre d s ork e is s as a collec ion of imagina i e e s roo ed in li era re,

the unconscious itself considered a literary trope rather than a scientific device. The interimplicatory nature of psychoanalysis and literature, particularly that of modernist literature, is s ch ha S ephen Frosh arg es ha ps choanal sis, a leas in i s pre-World War II form, is an emblematic modernist discipline; conversely, modernist perceptions of subjectivity, individuality, memory and sociality are all deeply entwined with a psychoanalytical sensi i i

.4 Mansfield

poin s o

in her In rod c ion o Katherine Mansfield and Psychology. Hanson, much like

as no s ranger o he main ene s of Fre d s

critic Shoshana Felman in her seminal

ork, as Clare Hanson

ork To Open he Q es ion in Literature and

Psychoanalysis, The Question of Reading: Otherwise, states that j s as Fre d ill s ra es his case studies with reference to literary texts, so the process of writing is conceptualised as a flo ering of s bconscio s kno ledge . 5 Thus, we begin our discussion of Bliss, another of Mansfield s e c rsions in o he in errela ions of he bod and he mind.

From he o se , he narra i e dra s emphasis pon Ber ha s o er helming feeling of bliss , b rs ing

i h o hf l energ reminiscen of a child in pla , presen ing Mansfield s

pro agonis as dis inc l infan ile: Al ho gh Ber ha Yo ng

as hir

she s ill had momen s

like this when she wanted to run instead of walk, to take dancing s eps on and off he pa emen (Mansfield, p. 91). Mansfield associa es Ber ha s e phoria i h childhood freedoms, hich are skilfully juxtaposed with her maturity of age. Ber ha s seemingl

regressi e child-like

behaviour masquerading behind her maturation perpetuates the nature of her performativity, which is necessitated by the rigidity of the societal institutions in which she is forced to

4

S ephen Frosh, Ps choanal sis in Bri ain: The Ri als of Des r c ions , in A Concise Companion to Modernism, ed. by David Bradshaw (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), pp. 116 37 (p.116).

5 Clare Hanson, In rod c ion , in Katherine Mansfield and Psychology, ed. by Clare Hanson, Gerri Kimber, Todd Martin and Louise Edensor (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), pp. 1 8 (p. 3).

71

f nc ion: Wh be gi en a bod if o ha e o keep i sh

p in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?

(Mansfield, p. 91). The disj nc re of Ber ha s self-fashioned composed exterior becomes apparent here, creating a conflict between her socially sanctioned domestic role and the harsh implica ions of her dr nk and disorderl

beha io r (Mansfield, p. 91). Ber ha s infantile

disposition explodes in vehemence, questioning the nature of the social constructs that are responsible for imposing s ch idio ic res ric ions and crea ing hese ins ances of bodil incarcera ion (Mansfield, p. 92). Ho e er, Ber ha s de eloping independent thought becomes subject to fragmentation, with conflicts arising between the ego and the id as Bertha attempts to navigate her own instinctual sexual desires and the expectations of the social world. As e plored b Veronika Mik lo Indi id ali

in Narra i e Presentation and Conceptions of Creative

, Ber ha re rac s her form la ions on he se all charged fiddle on he pre ence

that she had been mistaken:

But at the critical moment when Bertha actually starts considering the question and formulating her o n opinion, her indirec speech becomes sca ered, f ll of hesi a ions and dashes: [ ] and ends up disrupted by a banal task of opening the front door.6

Mansfield crea es a fa ade for her female pro agonis , indica ing ha reall had e er hing,

hile ins i

really [Bertha]

ing a repression of her innocen procli i ies, hich o ld, in an

case, be deemed abs rd (Mansfield, p. 97). Fre d s no ion of the duplicitous ego gains strength throughout Bliss i h he con ras be een Ber ha s o

ard frigidi , reflec ed in he

e ernal en ironmen , and her in ernalised bliss, radia ing like a li le sho er of sparks (Mansfield, p. 91). The description of the bleak room, offset against her internal passional warmth, creates a sense of abjection for Bertha, proving a disturbance in her seemingly stable

6

Veronika Mik lo , Narra i e Presen ation and Conceptions of Creative Individuality in Katherine Mansfield s Bliss S ories (bachelor s diploma hesis, Masar k Uni ersi , 2015), p. 38.

72

se al iden i

b e po nding on he cold air ha , in fac , fans he brigh glo ing place in

her bosom (Mansfield, p. 92). Mansfield s descrip ion here crea es a momen of ps chological con ic ion for Ber ha,

ai ing for some hing [ ] di ine o happen [

happen [

(Mansfield, p. 92). Helen Nebeker, in her

] infallibl

] ha she kne

m s

ork on he se ual

significa ions of he pear ree, caref ll no es ha Ber ha s cold e erior bo h conceals and pro ec s her inner se al desires: In con radic ion [ o Ber ha s bliss], her frigidi

is re ealed

in the images of the cold the room which is chilly, the cold air on her arms, the cold mirror hich reflec s he seemingl

ibran

oman.

7

Mansfield s pro agonis faces a sense of

alienation with the blissful fire that glows within her and her subsequent bodily functions, resorting to projecting her repressed emotions outwards. This, as Freud intimates, is the cause of neurosis: the ego attempts to suppress portions of the id in an unprecedented manner, crea ing discord be een he ego and id as he former

ishes o re ain i s adap abili

in

relation to the e ernal orld (Fre d, p. 24).

Freud outlines the conditions under which repressive behaviour occurs, implicating a weak ego-organisation in the early stages of childhood as the prime instigator of such repression: he ego rea s he ins inc al danger as if it was an external one; it makes an attempt a fligh , [

]

i hholding from i all he con rib ions

hich i

s all makes o ins inc al

imp lses (Fre d, p. 23). While his por ion of he id remains isola ed, he ins inc al imp lses are denied normal sa isfac ion, prod cing ps chical deri a i es

hich

picall manifes as

ph sical s mp oms (Fre d, p. 24). When applied o Ber ha and o ng Li le B, Mansfield s irony is not unmissed with her use of the telling name, Bertha Young, directly implying juvenility, and her peculiar relationship with her namesake daughter. What remains striking abo

hese ironical ins ances is he no ion ha Ber ha s repressi e beha io rs l ima el find

e pression hro gh her da gh er: She lo ed Li le B so m ch 7

her neck as she bent forward,

Helen E. Nebeker, The Pear Tree: Se al Implica ions in Ka herine Mansfield s Bliss , Modern Fiction Studies, 18 (1972-73), 545 51 (p. 545). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

73

her exquisite toes as they shone transparent in the firelight

that all her feeling of bliss came

back again (Mansfield, p. 94). Re rning o Ber ha s former bliss , she inad er en l associates this emotion with youthful gaiety and her daughter, concealing her immature fancies behind her mo herl d ies. Ber ha s closeness o Li le B ranscends he radi ional mo herda gh er bond, mirroring ha of a child s in ima e pla

i h a belo ed o or pla hing. This

gives weight to he idea ha Li le B f nc ions as a ph sical manifes a ion of Ber ha s desire for uninhibited gaiety under the many repressive conditions of social institutions, namely the role of mo her and

ife. Ye , Ber ha s hrea ened response o he nann holds magnitude as

she invokes the imagery of the fiddle once again to express resentment at her inability to fulfil her mo herl d ies: Wh ha e a bab if i is o be kep

not in a case like a rare, rare fiddle

b in ano her oman s arms? (Mansfield, p. 94). Mansfield references he rare, rare fiddle o con e Ber ha s sense of en rapmen , bo h b emphasising ha her socie al f nc ion is jeopardised by her failure to perform along with her inability to give voice to her suppressed emotions. This is further a gmen ed hro gh Mansfield s a rib ion of s mp oms commonl associa ed i h h s eria o her female pro agonis : she an ed [ nothing a no hing, simpl

] o s and s ill and la gh a

(Mansfield, p. 91). H s eria, or con ersion disorder as i is more

commonly understood, is classified as one of the psychoneuroses. The condition was typically associated with women, with hysteria derived from the Greek hystera, ransla ed o

er s .8

Freud has highlighted that neuroses in women are typically of a sexually orientated nature, e plica ing ha

[ omen] feel pre en ed b [

demands of se al life; or [

] chea ed o

] nkno n obs r c ion from mee ing he

of he enjo men

hich na re has pro ided as a

re ard for s ch compliance (Fre d, p. 10).

Furthermore, Bliss affords possible queer readings which, coupled with the aforemen ioned disc ssion of Fre d s ego and id comple , lends impor ance o he no ion of 8

The Edi ors of Enc clopaedia Bri annica, Con ersion Disorder: Ps cholog , in Encyclopaedia Britannica <https://www.britannica.com/science/conversion-disorder> [accessed 17 August 2020].

74

Ber ha s o n gender performa i i ; he repression of her o n se al desires is in rinsic o he dominant regime of heteronormativity in which she functions. A key influencer in the critical field of queer studies, Eve Sedgwick, a poet, literary critic, and teacher, was interested in deconstructing the popularised conception of sexuality and sexual identity as stable and cohesi e s r c res. In her 1993 essa , Q eer and No

, Sedg ick e po nds on he

importance of literature and literary studies in understanding the queer experience, suggesting ha he reading prac ice had necessaril

o r n against the grain of the most patent available

form lae [ ] agains he mos accessible oices e en in e s hemsel es . 9 Sedgwick invites he reader o be per erse in heir percep ion of e s, enco raging readers o adop a minoritarian approach in deconstructing dominant constructions. The key to reading perversely, according to Sedgwick, is to consider the significance of what resides on the periphery, situating reading practices within the wider context of desire and passional attachments to cultural objects. This formulation of reading indicates the position of a text as sim l aneo sl a resis an po er and n mino s , cap ring he essence of he noniden ical (Sedg ick, p. 3). Sedg ick q es ions he no ion of

ha q eerness en ails, ill mina ing hat

queerness is interested in presenting differences which are usually not perceived in stable structures:

Tha s one of he hings ha q eer can refer o: he open mesh of possibili ies, gaps, o erlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of an one s gender, of an one s se ali

aren

made (or can

be made) o signif

monolithically.

(Sedgwick, p. 4)

9

E e Kosofsk Sedg ick, Q eer and No , in Tendencies (Routledge: London, 1994), pp. 1 20 (p. 3). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

75

Sedg ick dis ing ishes ha

hile q eer deno es same-sexual object choice, it also extends

beyond gender and se ali

o o her iden i -constituting, identity-frac ring disco rses,

elucidating that queerness has universal applicability (Sedgwick, p. 9). This has particular resonance

i h he possible q eer readings ha Mansfield s Bliss offers, as the short story

con ains man li eral gaps and dissonances: She s ill had momen s like his hen she an ed [ ] o s and s ill and la gh a by a feeling of bliss

nothing a no hing, simpl . [ ] o are o ercome, s ddenl

absol e bliss! (Mansfield, p. 91). Mansfield s e cessi e se of

h phena ed lines and ellipses accen a es make aci hings e plici [

ha is ac all being omi ed and repressed, o

] and, i h he rela i e freedom of ad l hood, o challenge q eer-

eradicating impulses frontall

here he are o be so challenged (Sedg ick, p. 3). The li eral

and metaphorical typographical gaps and silences throughout Bliss point to the nature of Ber ha s o n close ed desires ha she is nable o erbalise hro gh ra ional and cons r c i e ho gh . Essen iall , Ber ha

nder akes

ha Sedg ick erms ling is ic performa i i

,

mo ioning o he in isible possibili ies of Ber ha s desires ha are ransferred o speech ac s hich omi and are enhanced b silences (Sedg ick, p. 11). Mansfield s typographical silences el cida e e cesses of meaning hro gh

ha is lef

nsaid abo

Ber ha s absol e bliss! .

Kei h Gregor, in Blissf l Thinking: Ka herine Mansfield and he Engendering of Modernis Fic ion , e po nds on he ins ances of silences and gaps ha seemingl mark momen s of eq i oca ion be een he incompa ible no ions of gender and se ali . [ s gges s he fragili

] The eq i oca ion

of he associa ion be een Ber ha s ndefinable feeling and [

natural physical yearning for her h sband.

10

] he

These gaps and silences indica e Ber ha s

confinement within a construction that stresses the centrality of heterosexuality, rendering the e pression of her homoero ic feeling of bliss impossible. Ber ha s ine plicable feeling of bliss further coincides 10

i h Sedg ick s form la ions on he necessi

of a achmen s o c l ral

Kei h Gregor, Blissf l Thinking: Ka herine Mansfield and he Engendering of Modernis Fic ion , Cuadernos de Filologia Inglesa, 6 (1997), 59 78 (p. 72).

76

objec s,

here he meanings [don ] line p idil

i h each o her , for q eer s r i al

(Sedg ick, p. 3). Dra ing on Fre d s model of he ego as ending o ards he re en ion of i s adap abili

o e ernal s im li co pled i h he id s need for gra ifica ion, Ber ha s imma re

beha io r and affini

o Li le B acq ires ne meaning: parado icall , Ber ha s a achmen o

her daughter both reinforces her position within a dominant construction, her fondness for Little B a facet of motherhood, while serving as a site of free expression that affords protection and fulfilment for her repressed sexual desires.

Sedgwick is largely interested in deconstructing the notions of sexuality and sexual iden i

as a

ni ar ca egor , indica ing he gra i

regime of he erose ali : If one adds onl of o r preferred par ner

of his dena ralisa ion in he dominan

he norma i e ass mp ion ha

he biological se

ill be he opposi e of one s own. With or without that heterosexist

ass mp ion, ho gh, ha is s riking is he n mber and differences [

] (Sedg ick, pp. 7 8).

Follo ing Michel Fo ca l s in erpre a ion of modern se ali , Sedg ick q es ions

he her

normative heterosexuality functions as sexuality, underscoring the centrality of the binary of homosexuality and heterosexuality within society. Sedgwick highlights that heterosexuality is ins r men al in s r c ring socie ies: The making his oricall

isible of he erose ali

is

difficult because, under its institutional pseudonyms such as Inheritance, Marriage, Dynasty, Family, Domesticity, and Population, heterosexuality has been permitted to masquerade so f ll as His or i self [

] (Sedg ick, pp. 10 11). The recurrent motif of the rare, rare fiddle

es ablishes an oppor ne means of decons r c ing he dominan no ion of Ber ha s heterosexuality, despite her existence in a heteronormative relationship. The fiddle has many symbolic associations, both bearing a resemblance to the female body and the pear tree that Ber ha ie s as he s mbol of her o n life (Sedg ick, p. 96). One of he man bo anical qualities of the pear tree is that it is viewed as bisexual, meaning that it possesses the ability to reproduce asexually. Interestingly, Bertha mirrors her physical appearance to match the

77

colo rf l e erior of he pear ree: A

hi e dress, a s ring of jade beads, green shoes and

s ockings (Mansfield, p. 97). Ber ha s o n projec i e a achmen o he pear ree accen a es the potential repression of homosexual or bisexual desire under the rigidity of the construct of heterosexuality. Sedgwick recognises the value of attachment to cultural objects whose meanings seemed m s erio s, e cessi e, or obliq e in rela ion o he codes mos readily a ailable o s,

hich become he prime reso rce for s r i al (Sedg ick, p. 3). Mansfield s

protagonist ultimately transfers her desires upon the tree, as she once did with her daughter, attracted to the obliqueness of the tree which shares her own se al d ali . Ber ha s projec i e associations with the pear tree demonstrate the nature of repressed desire under the construction of heterosexuality. However, Nebeker demonstrates that, often, pear trees that appear in perfect bloom do not possess the ability to reproduce and self-fertilise. Instead, they are rendered infer ile

hen fer ilisa ion occ rs prema rel : A condi ion occ rs

organ) ripens before he s igma ma res eno gh o recei e he pollen [

herein he an her (male ] E en as i s mbolises

perfection, it is in essence incomplete, beautiful but non-f nc ional (Nebeker, p. 546). The blooming pear tree and the rarity of the fiddle, which Bertha likens to her own body, indicate ha Mansfield s pro agonis has no e perienced se

al e ci emen and pleasure. As the fiddle

is fraught with sexual implications, it is prudent to recognise that Bertha has not been physically pla ed b or pla ed pleas re. J di h Neaman s

i h an one, h s lacking he m sicali

associa ed

i h se

al

ork on All sion, Image, and Associa i e Pa ern in Mansfield s

short story motions to the idea that references to both music and the pear tree enacts a desire which must be repressed:

78 The m sical refrains [ ] are cen ral and he associa ions be

een he fr i s, passion, and the

m sic becomes increasingl specific. M sic is he food of lo e. Like ea ing of he fr i , he playing of music, in this tale at least, is forbidden.11

To conclude, both psychoanalytical theory and queer theory work to produce possible readings of he f nc ionali

of female se al iden i

in Ka herine Mansfield s shor s or ,

shedding further insight into the relational boundary between the mind and the body. Freudian theory and psychoanalysis are largely useful in understanding the nat re of Ber ha s in ernal conflict, which affects the way she functions within societal structures and institutions. The confla ion of Ber ha s in ernal life and conscio sness, he in imacies of her absol e bliss , with her receptivity and response to the e ernal

orld are be er nders ood sing Fre d s

conceptualisation of the mind. By further exploring the functions of the ego and the id, the discrepancies of Ber ha s charac er are bro gh in o grea er prominence, conflic ed be een her desire for expression and the restriction of societal norms. However, the psychoanalytical approach is bes

ie ed hro gh a q eered perspec i e,

i h he ego s endencies o ards

unification serving as a reactionary response to the dominant regime of heterosexuality.

Ber ha s sim l aneo s scorn and a areness of dr nk and disorderl

beha io r, ins i

o n repression, nderpins Sedg ick s no ion ha q eerness cons i Seemingl , his socie or [

ing her

es a si e of iolence:

an s i s children o kno no hing; an s i s queer children to conform

] die (Sedg ick, p. 3). Thro gh he se of Fre dian heor , Ber ha s o n performa i i

and composed exterior are better understood as a response to the constricting influences of heteronormativity.

11

J di h S. Neaman, All sion, Image, and Associa i e Pa ern: The Ans ers in Mansfield s Bliss , Twentieth Century Literature, 32 (1986), 242 52 (p. 247).

79

Works cited Anderson, Walter, The Hidden Lo e Triangle in Mansfield s Bliss , Twentieth Century Literature, 28 (1982), 397 404 Enc clopaedia Bri annica, Con ersion Disorder: Ps cholog <https://www.britannica.com/science/conversion-disorder> [accessed 17 August 2020] Freud, Sigmund, La Anal sis , in The Question of Lay Analysis, trans. by James Strachey, in The Essentials of Psychoanalysis, ed. by Anna Freud (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986), pp. 9 46 Frosh, Stephen, Ps choanal sis in Bri ain: The Ri als of Des r c ions , in A Concise Companion to Modernism, ed. by David Bradshaw (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), pp.

116 37 Gregor, Keith, Blissf l Thinking: Ka herine Mansfield and he Engendering of Modernist Fic ion , Cuadernos de Filologia Inglesa, 6 (1997), 59 78 Hanson, Clare, In rod c ion , in Katherine Mansfield and Psychology, ed. by Clare Hanson, Gerri Kimber, Todd Martin and Louise Edensor (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), pp. 1 8 Mansfield, Katherine, Bliss, in The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield (London: Penguin, 1981), pp. 91 106 Mikulovรก, Veronika, Narra i e Presen a ion and Concep ions of Crea i e Indi id ali

in

Ka herine Mansfield s Bliss S ories (bachelor s diploma hesis, Masar k Uni ersi , 2015) Neaman, Judith S., All sion, Image, and Associa i e Pa ern: The Ans ers in Mansfield s Bliss , Twentieth Century Literature, 32 (1986), 242 52 Nebeker, Helen E., The Pear Tree: Se al Implica ions in Ka herine Mansfield s Bliss , Modern Fiction Studies, 18 (1972-73), 545 51 Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, Q eer and No 1 20

, in Tendencies (Routledge: London, 1994), pp.

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69147

Envisioning Futures of Cultural Resistance Through Women Re i ance o Pa ia ch in T i i Danga embga Nervous Conditions Sarah Dewi Ayishah Garrod

Nervous Conditions has been s bjec o no shor age of cri ical anal sis regarding he no el s portrayal of womanhood and colonialism. 1 However, few readings have addressed the potential significance of developments in the African literary scene in relation to womanhood and the postcolonial condition in the novel. Thus, in my reading of Nervous Conditions, I address these intersecting themes to demonstrate how the novel envisions methods of resistance against patriarchy as methods of resistance against cultural imperialism. First, with reference to the research of Peter Kalliney, I demonstrate how developments in Nervous Conditions mirror and critique the struggle to establish literary identity in postcolonial Africa, thus demonstrating how the novel critiques previous resistance efforts against cultural imperialism. With reference to Homi Bhabha s heor of h bridi , I hen demons ra e ho , as an al erna i e o pre io s efforts, the novel suggests that methods of resistance used by women against patriarchy can be

1

Sall McWilliams, Tsi si Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions: At the crossroads of feminism and post‐ colonialism , World Literature Written in English, 31 (1991), 103 12; Carol n Mar in Sha , Yo Had a Daughter, but I Am Becoming a Woman : Se ali , Feminism and Pos coloniali in Tsi si Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions and She No Longer Weeps , Research in African Literatures, 38 (2007), 7 27; Supriya Nair, Melancholic Women: The In ellec al H s eric(s) in Nervous Conditions , Research in African Literatures, 26 (1995), 130 39. Further references are given are quotations in the text.

81 used in resisting cultural imperialism and forming postcolonial African literary identity. 2 The first decolonising literary movement which Nervous Conditions mirrors and critiques is that of early postcolonial African writers who drew inspiration from Western modernis infl ences. To si a e m arg men ,

e m s firs

rn o Pe er Kalline s 2015

ar icle Modernism, African Li era re, and he Cold War , hich e plores he clandes ine CIA funding of African publications, particularly those publishing experimental modernist literature, through the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) during the era of the Cold War. The fundamental paradox of this being, as Kalliney points out and as is mirrored and critiqued in Nervous Conditions, that modernism was adopted by early postcolonial African writers as a means of non-partisanship in the Cold War binary between the USSR and USA, as a means of de achmen hro gh he aes he ic a onom

offered b modernism:

many African writers of the 1960s generation believed that the modernist ideals of detachment and autonomy could adequately reflect a blend of Cold War neutrality, anticolonialism, and independence from the nation-s a e [ ] The African

ri ers nder disc ssion here embraced

the concept of autonomy to varying degrees because it signalled their desire for independence from he Cold War s ideological binaries. The in eres s of Mphahlele, Okigbo, Neog , and Soyinka converged with those of the CCF.3

As Kalliney points out, in appropriating inter-war modernist aesthetics of the West in conjunction with African aesthetics, African writers of the early postcolonial period hoped to forge a literary tradition to rival that of the West. Modernist principles of intellectual freedom and detachment additionally allowed for a detachment from the Cold War superpowers, who resembled the former European colonial powers in the binary nature of their conflicting 2

See Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge, 2004) Pe er Kalline , Modernism, African Li era re, and he Cold War , Modern Language Quarterly, 76 (2015), 333 68 (p. 362). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

3

82 ideologies.

As is proposed in Ed ard Said s Orientalism, colonialism functioned through the crea ion of self/o her binaries o j s if

he colonial ci ilising mission. As Kalline s gges s,

in he Cold War s ideological conflic , he s perpo ers rhe oric bore resemblance o he self/other binary used by colonial forces. Using the aesthetics of a pre-Cold War era offered a means to move away from the heritage of colonialism through an aesthetic transcendence beyond the binary conflict of the Western superpowers. Through appropriating Western modernist aesthetics from the inter-war period in African-led publications, African cultural and literary movements sought a formation of cultural identity in an aesthetic reclamation, resisting colonial heri age b

ha Bern h Lindfors refers o as bea ing he hi e man a his o n game .4

This appropriation of Western modernist aesthetics can be observed in the works of African authors in the era of early post-independence, prior to Ne o

Condi ion

publication

for

example, the works of prominent Nigerian author Wole Soyinka, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, contain Western modernist influences. As Ben Obumselu points out, in So inka s The In e p e e , the form deriving from Yoruba creation stories is firmly fused with the Joycean myth of Ulysses and the crea i e ar is . 5 In The Interpreters, Soyinka manipulates the formal techniques of Joycean modernism in order to add irony and critical reflec ion. An e ample of his, as Ob msel remarks,

o ld be So inka s se of he s ream

of consciousness technique very flexibly with the aim of putting the audience in a position to con empla e he pro agonis s

i h cri ical insigh (Ob msel , p. 180). This encaps la es he

aim of early postcolonial African writers: to use Western modernist influences, but with critical insight to use these Western influences as a force of empowerment, rather than subjugation, in the creation of postcolonial African literary identity.

4

Bern h Lindfors, Bea ing he Whi e Man a his O n Game: Nigerian Reac ions o he 1986 Nobel Pri e in Li era re , Black American Literature Forum, 22 (1988), 475 88 (p. 475).

5 Ben Ob msel , Wole So inka's The Interpreters: The Li erar Con e , Research in African Literatures, 49 (2018), 167 81 (p. 167). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

83 It is within this literary doctrine that Nervous Conditions initially appears to be situated.

In the early stages of the novel, Tambu, the narrator and central protagonist, reflects the individualistic tradition of Western modernism, as an individual setting out to seek an allencompassing enlightenment and transcendence from her societal expectations. Tamb s idealising of her uncle, Babamakuru, as an autonomous figure of achievement mirrors the hope hich modernis aes he ic a onom pro ided o earl pos colonial African

ri ers: I

as

truly a romantic story to my ears, a fairy-tale of reward and punishment, of cause and effect. It had a moral too, a tantalising moral that increased your aspirations, but not beyond a manageable le el . 6 The idea of increasing one s aspira ions b

s a ing i hin a manageable

le el reflec s he earl postcolonial condition of African writers. The use of Western modernist influences and the idea of aesthetic autonomy allowed for African writers to pave out a postcolonial literary canon without entirely diverging from the literary and linguistic traditions of the West. In subscribing to what postmodern theorist Jean-Franรงois Lyotard refers to as the defining grand narra i es offered b Wes ern modernism, Tamb ini iall displa s a sing lar strive to ascend to the position of the emancipated figure of Babamukuru, providing a totalising solution to her condition.7 The narrative initially offered by Nervous Conditions is one of the modernist hero, of Tambu being an individual who transcends her traditional societal expectations in absolute resistance for emancipation and enlightenment.

However, the character who appears to most embody the ideals of Western modernism in he no el is Tamb s co sin, N asha,

ho ini iall presen s he indi id alis , socie -

rejecting figure of Western modernism which Tambu is implied to be developing toward. It is in N asha s in rod c ion in he no el ha he no el s cri icism of seeking emancipa ion in Wes ern modernis infl ences s rfaces. On Tamb s firs da in Babamak r s ho se, Maig r

6

Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions (Banbury: Ayebia Clarke, 2004), p. 19. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

7 Jean-Franรงois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 1984), p. 15.

84 and Nyasha argue over Nyasha reading Lad Cha e le

Lo e by D. H. Lawrence, a Western

modernis a hor. The in rod c ion of N asha s disordered ea ing, hich increases in se eri throughout the course of the novel, occurs during this dispute, in which it is revealed that Nyasha uses Western modernist books to substitute food:

I co ld ha e s orn I bo gh ha D.H. La rence in here. Ha e o seen i , M m?

I don see i an B

I m pre

here. posi i e I bo gh i in here , insis ed N asha,

rinkling her forehead and

forgetting to eat.

(Dangarembga, p. 84)

For N asha, modernis li era re is an escape, a means of forge ing he need o cons me he ph sical and me aphorical food prod ced b

he pa riarchal, colonialism-reliant household

she lives in. It is significant that this begins in England, as this is both the former colonising nation of Zimbabwe and where many Western modernist authors, such as Lawrence, originated:

When e en o England , she as sa ing, i

as errible. I ook me mon hs o ge

sed o

the food. It has no taste, you know, and there was so little of it. I used to be hungry day and night.

(Dangarembga, p. 84)

In the same manner as Soyinka, Nyasha uses modernist texts as her escape from being sustained b

he Wes , o f lfil a h nger for a new creative tradition. However, as the novel

foreshado s, his rebellion ma no in he end ha e been s ccessf l (Dangarembga, p. 1).

The parado ical na re of a er ing colonialism s shado

(as represen ed b h nger) hro gh

85 forging literary tradition and culture from that of the former coloniser itself (as represented by N asha s se of Wes ern modernis li era re in lie of food) becomes apparen as he no el progresses.

The eating disorder and the subsequent breakdown that Nyasha suffers in Nervous Conditions reveal the pitfalls of reliance on Western modernism as a means of establishing cultural and literary autonomy, in a mirroring of the changing conditions and aesthetics in the postcolonial African literary scene. These developments in the literary scene were greatly influenced by the revelation of covert CIA funding via the CCF in various African publications which promoted Western modernist-influenced works, such as Black Orpheus and Transition (the former of which Soyinka was an editor of), through a front-page headline in The New York Times.8 This resulted in a crisis of cultural identity, and a radical transformation within the postcolonial movement and cultural productions in Africa. This shift gave way to another literary movement, which Nervous Conditions mirrors and critiques in its narrative: an absol is decolonising rejec ion of Wes ern infl ences. As Kalline poin s o , his damage [from revelations of CIA involvement in African publications] substantially widened the ideological distance between metropolitan and postcolonial intellectuals, a distance that seemed nbridgeable for decades (Kalline , p. 363).

In reaction to these revelations, a hard line defining postcolonial discourse in distinction from Wes ern infl ence no abl Chin ei

as dra n. In his

and Ng g

nbridgeable dis ance, man African a hors,

a Thiong o, became increasingl in en on ridding heir ork

of Western influences. To appropriate the aesthetics of the West was no longer considered a means of transcendence, but rather a relic of subjugation. Chinweizu, a leading figure in black orientalism and prominent critic of Soyinka, argues alongside Onwuchekwa Jemie and

8

Eli abe h M. Hol , Cairo and he C l ral Cold War for Afro-Asia , in The Routledge Handbook of the Global Sixties Between Protest and Nation-Building, ed. by Chen Jian and others (New York: Routledge, 2018), pp. 480 93 (p. 490).

86 Ihechukwu Madubuike in Toward the Decolonisation of African Literature that e romodernis s [...] ha e assid o sl aped he prac ices of 20th-century European modernist poe r .9 This suggests that the influence of European modernism in the works of authors such as Soyinka are the result of continued cultural oppression. Instead, Chinweizu, Jemie, and Madubuike argue for African authors to draw from pre-colonial African literary tradi ions: in the case of African novels it is important to realize that its indigenous antecedents should be so gh in [Africa s] radi ions (Chin ei , Jemie and Mad b ike, p. 29). This radi ionalis decolonising approach is shared b Ng g

a Thiong o. In Decolonising the Mind, Ng g

argues that transcendence from colonial alienation can only be achieved through writing in African languages:

A writer who tries to communicate the message of revolutionary unity and hope in the languages of the people becomes a subversive character. It is then that writing in African lang ages becomes a s b ersi e or reasonable offence [ ] here are no na ional accolades, no new year honours, only abuse and slander and innumerable lies from the mouths of the armed power of a ruling minority

ruling, that is, on behalf of U.S.-led imperialism [ ]

African languages addressing themselves to the lives of the people become the enemy of a neocolonial state.10

Ng g s reference o ne

ear hono rs and U.S.-led imperialism in par ic lar emphasises

he colonial na re of American infil ra ion of he African c l ral sphere. Ng g arg es ha the United States are in opposition to self-determination and suppress cultural productions calling for re ol ionar

9

ni

and hope , h s s gges ing he Uni ed S a es ac as a neo-

Chinweizu, Onwuchekwa Jemie, and Ihechukwu Madubuike, Toward the Decolonization of African Literature.

Vol. 1: African Fiction and Poetry and Their Critics (Washington DC: Howard University Press, 1983), p. 163.

Furhter references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

10 Ng g a Thiong o, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1994), p. 30.

87 colonial po er. For Ng g and Chin ei , in order o mo e a a from he neo-colonial tainting of the African cultural sphere and elevate African literature to true independence, one must wholly cut ties with Western linguistic and literary tradition.

Despite Ne o

Condi ion

similar scepticism toward reliance on Western

modernism, Dangarembga s English-lang age bild ngsroman rejec s Ng g and Chin ei

s

absol is approach o resis ing c l ral imperialism. Cri icism of Ng g and Chin ei

s

decolonising approach can be seen in Ner o s Condi ions narra i e hro gh N asha s e en al breakdo n, as he rhe oric of Ng g and Chin ei

is reflected in her rampage against the

Wes ern infl ence in hich she so gh her escape: She rampaged, shredding her his or book between her teeth ( Their history. Fucking liars. Their bloody lies. ) [ us.

] The

e rapped

(Dangarembga, p. 205). In shredding her book, Nyasha displays a violent resistance to

he c l ral infl ence of he Wes and he lies of aes he ic a onom . Addi ionall , her oice aking on a Rhodesian accen suggests a desire to return to a pre-colonial state, reflecting Ng g and Chin ei

s desire o dra infl ence from pre-colonial African tradition rather than

Western modernism (Dangarembga, p. 204). However, this violent reaction is short-lived:

Then as s ddenl as i came, he rage passed. I don ha e o , Dadd , she said sof l . The an me o, b hem b

I on

[

] Look

ha he

e done o s, she said sof l . I m no one of

I m no one of o .

(Dangarembga, p. 205)

This highligh s a significan iss e

i h Ng g and Chin ei

s mode of pos colonial

resis ance: as a h brid fig re, bo nd o Wes ern infl ence, ho is N asha o holl c

ies

with Western influence? As such, the colonial impact, which the absolutist anti-colonial radi ionalism of Ng g and Chin ei

and he Wes ern modernism of earl pos colonial

African writers both sought to transcend, is inevitably present. To subscribe to either camp,

88 N asha sho ld ha e Babamak r . Babamak r s se of iolence against Nyasha and his position as the headmaster of a mission school render him the figure of replicated colonial infl ence and con rol. Thro gho

he no el, N asha s resis ance agains Babamak r

progressively takes a more hard-line approach, as she resists eating the food provided by him, and disobeys his rules to the point of suffering physical beatings. However, as Nyasha affec iona el refers o him as Dadd , in an English manner connec ing Babamak r

ih

colonial influence, it is revealed that she cannot hate him, as he forms an essential part of her iden i . Th s, N asha s a emp s o resis his infl ence ( hich ser es as a represen a ion of colonial influence) in an absolute fashion prove impossible, with the attempt to do so leaving her trapped in a nervous condition of self-erasure via starvation.

Th s, bo h N asha s ea ing disorder and breakdo n ser e o cri iq e pre io s effor s o resis c l ral imperialism in heir a emp o en irel

ranscend colonialism s impac , be i

through appropriating Western modernism or through taking an absolutist decolonising stance against Western influences. Nervous Conditions instead proposes that hybridity, rather than attempted transcendence, should be used to resist cultural imperialism. As Homi Bhabha argues in The Location of Culture, he se of colonial s r c res in order o crea e a h brid iden i is a more effective form of cultural identity formation than the attempt to create an essentialist form of c l re free from colonial infl ence, as an essentialist claims for the inherent a hen ici

or p ri

of c l res [

] freq en l become poli ical arg men s for he hierarch

and ascendanc of po erf l c l res (Bhabha, pp. 83 4). According to Bhabha, cultural h bridi

en er ains difference

i ho

an ass med or imposed hierarch , crea ing an

ambivalence within the colonial narrative of a distinguishable self/other boundary (Bhabha, p.

5). For Dangarembga, these ambivalent, hybrid methods of resistance are existent within the ways which women tackle patriarchy, and thus the methods of women are envisioned as future modes of resistance against cultural imperialism.

89 This potential resistance is demonstrated in how Tambu is envisioned as developing methods of resistance against apparatuses of colonialism using the influence of her adult female rela i es resis ance me hods o pa riarch , in a s ccessf l al erna i e o N asha s fail re o recognise he po en ial of

omen s resis ance me hods. Tamb s en isioned me hod of

resistance embraces, rather than rejects, a condition of hybridity and non-absolute resistance.

As S pri a Nair poin s o

in Melancholic Women: The In ellec al H s eric(s) in Nervous

Condi ion , pos colonial approaches o resis ance, s ch as ha of Ng g , of en foc s on he experience of men and fail o s fficien l acco n for

omen, as reflec ed in N asha s

dismissal of the resistance methods of African women. Nair remarks that, on the other hand, Unlike N asha,

ho is largel disg s ed

i h he s a s of he

omen in he family, Tambu

senses their strength in their particular methods of resistance and learns from each one while forming her o n dis inc iden i

(Nair, p. 137). As Tamb comes o realise, resis ance need

not come in the absolute form which previous means of postcolonial cultural resistance attempted.

The adult women of Nervous Conditions display methods of resistance which are effective in their sophisticated hybridity, and which are envisioned as methods of postcolonial resis ance in Tamb s f Tamb

learns from b

re. An e ample of a

oman s resis ance agains pa riarch ,

N asha fails o, is ha of Maig r ,

ho s ages a shor

hich

alk-out in

resistance of the patriarchal household conditions she is subjected to:

Maiguru had been away for only five days, but the change had done her good. She smiled more often and less mechanically, fussed over us less and was more willing or able to talk about sensible things. Although she still called Babamukuru her Daddy-sweet, most of her baby-talk had disappeared. I s s ch a she migh ha e been

as e, lamen ed N asha, no ing he difference. Imagine

i h he righ kind of e pos re! And hen she confessed ha she

ha as

having one of her rare pangs of guilt, because deep down she was glad that her mother had

90 come home.

(Dangarembga, p. 178)

Maig r s walk-out lasts for only five days, and she goes to the house of another man (her brother). As a woman, she is unable to walk out and carry out resistance of an absolute nature.

In he e es of N asha, his is a as e in comparison o her o n absol e, solidifying efforts of comple e resis ance ia bodil eras re, as Maig r is s ill a (Dangarembga, p. 118). Ye , N asha feels g il ,

ic im of her femaleness

hich implies an irreconcilabili

be een

the absolute resistance she seeks and her condition as a pos colonial African oman. Maig r s resis ance has he effec i eness hich N asha s a emp ed resis ance lacks as Maig r is a are of he limi a ions of her condi ion. For e ample, she ref ses

o spend ano her Chris mas

catering for a family of two do en , and she con inces Babamak r

o allo Tamb

o a end

Sacred Heart, thus having an impact without taking a hard-line approach to resistance (Dangarembga, p. 185).

Ho e er, Maig r s resistance does not provide a totalising narrative of female resistance

he no el celebra es di erse feminini ; he po er of

omen s resis ance agains

patriarchy is shown to transcend boundaries for a range of female figures. The resistance of Lucia, Tamb s

nmarried a n , is addi ionall

a so rce of s ccessf l non-totalitarian

resistance against patriarchy, through a different but equally sophisticated form of resistance to that of Maiguru. By getting Babamakuru to find her a job, Lucia uses Babamakur s desire to establish himself as a strong patriarchal figure in order to establish her own freedom and independence. Instead of having to marry Takesure, Lucia gains financial independence as a single woman and secures prospects of upward mobility for herself through enrolment in night classes. Th s, L cia s me hod of resis ance proposes enac ing change hro gh aking ad an age of the oppressive system itself. Instead of celebrating this, Nyasha focuses only on the

91 inj s ices of he pa riarch : And ha abo arri ed o ge Dadd sho ldn

poor L cia! She s been gro elling e er since she

o help her o . Tha sor of hing sho ldn

be necessar . Reall i

(Dangarembga, p. 162). Ho e er, L cia foc ses on he oppor ni

offered b her

manipulation of oppressi e s r c res, ra her han he inj s ice of heir e is ence: Babamak r an ed o be asked, so I asked. No

e bo h ha e

ha

e an ed, isn i ? (Dangarembga,

p. 162). L cia s resis ance does no d ell on nj s s r c res and necessar , b

ha

sho ldn

be

ins ead proac i el seeks o manip la e hese s r c res o her ad an age.

Tamb s de elopmen of a h brid colonial resis ance is infl enced b

hese

omen s

me hods of resis ance o he pa riarch . As Nair poin s o , he response Tamb s o n s or makes o Ng g s e reified b

is ha he colonial s den need no necessaril be a passi e recep acle,

he e perience of colonial ed ca ion (Nair, p. 38). Ins ead of a emp ing a o al

rejection of colonial structures, as Nyasha suggests, Tambu takes advantage of them, as Lucia does of patriarchal structures. The women of Nervous Conditions constantly have to navigate sources of oppression through their hybrid forms of resistance. Tambu is suggested to be influenced by this in her future resistance against colonial structures, as she is envisioned to be using these forms of resistance following her experience at Young Ladies College of the Sacred Heart, the white-majority convent school for which Tambu wins a scholarship and begins to attend o ard he end of he no el: Q ie l , nob r si el and e remel fi f ll , some hing in my mind began to assert itself, to question things and refuse to be brainwashed, bringing me o his ime

hen I can se do n his s or

(Dangarembga, p. 208). In this open-ended

conclusion to the novel, foreseeing a hopeful but uncertain future, critical reflectiveness and ac f l rebellion, of q es ion[ing] hings ra her han seeking emancipa ion hro gh rejec ion, all subtle but effective methods used by the no el s

omen agains pa riarch , are en isioned

as me hods of ackling colonial s r c res. Tamb s abili

o se do n his s or

imagines

her using methods of the women who influenced her in her empowered literary future. Thus,

92 the either/or of colonial structures and decolonisation, central to the rhetoric of modernistinfluenced writers and decolonising writers alike, is broken down by the methods which the women of the novel use against patriarchy.

Dangarembga therefore proposes a method of postcolonial cultural and literary identity forma ion hich ses omen s me hods of resis ance in ranscendence of oppressi e binaries.

In this English-language bildungsroman, the use of Western influences by African writers is recognised as being potentially beneficial; hybridity is an inevitability of the postcolonial condi ion, and ri ing in English in Wes ern forma s can be ad an ageo s: If o

ere cle er,

o slipped hro gh an loophole o co ld find (Dangarembga, p. 182). Ho e er, nlike early postcolonial modernist-influenced African writers, Dangarembga does not treat Western structures as a means of resistance and identity formation in themselves. Methods to resist patriarchy should be applied to resisting the cultural imperialism of the West, working to disman le i

q ie l , nob r si el and e remel fi f ll

sing he sophis ica ed, h brid

methods used by women against patriarchy (Dangarembga, p. 208).

Works cited Bhabha, Homi K., The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge, 2004) Chinweizu, Jemie Onwuchekwa, and Ihechukwu Madubuike, Toward the Decolonization of African Literature. Vol. 1: African Fiction and Poetry and Their Critics (Washington DC: Howard University Press, 1983) Dangarembga, Tsitsi, Nervous Conditions (Banbury: Ayebia Clarke, 2004) Holt, Elizabeth M., Cairo and he C l ral Cold War for Afro-Asia , in The Routledge Handbook of the Global Sixties Between Protest and Nation-Building, ed. by Chen Jian and others (New York: Routledge, 2018), pp. 480 93

93 Kalliney, Peter, Modernism, African Li era re, and he Cold War , Modern Language Quarterly, 76 (2015), 333 68 (p. 362). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text Lindfors, Bernth, Bea ing he Whi e Man a his Own Game: Nigerian Reactions to the 1986 Nobel Pri e in Li era re , Black American Literature Forum, 22 (1988), 475 88 (p.

475) Lyotard, Jean-François, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 1984) McWilliams, Sally, Tsi si Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions: At the crossroads of feminism and postâ&#x20AC;?colonialism , World Literature Written in English, 31 (1991), 103 12 Nair, Supriya, Melancholic Women: The In ellec al H s eric(s) in Nervous Conditions , Research in African Literatures, 26 (1995), 130 39 Obumselu, Ben, Wole So inka's The Interpreters: The Li erar Con e

, Research in

African Literatures, 49 (2018), 167 81 Shaw, Carolyn Martin,

Yo Had a Da gh er, b

I Am Becoming a Woman : Se ali ,

Feminism and Postcoloniality in Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions and She No Longer Weeps , Research in African Literatures, 38 (2007), 7 27 Thiong o, Ng g

a, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature

(Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1994)

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69149

Ge de

A h a Beh

Oroonoko:

A comparative analysis of representation of Oroonoko and Imoinda Renu Gupta

In her influential analysis of Oroonoko, Laura Brown identifies it as a seminal work in the tradition of anti-slaver writings , and recognises the te t s multifarious potential areas of study.1 Nevertheless, she warns against an indiscriminate application of the notion of the other for an anal sis, owing to its inherent constraints of compartmentalised binaries (Brown, p. 28). Instead, she insists on formulating a model that may provide an opportunity to study the dialectical operations of race and gender in Oroonoko. However, her central argument hinges on the white female homodiegetic narrator, allocating her agency both as the producer of the narrative and the consumer of the colonial enterprise and slavery. She also explores Aphra Behn s political position to attend to O

complex political allegory and calls it

nothing less than the reenactment of the most traumatic event of the [English] revolution, the e ecution of Charles I (Brown, p. 55). Similarl , Margaret W. Ferguson, while mindful of the

1

Laura Brown, The Romance of Empire , in Ends of Empire: Women and Ideology in Early Eighteenth-Century English Literature (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 23 63 (p. 25). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

94

anachronistic nature of the categories of race, class and gender, reflects on how they work in a mutuall determining fashion in Oroonoko, and e pands these terms as the t pes of s stemic inequities , making them relational rather than foundational . 2 However, Ferguson too devotes her anal sis to the peculiarities of [Behn s] multiple and shifting class positions (Ferguson, p. 213). A plethora of Behn s biographies and the skirmishes on the historical question of her visit to Guiana further overwhelm the critical analysis of Oroonoko. As Joanna Lipking states, the more widel Oroonoko has been read, the more deeply it has been searched for Behn's entanglements .3 This essay acknowledges that being conscious of the fluidity between gender, race and class within Oroonoko is beneficial; however, an extensive focus on their operation as a subject between the author and the text tends to ignore their operation within the narrative.

This essay aims to examine the representation of gender within Oroonoko by undertaking a comparative study of Oroonoko and Imoinda, and demonstrate that in a quest to create a version of Oroonoko that may claim sympathy

a pre-requisite so that the atrocities of slavery (rather

than slavery itself) may be exposed for criticism

the te t ignores Imoinda s subjugation to

patriarchal and chattel slaver . The argument will be e tended b

using John Locke s

ideological justifications of slavery in establishing how the usurpation of these justifications reinforces the gendered difference in favour of Oroonoko. It will be evidenced by an examination of the difference in the characterisation of Oroonoko and Imoinda in the African settings, in the mode of their subjection into slavery, and in their treatment on the Surinam plantation.

In his discussion of the appearance of formal realism in the novel, Ian Watt argues that even when many seventeenth-century writers had overtl professed a wholl realistic aim ,

2

Margaret W. Ferguson, Juggling the categories of Race, Class and Gender: Aphra Behn s Oroonoko , in Women, Race & W i i g i he Ea M de Pe i d, ed. by Margo Hendricks and Patricia Parker (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 209 24 (pp. 212 13). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

3 Joanna Lipking, Others, Slaves and Colonists , in The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn, ed. by Derek Hughes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 166 87 (p. 166).

95

the did not bring about the full rejection of all the non-realistic conventions that governed the genre .4 Behn s claim in the dedicator epistle that what I have mentioned I have taken care should be truth , comes with an insistence on how these countries

so differ from ours

that the produce inconceivable wonders (italics added). 5 Behn sets the expectation and defence for what Edward Said recognises as an Orientalist gaze towards Africa. Orientalism, for Said, is a st le of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between the Orient and the Occident . 6 The details about Africa are claimed to have been received from the mouth of Oroonoko (Behn, p. 9), but impress more as a combination of the romantic genre and orientalist discourse that fashion a heroic image of Oroonoko while objectifying Imoinda as a subject of male desire. The difference between the depiction of Oroonoko and Imoinda is rationalised by relying on the local traditions of the Africans. This is aligned with what Mar Louise Pratt e plains as the strateg of reductive normalising through which the foreign is naturalised by the imperial observer. 7 The African portrait of manners and customs unconsciousl justifies the difference in the te t s approach towards the two protagonists (Pratt, p. 120).

While investigating the fictional and factual aspects of Oroonoko, Katharine Rogers concludes that the adventures at the court of Coramantien suspiciously resemble those of Restoration heroic drama . 8 Oroonoko is epitomised as the greatest hero and greatest lover in the tradition of heroic romance by a combination of supernatural beauty and extraordinary valour.

4

Ian Watt, Realism and the Novel form , in The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964), pp. 9 34 (p. 33).

5 Aphra Behn, Oroonoko (London: Penguin Books, 2003), p. 5. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

6 Edward Said, Introduction , in Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1979), pp. 1 28 (p. 2).

7 Mar Louise Pratt, Scratches on the Face of the Countr , Critical Inquiry, 12 (1985), 119 43 (p. 121). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

8 Katharine M. Rogers, Fact and Fiction in Aphra Behn s Oroonoko , Studies in the Novel, 20 (1988), 1 15 (p.

3).

96

He became, at the age of seventeen, one of the most expert captains and bravest soldiers that ever saw the field of Mars [ ] Besides, he was adorned with a native beaut so transcending all of his gloom race, that he struck an awe and reverence even in those that knew not his quality.

(Behn, p. 13)

His description is paralleled by the characteristics of the characters in the romance genre. In Markman Ellis words, he is beautiful because virtuous, virtuous because beautiful . 9 Oroonoko s surveillance b the King s soldiers and their invasion into Imoinda s chamber as he la with her, followed b Oroonoko s gallant heroism in challenging them (Behn, pp. 28 30), is reminiscent of a similar scene in the courtly romance saga of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere.10 Oroonoko s idealisation, his allegiance to the chivalric and aristocratic values, and the code of love and honour, add to his heroic image. Furthermore, the text improvises on Oroonoko s personalit b superimposing this image with the European ideals. As Oddvar Holmesland elucidates, his noble savage features are oddl consonant with noble qualities naturalised b a European aristocratic order . 11 Both in his appearance and his intellectual capacities, Oroonoko is differentiated from the Africans and equated with the Europeans.

He had nothing of barbarity in his nature, but in all points addressed himself as if his education had been in some European court [ ] his nose was rising and Roman instead of African and flat. His mouth [was] far from those great turned lips which are so natural to the rest of the Negroes [ ] His discourse was admirable upon almost any subject, and whoever had heard him speak would have been convinced of their errors that all fine wit is confined to white men.

(Behn, p. 15)

9

Markman Ellis, Seminar Handout on Oroonoko.

Sir Thomas Malor , Morte Arthur , in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 9th edn, ed. by Stephan Greenblatt and others (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012), pp. 482 486.

11 Oddvar Holmesland, Aphra Behn's Oroonoko: Cultural Dialectics and the Novel , ELH, 68 (2001), 57 79 (p.

58).

10

97

In the same African settings, the te t s matter of fact narration about the oppression of women through pol gam , maintenance of the King s harem and women s adulter being punishable by execution or sale into slavery, is a precursor of Oroonoko s indifference towards Imoinda s fate. It doesn t flinch at Imoinda s reduction into a measure for male honour, her commodification narrowed to her virginit . In Bakhtin s language of the dialogic discourse in the novel, Imoinda s utterance is material onl when it is used to satisf [Oroonoko] in: whether she was robbed of that blessing which was onl due to his faith and love (Behn, p.

21). As she becomes a site of competition between two males, her vocal resistance in an attempt to protect the same modesty is earlier ignored by the King (Behn, p. 19) and is silenced when Oroonoko [ravages] her in a moment (Behn, p. 29). Deepl patriarchal as it is, Oroonoko s victor converts Imoinda into a polluted thing , drawing the punishment of being sold into slaver , the cruel sentence, worse than death (Behn, p. 31). The difference in the portra al of both the characters elevates Oroonoko in the reader s esteem, facilitating the perception of his subsequent enslavement as anathema, but the gendered narrative of the male honour deprives Imoinda of her human reality to attract any criticism upon her enslavement.

This gendered differentiation is again visible in the generation of sentiments upon the manner in which Oroonoko is taken into slavery. The justification of the institution of slavery lies in the mode of procurement of slaves in both African and European ideologies. The text argues that being alwa s in hostilit with one neighbouring prince or other, [Coramantiens] had the fortune to take a great many captives; for all they took in battle were sold as slaves (Behn, p. 13). Oroonoko himself took slaves as trophies for victory in war. He presented Imoinda with those slaves that had been taken in [the] last battle and also trafficked in such slaves with the commander of the British ship (Behn, pp. 16, 36). His principal argument in his harangue to the slaves in Surinam also lies in this practice. Have [the owners] vanquished us nobly in fight? Have they won us in honourable battle? And are we by the chance of war

98

become their slaves? he asks (Behn, p. 62). Incidentall , this is similar to Locke s justification for slavery in his theory of just-war. After expanding on the ideas of freedom and equality of men in the state of nature, Locke defines the state of war, which is activated when an aggressor attempts to get another Man into his Absolute Power

make him a slave.12 Locke considers

it lawful to kill whoever introduces a State of War, and is aggressor in it (Locke, ยง18, p. 280).

Such aggressor,

B his fault forfeit[s] his own life [

] [and] he, to whom he has forfeited it, may (when he has him in

his power) delay to take it, and make use of him to his own service, and he does him no injury by it.

(Locke, ยง23, p. 284)

As the victor may delay to inflict death and instead make the aggressor a slave, Locke concludes that the perfect condition of slaver is nothing else, but the state of war continued, between a lawful conqueror and a captive (Locke, ยง24, p. 284). However, Oroonoko s initiation in the condition of total servitude is not as an unjust aggressor taken captive in war .13 David Brion Davis in his groundbreaking work outlines the complex interface of religion, law, business interests and the rumoured facts about Africa that informed British sensibilities to determine the legitimate ways of obtaining slaves for American colonies. He discusses rulings that differentiated between lawful captives and victims of unjust violence and condemned treacher , deceit and manstealing . 14 By portraying Oroonoko as a victim of unjust violence and treachery, the narrative withholds traditional, philosophical or legal support for his dramatic kidnapping, and successfully creates pathos in his favour by rendering his

12

John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, Student Edition, ed. by Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), ยง17, p. 279. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

13 James Farr, Locke, Natural Law, and New World Slaver , Political Theory, 36 (2008), 495 522 (p. 496).

14 David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970), pp.

197 98.

99

enslavement as illegitimate. Painfully though, the narrative s uncritical reception of Imoinda s oppression and her actual sale into slavery, leans on the normalisation of traditional and patriarchal narrative of unequal gender relations in her society. She gets what she deserves as per the African customs.

Predictabl , the subsequent narrative continues to maintain Oroonoko s e clusive status to censure his slavery. His royal prestige is not lost in spite of his capture. The captain found it necessar to free the prince from his irons because the prisoners refused to eat until the could see their prince, and he was treated with all the respect due to his birth (Behn, pp.

39 40). His position is reconfirmed during his journey to the plantation upon arrival in Surinam as the fame of Oroonoko was gone before him (Behn, p. 43). His princel eminence attracts the devotion of his countr men on the plantation and the all cast themselves at his feet, crying out in their language, Live, O King! Long live, O King! (Behn, p. 44). Besides, the narrative overtl resists him being treated as a slave. He is not made to work, it was more for form than an design to put him to his task, he endured no more of the slave but the name (Behn, p. 44) and is involved socially with the plantation owners, both males and females. This all hinders his inception and adaptation as a slave in the plantation. Stanley M. Elkins, in his study of the slave personalities in the ante-bellum period, explains the detachment of the Negro from his cultural backgrounds that is achieved b the shock e perience [of] procurement . He stresses on how they had to adapt with the authority system they were introduced to for their physical and psychic survival, concluding an adjustment to clear and omnipresent authority as more or less automatic . 15 Nothing of that kind is experienced by Oroonoko. Oroonoko is awarded a social station entirely different from what Locke foresees for the slaves who

15

Stanle M. Elkins, Slaver and Personalit , in Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, 3rd edn (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), pp. 81 139 (pp. 83, 88 9). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

100

Being captives taken in a just war, are by the right of nature subjected to the absolute dominion and arbitrar power of their masters. These men [ ] being in the state of slaver [ ] cannot in that state be considered as any part of civil society.

(Locke, ยง85, pp. 322 23)

He maintains his identity as a royal prince in complete disregard to the practical fact that the slaves on the plantation were procured from different tribes and may not even share a common language, let alone a common leader.

16

In contrast, the narrative elides Imoinda s journe to

the plantation from both the story and the discourse time of the novella. She reappears as Clemene, a se ual pre

adorned with the most graceful modest

feared a rape even from the God of Da

and so retired, as if she

(Behn, p. 45). She is hounded both b a hundred

white men and all the slaves [who are] perpetuall at her feet (Behn, pp. 16, 45). Her fortune transforms onl upon her identification as Caesar s Imoinda, and then she is paid treble respect (Behn, p. 48). Imoinda s chastit is used to e emplif Oroonoko b reserving her for a prince of her own nation (Behn, p. 16). Besides being se ualised, she is commercialised too in slaver as is apparent in her removal from the site of Oroonoko s torture for the fear she should die with the sight or miscarry, and then they should lose a young slave, and perhaps a mother (Behn, p. 68). Elkins quotes the details of a will in which a woman bequeathed to one daughter, [

] a negress and the third child to be born of her; to the second daughter, [

the first and second child to be born of the same woman

]

(Elkins, p. 50). This shows how the

value of the future child of the slave was also accounted for under slavery. This practice conflicts with Locke s assertion that the father, by his miscarriages and violence, can forfeit but his own life, but involves not his children in his guilt or destruction (Locke, ยง182, p. 389).

16

On the Gold coast alone, no more than si t miles in length, seven or eight several languages so different that three or four of them are interchangeabl unintelligent to an but the respective natives were spoken (William Bosman, cited in Stanley M. Elkins, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, 3rd edn (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), p. 91).

101

The narrative again utilises the schism between the ideology and the lived reality to garner sympathy for Oroonoko. It is Imoinda s pregnanc coupled with Oroonoko s understanding that all the breed is theirs to whom the parents belong that makes him more impatient for libert , eventuall leading to the rebellion (Behn, p. 48).

Elkins observes that the African tribesman was the product of cultural traditions essentiall heroic in nature [

] something ver profound would have had to intervene in order

to obliterate all this and to reduce, on the American plantation, a society of helpless dependents (Elkins, p. 98). Oroonoko is spared such obliteration. The narrative s investment in maintaining him as a ro al and heroic figure, different from the slaves who chose to

ield and live , proves

significant in both glorifying Oroonoko, and strengthening the alliance between the narrator and Oroonoko (Behn, p. 65). As argued in the beginning of the essay, the narrator is selective in criticising Oroonoko s enslavement rather than the practice of slaver itself. The narrator herself is aligned with the slave- owner white English colonists, and Oroonoko too has been a beneficiary of the system of slavery. In this background, the veneration of Oroonoko by othering the other African slaves shifts his identit closer to that of the narrator, garnering support against his enslavement from the predominantly white prospective readers. Oroonoko is depicted as different from the common slaves, and simultaneously, identifiable with the white colonists. This strategy is instrumental in building and precipitating his tragic end and accords him nobilit even in death. In contrast, Imoinda s bod is morphed as an opportunit of male revenge. Oroonoko feared that she ma be first ravaged b ever brute, e posed first to their nast lusts, and then a shameful death . Additionally, the narrative considers her passive acquiescence in her murder reasonable because among Coramantiens when a man finds an occasion to quit his wife, if he love her, she dies b his hand (Behn, p. 71). Ironicall , she is neglected even in death. Her corpse is denied visibilit and is indicated onl b a stink (Behn, p. 73). The future stage adaptations of the story continued to hide her behind a whitewashed

102

Imoinda to ensure the audience s emotional involvement in Oroonoko. Jo ce Green MacDonald argues that Imoinda s identit is jeopardised as the audiences had a read -made sentimental frame of reference for a miscegenous Oroonoko, but not for one whose enslaved lovers were of the same race . 17 Oroonoko s European and heroic sensibilities, the illegitimacy of his capture and his elevated status on the plantation ensures his inadaptability as a slave that makes his enslavement and the climactic spectacle of the horror of his death, exceedingly deplorable.

However, Imoinda s victimisation under the double discourse of slavery and patriarchy is tacitly accepted. While Imoinda remains textually present till the very end on the word Imoinda

the novella ends

any attempt to treat her with equal humanity as Oroonoko, eludes

Oroonoko.

Works cited Behn, Aphra, Oroonoko (London: Penguin Books, 2003) Bosman, William, cited in Stanley M. Elkins, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, 3rd edn (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976) Brown, Laura, The Romance of Empire , in Ends of Empire: Women and Ideology in Early Eighteenth-Century English Literature (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp.

23 63 Davis, David Brion, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970) Ellis, Markman, Seminar Handout on Oroonoko Elkins, Stanley M., Slaver and Personalit , in Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, 3rd edn (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), pp. 81 139

17

Jo ce Green MacDonald, The Disappearing African Woman: Imoinda in Oroonoko after Behn , ELH, 66 (1999), 71 86 (p. 71).

103

Farr, James, Locke, Natural Law, and New World Slaver , Political Theory, 36 (2008), 495 522 Ferguson, Margaret W., Juggling the categories of Race, Class and Gender: Aphra Behn s Oroonoko , in W

e , Race & W i i g i

he Ea

Modern Period, ed. by Margo

Hendricks and Patricia Parker (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 209 24 Holmesland, Oddvar, Aphra Behn's Oroonoko: Cultural Dialectics and the Novel , ELH, 68 (2001), 57 79 Lipking, Joanna, Others, Slaves and Colonists , in The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn, ed. by Derek Hughes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) Locke, John, Two Treatises of Government, Student Edition, ed. by Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) MacDonald, Joyce Green, The Disappearing African Woman: Imoinda in Oroonoko after Behn , ELH, 66 (1999) Malory, Sir Thomas, Morte Arthur , in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 9th edn, ed. by Stephan Greenblatt and others (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012), pp. 482 86 Pratt, Mary Louise, Scratches on the Face of the Countr , Critical Inquiry, 12 (1985), 119 43 Rogers, Katharine M., Fact and Fiction in Aphra Behn s Oroonoko , Studies in the Novel, 20 (1988), 1 15 Said, Edward, Introduction , in Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1979), pp. 1 28 Watt, Ian, Realism and the Novel form , in The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964), pp. 9 34

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER691450

Taking Rhetoric Seriously: Niet sche s St le and Philosoph Felix Ionescu

Wherever there is a discussion of style in literary works, one begins by asserting what seems rather obvious: that there is a deep connection between content and form, between what is a

.I

ca ,

a

a

c

used to convey ideas in a meaningful manner, and so it remains at a distance from thought itself it is primarily a mode of aesthetic expression and not a way of thinking. At first sight, the same thing could be said to hold when it comes to discussions of philosophical writings: c

b

c

a

a

,b ,

a

,

a

a

to be considered only supplementary to the ideas expressed. For it is philosophy which, in trying to define itself in opposition to literature, claims to be the rational search for truth, a

.B

a

a

a

,

a

ca , a

strange kind of love, one that hides its origin (for after all, it is a human yearning for truth, a

,

)a

ac

c

.O

a

c

suspect at this point that philosophers themselves are the ones who, in their loving of wisdom, usually employ a writing style that is aimed at concealing their presence as authors, such that they can adequately disclose the presence of truth instead: the concern for objectivity is, after

105

all, something philosophy has always treasured

especially during modernity, when the

possibility of transforming this discipline into a rigorous science was for the first time taken into account. Seen in this light, philosophy should usually be written in a clear, precise and orderly manner, and, since it is a rational search for truth, it would demand that the authors begin their inquiries by first presenting a method that would offer us guidance with regards to a

c

a

a ,

b

c

. I

a ,

a

a,

,b

a

,

a

a -century thinkers,

such as Heidegger, Derrida and others, tried to demonstrate this is not the case by collapsing the boundaries between the two and Nietzsche, who was a major influence for basically all of twentieth-century continental philosophy, had a similar project.

It should not seem surprising, then, that Friedrich Nietzsche

a

difficult if not impossible to include in a clearly defined category (philosophy? literature?), b a

.I

c

c a

ac ,

a a

ab

a

a

ab e that one read and interpret a thinker like Nietzsche

by starting from very abstract notions or rigidly defined concepts. Because it is by attending seriously to his text that one begins the difficult task of interpretation, especially in the case of a thinker whose books appear to stand at the border between philosophy and literature, and whose use of language does not ignore or deny but rather emphasise its rhetorical nature. Now, of course, Nietzsche is not the only one who intentionally departs from the conventional style of philosophy (one can think here of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Derrida, and many others); what makes each of these writers interesting and unique, however, has to be sought in their philosophical projects. In the case of Nietzsche, whose writing will be the subject of this essay, it is well known that the unconventional style he employs abounds in aphorisms, metaphors, hyperboles, ironical remarks, sarcasm, contradictions; but when one goes on to claim after a superficial reading of his texts

a, a , N

c

a

c a

106

a

a

,

c

a c

a

a

a

,a

a

,

for example, texts like The Birth of Tragedy or On the Genealogy of Morals. By approaching his text more carefully, however, one should arrive instead at the conclusion that what makes Nietzsche so easy to misunderstand is that he in fact does not use only one style, but many.

What is the reason for this? Why does Nietzsche rely on a multitude of different styles, and does this eradicate the possibility of finding a unitary meaning in his writings? What does he want to achieve? In this discussion, I will argue (drawing on the more recent works of David O

a

C

Ja a a )

a N

c

rence for various styles and rhetorical

devices is strongly connected with his philosophical commitments and therefore justified as the proper means of transmitting his teachings on morality. In the first section, I will point out some difficulties with Ni

c

,a

a

c

c

a

have attempted to make sense of it; I will also comment on some of the interpretations of Nietzsche which I take to constitute the more extreme tendencies, and will explain why these should be avoided. Sections II, III and IV will contain my arguments for holding the view that N

c

c

a

a

,b

a

a a

c

imposed on his writing by the manner in which he construed the central problem that he wanted to address, that of nihilism and how to overcome it. I will draw attention in section II to the fact that Nietzsche does not write in a rigorous and straightforward way, because he does not think that by simply unfolding a series of rational arguments, he will be able to solve problems a

b

a

(

c

a

);

a

a

forming an affective relation with those who are willing to understand what he has to say. Then, section III will demonstrate that Nietzsche uses rhetoric in order to make his readers suspect the origin of morality and its value, and, in this way, to render possible a critique of moral values this would be, so to speak, the negative use of his rhetoric. In the final section, I will explain how using rhetorical devices is again an appropriate means to instil the will to

107

overcome nihilism, which is one of the main concerns of Nietzsche

thus I will show the

positive use of his rhetoric. Taking into account, then, what I consider to be three fundamental a

c

N

c

, . .

a c

c

;

c

a

;

and the need to overcome nihilism, and showing how these are reflected in his writing style, I will demonstrate that

a

c, a

b

c

a

N

c

ca ,

proves to be very effective in expressing his ideas and way of thinking.

I. Styles L

N

wou

c

,a

a

N

book Nietzsche and Metaphor,

c

c a

c

a

. Sa a K a

a ,

a

a c

,

, N

c

intentionally diversifies his styles in order to save the reader from misunderstanding a single . 1 In fact, this is admitted by Nietzsche himself, when he writes that:

a a

To communicate a state, an inward tension of pathos, by means of signs, including the tempo of these signs-that is the meaning of every style; and considering that the multiplicity of inward states is exceptionally large in my case, I have many stylistic possibilities

the most multifarious art of style

that has ever been at the disposal of one man. Good is any style that really communicates an inward a ,

a

a

a

ab

,

,

[ ].2

What this passage from Ecce Homo suggests is that there is no unique style which must be held paramount in writing, and so even in the case of philosophy, if one has come to realise that it has an essentially written character and cannot do without words, then there would be

1

Sarah Kofman, Nietzsche and Metaphor (London: Athlone Press, 1993), p. 2. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

2 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo, trans. by R. J. Hollingdale and W. Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), p. 265.

108

no problem in changing styles as often as one desires. However, Kofman thinks that the task b

a

b

c c

(a

to be representative of the old, traditional style of writing philosophy) and metaphor (which is one of the styles employed by Nietzsche himself, and which is usually associated with poetry) (Kofman, pp. 17 8). She says:

Tyranny is reprehensible in all its forms, including that of any philosopher seeking to raise his spontaneous evalua ,

a

ab

a

a

a

c

a

ca

,

.B

a

of anyone seeking simply to invert the terms and commend the value of metaphor alone is equally reprehensible: he remains ensnared in the same system of thought as the metaphysician.

(Kofman, p. 3)

Thus, for Kofman, the decision to use a variety of styles would be in strong relationship with the rejection of metaphysical oppositions and dogmatism, which is characteristic of N

c

.A

,

a

a

c

the idea

that the way one perceives things is not the truth, but rather a perspective (which even at this point, implies a certain degree of interpretation and evaluation) that is good for him/her, although not necessarily good for everyone is crucial here, because if a change in style represents, ultimately, a change in perspective, then the distinction between content and form b c

b

.B

a

,

,N

c

his presence as author, and this is in some sense constraining but also liberating. Because, even if Nietzsche wants all who read his books to see, to become aware, that his interpretations are not identical with truth, and do not have to be accepted as absolute, those who are really interested in his ideas and want to understand what he has to say about morality, the value of truth, and the

,

c

acc

N

c

as it appears, as it is

109

written N

a , aa

c

ca

,

a

a

. B

a

c

a

a

c

,

s texts is

liberating, since those who read him (well) cannot be brought to the conclusion that with N

c

,

a

a c

a

.

Alexander Nehamas has basically made a similar point in Nietzsche: Life as Literature, wherein he c a

a N

c

c

a

ca

as meaning that Nietzsche was somehow an antic .I

a c ,a

,

c

N

b ,

a

a a

a

a

c

a

c

ca

-

b

considered in relation to the tradition that philosophers have inherited from Socrates and Plato.

A N a a

a

: N

c

c

P a o and Socrates because he believes

that their approach is essentially dogmatic. He attributes to them the view that their view is not simply a view but an accurate description of the real world which forces its own acceptance and makes an unconditional cla

a

.

3

In other words, it is the case that

philosophy (in this dogmatic sense) hides its origin (which is in individual evaluations and interpretations) so that it may appear to proclaim universal truths which would not need further questioning. Nehamas also observes this and goes further to say that:

It is in the interest of dogmatic approaches to hide their specific origins; in this way they are enabled to a

a ca a

,

.T a

a a

[ ]

N

c

a

the practice he calls

a c a

c ac a

emerge the views that we have forgotten are views and take instead as facts. Genealogy reveals both these origins and the mechanisms by which the views in question try to conceal them.

(Nehamas, pp. 32 3)

3

Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 32.

Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

110

It can be seen here that the purpose of genealogy is to show, as Nietzsche famously said at one point in The Will to Power, a

ac

c

a

,

a

,

which is not to say that everything is relative, but rather to affirm perspectivism once again, meaning that what comes to be known as a fact is not separated from interpretation: thus there a

ba

ac , b

a

,

a N

. 4 Now, when hearing the word

a a

ca

a a

c

a

c

a

ab

b

,

b c

a

. B

s no truth in the way we interpret the world, ourselves, and

so on, but rather that this truth is not binding for all. This is perhaps clearly illustrated in the Second Essay from On the Genealogy of Morals, when Nietzsche talks about the origin of bad con c ca

c

a a

a

a

a

,b

a T

a

c

c ac a . 5 It is by trying to

a

find a meaning behind this suffering, i.e. to come up with an interpretation of it, that man has worsened his condition and has not reduced but increased his suffering. Arthur Danto has made a

a ,

ca

a N

c

c

Genealogy

is to help those who read it cure themselves of ressentiment, which is another sign of the will for suffering to have a meaning:

What Nietzsche objects to is not so much this model [of justice based on punishment] but its total generalisation, making every suffering a punition and the entire world a court of justice with a penitentiary annex. If I am right that this is his view, the final aphorism of the Genealogy, rather will the nothing than not

,

c

a

,a

a

all. What it does is restate

the instinct of ressentiment: man would rather his suffering be meaningful, hence would rather will

4

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. by R. J. Hollingdale and W. Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1967), p. 267.

5 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. by Douglas Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 49. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

111 a

,

a ac

c

a

.[ ]I a

a ,

a

c

which he seeks to relieve us is what today we think of as hermeneutics: the method of interpretation a

.A

a

[ ]

a

ac ,

a

,

,Ib

,

finally addressing the deep, perhaps ineradicable propensities of ressentiment.6

This last point is indeed based on a subtle reading of Nietzsche, not least because it presents his view of perspectivism as opposed to hermeneutics and in a way connected to the deconstructive approach devised by Jacques Derrida, who is certainly

N

c

inheritors. Understood, then, in the way Danto has, the famous aphorism shows that there is a c

c

b

N

c

c c

b

b

a

suffering, and his way of recognizing and unmasking the various things that are similar to it and lead to ressentiment (in this case, for example, the idea that there is always only one true interpretation).

O

c

a

a b

said so far. Let me now

c

bac

a

N

N a a

c

a

a

a

a

a

a c

he thinks Nietzsche solves the problem concerning the dogmatism of philosophers is by distinguishing himself from Socrates and criticizing that tradition: and he does so not by ceasing to write works that could be considered philosophical, but rather by changing the way in which philosophy was written, by employing a variety of styles, by presenting a multitude of perspectives. Nietzsche in fact said, in his early Lectures on Rhetoric, that:

T

b

ca

a

a

a

a

c

c

a

a; a

a

is the result of purely rhetorical arts. The power to discover and to make operative that which works and impresses, with respect to each thing, a power that Aristotle calls rhetoric, is at the same time, the

6

A Da , S R a The Genealogy of Morals , Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality, ed. by Richard Schacht (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 35 48 (p. 46).

112 essence of language; the latter is based just as little as rhetoric is upon that which is true, upon the essence of things.7

So, he has easily noticed that words are not identical with the things they stand for as signs, and because of this all truth amounts to a convention at the level of language. On the origin of truth, Nietzsche says in a well-known passage that it has become hidden the moment our metaphorical constructions (pertaining to rhetoric and so essential to language) have lost their force (and this applies also to the creation of concepts in general, for they are a form of falsification):

What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions; they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins.8

Nietzsche therefore does not attempt to escape these aspects of language, when he writes philosophy, and neither does he want to pretend for his readers that he does so, but rather criticises the dogmatic (and metaphysical) tradition by revealing its origins and motivation (for example, by showing why and how have people come to value truth above all else). One could hardly fail to notice, at this point, that rhetoric for Nietzsche occupies a position similar to that which writing has for Derrida, who, noticing

7

a

,

Pa

Phaedrus and many

Sander Gilman, Carole Blair and David Parent, Friedrich Nietzsche on Language and Rhetoric (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 21.

8 Daniel Breazeale, ed., Philosoph and Truth: Selections from Niet sche s Notebooks of Earl 1870 s (New York: Humanity Books, 1979), p. 84.

113

other texts that if truth is not present in writing as it is in speech, then it is not immediately c

,

a

c

c

a a

, c c

a

philosophy should be more written, and employing in his own works a significant amount of devices meant to destabilise the privileged position occupied by speech in the Western tradition. Similarly, as I already said, Nietzsche

[ ]

a

.[ ]P

b a ab

a

ca a

b

a ,a

a

oticed

-consciousness will alter or transcend

that circumstance. For Nietzsche, the goal is not to discover the unvarnished truth, for there is no such thing. Rather, the aim is to understand the forces power

such as the need to communicate and the will to

that have produced those ideas about truth which have driven philosophy through its long

history.9

Now, in closing this section I want to draw attention to what I consider to be two extreme tendencies of interpreting Nietzsche, which are in my opinion wrong, because they both fail to take seriously into consideration the connection between content and style. In fact, I take these misunderstandings to spring from a questionable way of look c

.T

,

a

N

c

a

a N

c

a

a

supplement to the ideas expressed, and that the abundance of metaphors, rhetorical interrogations, and aphorisms are not helping to identify his claims and arguments (if there are any), but rather unnecessarily obscure them. Those who fall in the other extreme actually do a

a

acc

a c

N

c

c,

,

to be concerned with and to put emphasis on his literary style and in doing so are misled to a N

9

c

a

a a

a

a a

b

Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg, The Rhetorical Tradition (Boston: Bedford Books, 1990), p. 887.

,

114

at least the undecidability of meaning, as if he did not really intend to say anything, but nevertheless used rhetoric as a means to avoid making definitive claims. One thing that is not acc

a

N

c

,

,

c

a

a

be understood by everybody, and that as a result of this, his style would not please all readers.

I believe that those who read Nietzsche in any of the two ways mentioned above are judging a

a

,

ac ,

ca

N

c

perspectivism: they either desire to discover universal truths, or want to impose their own interpretation by not paying attention to the form specific to different texts. But, to emphasise c a a , N

c

c a

a

a

c a a

author literally unforgettable and in order to prevent his readers from overlooking the fact that his views necessarily originate with him. He depends on many styles in order to suggest that there is no single, neutral language in which his views, or any others, can

b

(Nehamas, p. 37).

II. Psychology P

a

a

ac

N

c

a

a

a

deep-seated presuppositions about morality, selfhood, knowledge, history and philosophy which are usually thought to be just self-evident. The great discovery, in his case, is of course the essential role that psychology occupies in explaining how humans came to judge what is good and what is evil. But Nietzsche also observed the degree to which Christian morality has become intertwined with our understanding of our psychic life, and this is very well shown in c

E

c

Genealogy of Morals, who seem to

be unable to infer correctly with regards to the origin of our moral values, since they assume that what is now co

a a

a

b

a

a

a

,

needs, fears and so on, and not vice-versa. Nietzsche warns against this when he says, in Beyond

115

Good and Evil, :

a A

c

a

a

a

.

10

a c

a

c

and

It becomes clear that what has to be done to

understand human drives and emotions is to separate morality from psychology, and this cannot be achieved otherwise than through a very special kind of writing, which would indeed, as Nietzsche said in the Preface to Genealogy, a

cca

a

a

a (N

a

c , Genealogy of Morals, p. 10). He

emphasised the same point (and I consider this to be true both for author and reader) when he claimed that

A genuine physio-psychology has to struggle with unconscious resistances in the heart of the a c

,

a

a ca

a a

:

,a a

a

a a

,

c ac

c

a

c

a

a

and even more a theory of the derivation of all good impulses from wicked ones.

(Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, p. 53)

F

c

c

a

a

a

separate origins, and pertaining to a metaphysical realm, the result of which being the intermingling of morality with theology. And Nietzsche could not have addressed this harmful connection between the two in some other way than by employing rhetorical constructions meant to stimulate our affects. This relates again to his perspectivism, since by starting to feel differently, one is at the same time starting to adopt a different interpretation. Therefore, N

c c

a c a a

c

a a a a

a

b

c a

a b

c a

c

,

a abandoning

of metaphysical perspectives and a returning to an interpretation of human life that is rooted in

10

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. by R. J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin Books, 1990), p. 53.

Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

116

history, physiology and psychology this is the reason why the vocabulary used in the Genealogy abounds in terms and metaphors alluding to human drives, impulses, and so on (Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, p. 54). Since there is resistance (against interpretation itself), presenting his views in a straightforward way does not prove to be effective for N

c

a:

c

stead clearly that he writes with psychological

intent. Changing between aphoristic or metaphoric styles is itself an expression of and evidence for the multitude of emotions that lays hidden, and which constitutes the basis of how we come to judge in terms of morality.

III. Critique of Morality I c

b

a

a

a

a

b

c

a

N

c

writing of

philosophy (in the way that he does) is that of nihilism what we are confronted with when the highest values devalue themselves. One of the ways in which Nietzsche refers to this problem b

b

c

G

a ,

c

ab

a

a

The Gay

Science.11 Simply put, he does not allude here to God as a transcendent being (since in this case a b c

c a G

b c a

a c

b

,

G a

a a

a

), b

: B

a

a a a

, G

metaphysical entity cannot die. What is dead, then, must not be God Himself, as it were, but a

a ca b b

a

, a

a

G

b

G .

12

But

Nietzsche intends to prove that loss of belief in the Christian God does not already imply an abandoning of Christian morality, since to hold an interpretation of the world as that proposed

by Christianity is in strong connection with a specific way of life, one that in fact does not

11

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), p. 181.

Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

12 Bernard Reginster, The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2006), p. 40.

117

affirm it, but is rather turned against life and against human nature itself. And the passage a

ab

c ca,I

,

a

N

c

a

a

style necessary for a critique of this inherited morality. It would be interesting to observe that T

Ma

a

a ab ca also be taken as a warning against how not to read Nietzsche, since

it has at its centre a failure of communication, or a failed relationship between the one who a

c

a

G

(

Ma

recog

a ;N

c ), a

(

G

b

C

,

a

a

a ab

a

a ,

ac ;

a

a

ab a

b

a

,

b

a mful).

A loss of the belief in God is an event that engages human existence totally, because it ca

a

a

a

b

a .A

c ,

a

G

and the consequences that ensue in its aftermath cannot be recognised for what they are if this event were to be presented in a direct manner, and Nietzsche is fully aware of this necessity.

Therefore, it is crucial that he makes use of the figure of the Madman as the one who, ironically, seeks to enlighten others , a

Ha e you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright a

ac a

c

c

a

: I

G !I

G !

(Nietzsche, Gay Science, p. 181). The various symbolic gestures that accompany the speech delivered in the marketplace are meant to reveal precisely how strong is the influence exerted

by Christian morality and the steps one is required to take in detaching from, critiquing and c

a

a

G

.I

b ab

o address the

danger of nihilism, then, one must first see where it is rooted and what sustains it. Thus, as Da

O

a

,

a

c

-orientation, there must be the recognition of the

need for re-orientation, and it is the failure of such recognition that is symbolised by the third a

aa c

a

:

a

a

a

a

118

.13 So what this signifies is a change in the attitude of the Madman, when he realises that a

a

ac

c

c

a

G

,a

failure of enlightenment results in his renunciation to engage directly with the people from the marketplace; the madman instead decides to chant a requiem in the churches, saying that those represent only the sepulchres of God.

IV. Re-evaluation The rhetorical style used by Nietzsche, as I said in the introduction, also has a positive role, that of allowing us to construct something different, something new, an interpretation of life a

a

b

a

,

a c

a a

ac

C

worldview. Nietzsche wants to instil in us the desire to t a c

a

a a

fundamental to Christianity, because, in doing so, we will come to affirm life once again. What I find relevant here is to comment briefly on the fourteenth section of the First Essay in the Genealogy of Morality, where he invites (or maybe, provokes) the reader to venture into the a

a ,

a

a

a

.T

a

images used to describe this place, as well as the alert rhythm in which the unveiling of these hidden origins is presented, is meant to illustrate how deep-rooted is the morality that undermines and seeks to inhibit all manifestations of the will to power, and that the only way c a a a

a b

ca

ac

a b

;c a c

(N

,b a

impotent failure to ;

b

c , Genealogy of Morals, p. 31). It is by allowing us to

see the contrast between nobles and slaves, between ressentiment and action, positive valuing, that we, the readers, are subtly guided towards the masters and their way of life. And

13

David Owen, Niet sche s Genealog of Moralit (Stocksfield: Acumen, 2007), p. 55.

119

N

c

a

a

c T

a

b

c a a

a

a slavish morality and the need to overcome nihilism. ,

a

N

c

,

a

c

c

b

a

content, one that finds its justification in the way he understands the affective attachment that exists between those who have not yet renounced Christian morality and the values and ideals they believe in unconditionally. It can be rightfully said that Nietzsche recognises the threat b

a

c

c

a

a

a

a a

remedy he makes ingenious use of rhetorical devices meant to open our existence to this danger, confront it and in the end still be able to affirm life through a new re-evaluation, one that goes beyond good and evil.

Acknowledgements I would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr Steven Gormley, lecturer in Philosophy at University of Essex and my advisor, for suggesting me this question and for the guidance offered during the planning and development of this essay. I am also very thankful to the Department of Philosophy, the Department of History, and the entire staff working in the School of Philosophy and Art History at University of Essex for their warm hospitality and moral support during my studies. Also, I am deeply indebted to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable and insightful comments which resulted in an improvement of my essay. Finally, I

a

a

M I a aR

c ,

F

Journal, for some very useful discussions and encouragement.

E

-in-Chief of Wonderer

120

Works cited Bizzell, Patricia, and Bruce Herzberg, The Rhetorical Tradition (Boston: Bedford Books, 1990) Breazeale, Daniel, ed., Philosoph and Truth: Selections from Niet sche s Notebooks of Earl 1870 s (New York: Humanity Books, 1979) Danto, Arthur, S

R

a

The Genealogy of Morals ,

Nietzsche, Genealogy,

Morality, ed. by Richard Schacht (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), pp.

35 48 Gilman, Sander, Carole Blair and David Parent, Friedrich Nietzsche on Language and Rhetoric (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989) Kofman, Sarah, Nietzsche and Metaphor (London: Athlone Press, 1993) Nehamas, Alexander, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press, 1985) Nietzsche, Friedrich, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. by R. J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin Books, 1990) —— Friedrich, The Gay Science, trans. by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1974) —— Friedrich, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. by Douglas Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) —— Friedrich, On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo, trans. by R. J. Hollingdale and W. Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1989) —— Friedrich, The Will to Power, trans. by R. J. Hollingdale and W. Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1967) Owen, David, Niet sche s Genealog of Moralit (Stocksfield: Acumen, 2007) Reginster, Bernard, The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2006)

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER691451

seo Godes circe: Figuring the Ecclesia in the Cynewulfian corpus Jasmine Jones

Introduction The four poems which contain the runic signature of the mysterious Old English poet Cynewulf he

en i led Chri II , J liana , The Fa e of he Apo le and Elene

ider corp

of poem

gge ing C ne

as well as

lfian infl ence ha e a rac ed con iderable

critical attention. However, the role of the Church and its sacraments in this poetry has never been satisfactorily addressed and is therefore the topic about which this article wonders.

Although various critics allude to the institutional Church in their arguments, they often do not explicitly pin down the Anglo-Saxon Ecclesia

the sacrament-admini ering Ch rch

as

providing the liturgical practice and divine grace to which their scholarship refers, or they mi con r e he Ch rch

iden i

a an e hereal ab rac ion e i ing a

he Ch rch of he

Spiri ra her han a a ma erial reali . 1 To insist on the solely utilitarian, catechetical function of Old English verse is to forget i

1

con e

ali a ion b

he A g

inian radi ion in

hich ae he ic plea re and he

Colin Cha e, God' Pre ence hro gh Grace a he Theme of C ne lf' Christ II and the Relationship of This Theme to Christ I and Christ III , ASE, 3 (1974), 87 110; Bri Mi e, Manip la ion of he Mind-as-Container Motif in Beowulf, Homiletic Fragment II, and Alfred's Metrical Epilogue to the Pastoral Care , The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 107 (2008), 25 56; Judith N. Garde, Old English Poetry in Medieval Christian Perspective: A Doctrinal Approach (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer Ltd., 1991), pp. 156, 158. Further references to these editions are given after quotations in the text.

122 enigmatic stimulation of figurae

allegorical images

o ard di ine Tr h. Echoing Chri 13) and S Pa l

ad oca ion of figurae in His parables (Matthew 13. 10

cri ici m of li erali m

con rain

Hippo promo ed he e ege ical proce of cracking he he kernel

were essential to advancing the mind

the underlying meaning

(II Corin hian 3.6 7), Augustine of hell

historia and veritas . A fig re f nc ion no a a lifele pe

to reach

as the means to Christian wisdom. 2 Therefore, the

patristically-influenced Old English poet employs figurae a

an extra-biblical

the superficial letter

a ai ing ac al f lfilmen

a middle erm be een littera-

me aphor b

a a concre e reali ,

i hin he per pec i e of e erni

,

corresponding to an actual historical event or essence.3 Revitalising an academic appreciation of allegory is a valuable critical intervention now beca e of fig ra i e lang age ocie

ongoing poli ical al e and i

immen e infl ence o er

percep ion of and ac ion o ard na ion, Ch rch and comm ni . Thi

that through figurae, which engage he Chri ian imagina ion , C ne

d arg e

lf pioneer Old Engli h

poetic tradition as a vehicle for promoting the Church as the solution to societal problems, and he Andrea -poet imitates this project by also employing figures of the Church to ignite the same ecclesiastical zeal in the reader. 4 D e o he e gro ing cholarl con en

erbal parallel , re earch ha led o he

ha he Andrea -poet knew Beowulf as a source, and critics are

increa ingl recogni ing he likelihood ha he Andrea -poet also borrowed from Cynewulf. 5 Through figurae, bo h C ne an nder anding of he Ch rch

2

g

lf and he Andrea -poet mediate Christian wisdom -ger na

to the reader. In the eight occurrences of

Bernard F. HuppĂŠ, D c e a d P e : A g e I f ence on Old English Poetry (New York: State University of New York Press, 1959), pp. 9 13.

3 Erich Auerbach, Scenes from the Drama of European Literature (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), p. 43.

4 Ed ard B. Ir ing Jr., The Ad en of Poe r : Christ I , ASE, 25 (1996), pp. 123 34, (p. 134).

5 Ali on Mar Po ell, Verbal parallel in Andreas and its relationship to Beowulf and C ne lf (doc oral he i , University of Cambridge, 2002), pp. 168 232, esp. 175 76; Andreas: An Edition, ed. by Richard North, Michael D. and J. Bintley (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2016), pp. 302 05; Franci Leneghan, The Depar re of the Hero in a Ship: The Intertextuality of Beowulf, Cynewulf and Andreas , Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature, 24 (2019), 105 32.

123 he no n g he C ne

-ger na in Old Engli h li era re, all of which are uniquely distributed across lfian corp , he

signified.6 Ho e er, C ne

piri al m

erie

of he Ch rch

lf and he Andrea -poe

well as other metrical and or hographical e idence,

acramen and doc rine are

differen fig ra i e approache , a

gge

ha C ne

to the mid-to-la e nin h cen r , earlier han Andrea .7 C ne more imilar in i

b le

o he concealed comple i

lf

lf

igned poem da e

fig ra i e echniq e i

of The Dream of he Rood , a poem

in which layers of allegory must be penetrated in order to access the theological tenet Chri

h po a ic nion

Andrea

of

which is articulated therein. The more blatant, expository tone of

i in ead a hallmark of Alfredian li era re: hi implie

hat the poem was

po en iall infl enced b or ri en d ring King Alfred la e nin h-century reform programme, in

hich comple La in heological e

, e peciall

ain

li e ,

ere ran la ed in o he

simplicity of vernacular English to enhance national learning.

De pi e heir

li ic difference , bo h C ne

lf and he Andrea -poet share an

o erarching eccle ia ical agenda. Thi agenda i perhap in pired b

he

ri er

hared

evangelisatory environment since the Anglo-Saxon missionary campaigns were ongoing until the tenth century, invigorating the peoples with a widespread enthusiasm for the Church.

Socie al concern for he concep ali a ion of he Ch rch

iden i

a

im la ed b recen

ecclesiastical councils also influences both writers: the Synod of Whitby in 664 synchronised he Engli h Ch rch

celebra ion of Ea er

i h ha of Rome; he S nod of Ha field in 679

reaffirmed apo olic Tradi ion a he Ch rch fo nda ion; and he Co ncil of Clo e ho in 747 advocated more rigorous knowledge of the sacraments as well as drawing up 31 canons uniting the English and Roman Church. From the mid-eighth century the stabilisation of the Anglo-

6

. . g -ge r ne , Dictionary of Old English: A to I, ed. Angus Cameron, Ashley Crandell Amos, Antonette diPaolo Healey et al. (Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project, 2018) <https://tapor.library.utoronto.ca/doe/> [accessed 11 October 2020].

7 R. D. F lk, C ne lf: Canon, Dialec and Da e , in Cynewulf: Basic Readings, ed. by Robert E. Bjork (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996), pp. 3 23.

124 Saxon Church was prioritised as a means of salvaging societal infrastructure, which had been damaged by Viking invasion and monarchical decline.8 Gregory the Great and Alcuin of York enco raged hi recon olida ion of he Ch rch and, mirroring Con inen al reform , England reinforcement of the ecclesiastical institution endeavoured to ameliorate national cohesion hro gh pa oral care. The poe reinforcing he Ch rch a hori

m

al agenda of

i f r her amplified b

reng hening na ional cohe ion b he po en ial deri a ion of C ne

lf

and he Andrea -poet from Mercia, a milieu wherein Church and state were tightly bonded, particularly at Lichfield and Tamworth.

It is contextual factors which support the hypothesis for the ecclesiastical agenda of bo h C ne

lf and he Andrea -poet. Not only does the Church feature intratextually as a

concern within the narra i e of Chri II , Elene and Andrea , but also extratextually, as the poets build up the Church body with-out through the poet-reader relationship. Both poets possibly encourage the laity as well as clerics and members of religious orders audiences of their texts

the potential

to live worthily the priestly vocation instilled at their Baptism (I Peter

2.9 10). Therefore, this essay wonders how three key figures of the Church space; as the sacramental Corpus Christi; and as the apostolic body

as a protective

in Chri II , Elene ,

and Andrea promo e he reader par icipa ion in he Ch rch bod poli ic. Thi eccle ia ical participation will publicly improve societal infrastructure and privately guarantee the indi id al member hip of he Ch rch Tri mphan , he Ch rch rejoicing in hea en.

The Church as a protective space Similar to the rumination encouraged by the monastic scriptural reading practice of lectio divina, the deciphering of figurae in Chri

8

II , Elene and Andrea

demands avid

Simon Coa e , The Bi hop a Benefac or and Ci ic Pa ron: Alc in, York, and Episcopal Authority in AngloSa on England , Speculum 71 (1996), 529 98. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

125 in ellec al a en ion, ab orbing he reader in o he poe

per a i e promo ion of the Ecclesia.

According to Judith Garde, it is surprising that Cynewulf manages to appreciate the A cen ion

piri al le on in Chri II , ince hi fig ring of he Ecclesia as a protective

physical construct

a ship

contradicts he Ch rch

pernaturalism (Garde, p. 158).

However, it is unproblematic to figure the Church by such materiality, since both Cynewulf and he Andrea -poet emphasise the immediate accessibility of the Church rather than overspiritualising its sacramentalism. Just as Bri Mi e remark ha he mind-as-con ainer mo if in Old English literature solidifies theological sapience as immediately attainable rather than as a distant abstraction, it is through two spatial figurae as building

ha C ne

the readily-a ailable g

the Church as ship, and the Church

lf and he Andrea -poet motivate their reader to tangibly appreciate -ger na ho ed b

he Ecclesia (Mize, p. 46).

The Church as ship The terminology used to denote the Church building the Church as ship

na i

na e

derives from the figuration of

which emphasises the Ecclesia

ec ri

in bearing i

indwellers through turbulent earthly life towards eternal peace. The Old English poets thus draw on a well-established theological tradition which originates from the Bible. As figured by Noah ark, hich re c ed he righ eo

from de r c ion b

he Flood, he Ch rch i Chri

vehicle for the protection of mankind from both current earthly distress and eschatological eternal damnation (Matthew 24.37 44). The patristic writer Tertullian laments that bla phemer are na frago

( hip recked ) for rejec ing

olaci m na i eccle iae ( the

olace of he hip, he Ch rch ).9 Likewise, Alcuin of York, an important clerical scholar in the Carolingian Renaissance, encourages Archbishop Eanbald II in his governance of the Yorkish

9

Tertullian, Tertulliani Liber de Pudicitia, <http://www.tertullian.org/latin/de_pudicitia.htm> [accessed 17 June 2020], para. XIII.20.

126 Ch rch o g berna irili er na em Chri i ( eer he hip of Chri threatening

( orm ) of ocie al di order.10 C ne

empe a

manf ll ) amid

he

lf and he Andrea -poet

likewise employ the ship figura to promote the Ecclesia as a vessel in which the reader should find al ific ref ge d ring life primar

o rce for Chri

ad i e li ener o

o age, a i keep grace in ide and in o

II i Gregor

he Grea

pei e r anchoram in

ide. C ne

homil on he A cen ion, in

ernam pa riam figi e ( fi

lf

hich he

he anchor of o r

hope in he e ernal fa herland ), enco raging de ire for the Church Triumphant through this nautical figuration.11 Cynewulf however alters this anagogic focus to more immediately figure he ear hl Ch rch Mili an in Chri II . Colin Cha e ackno ledge hi emporal hif , b does not equate the material gif he ear hl Ch rch and i

g

en from Gode G

n

( he piri al Son of God ) i h

-ger na : he acramen and doc rine

hich opera e in he

pre en o g aran ee he indi id al member hip of he Ch rch Tri mphan in he f The vocabulary describing the sea-jo rne in Chri sea-jo rne in Elene of he cr cifi on

re. 12

II is repeated or replicated by the

the poem narrating the finding of the True Cross, the material remnants hich Chri

died, b Con an ine

mo her, Helena

de crip ion , he demand o be read in ligh of one ano her. The

and, as set-piece

o pa age commonali

implies the coherence of the Cynewulfian canon as a project promoting the Ecclesia, in which he Ch rch Chri

II

eadfa ne

i con e ed b i con i ent figuration as an invincible ship. The

sea-journey passage is structured in an envelope pattern

sundhengestum [

] รฐa [

] ceole [ ]

hich accen a e he Ch rch

10

ndhengestas [ ] รฐmearas

ceol m [ ] the tautology of

for i de in ra er ing the tumultuous waters of earthly life,

Alc in of York, Alc ini Epi olae 116 , in Monumenta Germaniae Historica iv, ed. by Ernst Duemmler (Berlin: Apvd Weidmannos, 1895), <http://www.mgh.de/dmgh/resolving/MGH_Epp._4_S._171> [accessed 8 December 2019], l. 22.

11 Gregor he Grea , Homil. XXIX in Patrologia Cursus Completus, Sancti Gregorii Papรฆ I, Opera Omnia lxxvi, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne (Paris: Garnier brothers, 1857), col. 1218 1219.

12 Chase, p. 87; Cynewulf, The Christ of Cynewulf, ed. by Albert S. Cook (Boston: Ginn & Co., 1900), ll. 860a 863.

127 and which is echoed in the near-iden ical reference ceola

in Elene ( ea-mare ,

ancr m f Ch rch a

a e-hor e , and

e appear in bo h pa age along i h h fa

o

mearas ,

ghengestas , and

hip , empha i mine).13 The half-line e as both poems unitedly promote the

a anchor in he harbo r of hea en. The Ecclesia not only functions as a

hel er d ring ear hl life

ro ble , b

al o a a g aran ee of e ernal abili

in he af erlife,

given the correspondence uniting the terrestrial and celestial Church (Matthew 16.18 19) (C ne

lf, The Chri , ll. 863b 864a; C ne

figuration in bo h poem ,

lf, Elene , ll. 252b, 248a). The nautical

hich i e panded on from he Gregorian o rce of Chri II and

which is absent from the Acta Quiriaci o rce of Elene , i h

p rpo ef ll de eloped b

Cynewulf to further his personal agenda. The ship figura enco rage he reader participation in the Church Militant as their means to participation in the Church Triumphant, echoing A g

ine

concep ion of he Ch rch a God

pilgrim ci

o aging o ard

he Ne

Jerusalem.14 C ne

lf al o e oke he ear hl Ch rch

of i eccle ia ic and h

re ilience b figurally asserting the reliability

he reng h of i pa oral care. C ne

lf e al

he ara

sent by

God in Chri II and Elene : this noun has multivalent definitions, and could equally refer to God

me enger and paronoma icall o he homon m oar (C ne

lf, Elene , ll. 980b,

1006a).15 This linguistic ambiguity supports the hypothesis of Cynewulf intentionally allegori ing he Ch rch: God me enger are

non mo

i h he Ch rch oar , ince i i

the disciples of Christ and their missions which are responsible for propelling the Church on through the turbulent waves of history. This interpretation may be read in light of bishop Cae ari

13

of Arle

homile ic fig ra ion of he Ch rch a

ita sanctae disciplinae remigiis

C ne lf, The Chri , ll. 850 66. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text; Cynewulf, C e f E e e, ed. by P. O. A. Gradon (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1977), ll. 225 55.

Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

14 Gillian Clark, Imperi m and he Ci of God: A g ine on Ch rch and Empire , Studies in Church History, 54 (2018), 46 70 (pp. 56 64).

15 C ne lf, The Chri , l. 759b. F r her reference o hi edi ion are gi en after quotations in the text.

128 gubernatur, e fla

Spiri

anc i agi r,

ad i am a ernam [ ] perd ca r ( so [well]

directed by the oars of holy discipline, so well driven by the breath of the Holy Spirit, that he i led o e ernal life , empha i mine). 16 Cynewulf perhap e en more pecificall implie here, ince he are he primar he lead Chri

oar

of God

he con anc of he Ch rch

hip: b holding fa

clerg

o Chri ian or hodo

,

eccle ia ical hip hro gh orldl danger and enco rage he laity to imitate

heir e ample b adhering o he Ch rch and i

eaching . In Chri II , he ara of he hip

propel it through its perilous surroundings, figuring how the Church Militant is protected from damage by its sinful exterior by the guidance and abili ce endra

egl m earhfar m (

e ildoer ) (C ne

lf, The Chri

ho hield

of i cleric ,

again

a us gescildaĂž wiĂ°

he deadl arro

a ack of he

, ll. 761 762a). Mean hile in Elene , he ara

( me enger ) ho he i le charac er end o ell Con an ine abo

he relic of Chri

cro

which she has discovered, could also symbolise the ecclesiastics of the Anglo-Sexon Church who are reading or hearing this poem. It is the bishops and priests who will ensure that the Ch rch superlative message of salvation i

afel con e ed d ring i

(C ne

he

il pella m

( he grea e of jo f l ne

ear hl mi ion ofer heanne holm ( acro

lf, Elene , ll. 983b, 982a). The e me enger-oar

m

)

he high ea )

em la e he apostleship of

Andreas as is described in the poem written about his life: it is by means of arriving by ship to hi mi ion in he pagan land of Mermedonia ha he di emina e he Word of God: leode l rde on life

eg ( eaching he people he pa h o life ).17 The Ch rch i h

he apo le

means of bringing soteriological solace to a place of unrest. It is therefore through the figure of he Ch rch a

16

hip ha bo h C ne

lf and he Andrea -poet promote the Church and its

Cae ari of Arle , Sermon 136 in Sancti Caesarii Arelatensis Sermones, ed. by Germani D Morin (Turnhout: Brepols, 1953), p. 563.

17 Andrea , l. 170. F r her reference o hi edi ion are gi en af er q o a ion in he text.

129 ministers as Anglo-Saxon socie

mean o al a ion d ring i

nre follo ing he Viking

invasions.

C ne

lf in Chri

II

herefore collec i el

enco rage him elf and hi reader o

a elian ( fi ) heir hope in reaching hea en ecclesiastical ship (C ne

harbo r b

being borne here in he

lf, The Chri , l. 864b.) The Andrea -poet employs this same

archi ec ral erb o de cribe God

ha ing ge a olade ( e abli hed ) hea en,

hich i

juxtaposed with the immediacy of His sheltering the disciples within the ship during their seajourney to Mermedonia.18 The building of heaven and the construction of the ship as two ac ion

are h

a ocia ed b

hi

j

apo i ion. Benefi ing from God

sacramentally and doctrinally in the Church Militant is thus equated

pro ec ion

i h gaining God

subsequent protection in the Church Triumphant, as is explained in the Bible: Christ tells Peter, he Ch rch (

fir

ha oe er ho

Pope, ha

q odc mq e liga eri

per erram eri liga m in caeli

hal bind pon ear h ill be bo nd al o in hea en ).19

Like he Bible, C ne

lf and he Andrea -poet thus emphasise that the Church and its

sacraments are not only efficacious during present earthly time, but that they have corresponding consequences in eternal time. In Andrea , he hip amplified b he poe

figuration of Christ as helmsman of the ship: the reader is thus reassured

ha he ear hl Ch rch i for ified b Chri asserted by Chri lag f

en ( Allo

o eriological p rpo e i

confiden j me no

i e, L o direc

al ific na iga ion of i o ard hea en, a n geferian flo an

he hip

erne,

lid o lande ofer

co r e o er he migh

ea o land )

( Andrea , ll. 397 398).

The movement of this ecclesiastical ship is also described as bird-like: as well as parodying the ship of the pagans in Beowulf

18 19

hich ail

o Heoro f gle gelico

( like a bird ), hi

Andrea , ll. 536a, 534b 536. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

Matthew 16.19, <http://www.latinvulgate.com/lv/verse.aspx?t=1&b=1&c=16> [accessed 11 October 2020].

130 image echoes traditional iconography of Christ as a phoenix, whose resurrection promises the re rrec ion of Hi follo er ( Andrea , ll. 496b 498a).20 Christ is envisaged as a phoenix resurrecting the Church Militant to the Church Triumphant in another Old English poem often associated with Cynewulf. 21 The Church is thus celebrated for disseminating this resurrective grace of Christ a he Andrea -poet, similarly to Cynewulf and Alcuin of York before him, equates the Ecclesia g ardian hip b cce ion h

per i ion b Chri

he bi hop a

a i

hleo ( pro ec or )

i h he Ch rch

hleo ( Andrea , ll. 567a, 1672b). The Ch rch

perpe a e Chri

pro ec i ene , and bo h poe

apo olic

reinforce hi

acred

authority of the Ecclesia by figuring the Church as building.

The Church as building Fig ring he Ch rch a b ilding enable bo h C ne Ecclesia

ma eriali

lf and he Andrea -poet to promote the

in rendering he gæst-ger na

tangible to Christians through its

sacraments. In Elene , Constantine commissions a church to be constructed on the site where the True Cross was discovered. Cynewulf describes this church Ecclesia

a ha ing been b il p rpo ef ll

helpe ( a help for men ), h

o pro ide r d m ( co n el ) a

fig ring he Ch rch

sacramentally and doctrinally (C ne

enance of ocie al

reng h

di co er in Elene reminds the reader of

ran emporal connectedness to Calvary: the Church sacramentally administers

he ame objec i e grace

hich i

ed from he redemp i e blood and a er of Chri

on the cross. This materiality of the Ecclesia i f r her fig red b þam beorhhli e ( on he mo n ain lope ): hi echoe Chri

20

h leðum to

lf, Elene , ll. 1008b, 1011a). The location of

Con an ine ch rch a he place of he Tr e Cro all ch rche

a figure of the Anglo-Saxon

he ch rch

bod

i a ion on

fo nda ion of he Ch rch on

K aebe Beowulf: Fourth Edition, ed. by R. D. Fulk, Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2008), l. 218b.

21 The Phoenix, ed. by N. F. Blake (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1964), ll. 646b 677.

131 Pe er he Rock (Ma he

16. 18) a C ne

lf accen a e he Ecclesia

indefec ibili

in

its apostolic succession. 22 In his letters, Alcuin similarly advises Archbishop Eanbald II, Pe er cce or, o be empl m e o Dei i i

epi copal

per firmam pe ram con r c m ( he emple of he

li ing God, con r c ed on olid rock ). 23 The bishop, even in non-poetic writing, is thus architecturally identified with the Church building since the episcopy concretises the Ecclesia orthodoxy through its pastoral care of the Christian community. However, this vocation to pass on the Truth is not limited to the ecclesiastics themselves: in another poem written by Cynewulf about the saintly Christian maiden Juliana, Juliana is depicted as teaching entire heathen cro d o

am lifgendan

ane, i h dge, a ol f

nia

( re ol el e abli h a fo nda ion

on he li ing one ).24 As microcosms of the Church, each individual Christian should embody the Ecclesia b holding in heir hear

o e reo e, ond ibbe mid eo

among o ).25 The second-per on prono n eo

empha i e no onl

( r e fai h and peace he ocial cohe ion

inevitable among the intratextual crowd, bound together by such faith and peace, but it also suggests the unity of the extratextual Chri ian a dience of he poem o hom he

o

co ld

equally appeal. Cynewulf thus encourages his audience to recall their personal mission of perpe a ing Chri o n li e a lapide

he lapidem i i i

m ( li ing one ): he

ho b ild p he Ch rch a a dom

ho ld

i ne

o Him in heir

piri ali acerdo i m anc m

( a piri al ho e, a hol prie hood ).26 The Ch rch

anc i in ma eriall manife ing hea en on earth through the sacraments

is promoted by further architectural figurations. Cynewulf portrays the construction of

22

C ne lf, Elene , l. 1008a. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

Alc in of York, Alc ini Epi olae 7 , < https://www.dmgh.de/mgh_epp_4/index.htm#page/167/mode/1up> [accessed 10 October 2020], l. 26.

24 Cynewulf, Juliana, ed. by Rosemary Woolf (London: Methuen & Co, 1954), ll. 653b 654. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

25 C ne lf, J liana , l. 655.

26 I Peter 2. 4 5, <http://www.latinvulgate.com/lv/verse.aspx?t=1&b=21&c=2> [accessed 11 October 2020].

23

132 Con an ine

ch rch a a di inel -in pired ac , delega ed b Elene o he b ilder

a hire

ga a eard reord of roder m ( a he g ardian of o l had g ided her from he firmamen ) (C ne

lf, Elene , ll. 1021b 1022a). The b ilder of Elene

cr f m ge de [ ] a ele an

( a gh be

ch rch are ho e men

in heir craf ), j

ho are

a Andrea i God

cr f iga ( craf man ) hen he commi ion he ch rch in Mermedonia and like i e, ho e o hom J liana en r

Ch rch Tradi ion ha e halge r ne

i h in en of mind ) (C ne

rh mode m ne ( hol

ecre

lf, Elene , ll. 1017b 1018). The poets thus paronomastically

promote the Ecclesia for anc if ing he labo rer b

hom i i ph icall craf ed i h cr f ,

signifying both divine Christian wisdom through knowledge of God, as well as physical skill. 27 I i he p r i of hi

di ine

i dom proffered b

he Ch rch which both poets thus imply

will bind the reader to their community and advance their individual salvation.

In order o amplif j

he Ch rch

a hori

a a channel of al ific grace, C ne

lf

apo e he con r c ion of Con an ine ch rch i h he ornamentation of the True Cross

in Elene . B C ne

bo h he e

ooden

r c re recei ing analogo

lf enco rage he reader o eq a e he Ch rch a hori

archi ec ral a en ion, i h ha of he Cro , ince

both are instruments of Christian redemption, particularly united in the Mass: a liturgical ritual in

hich he grace of Chri

acrifice are re-presented in the celebration of the Eucharist.

Cynewulf exalts the sacramental Church for its synonymity with the Cross as both are sources from which Chri

al ific grace flo . Therefore, he blurs the distinction between the two

structures when describing the preservation of the Cross relic within the church building:

þær þæt lifes treo, selest sigebeama æðel[e], [u]nbrece;

27

siððan wunode þær bið a gearu

. . cr f , Dictionary of Old English: A to I, <https://tapor.library.utoronto.ca/doe/> [accessed 11 October 2020].

133 wraðu wannhalum sæce ond sorge;

wita gehwylces, hie sona þær

þurh þa halgan gesceaft

helpe findaþ

godcunde gife

( There ha ree of life, he be of ic or -beams, has ever since remained, inviolable in nature; there is forever ready for the infirm a support for every single torment, in strife and

sorrow.

They, through that holy creation there, will instantly find help, a di ine gif ) (C ne

Thi anal i of he Cro

follo

C ne

lf

lf, Elene , ll. 1026b 1032a)

de crip ion of he ch rch. C ne

lf h

prompts the reader to read the descriptions in light of one another, and to therefore value the Ecclesia for its liturgical re-pre en a ion of he Cro r ( here ) and he i idne ma eriali a ion of he Pa ion Chri

redemp i e acrifice. The repea ed dei ic

of he pre en en e erb e oke he Ch rch grace cen rie af er he acramen

fir

bod on he Cro in he bap i mal fl id of blood and a er. The e

and he epi he for he Cro

a

life reo,

ele

immedia e

emission from li ic echniq e

igebeama ( ree of life, be of ic or -

beam ) recall he iden ical emplo men of he e in he earl Old Engli h poem The Dream of he Rood .28 In this poem, the prosopopoeiac cross of Christ appears in a dream to a penitent per ona and de cribe he Pa ion from i o n per pec i e. The poem a dience, icario l through the dreaming peni en , i mo i a ed o rene

heir o n apprecia ion for Chri

suffering and to share with others their hope for the eternal life earned through the cross ( The Dream , ll. 95 121).

Similarl , C ne

lf promp hi reader o benefi from Chri

alvific graces through

he Ch rch pro i ion of he acramen of Penance, and o imi a e he eal i h hich J da ,

28

The Dream , ll. 13a, 14b, 11a. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

134 a Je , e en all recei e Bap i m in Elene (C ne pa age ci ed abo e, he ad erb a in an l

and al a

a gear

and

i

an fig re he Ch rch and i

acramen

a ailable gi en he Ecclesia con in a ion of he Tr e Cro

e er ince he Cr cifi ion. I i al o he pi hine which promotes he Ch rch anc i

lf, Elene , ll. 1032b 1038a). In the

of he alli era i e do ble

efficien elimina ion of

ch ear hl

ce ond orge

rife and orro

a a godc nde gife ( di ine gif ) looking o ard i

legac

hea enl

b i

eccle i a ical

counterpart, the communion of saints.

C ne

lf and he Andrea -poet also promote the Ch rch

ran forma ion of

individual lives by figuring the Ecclesia architecturally. It is by entering the protective space of the Church through Baptism that Judas grows in personal holiness, as articulated by con ainmen imager : frofre ga con ola ion ook p abode in he man neoph e, J da

ic ge

node in

brea ) (C ne

ere breo

m ( he Spiri of

lf, Elene , ll. 1036b 1037). As a

o n bod become a d elling-place for Christ much like the Church.

Following his inspiration by the Hol Spiri , J da bo e ( enco rged o repen ance ) for hi pa

h mili

in (C ne

con r c ion abo e he Mermedonian pri on in Andrea

i in en ified, a he i

b lde o

lf, Elene , l. 1038a). The ch rch like i e figures the Ecclesia

transformative ability to liberate an individual from the captivity of sin as experienced by Judas in Elene .

Similarl he cro ran form la o

he

in The Dream of he Rood , like he acramen -dispensing Church,

perla i e p ni hmen of cr cifi ion from being

( he cr ele

of p ni hmen , mo

ha ef l o people )

ita heardost, | leodum

into the glorious means to

eternal life ( The Dream , ll. 87b 88a, 88b 89). Through the purifying graces of its sacraments, the Church perpetually re-enacts the Harrowing of Hell. Thi i demon ra ed in Andrea , where God promises the imprisoned St Matthew that heaven will open for his entrance following the release of his shackles ( Andrea , ll. 102b 106). Likewise, the release of the

135 Mermedonian pagans from their torments is caused explicitly by their receipt of the sacraments admini ered b

he Ch rch: he

are libera ed b

recei ing f l ih e ond freo

( bap i m and a co enan ), he pledge of hea enl glor and m ndb rd meo de

re ( he

crea or pro ec ion ) ( Andrea , ll. 1630, 1632a).

When a

one pillar begin emi ing

a er in Andrea , i i more pecificall

he

sacraments of Baptism and Penance which are figured, thus accentuating the transformative power of the Ecclesia through its outpouring of these purifying graces ( Andrea , ll. 1522 53). A narra ed in Andrea anecdo e, God anima e ano her one hich He

e o re rrec

the patriarchs and evangelise the people: tasks which the Ecclesia undertakes scripturally and sacramentally in the liturg of he Ma promo e

he Ch rch a God

( Andrea , ll. 773 810). The Andrea -poet thus

ehicle of di emina ing Chri , i

li ing Tradi ion and

cornerstone according to Ephesians 2.19 22. The subsequent stone pillar also amplifies the societally as well as spiritually transformative power of the Ecclesia: the pillar is converted for he good of God and man in o a o rce of he acramen . Thi Ch rch-like pillar thus remedie he nega i e m hologie

of hea heni m conno ed b

ch a he ocie al di in egra ion implied hro gho

one r in in elegiac poems

The R in and he dilpida ed eald en a

ge eorc ( old ork of gian ) in The Wanderer . 29 Gregory the Great, in his letter to the missionary Mellitus, expresses similar appreciation of the Church for its societally remedial power, yearning for the pagan temples to be converted into Christian churches rather than destroyed.30 Cynewulf likewise promotes the Ch rch

ini ia ion of hi reconcilia or acc l ra ion proce

b referring o churches with

the vocabulary of pre-Chri ian or hip: he are hi Gode empel ( he emple of God ) in

29

Michael D. J. Bintle , Dem hologi ing Urban Land cape in Andreas , Leeds Studies in English 40 (2009), 105 19 (pp. 110, 118); The Wanderer, ed. by R. F. Leslie (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), l.

87a; The R in in The Old English Elegies: A Critical Edition and Genre Study, ed. by Anne Lingard Klinck (Montreal, Quebec: McGill-Q een Pre , 2001) pp. 103 220.

30 Gregor he Grea , Epi ola LXXVI in Patrologia Cursus Completus, Sancti Gregorii PapĂŚ I, Opera Omnia lxxvii, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne (Paris: Garnier brothers, 1862), col. 1215 1216.

136 Chri

II (C ne

lf, The Chri , l. 707b). C ne

empha i e he Ch rch

lf and he Andrea -poet thus both

ad ancemen of ocie al cohe ion b its incorporation, rather than

annihilation, of pagan materials. It is thus by the nautical and architectural figuration of the Ch rch a a pro ec i e pace ha C ne

lf and he Andrea -poe enco rage he reader

fervent participation in the Ecclesia, so as to advance their salvation and that of the society they inhabit by taking shelter in the sacrament-issuing Corpus Christi.

The Church as the sacramental Corpus Christi By figuring the Church as the sacrament-dispensing body of Christ, Cynewulf and the Andrea -poe enco rage heir reader

apprecia ion of Bap i m and he E chari

a

heir

anc if ing mean of ini ia ion o he Ch rch bod poli ic. In Chri II , the sacraments are implied a Chri frofre ( I

mean of perpe al pre ence among men

ill remain

conno a ion of

a olf

i h o a a con ola ion from no re a er ho

eadfa

Ic eo on )

mid

nige forรฐ on

whilst the architectural

i he reng h i h hich Chri con in e

to hold His people in peace in ch rche on o a geh a[m] ( e er

here ) (C ne

lf, The

Chri , ll. 488b 489a, 490a, 490b).

The Ecclesia reliabili i al o amplified b C ne dea

ond ren ( de

lf fig ral appropria ion of falling

and rain ) o empha i e he relen le ne

ih

hich God

grace

perpetually shower down, particularly through Baptismal water: this contrasts with the conventional connotation of precipitation with earthly transience and disintegration in elegiac poe r

ch a

The Wanderer (C ne

lf, The Chri

, l. 609a).31 Not only does Cynewulf

echo Daniel 3.68 70 by praising God through the natural elements, but he also parallels Psalm 64.10 14 in hich he ear h i

a ered b God ble ing and ir he orld o or hip Him.

It is this worship which is enco raged b 31

The Wanderer , l. 48.

he j

i e in Chri II ,

e ealle

c lon

ecgan

137 onc ond lof eodne

m (

e o gh o gi e hank and prai e o o r Lord ) (Cynewulf,

The Chri , ll. 611b 612). Appropriating these biblical images of precipitation and the communal worship they inspire enables Cynewulf to figure the outpouring of sacramental graces in the Church body politic and to contextualise Scripture within the Old English poetic tradition. By highlighting the integration of the Church and Anglo-Saxon culture, Cynewulf and he Andrea -poet

encourage readerly recourse to the Ecclesia as the locus of heaven

and ear h in er ec ion.

Thro gh Andrea rpa ing an

prai e of he Ecclesia, which is figured by a building-stone

incgife ( rea re-gif ) in its emission of a cleansing flood, he Andrea -

poet particularly glorifies the purification from sin offered by the Church through Baptism and Penance, promp ing he reader

reco r e o, or rene ed apprecia ion of, he e acramen

( Andrea , l. 1509a). The Mermedonians fear they will drown in this flood, and it is a similar con e

of e cha ological error ha link he [m]eod cer en ( di pen ing of mead ) here

and he eal cer en ( di pen ing of ale ) in Beowulf, when the Danes await destruction by Grendel in he meadhall ( Andrea , l. 1526b).32 Various critical interpretations of these paralleling hapax legomena include their connotation of a filled vessel with the cup of bitterness or impending death (Beowulf, pp. 352 53). However, informed by his ecclesiastical agenda, the Andrea -poet likel

e [m]eod cer en a a fig re for he E chari : he poe

depicts the Mermedonians imbibing Baptismal water Christians drinking Eucharistic blood

to parody the mead-drinking of the doomed pagans in

Beowulf. A later reference o he jo f l ci be read paronomastically a

in a similar way to the practice of

of Mermedonia a

ine o n , concre i e

he ci

inb rig , hich co ld al o ne l -Christianised identity

following its baptism, and motivates the reader to also reflect on their own sacramental incorporation to the Church body politic ( Andrea , l. 1672a).

32

Beowulf, l. 769a. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

138 This scene also responds to the earlier

an i-E chari

of he Mermedonian

cannibalism which was instigated by their deprivation of the true nourishment provided by the E chari : n

r hlafe

i

er m on am onge ( here a no he

for the people in that place) ( Andrea , ll. 21b 22a). The Andrea -poe o Mermedonia

geographical loca ion a

enance of bread per i en reference

mearcland ( borderland ), folc ede g mena

( d elling-place of men ), h leรฐa eรฐel ( land of men ), on am onge ( in ha place ) emphasises that there was no practical opportunity for the Mermedonians to know Christ the pani

i

and its g

( li ing bread ) before Andrea arri ed a a mi ionar -ger na ( piri al m

o proclaim he Ch rch

erie ) ( Andrea , ll. 19 22a).33

Fig ra i el , hi ignorance of he Ch rch

a re pon ible for he Mermedonian

in en el in a iable h nger: he are h le heorogr dige ( men fiercel ra eno

) no for

he con mp ion of one ano her bodie , b for he bod of Chri , he heofonlicne hlaf ( he hea enl bread ) admini ered o Andrea b Chri , he Ch rch 38a, 389a). Chri

feeding of hi

hipmen i h hi bod

h

e al

helm man ( Andrea , ll. he Ch rch for

ppl ing

the viaticum which sustains the individual on their missionary journey of Christian life. The Andrea -poet also deviates from his probable Latin source by replacing the detail of the pagans sacrificing seven elderly men with the description of an innocent son being given over to death by his father ( Andrea , ll. 1103b 1134). This textual adaptation develops a figuration of the Mass a

the liturgical re-pre en a ion of Chri

he poe enco rage hi reader

acrifice a God onl bego en Son

gra i de for he E chari

a an e pre ion of Chri

agape love for mankind. The increasing centralisation of the Mass as a religious devotion in England, a in pired b

he Carolingian reform , po en iall mo i a e he Andrea -poet

and more subtly, Cynewulf

to thus promote the Church for its salvific provision of the

Eucharist.

33

John 6.51, <http://www.latinvulgate.com/lv/verse.aspx?t=1&b=4&c=6> [accessed 11 October 2020].

139 E en Andrea o n bod and blood imi a e ha of Chri , and h

he poe promo e

the Church for perpetuating Christ through apostolic succession. When Andreas is persecuted by the pagans, flowers are described as sprouting from his blood as it spills to the ground ( Andrea , ll. 1448 49). Thi i an image recalling Ter llian

aphori m ha

emen e

ang i Chri ianor m ( he blood of [mar red] Chri ian i he eed [of he Ch rch] ) ince he apo le bod and blood represents that of Christ, the Ecclesia, on earth.34 The Church is thus preserved by apostles who dedicate their lives to God, even by non-bloody sacrifice: it is the newly-con er ed Pla o

con ecra ion a Chri ian bi hop ha g aran ee he a ailabili

of the sacraments and formation of clergy, the spiritual as well as structural cohesion of society ( Andrea , ll. 1646b 1654a). God in an healing of Andrea

o nded apo olic bod af er

his violent persecution also reassures the Anglo-Saxon reader that God will heal the Church body politic of any similar physical or spiritual damage by invasion or heresy.

The poe

E chari ic fig ra ion al o promo e he Ch rch a pro iding par ial

communion with Christ during earthly life to pre-empt total eternal communion with Him in heaven: the ingestion of Chri

bod

acramen all enable Him o li e i hin he Chri ian

bod and e en all re rrec i , a implied b

Chri II : [h] lobearn heonan p ige mid

e lichoman, lifgende God ( ha al ific child, he li ing God, o r bod ) (C ne

Mili an

mbla m

ge orden in

ldre ( he grea e fea , celebra ed in

which is anticipated by the sacred food, the Eucharist, administered by the Church hil

nder

egle hleo ( nder he hel er of he k ) (C ne

ll. 550b 551a, 606a). Like i e, he Dreamer The Dream of he Rood

34

ith

lf, The Chri , ll. 754 55). The Church Triumphant is also figured as the

superlative banquet glor )

ill a cend from here

gge

ha

lf, The Chri ,

concep ali a ion of he hea enl

mle in

he earthly Christian community anticipates the

Tertullian, Apologeticus, <http://www.tertullian.org/latin/apologeticum_becker.htm> [accessed 8 December 2019], para. XLIX.13.

140 celebra ion of he hea enl bea ific fea , mid am halg m (

i h he hol one ): he

Church is therefore figured powerfully not only as a source of the sacramental Corpus Christi, b

al o a Chri

ear hly body politic, which aspires to join its heavenly counterpart, the

communion of the saints ( The Dream , ll. 139b 144a).

Likewise, the miracles of Christ involving food and drink which are cited by Andreas during his narrative the turning of water into wine, the feeding of the five thousand ha he Ch rch E chari ic grace bind Chri ian no onl ano her geond or ld ide (

idel

hro gho

acramen all

o God, b

indicate o one

he orld ) ( Andrea , ll. 586 591a, 576a).

The Church as the Eucharistic body politic is further exalted through the reunion of the missionary disciples Matthew and Andreas, as the balanced syntax stresses their mutual support on life

mi ionar jo rne :

he arrior

g er ara eorla o r m r mede heofonrice h h ( each of

reng hened he o her one hope of he hea enl kingdom ) ( Andrea , ll. 1051

1052a). Bo h C ne

lf and he Andrea -poet therefore reassert the importance of attending

Mass in the Church Militant as a prerequisite for attending the eschatological banquet in the Church Triumphant, the latter being implied by the convivial depictions of heaven at the end of all three poems (C ne

lf, The Chri

, ll. 864 66; C ne

lf, Elene , ll. 1315 1321;

Andrea , ll. 1718 22). By figuring the Church as the Corpus Christi then, both poets enco rage heir reader

par icipa ion

acramen all

and

ociall

in he eccle ia ical

community to further their personal salvation and to consolidate the infrastructure of AngloSaxon society.

The Church as the apostolic body Not only is the Church promoted intratextually by its figuration as the sacrament-issuing Corpus Christi, but it is also endorsed extratextually through the poet-reader relationship which is microcosmic of the interpersonal communion binding the entire Church body politic. Just as

141 he hip in Chri II condi ion he reader o in erpre he hip in Elene in he ame fig ral erm , o oo C ne

lf engagemen

i h apo olhad ( apo le hip ) in ano her of hi

ork ,

The Fa e of he Apo le , encourages the identification of this concern elsewhere in his poems. This thematic thread reasserts a canonic unity which amplifies the ecclesiastical agenda of all C ne

lf

ork. C ne

lf and he Andrea -poe h

mo i a e heir reader apo olic

participation in the Ecclesia b fig ring he Ch rch a Chri

bod on ear h, con i

ed b

many different Christians as described in Ephesians 4.11 16. The apostles commonly feature in Old English litanies and calendars, indicating the contextualisation of them and their fellow Christians by the broader Church institution, the hub of divine wisdom to which they individually contribute. This irony of the Church receiving graces from God to use them in re rning glor

o God i al o celebra ed in C ne

lf

de crip ion of he a

ocations

di inel allo ed o men in Chri II :

Sum mæg godcunde reccan ryhte æ.

Sum mæg ryne tungla

secgan, side gesceaft.

Sum mæg searolice

wordcwide writan.

( Some can righ l e po nd he di ine la . Some can ell the course of the stars, the vast crea ion. Some can kilf ll

ri e ord ) (C ne

C ne

lf, The Chri , ll. 670b 673a)

lf increa e he n mber and ec lari of ho e gif li ed in hi

homil , in order o accen a e God

o rce e , Gregor

all-encompassing sanctification of each individual as a

constant channel of His grace. The gifts on which there is particular focus are the knowledge of di ine la and ri ing, bo h of hich con rib e o C ne

lf o n e

al e angeli a ion

142 of the reader and his written attempts to enhance the Church body politic (C ne

lf, The

Chri , ll. 670b 671a, 673a).

Cynewulf thu parallel he per ona of The Dream of he Rood erbal e angeli a ion

hich he enco rage

ho al o enac

he er

he reader o em la e a one of he Ch rch

reordberend ( peech-bearing people ) ( The Dream , l. 3a). Like i e, he Andrea -poet vicario l promo e

eal in hi reader hro gh Chri

di ciple hil on he mi ionar

hip. Al o a one of he reordberend , Andreas is commanded

o rece ( e plain ) he piri al m ( a gh ) b Chri

req e of Andrea o be a more ocal

in order o

erie and pa orde bec i

on o o her

( declare )

disciple ( Andrea , ll. 419b, 419a, 420a, 418b). Chri

ha he ha been l rde

i h alidi

hi iden i

a a

pleona ic empha i on peech-acts

through these verbs thus accentuates the importance of words in figuring the Church and sustaining the Tradition of its body politic. Potentially in imitation of the Carolingian Renai ance and h

rene al of dependence on Scrip re for he ad ancemen of heological

ocie al cohe ion, Chri

II , Elene and Andrea

promo e he reliabili

d of he

English Ecclesia through its recurrent figuration by the written and spoken word.

By thus delegating to the reader the task of verbally enhancing the cohesion of the Church body politic and Anglo-Saxon society generally, the ecclesiastical project undertaken b C ne

lf and he Andrea -poet promotes Gregorian pastoral care by cultivating the

religious-lay relationship through poetry. Imparting Christian wisdom interpersonally has ecclesiastical benefi : he ill mina ing effec of Elene e angeli a ion, a manife ed in he speech given by Judas, lead to his becoming a bishop, ameliorating the organisation of the Church body politic ( Andrea , ll. 807 826). This is similar to the neophytic bi hop con ecra ion in Andrea , a Pla o ne ne

i implied b hi

eal o for ake

worldly wealth so as to enter the nautically-figured Ecclesia, he brim i an

faro e

( ocean- peeder a he ea

o Chri iani

edge ) ( Andrea , ll. 1646b 1654a, 1657b 1658a). Like Alcuin,

143 C ne

lf and he Andrea -poe e al bi hop

a benefac or and ci ic pa ron

ho

implement order to the Church body politic and Anglo-Saxon societal infrastructure, thus augmenting national prosperity (Coates, p. 558). Al ho gh he Ch rch

abili

i promo ed

by its figuration as a hierarchically structured institution, this does not compromise the solidarity of the ecclesiastical community, in which each individual is united by their need for intercession. This is epi omi ed b Ma he

and Andrea

m

ali : heir ac ion become

amalgamated by the third-per on ing lar a he are de cribed helle i (

i h hi

ord m erede

ord he arded off he ormen of hell ) and heir ni ed embodimen of he Ch rch

Mili an iden ifie hem hreefold a

igend (

arrior ), h le higerofe ( alian men ),

and cempan co e ( ried oldier ) ( Andrea , ll. 1052b 1053a, 1053b 1055a). The di ciple

hared a pira ion for Hea en recall C ne

lf

figuration of the earthly Church

bod in Chri II a a hea enl co enan a ai ing f lfilmen , connec ing h man and angel i h a [ ]ib [ ] gem ne ( a common peace ) and a g (C ne

halig reo

( pledge hol in piri )

lf, The Chri , ll. 581b, 584b).

The Church Militant is thus bound inextricably to the Church Triumphant, and members

of the earthly Church body help one another to reach the heavenly Church body. It is in the epilog e o J liana and The Fa e of he Apo le

ha C ne

lf plea for the intercession

of hi Chri ian reader i mo fer en : he r nic in crip ion of C ne

lf

name

i hin he

poem, like that on a gravestone, perpetuates his prayer request and concretises his everlasting dependenc on he Ch rch Mili an

pra er o accelera e hi

o l

relea e from P rga or

into the Church Triumphant. 35 This intercessory role of the Church is sanctified by its alignmen Chri

35

i h Mar

media ion be

in erce ion in Elene , a

ell a b

he Ch rch

een mankind and Hi Fa her in Chri II (C ne

alignmen

ih

lf, Elene , l. 1232a;

C ne lf, J liana , ll. 695b 731. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text; C ne lf, The Fa e of he Apo le in Andreas and The Fates of the Apostles, ed. by Kenneth R. Brooks (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), ll. 88 122.

144 C ne

lf, The Chri , ll. 616 618a). C ne

lf and he Andrea -poet therefore advocate

adherence o he Ch rch bod poli ic in order o ad ance one elf and, b chari , one fello apostles, to heaven: this is the ultimate goal of the Ecclesia, a fig red in The Phoeni

and

the Bible.36 Therefore, by engaging with the scriptural synonymisation of the Church with Chri

bod in I Corin hian 12.12 28, and b echoing A g

Ch rch a a ni ed people, C ne

ine concep ualisation of the

lf and he Andrea -poet promote the Church for its human

inclusivity. The audience, whether lay or religious, is encouraged to benefit spiritually and ociall from he con i iali as Anglo-Sa on ocie

of he Ch rch

apo olhad ra her han percei ing he Ecclesia

mere infra r c ral backbone.

Conclusion The fervent membership of the Ecclesia which Cynewulf undertakes a similar poetic project

encourages in the reader, is exemplified by Elene

follo ing her enera ion of he Tr e Cro

Ongan þa geornlice

gastgerynum

on sefan secean

soðfæstnesse,

weg to wuldre;

huru weorda God

gefullæste,

fæder on roderum,

cining ælmihtig,

þæt seo cwen begeat

willan in worulde;

wæs se witedom

þurh fyrnwitan

beforan sungen

eall æfter orde

swa hit eft gelamp

ðinga gehwylces.

36

and he Andrea -poet, who

The Phoeni , ll. 387 392; Ephesians 4.15 16.

nail :

145 ( She hen began keenl

o eek r h in her hear hro gh piri al m

erie , he pa h o glory;

indeed the God of hosts, father in the heavens, the almighty king, assisted the queen so that she got her desire in the world; the whole prophecy had been sung before by sages from the beginning, j

a i af er ard ran pired in each and e er

a ) (C ne

lf, Elene , ll. 1147 1155a)

While pa age imilar o hi in J liana primarily narrativise the saintly experience, they also constitute a statement of figural exegesis, as is evident here (C ne 242a). I i b mean of he Ch rch o nder and he e piri al m o glor ): he Ch rch bridge or lde a i

g

erie

lf, J liana , ll. 233b

-ger na and i pro i ion of he i dom nece ar ha Elene progre e along he

he apparen gap be

eg o

ldre ( pa h

een God on roder m and Elene in

acramen and doc rine render hea en acce ible on ear h (C ne

lf, Elene ,

l. 1149a). As well as its collapse of this spatial boundary empha i ing he Ch rch a hori , its collapse of any temporal boundary by means of the sacraments also accentuates the Ecclesia

po er ince, hro gh he acramen , prophecie from beforan are f lfilled

hro gho

ime, fore er ef (Cynewulf, Elene , ll. 1153b, 1154b). The unusualness of these

two temporal adverbs in receiving metrical stress and alliteration in the above passage draws a en ion o heir e po re of he Ch rch

a e ome abili

the Ecc e a s perpe a ion of God pa grace

o i if Tradi ion con an l , a

ain pre en -day Christians. Promotion of

the Anglo-Saxon Church and encouragement of recourse to the sacraments is thus the implicit purpose of the ecclesiastical figurae emplo ed b C ne

lf and he Andrea -poet, who have

successfully advertised the Church as a protective space, as the sacrament-dispensing Corpus Christi and as the Christian body politic.

In the three poems on which this study has concentrated, the Church Militant is exalted as the means to the Ch rch Tri mphan

ince, a indica ed in Andrea , he indi id al

Christian must depend upon earthly knowledge to find heavenly grace ( Andrea , ll. 979b

146 980). In hi

igned poem epilog e , he peni en ial C ne

lf epi omi e hi dependence on

the Ecclesia as he relies on the prayers of the Church body politic to advance his soul to heaven, petitioning the audience for prayers after his death. This same need of the Church is promoted for national as well as personal salvation: in his letters, Alcuin insists on the Church and its acramen C ne

a

he ol ion o England

ocie al degreda ion, h

i i

er fea ible ha

lf and he Andrea -poet similarly believe that peace can only prevail where obedience

o God

eaching i

ni er all

I i b impar ing

nder aken. 37

ch Chri ian i dom in Chri II , Elene and Andrea

o poe enac he Ch rch pa oral care. Readerl

ha he

anc ifica ion occ r hro gh poe ic form

as well as content. Just as Christ gives parables so His hearers can nosse mysteria regni caelor m ( kno

he m

erie of he kingdom of hea en ), so too Old English poets employ

figurae ince de-coding he e allegorie e erci e a piri al nder anding of he Ch rch g

-ger na , he her hi poe r i read b monks trained in lectio divina, or by laity learned

in sophisticated reading practices.38 A

ell a

he rec rrence of he e ch rchl concern in C ne

lf

igned

ork

encouraging conceptualisation of these texts as a canon and as a source for the poet of Andrea , he man crip con e poem

in

hich he C ne

lfian corp

are i a ed amplif

he

eccle ia ical p rpo e. Cri ic ha e likened he enigma ic con en of he Exeter Book,

particularly its simultaneous sublimity and tangibility, theological complexity and didactic simplicity to the similarly intricate structure of a medieval cathedral, and scholars have also argued that the consolidation of doctrine by which the Council of Vercelli was preoccupied in

37

Alc in, Alc ini Epi olae 122 , <https://www.dmgh.de/mgh_epp_4/index.htm#page/179/mode/1up> [accessed 12 October 2020], ll. 4 15; Alc in, Alc ini Epi olae 128 , <https://www.dmgh.de/mgh_epp_4/index.htm#page/190/mode/1up> [accessed 12 October 2020], ll. 1 38.

38 Matthew 13.11.

147 1050 pervades the Vercelli Book.39 These critical observations suggest that reasserting the Ch rch iden i

remained a concern in la er Anglo-Saxon England when these codices were

compiled. Therefore, not only has this study recognised the ecclesiastical agenda linking these poems, but so have the medieval manuscript compilers all those centuries ago.

By conducting this interdisciplinary study of literature, theology and history then, this article has wondered how the Church arguably the most influential institution in the Western world and the foundation on which our modern-day existence has been built

was perceived

by the earliest English peoples. Such a study is important now in order to rectify the superficial and trivialised understanding of the Church so often promulgated by modern-day media. This is a misunderstanding of the Church which needs reappraisal in light of what the earliest writings in the English language have to say about the impressively intricate ecclesiastical context which underlies both the sacred and secular spheres of We ern ci ili a ion

pa ,

present and future.

Works cited A

Y

, A

E

a , in Monumenta Germaniae Historica iv, ed. by Ernst

Duemmler (Berlin: Apvd Weidmannos, 1895), <http://www.mgh.de/dmgh/resolving/GH_Epp._4_S._171> [accessed 8 December 2019] Auerbach, Erich, Scenes from the Drama of European Literature (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984)

39

Rafal Bor la ki, The Elemen of Anglo-Saxon Wisdom Poetry in the Exeter Book Riddle , Studia Anglia Posnaniensia, 38 (2002), 35 47, (p. 39); Robert E. Boenig, Andreas, he E chari , and Vercelli , Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 79 (3), 313 31.

148 Bintley, M

a

D. J, D

U a La

a

Andreas , Leeds Studies in

,a

, Journal of English and Germanic

English, 40 (2009), pp. 105 19 B

,R

E., Andreas,

E

a

V

Philology, 79 (3), pp. 313 31 B

a

, Ra a , T R

Elements of Anglo-Saxon Wisdom Poetry in the Exeter Book

, Studia Anglia Posnaniensia, 38 (2002), pp. 35 47

Brooks, Kenneth R., ed., Andreas and The Fates of the Apostles (Oxford: Clarendon

Press,

1961) Caesarius of Arles, Sancti Caesarii Arelatensis Sermones, ed. by Germani D. Morin (Turnhout: Brepols, 1953) C a ,C

, G

' P

Ga

a

T

C

' Christ II and the

Relationship of This Theme to Christ I and Christ III , ASE, 3 (1974), pp. 87 101 Clark, Gillia , I

a

C

G :A

C

a

E

, Studies in

Church History, 54 (2018), pp. 46 70 C a

,S

, T

a B

a

Authority in Anglo-Sa

E

Cynewulf, C

B E

a a

C

Pa

:A

,Y

,a

E

a

, Speculum, 71 (3), pp. 529 98

, ed. by P. O. A. Gradon, (Exeter: University of Exeter Press,

1977) Juliana, ed. by Rosemary Woolf (London: Methuen & Co Ltd., 1954) The Christ of Cynewulf, ed. by Albert S. Cook, (Boston: Ginn & Co., 1900) Dictionary of Old English: A to I online, ed. by Angus Cameron, Ashley Crandell Amos, Antonette diPaolo Healey et al. (Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project, 2018) F

, R. D, C

: Ca

,Da

a

Da

,

Cynewulf: Basic Readings, ed. by Robert

E. Bjork (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996), pp. 3 23 R. D., Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles, eds., K a b

B

: F

Ed

(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008) Garde, Judith N, Old English Poetry in Medieval Christian Perspective: A Doctrinal Approach (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer Ltd., 1991) G

G a, E

a LXXVI ,

Patrologia Cursus Completus, Sancti Gregorii Papæ

I, Opera Omnia, lxxvii (Paris: Garnier brothers, 1862) H

. XXIX ,

Patrologia Cursus Completus, Sancti Gregorii Papæ I, Opera Omnia,

lxxvi (Paris: Garnier brothers, 1857) Huppé, Bernard F, D c

a dP

:A

I

York: State University of New York Press, 1959)

c

OdE

P

(New

149 I L

,E

a

B. J ., T

A

, T

D a

a , Fa

P

: Christ I , ASE, 25 (1996), 23 134 H

a S

: T

I

a

Beowulf,

Cynewulf and Andreas , Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature, 24 (2019), pp. 105 32 M

,B

, Manipulations of the Mind-as-Container Motif in Beowulf, Homiletic Fragment II, and Alfred's Metrical Epilogue to the Pastoral Care , The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 107 (1), pp. 25 56

North, Richard, and Michael D. J. Bintley, eds., Andreas: An Edition (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2016), pp. 302 05 P

, A

Ma , V C

a

,P D

aa

Andreas and its relationship to Beowulf and

. (Ca

:U

Ca

, 2002)

Robertson, D. W. Jr., A Preface to Chaucer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969) Tertullian, Apologeticus, <http://www.tertullian.org/latin/apologeticum_becker.htm> [accessed 8 December 2019] Tertulliani Liber de Pudicitia, <http://www.tertullian.org/latin/de_pudicitia.htm> [accessed 17 June 2020] The Dream of the Rood, ed. by Michael Swanton (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1970) The Old English Elegies: A Critical Edition and Genre Study, ed. by Anne Lingard Klinck, (Quebec: McGill-Q

P

, 2001)

The Phoenix, ed. by N. F. Blake (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1964) The Wanderer, ed. by R. F. Leslie, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1966)

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69152

The Function of the Portrayal of Madness in ‘The Diary of a Madman and The Madness of George III: the Effects of Tragedy and Comedy Leda Maiello

Nikolai Gogol s The Diary of a Madman and Alan Bennet s The Madness of George III offer readers and theatregoers two very intense portrayals of madness. On the one hand, those representations of madness profoundly distress, they are highly dramatic and excite sympathy and pity. On the other hand, their function is to entertain: the characters madness is somehow risible and people laugh at it or are, at least, entertained. That reaction, laughter, shows the distance which madness creates between madmen and the people who laugh at them, because laughter needs a level of insensibility to be occasioned. How can these two very contrasting functions of madness coexist? One indicates and produces distance from the madman, the other produces vicinity. I argue that, through both sympathy and laughter, readers and observers are led to acknowledge the senselessness of the injustices the mad character endures. The social accusations brought forth by the literary text—denouncing the little knowledge the public has of madness and the fear this lack of knowledge generates

are thus recognised by readers.

Of the two, the function of the portrayal of madness which most clearly allows readers to see what the mad character sees, and suffer with them, is the dramatic one. When Aristotle defines drama in his Poetics, he writes that through pity and fear , drama effect[s] the proper

151

purgation [catharsis] of these emotions .1 Observers identify with the characters and sympathise with them, they feel pity and fear, and so manage to take the character s point of view. If a portrayal of madness is tragic, and if it underlines the helpless situation of the mad characters, it will arouse sympathy, and the injustices the madmen suffer will be exposed. Still in the Poetics, as Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle noted, Aristotle argued that character is secondary to what he calls the first essential or lifeblood of tragedyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the plotâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and that characters are included for the sake of the action .2 Many critics have questioned this assumption, and in their Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory, Bennett and Royle argue that, as Henry James wrote, plot and character are two equal parts of a whole. According to them,

to identify with a person in a novel or play is to identify oneself, to produce an identity for oneself. It is to give oneself a world of fictional people, to start to let one s identity merge with that of a fiction. It is, finally, also to create a character for oneself, to create oneself as a character.

(Bennett and Royle, p. 67)

Identification blurs the confines between what is real and what is fictional, projecting readers onto characters, making the ones sympathise with the others. Sympathy, which literally means feel together , allows readers to feel deeply the injustices suffered by the characters.

This introduction on sympathy and dramatic character will help me explain how Poprishchin and King George manage to engage readers and, through this engagement, lead readers to share their distress. In The Diary of a Madman , the portrayal of the protagonist s madness slowly grows in intensity, as his alienation from reality brings him to disillusionment

1

Aristotle, The Poetics of Aristotle, trans. by S. H. Butcher (Salt Lake City: Project Gutenberg, 2008), p. 28.

Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle, Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory (Harlow: Pearson, 2004), p. 60. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

2

152

and to be locked up in the asylum. The protagonist narrates his experiences in first-person, writing about them in scraps of a diary. He seems to be jotting down thoughts and impressions, gradually more disconnected and nonsensical. The dates which precede each new entry change from ordinary dates to fantastical inventions: Marchember 86th and No date. The day had no date .3 As an intimate way of narrating one s story, the journalâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and especially such a disarranged one, apparently not intended for others to readâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;allows readers to enter the narrator s private life. Reading an intimate, first-person account of his fall into madness makes it easier for them to identify and sympathise with Poprishchin.

When readers have already entered his most private and illicit thoughts, his alienation degenerates: Spain has a king. He has been found. I am that king (Gogol, p. 294). Readers, whose sympathy has gradually increased thanks to the intimate form and private content of the diary, are affected by this deterioration in his writing. They might be surprised or shocked, they might have expected it, but as his madness degenerates, his style of writing becomes even more direct, honest and unmediated. Poprishchin is confessing to his journal, and its readers, that he is that king , the king of Spain: readers might be touched by his disarming frankness, and their sympathy heightened rather than lowered by his madness.

His mad beliefs give him the power he needed not to go to work and not to care about social rules and appearances. When he finally agrees to go to the office, but only as a joke , he narrates: when he [the director] was passing through our section, everybody buttoned up their tailcoats; but I

nothing of the sort! What is a director that I should stand up before him

never! (Gogol, pp. 294 95). As Richard Peace argues, madness, it seems, is the outer world s lack of harmony transferred into the inner realm : it is the outer world s lack of

Nikolai Gogol, The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol, trans. by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (London: Granta Books, 1998), pp. 294 96. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

3

153

harmony , its nonsensical injustices, that madness reveals. 4 Poprishchin s lucid insight into the senselessness of class hierarchies is permitted to him because of his alienation from reality.

Readers, through the sympathy they feel for him as first-person narrator, as mad and mistreated character, are asked and led to see the truth he is speaking.

The climax of his madness and of the reader s sympathy occurs when he is locked up in the asylum. In four last journal entries where his madness, his pain and the readers pity escalate, harrowing hints about the tortures he suffers coexist with the fanciest thoughts. He writes:

he saw me and chased me out from under the chair with his stick. That cursed stick is extremely painful.

However, all this has been rewarded by my present discovery: I ve learned that every rooster has its Spain, that it s located under his feathers.

(Gogol, p. 299)

He talks nonsense, but as he dramatically describes the punishment he gets for it, we see how disproportionate the one is to the other. This contrast is sharpest at the end of the story, when he is painfully lucid and then plunders back, with the last sentence, into madness: No, I no longer have the strength to endure. God! what they re doing to me! (Gogol, p. 299). His desperation allows him a moment of recognition, when he acknowledges his infirmity: Dear mother! pity your sick child! [

] And do you know that the Dey of Algiers has a bump just

under his nose? (Gogol, p. 300). His dramatic powerlessness against the tortures he undergoes, and the perdurance of his nonsensical speech, lead readers to sympathise and, through identification and sympathy, to see the injustice and cruelty he has to endure. Those injustices and cruelties are perpetuated by public institutions, not sadistic individuals. They take place in

Richard Peace, The Enigma of Gogol (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 130. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

4

154

a hospital, an asylum, a centre created and administrated by the State. Social condemnations are implicitly present in the story and, through character identification, are internalised and perhaps understood by readers.

What happens in The Madness of George III is, under this point of view, very similar.

The madman is intimate with the spectator, in this case, not because he writes in first-person but because he is himself speaking directly to the audience, as a character in the play. When the king is on stage, spatially close to the spectators, what he feels, says or endures is immediately captured by the audience, without being mediated. Theatregoers get engrossed in the character through the dramatic intensity of his madness, which excites pity. Bennett himself comments: What I had not anticipated is that the audience would be so wholeheartedly on the King s side.

5

As in the ending of The Diary of a Madman , the episodes which most excite sympathy are those when the king partly recognises his madness but is powerless against it. At the beginning of his infirmity, he notices the change:

KING What do you know of my mind? Or its frame? Something is shaking the frame; shaking the mind out of its frame. I am not going out of my mind; my mind is going out of me.

(Bennett, p. 23)

This scene is essential to understand the helplessness of the king s situation, and the sympathy it excites in the audience. He addresses directly both his loyal servants , the government representatives on stage, and the audience: what do you know of my mind? (Bennett, p. 22).

None of them can understand what his frame of mind isâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;none should have a say in what he

Alan Bennett, The Madness of George III (London: Faber and Faber, 2008), p. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

5

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can or cannot do. His loyal servants are the same who will later make decisions for him, will allow the king to be tortured and controlled. By saying that no oneâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;not even himselfâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;can know anything about his frame of mind, the king foreshadows the illegitimacy of doctors socalled cures. The cause of his madness is just something which is shaking the mind out of its frame . What this something is remains vague, unknown, as well as the way to remove it.

By saying that it is not him going out of his mind, but his mind going out of him, the king underlines that his mind is controlling him now, and leaving him: he has no choice, no power over it. Seen by spectators as an object used by his own mind, as me and not I , the king is pitied as powerless and continually stripped of his own will. When he is tortured because of something he cannot control, the absurdity of his suffering is shared by the audience.

The height of the aroused sympathy occurs when the madman s powerlessness is complete. Since the action takes place on stage, this climax happens when the king gets physically restrained:

(

e ee

a

e a bee

a ed

e c a , fee a d a

ca

ed,

ead

held rigid by a band round his forehead.)

KING: (Howling) I am the King of England.

WILLIS: No, sir. You are the patient.

(The Coronation Anthem finally reaches its climax and bursts forth in the chorus of Zad

eP e ,a

e KING

e,

,

ec a

) (Bennett, p. 44)

This scene represents the height of his madness: from that point he begins to become himself again (Bennett, pp. 80 81). The tragedy stands, again, in the impossibility of the king to win the fight against a stronger power. Asserting I am the King of England is a desperate attempt to get his will and stop the tortures, to reiterate his nominal power. But that power is inexistent:

156

No, sir. You are the patient is the only answer he gets. The moment is extremely tragic, antiglorious; a deposition scene on the notes of the Coronation Anthem. The king gets stripped off of all powers, even the control of his own body, and is so shaken that when he gets well, at the end of the play, he needs to show the re-obtaining of his power by negating Willis s statement: I am not the patient [...] the King is himself again (Bennett, pp. 80 81). This abasement, this divestment of all dignity and strength is felt as unjust by a sympathetic audience. Internalising the king s sufferings through sympathy, spectators are drawn to reflect on questions such as: how much power, physical as well as psychological, can you impose on someone considered to be mad? To what extent can you restrain, torture, subdue, and is it humane to do so? Assisting to these tortures, being unable to intervene, and being at times considered by the king the same as his torturersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;for example in the previous What do you know of my mind? â&#x20AC;&#x201D;strain the audience and test its limits. The contrast present in hearing the Coronation anthem and seeing a king deposed on stage is mirrored by two coexistent reactions in the audience: its potential for violence and enjoyment of violence contrasts with the highest level of sympathy for the tortured king. Overcoming or setting aside any possible enjoyment of violence, we might recognise and understand the tragic position of the king, and the broader social critique it excites.

The comedic aspects of literary works are more difficult, at first, to see as edifying.

This is largely because, as Jonathan Wild writes, The perennial problem with comic drama is that critics have proved reluctant to take it seriously. [ ] The main difficulty for comedy in this context has been its perceived role as providing mere entertainment to its consumers.

6

Comedy has been underestimated and dismissed as merely a pastime, a silly entertainment. I have two counterarguments for those who dismiss it: firstly, comedy should be valued and

Jonathan Wild, Comedy , in The Edinburgh Introduction to Studying English Literature, ed. by Dermot Cavanagh and others (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014), pp. 189 98 (p. 189).

6

157

respected even only as entertaining

it keeps readers engaged and it produces a momentary

feeling of happiness. Secondly, I believe that laughter does spark a further reaction in readers, especially when the object of that laughter, as it happens in many portrayals of madness, also excites sympathy. Unlike tragedy, comedy creates a distance between readers and characters.

Henri Bergson argues that the comedic effect needs the absence of feeling to work :

Here I would point out [

] the ABSENCE OF FEELING which usually accompanies laughter. It seems

as though the comic could not produce its disturbing effect unless it fell, so to say, on the surface of a soul that is thoroughly calm and unruffled. Indifference is its natural environment, for laughter has no greater foe than emotion. I do not mean that we could not laugh at a person who inspires us with pity, for instance, or even with affection, but in such a case we must, for the moment, put our affection out of court and impose silence upon our pity.7

Comedic effect could not be produced unless the receiver, the reader or spectator, is indifferent . That indifference, Bergson writes, can only be a passing indifference; if we sympathise with the character who is the object of the comedy, in order to laugh we must for the moment [

] impose silence upon our pity . Poprishchin and King George, whose madness

continually excites sympathy, can and are laughed at, but at that particular time our sympathy must be buried by indifference. When a representation of madness is both tragic and comic, we need to understand how the sympathy which the tragic generates coexists with the insensibility the comedic needs.

It happens both in The Madness of George III and The Diary of a Madman that something comic in the portrayal of their madness entertains us, makes us laugh. For a second, when laughter is generated, we forget our pity. One of the many examples of this can be found

Henri Bergson, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, trans. by Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell (Salt Lake City: Project Gutenberg, 2003), I.1. Online text.

7

158

in Gogol s short story, when Poprishchin tells his house-servant Mavra about his discovery: First off, I announced to Mavra who I am. When she heard that the king of Spain was standing before her, she clasped her hands and nearly died of fright. The stupid woman had never seen a king of Spain before (Gogol, p. 294). The style is satirical; the explanation he gives for Mavra s reaction, the stupid woman had never seen a king of Spain before , is dictated by his alienation from reality, and it is comical. As in other instances, the fact that he finds a perfectly logical explanation for something his madness caused, together with the satirical tone used, is entertaining. In order to enjoy the comic in it, readers have to forget for a moment that his madness is speaking. They also have to surpass his calling her stupid woman , momentarily failing to notice the rudeness of it.

In The Madness of George III, comedy initially exploits the audience s potential for the enjoyment of violence, even more than it does in Gogol s short story. While falling into his fragmentary speech and alienation from decorum, the king still has the perfect response, and a clever joke, for every occasion:

WILLIS: Our saviour went about healing the sick.

KING: Yes, but he had not ÂŁ700 a year for it.

(GREVILLE and the PAGES laugh but not WILLIS.) Yes, but he had not ÂŁ700 a year for it, eh? Not bad for a madman.

(Bennett, p. 42)

Right before he gets restrained, and after he has been tortured with blisters, the king maintains his ability to joke and make people laugh. Even in the most tragic moments, his madness has something risible in it: a king in his nightgown, shouting nonsense and ordering his pages around, a king struggling for his freedom and telling his doctor shut up, you sanctimonious piss-hole , can be entertaining because of its absurdity (Bennett, p. 43). The comedic effect

159

stands in the fact that his behaviour does not conform to the traditional, regal, dignified king we might expect. But in order to laugh at it, we have to forget that he is being tortured and stripped off of his power for something that he cannot control. Entertainment, in this case, seems to be a complete opposite of the moments which lead the audience to set aside their possible enjoyment of violence to sympathise and reflect on the sceneâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;entertainment uses that same enjoyment of violence to make spectators laugh. Readers, for a moment, ally with the inflictors of the torture, laughing at the madman and forgetting their sympathy.

On the contrary, Richard Peace, writing about Gogol s short story, argues that the comic in a portrayal of madness sharpens the sympathetic effect of tragedy. He writes: the sudden descent from the high note of genuine pathos to the grotesque inconsequentiality of and do you know that the King of France (sic) has a lump right under his nose? is [ ] a sudden tension projected on to the moods of pathos, which heightens and sharpens its impact (Peace, p. 125). For Peace, the comic effect of madness only serves as an opposite to the tragic, and therefore augments the educating effect of the latter. This reading of comedic traits is limiting; it circumscribes entertainment only as a function of the tragic, as something that is only important when considered as opposite, not worthy of consideration for itself.

Differently to what Peace argues, I believe that the comic effect of representations of madness has important functions in itself. Partly, entertainment is present simply for the sake of entertaining. Both Gogol s and Bennett s literary works keep people engaged through comedy. But laughter also has an edifying function, despite the insensibility it needs, or rather because of it. These two portrayals of madness generate a bitter laugh: Poprishchin s inconsequentialities and logical excuses, the king s jokes and ridiculous behaviour are entertaining, and when laughter starts it is genuine. What happens almost at the same moment is this: readers and spectators catch themselves laughing; they immediately realise that it is not very appropriate. Their momentary insensibility is made patent by laughter itself, and that

160

realisation generates a sense of guilt which stops the laugh. In this way, the entertaining aspect of the portrayal of madness cooperates with the tragic (and is not peripheral to it) in order to lead readers to reflect on what is or is not appropriate, sympathetic or humane to do when confronted with madness. Through sympathy and checked laughter readers internalise the character s situation, to the point of being personally affected by their reactions. When we catch ourselves laughing and realise we have momentarily forgotten our pity, the shock can be so private, so emotional that we stop laughing; we even regret our laughter and blame ourselves for it. It is our embodiment with the mad characters, and our own reactions, which can lead us to reflection upon the social premises which generate both the characters treatment and our response to it.

Works cited Aristotle, The Poetics of Aristotle, trans. by S. H. Butcher (Salt Lake City: Project Gutenberg, 2008) Bennett, Alan, The Madness of George III (London: Faber and Faber, 2008) Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle, Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory (Harlow: Pearson, 2004) Bergson, Henri, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, trans. by Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell (Salt Lake City: Project Gutenberg, 2003), I.1. Online text.

Gogol, Nikolai, The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol, trans. by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (London: Granta Books, 1998), pp. 294 96 Peace, Richard, The Enigma of Gogol (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981) Wild, Jonathan, Comedy , in The Edinburgh Introduction to Studying English Literature, ed.

by Dermot Cavanagh and others (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014), pp.

189 98

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69153

Ideations and Tangibilities of Place: Migration Fiction and Postwar Black Joseph Edward Mason-Jones

London is the place for me [...]

- Aldwyn Robert ( Lord Kitchener ) - calypso written aboard the SS Windrush and performed on his arrival at Tilbury Docks, 1948.

Memor takes root onl half in the folds of the brain: half s in the concrete streets we have lived along.

1

Lionel Abrahams, cited in Ivan Vladislavic s preface of Portrait with Keys, 2011

Place is elusive and multifaceted; it is both a concept engaged with and a phenomenon experienced. To understand and interact with it engages our whole being, body and mind. Its ideation how we think, imagine and remember place and our physical experience of its tangibilities, come together to form our relationships with place, as suggested in the quote from

Lionel Abrahams, cited in Ivan Vladislavic, Preface , in Portrait with Keys (Cape Town: Penguin Random House South Africa, 2011).

1

162

Abrahams above. Ideation denotes a processual formation of ideas rather than a fixed idea or preconception which is useful to an understanding of how place functions imaginatively. To sense a place with our body ignites in our mind all that we associate with it. Our experience of the tangibility of place, therefore, is underpinned by our ideation of it, as well as the ideations of others which have taken root as socio-political narratives and discourses of place. This is the source of place s elusiveness because ideations are unstable and malleable, constructed from an immeasurable range of ideas, narratives and experiences. The way place is evinced in fiction, therefore, can be very potent and potentially allows us to better understand how we are situated within the world, and particularly how specific contexts alter our experience and understanding of place. Literature has the capacity to consider dissentious ideations of place and narrativise their alternate conceptions and understandings, all the while obliging the reader in a haptic and imagined engagement with the milieu that it conjures.

In focussing on ideations and tangibilities, this essay will therefore explore both how place is experienced, and simultaneously how it is politicised, suffused with competing and unstable socio-political narratives shaped by racial, cultural, national and colonial discourses.

The essay will argue that the ideations and tangiblities of place are too often seen as disconnected elements, or dichotomous. Instead, it will make the case for a perspective that sees these elements as simultaneous and always in dynamic relation. In conclusion it will argue that fiction has a considerable mediating power in being able to address this relation. The essay develops this argument within the context of migration, specifically the years following World War Two in which Britain saw a significant increase in its black population, drawing on e amples of how authors create a sense of place in what can loosel be termed migration fiction , and in particular in Sam Selvon s The Lonely Londonders. Migration fiction is a genre which offers a fertile ground for exploring the contours of place and its politicisation,

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showcasing different people s incongruous understandings and manifesting them in an experiential narrative fraught with ambiguity, tension and conflict with place at its core.

Theorising place in post-war Black Britain The journey made from Kingston, Jamaica to Tilbury docks by the SS Windrush in 1948, carrying some five-hundred migrants from the Commonwealth, is a point at which ideations and experiences of place came to the fore, marking a crucial point in black British history.

Indeed, the arrival of the Windrush Generation is often considered the symbolic birth of black Britain. Sam Selvon s The Lonely Londoners (1956) and Andrea Lev s Small Island (2004) both situate their narratives within this context and will be the two primary literary texts this essay draws upon. Both texts have a proclivit to e plore their characters situatedness within place, both in a national sense considering the tensions and contradiction of nationality and national identity and in a more immediate and proximate sense. Particularly pertinent is how they politicise the sense of place they conjure; how they consider its understandings and ideations and the implications of this tension for migrants. The arrival of the Windrush Generation was perhaps one of the most palpable tensions of this kind. The birth of black Britain and the pervasive notion of an ethnicall homogeneous nation brought together two polarised understandings of place. Literature, as an imaginative medium, conjures these dissentious ideations and manifests them, makes them tangible, in a character s e perience of place. In doing so, authors can effectively capture the simultaneity and inextricability of the physical and metaphysical aspects of place. These ideas are fundamental to a consideration of postwar black Britain and the racial, cultural and political tensions and will for the crux of this essay.

It is first useful to outline the theoretical underpinnings of this discussion. One of the most influential theorists of place is the geographer, Doreen Massey. Her landmark essay, A

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global sense f lace argues for a progressive incorporation of the global into the local by understanding a place s character or uniqueness as dependent on its social links with places extraneous to it.

In this interpretation, what gives space its specificity is not some long internalised history but the fact that it is constructed out of a particular constellation of social relations, meeting and weaving together at a particular locus [ ] And this in turn allows a sense of place which is e troverted, which includes a consciousness of its links with the wider world, which integrates in a positive way the global and the local.2

Understanding place by figuring it as relational and extroverted, exceeding its tangible borders through its social and discursive links with the rest of the world, helps to dismantle ideas of authenticity and nationalism. This, therefore, undermines a territorial ideation of an essential Britishness , an essence rooted ph sicall within its borders, b dismantling the binar logic which underpins it; namely a divisive logic which creates a spatial dichotomy by defining place in contrast to its territorial exterior. In doing this, Massey posits the inadequacy of a territorial understanding of place and instead foregrounds the more social and metaphysical aspects. This makes a place s character impossible to be defined objectivel or as an thing fi ed spatially or temporall . Instead, the specificit

of a place, its character, is perpetuall negotiated and

renegotiated through these bridges with the global. Understanding a place like this, as extroverted, does not rob it of its uniqueness but rather heralds the production of a space which is a sum of its specific social relations and linkages, creating a unique but processual space of perpetual negotiation. This idea that a place s uniqueness or its character is contingent on the

Doreen Ma e , A Global Sen e of Place , in Space, Place, and Gender (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994), pp.

146 56 (p. 147). Further references to this chapter are given after quotations in the text.

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discursive, and the imagined, also allows us to see how our understanding of place is subjective and personal, not an engagement with its innate qualities.

National identity is an abstract concept. That which is considered quintessentially British is purely symbolic, a set of abstract and arbitrary values and ideas superimposed on to a literal geography. It is important to question, therefore, how these ideas come to be considered innately bound up in the tangibility of place its physical location and aspects confined hermetically within its borders, containing the metaphysical in the physical. Suggesting that these facets of Britishness emanate from the geograph , from the ground up as it were, and not as a ideated superimposition, allows people to lay claim to an essential Britishness. It is by subscribing to this idea of essentialism that people manage the ownership of the abstract, the rooting of culture in land. This conflation of nation and culture the rooting of culture in the tangibility of place is the basis of cultural nationalism. Graham MacPhee, drawing on Jed Ets s work, also notes that cultural nationalism is a concept borrowed, somewhat ironicall , from the decolonised nations. For Ets , then, decolonisation generates a compensator retreat to an Anglocentric national culture, but crucially, its particularistic conception of Englishness is not the expression of a self-contained culture as it claims, but is itself derivative and dependent on the colonial histor it abjures. 3 MacPhee and Etsy, here, note that English culture is derivative of that which is not English and, while their focus is temporal (focussing on colonial history), implicit in their argument is that Englishness does not e ist in a territorial sense, contained within its borders, but as a construction or ideation, contingent on that from which it often sets itself apart.

It is also worth noting that the material presence of British colonies in Britain in the form of goods and commodities was established before the social co-presence that came about

Graham MacPhee, Postwar British Literature and Postcolonial Studies (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), pp. 16 7. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

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through mass migration. In other words, the importation of goods from colonised countries to Britain preceded the immigration of people from those countries. Although, of course, Empire had involved both social and economic relations between coloniser and colonised, the nature of imperialism meant that the social aspects of colonisation that is to say the widespread meeting of coloniser and colonised had operated imperceptibly and unobtrusively to most British nationals.

This is important as Britain s character, its cultural uniqueness or essence , had alread shifted in its processual renegotiation well before a perceived threat to Britain s uniqueness in a nationalist sense. As Stuart Hall eloquentl puts, s mbolicall , we have been there for centuries. I was coming home. I am the sugar at the bottom of the English cup of tea.

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This

shift was accommodated, however, effectively abjuring the constellation of social relations (to use Masse s terms) upon which it rested. Clearl , a global sense of place in a material sense, that is, Britain s e istence as a conglomeration of global material facets, had not apparentl warranted the outrage in the British national populace that a global sense of place in a populative sense did with the arrival of the Windrush Generation.

Masse s understanding of place seems to place a primac on the metaph sical, imagined and discursive aspects of place, and mostly disregards the phenomenological and sensuous aspects of place, that is, our embodied and pre-reflective experience of it. She understands place as relational, dependent on that which is not there in a literal sense, and thus the imagination, by linking it to an unmappable constellation of social relations. They weave together at a particular locus, but Massey seems to suggest this locus is almost arbitrary its ph sical location, its tangibilit , does not contain a place s essence. Essentiall , she places a

S ar Hall, The local and he global: globali a ion and e hnici , in Culture, Globalisation and the Third World System: Contemporary Conditions for the Representations of Identity (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1991), pp. 42 68 (pp. 48 9).

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primacy on our ideas, constructions and imaginings of place, rather than our experience of its tangiblities.

In contrast to Massey, Sten Pultz Moslund puts forth a different theory of place, drawing on migration fiction to argue for a more embodied and sensuous understanding.

While he recognises that place sometimes draws on our imaginative faculties to be understood and that metaphysical aspects of culture such as ideology can be encoded into the physical structure of place, he asserts that we disregard our embodied experience of the tangibilities of place. The crux of his argument is that place is sensuous and that we experience it prereflectivel , positing the potential of an understanding of place that is a challenge of metaphysical regimes of meaning by embodied experiences of being in the world that do not easil translate into meaning or regimes of identit , whether English, Indian, or h brid . 5 Moslund cites canonical texts in migration literature to illustrate what he sees as a problematic prioritisation of discursive space over embodied space. Amongst these is Salman Rushdie s The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999) which places an emphasis on the constructedness of place, how it draws on a migrant s faculties of imagination to be understood:

The homecoming passengers notice none of this [the constructedness of reality], they stride confidently forward through the familiar, the quotidian, but the new arrivals look fearfully at the deliquescent land.

They seem to be splashing through what should be solid ground. As his own feet move gingerly forward, he feels small pieces of England solidly beneath them [...] everything must be made real, step by step.

This is a mirage, a ghost world, which becomes real only beneath our magic touch, our loving footfall, our kiss. We have to imagine it into being, from the ground up.

(Moslund, p. 208)

Sten Pultz Moslund, Li e a e Se Ge g a hie (Ge c i ici a d S a ial Li e a S dies) (New York: Springer, 2015), p. 216. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

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Moslund argues that this passage illustrates Rushdie s prioritisation of an ideation of place rather than a sensuous experience of it. What Moslund does not acknowledge, however, is that the place only exists discursively for the migrant. The ground for the homecomers has a sense of solidity and tangibility; place exists for them, not as a set of ideas, connotations and narratives, but simply as home. There is no aspect of ideation in their arrival as their relation to place is sensuous, pre-reflective and phenomenological. By contrast, the migrants have to imagine the ground into being. Its tangibility is subordinate to its metaphysicality as it simply cannot exist without first being imagined. To imagine a place into being draws on the narratives and connotations it exudes, which are often a product of its portrayal in art (or anything that aims to conjure that place) and popular culture. Msiska's argument is relevant here:

The immigrant's view of London is also mediated by the metropolis's own symbolic self-projection to the world, in addition to anecdotal evidence. In a way, some of the unrealistic expectations that the immigrants have about the city may have to do with the way the city has been represented to them through particular ideological forms of representations as well as through the tall-tales told by returnees London as re-imagined in the poplar imagination of colonial and post-colonial subjects.6

Place as a dichotomy between the tangible and the ideated The Lonely Londoners also explores this ostensible dichotomy between a conception of place as discursive and ideated, and place in a phenomenological sense, as underpinned by our sensuous experience of its tangibilities. Selvon introduces this debate in the opening sentence, calling the reality of London into question and suggesting a disconnect between the characters and the tangible milieu which surrounds them; One grim winter evening, when it had a kind

Mpalive-Hangson Msiska, Sam Sel on The Lonely Londoners and he S r c re of Black Me ropoli an Life , in African Diaspora and the Metropolis: Reading the African, African American and Caribbean Experience, 2 (2009), 5 27 (p. 13).

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of unrealness about London, with a fog sleeping restlessly over the city and the lights showing in the blur as if is not London at all but some strange place on another planet, Moses Aloetta hop on a number 46 bus.

7

We are immediately thrown into a place which resists identification, shrouded both literall and figurativel in ambiguit b the fog. The unrealit of Selvon s London in this opening sentence seems to refute a sensuous understanding of place by literally veiling it from us, rendering our perception of it so incomplete that it could be some strange place on another planet . There is a dream-like quality, an idea Selvon plays with by having Galahad arrive in London asleep, placing a primacy on its ideation rather than its literalities. Indeed, Galahad s conception of London as an ideation, a conceptual space purely in the domain of the mind, suppresses any sensuous immediacy to the point where his embodied experience is comically non-existent, stepping off the boat train in

[ ] an old gre tropical suit and a pair of watchekong and no overcoat or muffler or gloves or an thing for the cold [...] You not feeling cold, old man? Moses sa , e eing the specimen with ama ement, for he himself have on long wool underwear and a heavy fireman coat that he pick up in Portobello Road.

No, Henr sa , looking surprise. This is the wa the weather does be in the winter? It not so bad, man. In fact I feeling a little warm.

(Selvon, pp. 12 3)

B contrast, Moses s conception of London rests on a phenomenological and embodied experience, engaging sensuously with its tangibilities. While London s weather seems distinctl separate from Galahad, it penetrates Moses bod ; he take out a white handkerchief

Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners (London: Longman, 1956; repr. London: Penguin Books, 2006), p. 1. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

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and blow his nose. The handkerchief turn black and Moses watch it and curse the fog (Selvon, p. 1).

Selvon uses Moses and Galahad to embody the two ostensibly dichotomous conceptions of place that Moslund discusses. By introducing this polarity in their characters against the historical and political backdrop of postcolonial migration, Selvon explores how imperialism and globalisation shape our understanding and experience of place. As Procter argues,

Galahad foregrounds London as a primarily imagined geography composed through a range of disparate sign systems [...] his is above all a discursive knowledge of the metropolis, a knowledge that has been acquired through a range of social and institutional apparatuses in colonial Trinidad.8

This links back to Msiska s point about the self-projection of the colonial centre and how this seeps into the imagination of colonial subjects, forming a preconceived notion of place that exists potently but discursively. It is useful here to consider the context in which Selvon is writing and why this discursive understanding of place holds, for him, such a resonance. The type of romantic and discursive relationship with Britain that Galahad holds can be found contextually in the lyrics and tone of calypso (a popular West-Indian style of music). Hall argues that calypso

became the first signature music of the whole West Indian community. The calypsos of the 1950s therefore must be read and heard alongside books like [The] Lonely Londoners [...] as offering one of the most telling insights into the early days of the migrant experience.9

James Procter, Dwelling Places: Postwar Black British Writing (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), p. 52. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

9 S ar Hall, Cal p o King , The Guardian, 28 June 2002, <https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2002/jun/28/nottinghillcarnival2002.nottinghillcarnival> [accessed on 29 May 2020] (para. 19 or 22).

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Perhaps most famousl , Aldw n Roberts ( Lord Kitchener ) song London Is the Place for Me , cited at the start of this essa , (written in 1948 aboard the SS Windrush with Selvon) encapsulates how Britain, and more specifically London, held a mythic quality and existed affinitively but imaginatively in the mind of colonial subjects:

To live in London you are really comfortable | Because the English people are very much sociable | They take you here and they take you there | And they make you feel like a | millionaire | London that's the place for me.

Of course, as McLeod aptly points out,

Lord Kitchener s cal pso is [...] not about London at all but about a certain e pectation or ideal of London when seen from afar [...] The cal pso s farcical sensibilit and the happ artifice, coupled with its brisk beat, jaunty tone and humorous optimism, cheerfully possesses the city in song as an accommodating and unproblematic place for me [m emphasis]. 10

This idea that the song is not merely about London but actually is London it possesses London is pertinent, as the same is true of Galahad s conception of ideation of Britain. It is also worth noting Roberts reference to being treated like a millionaire. It shows how he has absorbed the imperial narrative of the Colonial Centre embod ing affluence and plenitude.

Selvon addresses the projection of the colonial centre again by using Galahad and Moses as the embodiments of two separate dispositions and two different relationships with place.

They are also set apart by the duration of their residence in London, Galahad being the newcomer and Moses the veteran. For Galahad, the names of places hold a greater significance

John McLeod, Postcolonial London: Rewriting the Metropolis (Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2004), p. 29. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

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than the places themselves. This re-establishes his proclivity to engage with London as an ideation, thus relegating his embodied experience:

He had a wa , whenever he talking with the bo s, he using the names of the places like he the mean big romance, as if to sa

I was in O ford Street have more prestige than if he just sa

I was up the

road. And once he had a date with a frauline, and he make a big point of saying he was meeting she by Charing Cross, because just to sa

Charing Cross have a lot of romance in it, he remember it had a

song called Roseann of Charing Cross .

(Selvon, p. 71)

Just before this passage we are reminded of the disjuncture between Galahad s phenomenological e perience of place and his ideation of it when he sa s I don t know wh I hot in the winter and cold in the summer (Selvon, p. 71). Charing Cross for Galahad, unlike for Moses, exists as a romantic idea that he once heard in a song back in Trinidad. Masse s e troverted understanding of place is useful here. She recognises the connections [people] make (physically, or by phone, or in memory and imagination) between here and the rest of the world (Massey, p. 153). Galahad s memor is what ascribes Charing Cross its romance.

Interestingly, much like Rushdie in The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Selvon accords this emphasis on the exaggerated disparity between the tangible and the ideated only to the newcomers. There is a suggestion in both that this is short lived, as an ideation of place is unstable and processual. Its discursive aspects seem to diminish (or perhaps just become less noticeable as the ideated and the tangible morph into one) giving way to a more sensuous, embodied experience. Selvon depicts this by having Moses recall his arrival in response to Galahad s ideation of Charing Cross:

173 Ah, in you I see myself, how I was when I was new to London. All them places is like nothing to me now. Is like when you back home and you hear fellars talk about Time Square and Fifth Avenue, and Charing Cross and ga Paree. You sa to ourself, Lord them places must be sharp. Then ou get a chance to see for yourself, and is like nothing.

(Selvon, p. 73)

Moses s discursive understanding of an imagined London seems to have dwindled as he is forced to face the harsh realities of being a postwar immigrant in London. He could not reconcile his ideation of place from afar with its tangibility upon arrival and so inscribes new meaning onto it. Galahad, on the other hand, has so far maintained his ideation, not yet recognising a disparity between the imperial narratives he has absorbed and the physicality of London. He arrives literall dreaming, iterating Dawson s argument that some simpl sought the affluent and cosmopolitan life represented b the London of their dreams . 11 As Susheila Nasta writes in the introduction to Selvon s te t, The Lonely Londoners encapsulates the romance and disenchantment of an imagined city that was both magnet and nightmare for its new colonial citi ens, a promised land that despite its lure turns out to be an illusion .12 Indeed, this pattern of demythologisation of the colonial centre is well charted. Gilbert s personification of the Mother Countr

in Small Island as the beloved relation from afar quickl

disintegrates when he finall encounters her, the filth old hag . 13 Highmore offers an analysis of the pervasive feelings of disappointment felt by many postwar Caribbean migrants as the incongruit of London as an idea and London as a realit becomes ever more apparent; The promise of the imperial motherland , of the s mbolic architecture of Empire, was offered but

Ashlye Dawson, Mongrel Nation: Diasporic Culture and the Making of Postcolonial Britain (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2007), p. 3.

12 Susheila Nasta, In rod c ion o Sam Sel on , in The Lonely Londoners (Penguin Books: London, 2006), p. v.

13 Andrea Levy, Small Island (London: Headline Book Publishing, 2004), p. 139. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

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not shown to George [Highmore s example] [...] They had lost the ability they once had to s mbolise for him a civilising centre for the modern world .14

Beyond Dichotomies: Reconnecting Tangibilities and Ideations of Place While Selvon s te t focuses almost e clusivel

on understandings of place from the

perspective of the immigrants, there is a brief but telling passage in the opening pages on how place exists as a malleable ideation for the non-migrant English:

Big headlines in the papers every day, and whatever the newspapers and the radio say in this country, that is the people Bible. Like one time when the newspapers say that the West Indians think that the streets of London paved with gold a Jamaican fellar went to the income tax office to find out something and first thing the clerk tell him is, You people think the streets of London are paved with gold?

Newspapers and radio rule this country.

(Selvon, p. 2)

While the e pression the streets are paved with gold is clearl not literal, Selvon uses it to manifest the metaphysical (wealth, prosperity and plentitude) in the physical (the street) while also understanding that this idea has been pedalled by the media and has become manifest here in the English people s racialisation of the street. Different and opposing understandings of place, but cruciall , here, ideas about other people s ideations, are pedalled purposivel to polarise these understandings. This is instrumental and divisive. It effectively renders the newcomers an incursion, identifying their understanding of the place as incongruent with its realities and thus making it seem both easy and desirable to oust them. MacPhee, drawing on Dawson s work, argues that part of the retrospective significant of the Wind

14

h

arrival in

Ben Highmore, Cultural Feelings: Mood, Mediation and Cultural Politics (Oxon: Routledge, 2017), p. 94.

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June 1948 lies in its contemporaneous framing by prominent politicians and sections of the media as marking, in the words of Prime Minister Attlee, an incursion into the national space (MacPhee, p. 43). This idea of a spatial incursion has clearly been absorbed by the tax office clerk in The Lonely Londoners and he has allowed this idea to become manifest in his racialisation of the street s tangibilit .

Contextually speaking, we can also trace this idea of a spatial incursion in the images circulated of the new arrivals. Procter analyses these images and argues that, instead of this migration being imagined as a transitory act of movement, what is particularly prevalent is the act of dwelling. Standing around at London s major stations, these figures effectively congest, or jam the national landscape. To a large e tent the an ieties that these images announce are to do with the particularly stationary nature of the crowds gathered there. What are they waiting for? Wh don t the move on? (Procter, p. 205). Ironically, it is precisely the stationary nature of their migratory journey that was captured and used by the press to depict them as an incursion, a literal and symbolic congestion of British space. Of course, this rhetoric of invasion a problematic and often aggressive occupation of space has since been adopted by many as a means of instilling fear and panic, perhaps most notably Enoch Powell in his 1968 so called Ri e

f Bl d speech; Of course, [immigrants] will not be evenl distributed from

Margate to Aberystwyth and from Penzance to Aberdeen. Whole areas, towns and parts of towns across England will be occupied by sections of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population .15 Another aspect of place Moslund s argument somewhat overlooks, and which is arguably indispensable when discussing postwar migration literature, is the phenomenological, embodied experience of a place if your body is black in a place that equates black with Other.

15

Enoch Powell, Ri e

f Bl d S eech given April 1968.

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How does alterity transform a person s situatedness in a socio-political sense within a place? Selvon e plores this b interrupting Galahad s romantic ideation of London with an abrupt reminder of his Otherl status when a child sa s Mumm , look at that black man (Selvon, p. 76). The structure of the text here suggests an inextricability of place and race, as the latter quite literally interrupts the former, snapping Galahad out of his ideation of London.

Galahad s ideation of London and his situatedness within that idea is at odds with an understanding of nation that rests on racial homogeneity and the two clash, here, manifesting this tension. Procter, in his discussion of the racialisation of the street, cites a an article in the Times in 1970; A tall, lithe Negro walking elegantly down Ladbroke Grove wearing a vivid Dashiki (African shirt), woolly hat, blue trousers and patterned moccasin is the personification of ever thing an Englishman isn t . Here, we see a conflation of race and nation, but also, as Procter argues, perambulation and street occupation appear as racially determined acts. The height of the Negro , his litheness , the elegance of his walk are used to diagnose an essentialised and innate negritude (Procter, p. 69). This is the disposition Galahad encounters as his occupation of the street, his embodied experience of place, equates to some kind of essential negritude which renders him dichotomous with Englishness and thus England and Britain. His existence within place, his embodied engagement with it, is what marks him as distinctly separate from it, a visual anomaly in the eyes of the English.

Coming back to Moslund s argument about the different understandings of place, which he posits to be somewhat dichotomous, it is useful to consider his analysis of Naipaul s The Enigma of Arrival. Anal sing a passage from Naipaul s te t, Moslund argues that

the language [...] does not tell us anything and it does not interpret things for us to pass on some inducted meaning of phenomena. It shows, evokes, and brings them forth. It is a description producing images of tangible things immersed in haptic space. Soundlessly, the excess of matter fills up the words and produces a sensuous presence

177 (Moslund, p. 216)

B arguing that a description of place does not tell us anything and it does not interpret things for us to pass on some inducted meaning Moslund effectivel suggests that it has an essential, objective quality beyond the grasp of interpretation and subjectivity. While this may not seem problematic in and of itself, Moslund s fi ation on sensor e perience as inevitabl prereflective ignores the ideation that informs it; it allows a place s tangibilit to be taken at face value, as though it has no relation to the socio-political and cultural conditions that created it, allowing a disconnect to form between the two.

It is this disconnect that allows the attribution of a specific culture, race, ethnicity and heritage to place; the idea that these categories are beyond interpretation and belong ine tricabl to the place itself. To understand one s situatedness within a place, one s sensuous experience of it as being severed from the ideas that underpin it and the narratives that inform it is dangerous and contains within it the seeds of nationalism and the fruits of Empire. Where does one draw the line between the metaphysical and the physical if the abstract (values, ideas, Englishness , Britishness ) drifts into the domain of the pre-reflective? Narratives and ideas can all too easily root themselves in a place (especially when these narratives are entrenched purposively through pernicious immigration legislation and nationalist movements) to such a degree where we accept them, perpetuate them, in our unquestioning experience of that place and our severing of this experience from our reflectivity. However, we cannot experience nation pre-reflectively when the concept of a nation is itself an idea. Furthermore, a sensory e perience of Britishness can never not translate into meaning when an engagement with its infrastructure is an engagement with the histor that built it. This echoes Masse s ideas about how a place is extroverted, contingent on that which is without it, both temporally and geographically speaking. The contemporary performance poet Kae Tempest who writes

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evocatively on some of these themes also recognises this in their poem Let Them Eat Chaos and their articulation of it is useful here:

All of the blood that was shed for these cities to grow, | all of the bodies that fell | The roots that were dug from the earth | so these games could be played - | I see it tonight | in the stains | on my | hands. | The buildings are screaming | [...]

The wrongs of our past have resurfaced | despite all we did to vanquish the traces | my very language is tainted | with all that we stole to control and erase and replace | in a countr still rich with the profits of slaver

As et, there s been no repatriations. We

clothe the corpse of our culture | parade it as Great Britain.16

Historic statues of slave traders are also tangible examples of colonial history that exist in our sensuous experience of place. They are a literal embodiment of imperial ideology and their physical presence perpetuates what they represent, containing tangibly, and exuding ideationally, colonial narratives and white supremacy. This resurfacing of the intangible in the physicality of place can also be traced in the kind of language people often use when a place holds meaning or significance for them; phrases like if these walls could talk and blood on m hands illustrate the simultaneit of ideation and tangibilit .

When Queenie s mother in Small Island drinks an English cuppa actuall from Ce lon, her pre-reflective e perience of it contains within it a perpetuation of the narratives of Empire. It is precisel her ignorance of the e perience s meaning - a belief that it has no meaning - that gives it meaning. McLeod, in his analysis of postcolonial London, cites Dan Jacobson s autobiograph

which eloquently captures the inextricability, for him, of the

tangibilities of England and the ideations that underpin it. He remembers feeling,

16

Kae Tempest, Let Them Eat Chaos (London: Picador, 2016), pp. 17 8.

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with gratification, after years of handling only the overseas editions, the thickness of the paper between my fingers; with the same gratification I saw the dateline on the papers to be the actual date, not that of two or three weeks before. So I was in England, truly in England at last.17

His phenomenological experience, the tangibility of the paper in his fingers, holds a great deal of significance for him. The passage encapsulates how meaning, ideas and narratives are literally embedded into the sensuality of place. His pre-reflective engagement with the literalities of place is ineluctably reflective. Similarly, Hortense and her friend Celia in Small Island have a strongly sensuous fixation on their anticipated doorbell in England - the feeling of pressing it, the sound of its ring - comes from a place saturated with ideation and meaning; Hortense, in England I will have a big house with a bell at the front door and I will ring the bell. And she made the sound, ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling. I will ring the bell in this house when I am in England

(Lev , p. 9). The sound of the bell, h pothetical at this point, manifests a

dream and contains within it what England represents to Celia. Hortense goes on:

I did not dare to dream that it would one day be I who would sail on a ship as big as the world and feel the sun s heat on m face graduall change from roasting to caressing. But there was I! Standing at the door of a house in London and ringing the bell. Pushing my finger to hear the ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling.

(Levy, p. 9)

The emphasis Levy puts on the senses here shows her understanding of the inextricability of a place s ideation and its tangibilit . Hortense s embodied e perience of the immediac of place

Dan Jacobson, Time and Time Again: Autobiographies (London: Flamingo, 1986), p 75, cited in McLeod, Postcolonial London: Rewriting the Metropolis (Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2004), p. 59.

17

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manifests the attainment of a dream. The touch of the doorbell does not remind her of her dream, it is the dream.

Conclusion: The Mediating Power of Fiction This essay has examined the ostensible dichotomy between literary mediations of place as imagined and place as physically experienced and presented a critique of the disconnect which this dichotomy produces. To conclude, it is important to consider the role of literature as a medium in these processes. What are the purposes or implications of conjuring a sense of place?

How does mediating the politicisation of space give way to new narratives and ideations?

Moslund does not examine the irony of arguing for an imaginative medium reading, an exercise of the imagination to evoke the pre-reflective experience of place. He discusses the haptic nature of literature. Anal sing a passage from Naipaul s The Enigma of Arrival, he argues that

languages in these passages from Naipaul is not a language of words to be interpreted, not a language of concepts, in Deleu e s terms, or a language of names and voices, but a language of spaces and things writing themselves before the speaker [ ] The language [...] does not tell us anything and it does not interpret things for us to pass on some inducted meaning of phenomena (Moslund, p. 216)

Moslund, here, is outlining what he sees as the potential of literary mediations of place that haptically engage the body and not the mind and thus escape ideation. It is arguably impossible, however, to conjure a tactile, pre-reflective experience of place by engaging solely with the imagination of the reader. Moslund goes on to argue that Naipaul produces a sense of presence through a reconnection with embodied experience of reality that does not translate into discursive meaning (Moslund, p. 217). While this might be true of Naipaul s characters, it s

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problematic to suggest that the reader s e perience of place when engaging with the te t does not translate into discursive meaning. How, when the mind is the onl facult at the reader s disposal, can we not impose on or draw meaning from the language chosen? Are we to assume that a white reader of The Lonely Londoners from England in the present day would draw the same sensuous experience from the text as a black Trinidadian in the 1950s? If, as I have argued, our interaction and interpretation of place is so imbued with ideas, ideologies and narratives as to the nature of that place, then surely our haptic experience of literary place is too, as we cannot but impose our personal ideations. Much like Galahad the newcomer and Moses the veteran, different readers e perience a te t s sense of place differentl because it draws on our imagination to do so.

As the title suggests, this essa has primaril focussed on how migration fiction understands and conjures place but it is also important to consider how the self-same literature actively constructs our engagement with place. Indeed, our understanding and experience of place is often contingent on the literature we have consumed, engaging with its tangibilities through the lens of our adopted ideation (of course, the same is true of film, music, paintings and anything that attempts to conjure a sense of place). In these ways, we can see that literature actively mediates place in potentially powerful ways.

The Lonely Londoners is often hailed as the landmark text on West Indian migration, accredited with originary status, as Procter argues on page 46 of Dwelling Places. Mark Looker even credits Selvon with inventing black London .18 The power of fiction lies in its fundamental aspect: ideas. To read about place is to imagine it and to imagine it is to imbue it with meaning. When Mark Looker attributes the invention of black London to The Lonely Londoners, he does not mean the literal arrival of black people to London but rather the

Mark Looker, Atlantic Passages: History, Community and Language in the Fiction of Sam Selvon (New York: Peter Laing Publishing, 1996), p. 60.

18

182

insertion of black bodies into the idea of London. Similarly, readers of Small Island are engaged in a retrospective ideation of place, revealing the potency of its discursive aspects.

This quashes an essentialist understanding of nation by exposing the constructedness and the ideated nature of what such a perspective deems to be pre-reflective, given and essential.

Writing in 2004, Levy creates a narrative (in both senses of the word) of the past that informs the present by uprooting ideations of place that have been systematically rooted in its tangibility and physicality to the point where they have drifted into the pre-reflective, the essential. She brings place back into the realm of interpretation.

Both texts recognise the inextricability of what is ideated and what is tangible, mediating the link but posit the link as subjective, unstable and constructed. Each, by virtue of literature s imaginative nature, enter the subjectivit of the reader, adding to our cumulative construction of place. Our newly altered ideation of place (whether in a national or proximate sense) informs our engagement with its tangibilities. Our sensuous experience of it is imbued with the immeasurable ideations we consume and exude.

Works cited Dawson, Ashlye, Mongrel Nation: Diasporic Culture and the Making of Postcolonial Britain (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2007) Hall,

Stuart,

Cal pso

Kings ,

The

Guardian,

28

June

2002,

<https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2002/jun/28/nottinghillcarnival2002.nottinghil lcarnival> [accessed on 29 May 2020] Stuart, The local and the global: globali ation and ethnicit , in Culture, Globalisation and the Third World System: Contemporary Conditions for the Representations of Identity (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1991), pp. 42 68

183

Highmore, Ben, Cultural Feelings: Mood, Mediation and Cultural Politics (Oxon: Routledge, 2017) Jacobson, Dan, Time and Time Again: Autobiographies (London: Flamingo, 1986), p 75, cited in McLeod, Postcolonial London: Rewriting the Metropolis (Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2004) Levy, Andrea, Small Island (London: Headline Book Publishing, 2004) Lionel Abrahams, cited in Ivan Vladislavic, Preface , in Portrait with Keys (Cape Town: Penguin Random House South Africa, 2011) Looker, Mark, Atlantic Passages: History, Community and Language in the Fiction of Sam Selvon (New York: Peter Laing Publishing, 1996) MacPhee, Graham, Postwar British Literature and Postcolonial Studies (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011) McLeod, John, Postcolonial London: Rewriting the Metropolis (Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2004) Massey, Doreen, A Global Sense of Place , in Space, Place, and Gender (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994), pp. 146 56 Moslund, Sten Pultz, Li e a

e

Sen

Geographies (Geocriticism and Spatial Literary

Studies) (New York: Springer, 2015) Msiska, Mpalive-Hangson, Sam Selvon s The Lonely Londoners and the Structure of Black Metropolitan Life , in African Diaspora and the Metropolis: Reading the African, African American and Caribbean Experience, 2 (2009), 5 27 Nasta, Susheila,

Introduction

to Sam Selvon , in The Lonely Londoners (Penguin Books:

London, 2006)

Powell, Enoch, Ri e

f Bl d S eech given April 1968.

184

Procter, James, Dwelling Places: Postwar Black British Writing (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003) Selvon, Sam, The Lonely Londoners (London: Longman, 1956; repr. London: Penguin Books, 2006) Tempest, Kae, Let Them Eat Chaos (London: Picador, 2016), pp. 17 8

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69154

Witnessing, Evidence, and The Body in Contemporary Egyptian Literature About Revolution Alisha Jayne McSporran

The delayed defiance that has befallen them will bring them down. They are old, they are decrepit, they are remnants of a dreadful political imagination that is already dead. Brute, banal force and cliché-ridden manipulation of people s religious sentiments are the onl means left to them.1 Hamid Dabashi on the revolutionary power of the Arab Spring protests and the use of violence by regimes

When a state is accused of committing crimes or acting inhumanely towards their own citizens, it becomes essential to be able to corroborate or dismiss these narratives, therefore giving witnessing and evidence significant gravity and indispensability. Still ongoing today, the revolts which began with the 2009 Iranian Green Movement and the Arab Spring in 2010 have spread from Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia to Libya, Syria, Yemen, and beyond, demonstrating what Hamid Dabashi has characterised as dela ed defiance long in the making, [ ] be ond the borders of democratic cliché, remapping the imaginative geography of a liberation that has 1

Hamid Dabashi, The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism (London: Zed Books, 2012), p. 15. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

186

finally moved beyond and been liberated from any ethnos (Dabashi, p. 16). As Dabashi highlights, these protests marked not only revolt against the governments and systems of oppression which were holding citizens in poverty and disenfranchisement, but also against the colonialism and postcolonialism which had characterised national politics by sustaining the imperial modus operandi until this moment. Less than a month after President Ben Ali fled Tunisia, President Mubarak had also fallen as Egyptian citizens denounced the regime and took to the streets and Tahrir Square, marking the beginning of ongoing unrest. As such, in the context of contemporary Egyptian revolution, not only have ordinary citizens become firsthand witnesses to atrocities, as at least 846 protestors were killed in 2011 when conflict peaked, but the evidence which can corroborate their testimony takes shape as both tangible objects, such as bullets, and as other testimony itself, especially in written form. 2 Additionally, the body has the ability to function as visible, tangible evidence, whilst both homing and trapping oral testimony and psychological trauma, which are contrastingly forms of invisible evidence. This demonstrates how the act of witnessing, the materialisation or accessibility of evidence, and the human body are intrinsically linked in the context of revolution. Whilst both The Queue and In The Spider s Room bear witness to atrocity in different ways, they ultimately demonstrate how oppressors actually confer upon their victims the only authority which can substantially undermine their regimes, expressly by treating human beings as unimportant collateral damage.

This notion is central to contemporary Egyptian writing, as demonstrated in the two texts this paper will engage with. Basma Abdel A i s The Queue uses multiple narrators to explore the domestic fallout following the Disgraceful Events in an unspecified Middle Eastern cit , highl

2

suggestive of the author s home in Cairo, as the Gate s excessive

[A .], E : Ca ' Ta S a , BBC News, 8 July 2011 <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14075493> [accessed 16 August 2020] (para. 13 of 18).

187

bureaucracy puts the country and its citizens into an oppressive standstill. 3 The novel primarily follows Yeh a s attempt to access the surger necessar to remove a bullet lodged in his bod which could not be removed previously due to the need of a permit. However, as it was on the state s orders that Yeh a is shot, and due to the bullet being traceable, the Gate inadvertently creates a much greater threat to the status quo in their victim than if he had simply remained a protestor. Abdel Aziz emphasises this ironic Frankenstein-esque creation of real and imminent threats in various ways, best demonstrated in Yeh a s inabilit to access life-saving surgery, the emphasis on his averageness, and the ethical complications for his doctor, Tarek.

Comparativel , Abdelnabi s In the Spider s Room focuses on the experience of Hani, a gay man in Cairo who is persecuted as a consequence of his sexuality and arrested during the Queen Boat affair. This is a slightly different context but since it was published in 2018, it clearly draws on the same political climate. Abdelnabi offers a form and genre-driven discussion about evidence and witnessing as, unlike Yehya and the bullet, Hani does not have a physical sign of abuse on his body. Rather, his injury is predominantly psychological, therefore the text deals with finding ways to reconcile invisible trauma with physical evidence. Abdelnabi demonstrates this struggle through writing and storytelling as metafictional forms, and the role of the spider.

In The Queue, witnessing and evidence is central to the reason Yeh a s bullet cannot be removed, yet it is exactly the Gate s cruel treatment of Yeh a which reveals how significant his wound and the bullet are in their ability to upset the status quo. Permitting the surgery would serve as an acknowledgement of Yehya being shot on their authority, thus making him doubly threatening as the bullet which is currently in a liminal, mostly invisible state due to being lodged in his body would become tangible evidence corroborating his narrative. Abdel Aziz

3

Basma Abdel Aziz, The Queue, trans. by Elisabeth Jaquette (London: Melville House, 2016), p. 7. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

188

begins the discourse surrounding the surgery with the doctor, Tarek, who claims that leaving the bullet inside Yeh a s bod

would never have occurred to him; he was a surgeon with a

solid understanding of his work and an awareness of its repercussions but that he was informed of the necessit

of a special permit (Abdel A i , p. 41). In this section, Abdel A i

encapsulates how a legal system has compromised a basic pillar of medical ethics through a special permit , determining that:

[ ] the extraction of a bullet or an other t pe of firearm projectile, whether in a clinic or a private or government hospital, from a body of a person killed or injured, is a criminal act, except when performed under official authorization issued by the Gate of the Northern Building.

(Abdel Aziz, p. 44)

Moreover, the permit has surpassed in importance both the Geneva Convention and the Hippocratic Oath s promise to keep [the sick] from harm and injustice , thus completel undermining the foundations of medical ethics. 4 Moreover, in pointedly stating that Tarek has a solid understanding and awareness of [...] repercussions , Abdel Aziz emphasises that an authority higher than the doctor is intentionally and slowly killing Yehya by trapping him in this liminal state (Abdel Aziz, p. 41).

The necessit of the special permit is explained in an official document because as a rule, bullets and projectiles may be the property of security units, and thus cannot be removed from the bod without special authori ation (Abdel A i , p. 45). Here, the Gate not onl reveals their belief that the human body is inferior in importance to government property and the sanctity of the regime, but also yet again acknowledges the potential of their own wrongdoing by clearly being concerned with the concealing and destruction of any evidence.

4

W a C. S J ., MD, FACP, FACR, M d ca D H c a c Oa : C a c V sion of the Hippocratic Oath , Medicine Net <https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=20909> [accessed 11 January 2020] (para. 3 of 8).

189

Through the speculative and generalising phrases as a rule and ma , Abdel A i highlights how the Gate is treating all patients with the same assumption that they could serve as monumental evidence of wrongdoing, and therefore should be left without surgery. This is twofold advantageous, as not onl will the bullets and projectiles remain intangible and never make it back into the world to serve as physical evidence of the state turning on their own citizens, but the lack of surgery would likely lead to death, thus eliminating the risk completely as the oral testimony would never be released into the public sphere either. This echoes of true events in Egypt, such as in Alexandria where Dr. Mohamed El-Fiki reported that:

[ ] when the State and Central Securit police forces were shooting at demonstrators in Alexandria, the hospital authorities banned them from listing gunshot wound as the actual cause of death on the death certificates of those who died at Alexandria University Hospital. Instead, death certificates were collectivel reported b medical members of the hospital administration as acute failure of circulation and breathing .5

Consequently, it is clear that Yehya functions as evidence of various systems within the state firstly of a physical act of violence, then of denying access to universal human rights through the abuse of bureaucracy and formality. Ironically, in refusing the surgery, they are indirectly acknowledging that the bullet and Yeh a s bod are evidence of something which the want to control and limit. The Gate have thus granted Yehya a significance which otherwise might not have been acknowledged or realised and demonstrates the power conferred onto his body by their abuse.

Similarly, it is clear that Yehya is only empowered because of the injury which the Gate has forced upon him, as he is otherwise strikingly unremarkable. Abdel Aziz highlights

5

Mohamed El-F a d Ga R a , T 2011 E a R :AN ca P c , World Neurosurgery, 76 (2011), 28 32 (p. 31). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

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throughout the text how weak Yehya is, as he consistently struggles to do even the most mundane and ordinary of things, as his physical weakness after his injury is coupled with his unexceptional normality from before. He is not even able to sit as the pain was so bad he couldn t bend his knees to lower his bod that short distance to the ground and routinel shows apathy towards other people (Abdel Aziz, p. 14). His behaviour is characterised by shrugg[ing] , being oblivious to others, with a head hanging low , and remaining immersed in his own thoughts (Abdel A i , pp. 10, 63). Additionall , Abdel A i presents Yeh a as impacted b the emergence of the Gate in his personal life in the same wa as most, as the company he worked for had nearly gone bankrupt after it was forced to pay new mandatory fees , thus emphasising how Yeh a does not have a particular vengeance, nor privilege, but instead is in the same position as the majority of civilians (Abdel Aziz, p. 32).

In this way, Abdel Aziz frames Yehya as a representative of the masses - simply an individual whose narrative, struck by the one defining feature of being shot and denied surgery, is otherwise no different from any other. Here, Yehya assumes the role of the Everyman, allowing for a universal sense of identity to pervade the narrative as he becomes the epitome of the idiom in the wrong place at the wrong time , and it is strikingl clear that the authorit which his body has assumed as a piece of evidence could have been conferred upon anyone.

Yehya has absolutely no official authority or political power; he manifests an entirely new, unorthodox, and bespoke form of significance. El Said, Meari and Pratt s argument that female revolutionaries make it necessar

to expand the notion of the political beyond formal

institutions and processes, such as elections, parliaments and constitutions is also applicable here, as although Abdel Aziz is not talking about gender roles, Yehya is definitely a nontraditional authority figure.6 Due to his being an ordinar citi en, Yeh a s power challenges

6

Maha El Said, Lena Meari and Nicola Pratt, Rethinking Gender in Revolutions and Resistance in the Arab World (London: Zed Books, 2015), p. 8.

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the institutions to their core, augmented b the ironic fact that he is their own Frankenstein s monster, as they are responsible for creating him. Abdel Aziz continuously paints Yehya as a slightly pathetic image of a revolutionary barely able to move physically, passive, with no platform, his narrative being just one in a novel composed of several, with no cult of personality or particular charisma. Undoubtedly, this presentation of Yehya is contradictory to the classic image of a strong male leader, who traditionall embodies masculinit

through strength,

physical largeness, and a somewhat threatening demeanour, all of which helps move the masses to revolution. However, this positions him uniquely not only as evidence of wrongdoing by the state, but also as having the capability of becoming a martyr or a figurehead, and a true man of the people. This Everyman attribute compliments the nameless city The Queue is set in, resonating with the Western tradition to see the parts of Middle East as indistinguishable from one another.

Abdel Aziz also utilises the ability of the genres of speculative fiction, utopia and dystopia to allow the text to move between historical, geographical, and political contexts, as well as highlighting how revolutions have utopian, or perhaps dystopian, potential. Dabashi argues that the relationship between the Middle East and utopian dreams of change is founded in its encounter with European colonialism, as they were side effects, the b -products, even the unanticipated consequences, of colonialism, extended into postcolonial ideology and state formations (Dabashi, pp. 158 59). This goes to emphasise how Yehya becomes almost as transcendent as the nameless city itself, embedded in an almost supernatural tradition and appealing to the same sense of universalit which suggests that the significance of Yeh a s evidence and witnessing could have happened to anyone, in any place experiencing political turmoil, as he is the epitome of the oppressor accidentally creating a threat in a citizen.

Additionally, it is important to note that whilst The Queue primarily follows the story of Yeh a, Abdel A i frames the text with Tarek s ethical struggles. This form not onl

192

reinforces the sense of pervasive bureaucracy by surrounding the narrative with medical forms, but it also highlights how Yehya is not the only figure who becomes an embodiment of wrongdoing, but others such as Tarek cannot offer physical evidence as corroboration. Whilst Yehya appears to be emboldened by his ability to function as both a witness and physical evidence, Tarek is contrastingly presented as fearful of the potential power of his testimony, which is internalised and manifested as shame. In Touching Feeling, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick defines shame as a free radical that [ ] attaches to and permanentl intensifies or alters the meaning of

almost an thing , drawing on the example of a prohibited or indeed a permitted

behaviour , the prior of which is the situation of Tarek.7 This intensified sense of importance in relation to his qualm culminates in the struggle between knowing he should do the surgery to save his patient and fear of the repercussions. This crisis can also be explained by Sedgwick as the double movement shame makes: towards painful individuation, toward uncontrollable relationalit , as Tarek cannot help but relate to the humanit and suffering of his patient, but due to his circumstance is forced into isolation (Sedgwick, p. 37). This shame permeates Tarek s narrative, as firstl Tarek claims that an shame he d felt because of Yeh a had vanished; he had clearl taken the right course of action in not performing the surger , however he later admits that he was unable to ignore it all, and was in constant turmoil (Abdel Aziz, pp. 45, 199). Furthermore, upon meeting with Yehya in the queue, Tarek was filled with shame , demonstrating how his moral conscience is torn in a battle between shame at failing his patient and the self-preservation which can only be attached by unequivocally following the rules (Abdel Aziz, p. 206). The tension in this language expresses Tarek s confusion, as it culminates in a private sense of humiliation over all of his actions.

Consequentl , Tarek ultimatel decides to gamble ever thing , much like how Tahrir Square

7

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), p. 62. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

193

formed a sort of political awakening from an apathetic and single-minded focus on getting through their medical training for oung doctors.8 In stark contrast to Tarek s complacenc at the beginning, his active defiance is clearl a response to the Gate s inhumane treatment of Yehya and their impediment to his own work, demonstrating how shame is the place where the question of identit arises most originaril and most relationall

(Sedgwick, p. 37). The

connection between the witnessing, tangible and intangible evidence, and shame experienced b medical professionals is drawn on b Hamd and Ba oumi in the argument that the ordinariness of human indignities is what led the protesters, and the doctors alongside them, to occupy the streets and to demand change and ultimately to sacrifice their lives through extraordinar acts of defiance (Hamd and Ba oumi, p. 239). Tarek s decision to side with Yehya despite the personal risk to himself highlights a potential inversion of traditional survivors guilt, which Sedgwick argues is connected to shame, as his defiance is in itself evidence that the regime is unstable and had not infiltrated ever aspect of people s lives to the extent which it appeared to (El-Fiki and Rosseau, p. 31). This is reflected in the way Abdel Aziz concludes the final section of The Queue with the image of a newly determined Tarek, whose authorit is rooted in his abilit to testif about Yeh a s injuries, the impossible bureaucratic system, and how the Gate interfered with medical neutrality and access to universal human rights, all of which is only possible due to the bodily harm done to Yehya by the Gate (Abdel Aziz, p. 214).

Contrastingly to The Queue which explicitly deals with ideas of evidence and explores in detail the intricacies of bearing witness for both Yehya and Tarek, In the Spider s Room examines these topics through Hani s attempt to heal from invisible trauma. This is perhaps best demonstrated in Abdelnabi s use of writing and stor telling as a form of evidence and

8

S F. Ha d , a d S a Ba , E P a U a d Sa M d ca N a , Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 40 (2015), 223 41 (p. 225). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

194

catharsis. Throughout the novel, there remains a fundamental lack of certainty over whether there is an omniscient third person narrator, or if the narrator is Hani, or even perhaps if we are reading the product of his writing after his ps chotherapist encourages it because

ou ma

have lost our abilit to speak but ou can still write . 9 However, despite the incertitude of who our narrator is, it is clear that in order to work through his trauma Hani translates what he has witnessed into physical evidence through the act of writing. Much like Tarek, Hani s narrative is also filled with shame - internalised and put onto him by society - and his resistance to writing links to the narcissisticall dangerous possibilit of shame if Hani rereads or revises his writing and finds dead, indifferent, or even distracted e es staring back at him (Sedgwick, p.

39). Additionall , Tomkins argues that this experience would reduce further exploration or self-exposure , thus could actuall be self-destructive.10 Whilst Hani begins writing on the recommendation of Dr. Sameeh, stor telling pla s an important role in Hani s life before his trauma too. Abdelnabi highlights this b beginning the text with the stories about Hani s grandfather, which is framed in language such as it is said that,

the sa ,

I imagine, I

assume and I can see him now (Abdelnabi, pp. 4 7). Through the stories of Hani s grandfather and by steeping the novel in the metafictional language of storytelling, Abdelnabi outlines how important it will become in this novel as a form of evidence.

This also highlights the distinction between writing and verbal storytelling as formal devices, a differentiation rooted in the difference between visible and invisible evidence and testimony. Hani only begins writing when he is no longer able to orally communicate, suggesting a hierarchy of preference which prioritises sounded word, even though the stories about his grandfather emphasise the unreliability of this medium. Contrastingly, writing is more permanent and durable according to Walter J. Ong, offering a more reliable testimony

9

Muhammad Abdelnabi, In the Spiderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Room, trans. by Jonathan Wright (Cairo: Hoopoe, 2018), p. 22. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

10 Silvan S. Tomkins, Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins Reader, ed. by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Adam Frank (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995), p. 135.

195

to historical moments. 11 In tracing the histor of script and writing, Ong argues that a script is more than a mere memor aid such as a notched stick, rows of pebbles, other tall ing devices such as the quipu of the Incas , because unlike aides-mĂŠmoire, script is a representation of an utterance, of words that someone sa s or is imagined to sa

(Ong, pp. 82 3). Therefore, the

particular merit of writing is that a writer could determine the exact words that the reader would generate from the text , which is an important qualit in a piece of evidence which is bearing witness to a historical moment (Ong, p. 83). Perhaps due to this permanence and finality, as well as the aforementioned potential for shame, writing originally leads Hani to prevaricate as he tries to put off the confrontation (Abdelnabi, p. 21). However, Hani ultimatel finds [his] wa to these notebooks, which started to proliferate in the drawers of the dressing table, like silent witnesses in a case where no one knows who the final verdict will favor (Abdelnabi, p. 235). In characterising Hani s notebooks as silent witnesses , Abdelnabi reveals the potential significance of these written testimonies not only in explaining and working through his trauma, but also functioning as evidence of a historical moment in a tradition typified by figures such as Anne Frank, Friedrich Kellner, and Victor Klemperer.

Abdelnabi epitomises the iron of Hani s oppressors, directl leading to his evidence and testimony assuming a physical form, rather than the oral form he appears to prefer and as such being elevated and granted immortality, as it is all a consequence of his body experiencing transformational h steria due to their treatment of him (Abdelnabi, p. 229).

Another way in which Abdelnabi presents Hani as dealing with the conflation of witnessing and psychological trauma is through the spider. The spider follows Hani throughout the novel, appearing at moments of desperation and functioning as a witness to his suffering.

The spider as a coping mechanism ma be understood better through Sara Ahmed s explanation

11

Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 139.

Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

196

of how phenomenology compliments queer studies because it prioritises the idea that consciousness is alwa s directed toward an object , thus emphasising the significance of nearness or what is ready-to-hand, and the role of repeated and habitual actions in shaping bodies and worlds .12 Likewise, the spider is not only the object which Hani is directed toward, but also functions as a reassuring crutch in its persistent nearness, especially in moments of crisis, as after being disorientated , as Ahmed and Fanon would sa , the spider functions to re-orientate the body (Ahmed, p. 157). Abdelnabi first introduces the spider when Hani is struggling to distinguish a dream from reality:

The first massive black spider appeared. I don t know where it suddenl sprang from, but it headed toward me, and behind it marched two others, then five and then I could no longer count the vast army of spiders [...] I screamed, but no noise came out, and I woke up to see the terrified faces of my fellow detainees.

(Abdelnabi, p. 10)

As the emergence of the spider, or spiders, is aligned with Hani s inabilit to make noise and the events leading up to this horrifying moment, this passage sets up the relationship between moments of trauma, Hani s silence, and the spider. Although that in this instance Abdelnabi presents the spider as massive and scar , the spider also offers a figure who can bear witness to Hani s struggles whilst imprisoned, as his fellow detainees are evidentl

terrified in their

own right thus cannot understand or bear testimon to Hani s experience.

The next appearance of the spider is in a suffocating fit during which Hani is contemplating suicide, as he is tempted to [...] put an end to ever thing and find relief (Abdelnabi, p. 22). Unlike in the beginning, Hani now describes the spider as little and m

12

Sara Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), p.

2. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

197

onl friend (Abdelnabi, p. 22). Now witnessing Hani s struggle to reintegrate into society, the spider is recharacterised as comforting, as it is functioning to re-orientate him. This shows how the spider is beginning to s mbolise Hani s inabilit to find people with similar experiences who he can relate to. Abdelnabi presents the spider not only as proof of wrongdoing (as a symptom of mental breakdown which occurred due to the arrest), but also of the state purposefully encouraging deeply impenetrable divisions in society and isolating vulnerable individuals. Similarly, after being reunited with his old clothes shortly after being released from prison, Hani sees a black spider so small he might just have been born , hiding quite still in the corner of the wardrobe , who he talks to without moving [his] tongue or lips (Abdelnabi, p. 64). Hani s closeness with this spider is highlighted through their similar ph sical experiences, as they are both mute, physically overwhelmed by the world around them, and on the floor by the wardrobe. This creates a sense of kinship which Hani is struggling to find in humans who, contrastingl , hardl recogni ed him (Abdelnabi, p. 65).

Abdelnabi highlights the spider s function as a continuum, as it is this which reminds Hani and the readers that all of the events and traumas within In the Spider s Room are part of a singular history of dangerous patterns, rather than arbitrary or isolated events which is how history is often presented by oppressive regimes. Through the figure of the spider, we are able to draw lines echoed in Abdelnabi s language which refers to webs throughout Hani s life.

Psychoanalytically, the spider draws together the irony between how imprisoning and oppressing Hani has actually forced him to begin working through his trauma. The spider thus reinforces the importance of witnessing and consolidating physical evidence of wrongdoing in a physical form, as this is the most significant and permanent way to reveal abuses of power.

Theodor W. Adorno claims that to write poetr after Auschwit is barbaric , and these texts offer insight into why readers want literature about trauma because they bear witness to and provide evidence of historical moments whilst emphasising that there is a shared humanity

198

which becomes dangerous when ignored. 13 In light of this, both Abdel Aziz and Abdelnabi s texts present unique stories about anomalies in tightly controlled regimes, yet they also strive to connect these stories with wider events. The Queue reflects images and events from across the Middle East and specificall Eg pt, et is set in an undetermined place, which allows it to remain a universal story, whereas In the Spider s Room draws directly from the historical Queen Boat and the Cairo 52. In this way, despite being unique, the stories of Hani and Yehya are gifted an Everyman quality, as their testimony comes to bear witness to atrocities committed on a mass scale, not just against two individuals. Rather, these characters function to demonstrate how it is the regime itself that creates its own worst enemy and greatest threat, providing ordinary citizens with the ability to bear witness, testify, and provide evidence in a multitude of forms, directly through treating human beings inhumanely. To conclude, it is clear that literature which emerged from Egypt since 2009 should serve as a reminder, whilst witnessing revolutions around the world in current and recent history, that when a regime neglects to recognise the humanity of those whom they oppress, that shared humanity between the oppressed becomes the driving force and uniting factor within the revolution.

Works cited Abdel Aziz, Basma, The Queue, trans. by Elisabeth Jaquette (London: Melville House, 2016) Abdelnabi, Muhammad, In the Spider s Room, trans. by Jonathan Wright (Cairo: Hoopoe, 2018) Adorno, Theodor W., Prisms (London: Neville Spearman, 1967) Ahmed, Sara, Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006) Dabashi, Hamid, The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism (London: Zed Books, 2012) 13

Theodor W. Adorno, Prisms (London: Neville Spearman, 1967), p. 62.

199

[n.a.], Eg pt: Cairo's Tahrir Square fills with protesters , BBC News, 8 July 2011, <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14075493> [accessed 16 August 2020] El-Fiki, Mohamed, and Gail Rousseau, The 2011 Eg ptian Revolution: A Neurosurgical Perspective , World Neurosurgery, 76 (2011), 28 32 El Said, Maha, Lena Meari and Nicola Pratt, Rethinking Gender in Revolutions and Resistance in the Arab World (London: Zed Books, 2015) Hamdy, Sherine F., and Soha Ba oumi, Eg pt s Popular Uprising and the Stakes of Medical Neutralit , Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 40 (2015), 223 41 Ong, Walter J., Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London: Routledge, 2002) Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), p. 62. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

Shiel Jr., William C., MD, FACP, FACR, Medical Definition of Hippocratic Oath: Classic Version

of

the

Hippocratic

Oath ,

Medicine

Net

<https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=20909> [accessed 11 January 2020] Tomkins, Silvan S., Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins Reader, ed. by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Adam Frank (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995)

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69155

Reading Urdu, Writing home: Ani a De ai Clear Light of Day Maya Padamsee

Introduction: An absent language On the 14th of September 1949, Hindi was adopted as the official language of India, abandoning he common lang age of Hind s ani and erasing a li ing link be

een Urd and Hindi . 1 In

the years following Partition, Aijaz Ahmad argues, there occurred not just a mass movement of people, but that of linguistic categories begin, especiall

in his

ords: Where does Hindi end and Urd

hen he connec ing bridge of Hind s ani has been made o collapse?

(Ahmad, Lineages of the Present, p. 117). Much like the violence of Partition, this separation of language comes to symbolise the political and discursive reorganisation of the nation around homogeno s ca egories of belonging. As Rober King no es, af er Par i ion,

he essen ial

iconic proportion that must always be borne in mind is this: Hindi: Hindu: Hinduism = Urdu: M slim: Islam .2 Veena Das suggests that when writing the trauma of the Partition of India, lang age seems o free e p, ha he e remi

of iolence annihila es lang age and his

Aijaz Ahmad, Lineages of the Present: Ideology and Politics in Contemporary South Asia (London: Verso, 2000), p. 111. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

2 Robert D. King, Nehru and the language politics of India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 75.

1

201

error canno be brought into the realm of the utter-able .3 What we must question now is, when such common languages and histories are erased, what remains to speak of that violence?

In her novel Clear Light of Day, Anita Desai suggests that literary language itself, and particularly the intertwined histories of Hindi and Urdu in South Asia, might offer a vehicle through which to un-work the violence of the nation-state.

Clear Light of Day was published in 1980, the same year as the founding of the Bharatiya Janata Party, a political party self-described as he defender of Hind socie

and

which, within two decades, had captured political power at the centre. 4 The ideological godfa her of he BJP par , he Rash ri a S a amse ak Sangh (RSS)

as he Hind

nationalist organisation that had shaped the Indian political climate under its social and education movement since 1948. 5 The 1970s in India had seen the mobilisation of branches of the RSS across the country against the Congress Party government under Indira Gandhi. The spike in the number of attacks by Hindu groups against Muslims in Jabalpur, Bhiwandi and Ahmedabad also marked the period as one of growing communal violence. 6 By the 1980s a crisis of historical revision was overtaking Indian society. Its culmination came in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement which claimed the historical birthplace of the Hindu deity Ram as on the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya; eventually in 1992 riots broke out on the site and mobs took part in a ritualised destruction of the mosq e. In Desai s no el, a decade earlier, he characters return to the months leading up to Partition in the summer of 1947 in Delhi and do so through the childhood memories of two sisters. These memories revolve around the absent brother, a Hindu who has since settled in Hyderabad with the family of their former Muslim

Veena Das, Critical Events: An Anthropological Essay on Contemporary India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 184.

4 Thomas Blom Hansen, The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999), p. 159.

5 Walter K. Anderson and Shridhar D. Damle, The RSS: A View to the Inside (Haryana: Penguin Random House India, 2018), p. ix.

6 See Amrita Basu, Violent Conjunctures in Democratic India (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

3

202

neighbour. Rather than writing an account of Partition that makes clear an irretrievable trauma, an annihila ion of lang age , Desai keeps ali e he memor of Urd in India. In doing so, he no el ndermines con emporar Hind

a ideolog

hich seeks o homogenise he na ion s

language and history. Aijaz Ahmad writes that the nationalisation of a language at this moment in India represen s he

ir all

nbearable press re hich proclaims hat the choice between

Hindi and Urd is a choice be een Hind ism and Islam, na ionalism and foreignness (Ahmad, Lineages of the Present, p. 116). Clear Light of Day works against an officially sanctioned, Hinduised memory of India by sustaining a link to the creative capabilities of Urdu literature and its idiosyncratic use of the language of absence to fashion a future from the trauma of separation. As Indian and Pakistani socio-political division sets in, there is a pressing need in Desai s pos colonial momen o ake par in a remembrance ha connec [s] ha

o

remember to the memories of others, including the memories of those with whom you share ha pas .7 Language, Desai hopes, may open up a space in memory to re-write formal histories of the nation.

Aamir M f i ri es ha he a ra ic a emp o resol e he crisis of pos colonial [Indian] c l re can be aken in ei her a Hind of Indian reali

or M slim direc ion. B a no poin can ei her acco n

open i self p adeq a el

o he o her. 8 The minori isa ion of Urd in India,

Mufti argues, often produces the historiography of the language and literature solely through i s Persian and Arabic so rces, effec i el

he forge ing of he (ambi alen and problema ic)

Indianness of Urdu itself (M f i, pp. 18, 19). The projec of na ionalism in India so gh s n hesise he ma erial s periori

of he modern Wes

o

i h he spiri al grea ness of

Indian c l re, a s n hesis o be achie ed hro gh (Hind ) religio s reform (M f i, p. 28).

Dennis Walder, ‘Writing, representation, and postcolonial nostalgia’, Textual Practice, 23 (2009), 935–46 (p.

938).

8 Aamir R. Mufti, Enlightenment in the Colony: The Jewish Question and the Crisis of Postcolonial Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 19. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

7

203

Aijaz Ahmad further points out that the consolidation of the nation was to coincide with the ca egor of Indian Li era re modelled on Semi ic religions, radi ions, clerical ins i

ha deno ed a canonical kind of Hind ism , ironicall i h no ions of niform beliefs, canonical texts, prophetic

ions, adj dicable bodies of prescrip ion and all he res .

9

The

inheri ed colonial and Orien al kno ledge of a s ndica ed Hind ism h s mo es for ard as a ghost into the postcolonial present. 10 The claim to homogenous religion, to language and to history is the distinct fundamentalist and fascistic strategy which drives contemporary Hindutva politics. Literature and language are not simply cultural markers of a national history, but actively take part in constructing it.

In Clear Light of Day, Desai makes it impossible to recall pre-Partition Delhi without in oking he memor of an absen famil member, and h s he memor of a Hind s bjec s study of Urdu language and literature. The presence of Urdu li era re ndoes he modern comm nalis rhe oric hich o ld asser ha Hind s in India ho speak or ri e in Urd are passi e recipien s of ano her c l re

hich does no belong o hem (Ahmad, In Theory, p.

123). It is the pressure in post-Partition India of a sing lar and homogeno s mo her ong e hich, as Aija Ahmed describes, req ired enormo s and en irel willed losses of memor among communities for whom the multiplicity and variations of spoken and written languages had once been part of the texture of everyday life (Ahmad, In Theory, pp. 120 21). In Desai s no el, Raja is a prod c of he reading ha and

en o make p heir roman ic and inaccessible

onderf l bro her : he is a li ing link o an nofficial pas of India.11 His study of Urdu

literature and his ability to recite its poetry brings a multiplicity of language into the lives and

Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures (London; Verso, 1992), p. 260. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

10 See Romila Thapar, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Syndicated Hinduismâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, in Hinduism Reconsidered, ed. by Gunther D. Sondheimer and Hermann Kulke (New Delhi: Manohar, 1991).

11 Anita Desai, Clear Light of Day (London: Penguin, 1980), p. 131. Further references to this text are given after quotations in the text.

9

204

domes ic spaces of a Hind famil . I is his, he dialec ic of separa ion and nion , ha can, through language, open up the space for productive remembrance through loss a tool inherited precisely from the cultural history of Urdu literature (Mufti, p. 220). The collective memories of Bim and Tara, the communities of pre-Partition India and the cultural experience of Urdu are no inaccessible , b t continue outside of the officially sanctioned narrative of the nation.

Desai s er genre of

ri ing deno es a cer ain ask of ransmission and of ransla ion. As

Priyamvada Gopal notes, the Indian-English no el in he s bcon inen re rned repea edl

o

a self-refle i e q es ion: Wha is India(n)? . 12 In creative response, Desai suggests that the no el migh become c s odian

o he legacies of he Urd poe , finding i s place in he

contemporary Indian home and family

the responsibility for the preservation of these cross-

communal histories placed in the intimate and domestic sphere.

For Hindutva groups such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Hindu nation is conceptualised as an eternal entity. M. S. Golwalkar, a former leader of the RSS whose work within the contemporary discourses of Hindu nationalism is still central, argued in 1939:

the conclusion is unquestionably forced upon us that in this country, Hindustan, the Hindu race with its Hindu religion, Hindu Culture and Hindu Language (the natural family of Sanskrit and her offsprings) complete the Nation concept; that in fine [sic], in Hindusthan exists and must needs exist the ancient Hindu nation [ ]13

Not only does Golwalkar identify the modern conceptualisation of the nation as a product of homogenous language, race and culture, but that the nation itself has been present in all periods of history. The nation, symbolised as Bharatmata (Mother India), revolves around two

12 Priyamvada Gopal, The Indian-English novel: Nation, History and Narration (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2009), p. 6.

13 M. S. Golwalkar, ‘Extracts from We or Our Nationhood Defined,’ in Hindu Nationalism: A Reader, ed. by Christophe Jaffrelot (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. 98–116 (pp. 116–17).

205

impor an s a es of e is ence for Gol alkar and s bseq en Hind

a hinkers: he Golden

Age of Satyuga and the temporary state of Kaliyuga, an age of Chaos and Ignorance .14 The colonial periods of Indian history fall into the category of Kaliyuga, whereby the nation is polluted with un-Hindu ideas, rules and peoples. The modern, calendrical time of the nation, or as Wal er Benjamin

o ld call i , homogeno s, emp

ime , signifies he

pe of his or

that is being formulated at the consolidation of national borders. 15 Years af er Raja s depar re from Old Delhi, Bim narrates her own version of national history:

Whatever happened, happened long ago Moghuls

ha lo

in the time of the Tughlaqs, the Khiljis, the Sultanate, the

And hen he Bri ish b il Ne Dehli and mo ed e er hing o . Here e are lef

rocking on the backwaters, getting duller and greyer.

(Desai, p. 5)

The con emp fel b Bim a being lef behind in he pas , in he famil home, places Old Delhi firmly within this empty homogenous time of the nation

the formal history written for

her. Gol alkar ri es of na ional ime ha he permanen , the eternal is national life, whereas he impermanen is represen ed b

he indi id al. 16 In its structure, the novel relies on the

impermanent, and often false, nature of memory to reconstruct a lived experience of Partition.

Desai, however, re-evaluates his seeming impermanence . B that her time is preserved in a place

he end of he no el, Bim sees

here her deepes self li ed, and the deepest selves of her

sis ers and bro hers and all hose ho shared ha ime i h her (Desai, p. 182). The indi id al

Paola Bacchetta, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The (failed) production of Hindu nationalized space in Ahmedabad, Gujaratâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, Gender, Place & Culture, 17 (2010), 551â&#x20AC;&#x201C;71 (p. 558).

15 Walter Benjamin, Illuminations (London: Fontana, 1973), p. 265.

16 M. S. Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts [1966] (Bangalore, 1968), p. 36. <https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.201991/page/n3> [accessed 20 May 2020].

14

206

and personal memory

marked as cross-communal

becomes a new way to write national

time through shared, lived experience.

Reflective Nostalgia When Bim recalls herself and her sis er Tara searching hro gh heir older bro her Raja s room as children, she no es he enormo s green ol mes con aining Kea s and Shelle , Blake and Donne; the verses of Zauq and Ghalib, Dagh and Hali in cheap a ered ello copies . 17 At a historical moment where identity is being consolidated into homogenous linguistic and religious categories, Raja is captured by the romantic nostalgia of both Urdu and English poets.

Desai does not write about Urdu literature wishing to reproduce a canon of nostalgia for the lost Islamic past of India, but rather in tandem with the project of modernist Urdu poets. As Frances Pritchett argues, modernist Urdu poets in the period after the 1857 Mutiny were invested in ha he

ie ed as he recons r c ion of he endangered mansion of Urd poe r .

Which of the old timbers should be reinforced and refinished, and which ones were hopelessly ro en and had o be remo ed? .18 The Mutiny in 1857, especially in Delhi, had marked a real end of M slim pper class and aris ocra ic c l re, he finali

signified b

he e ile of he las

Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar from India in 1858 (Pritchett, p. 28). The Urdu poet Azad ro e ha Urd emerged from Delhi kingship of Delhi, b

and its lamp ought to have been extinguished with the

ha follo ed as a conscio s effor o bring for h Urd li erar c l re

from the ruins of the royal courts and into the collective imagination. 19 The reconstruction of Urdu needed to reflect a new reality of literary culture, a diaspora from the aristocratic setting

Anita Desai, Clear Light of Day (London: Penguin, 1980), p. 131. Further references to this edition are given after quotation in the text.

18 Frances W. Pritchett, Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and Its Critics (London: University of California Press, 1994), p. 39. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

19 Muhammad Husain Azad, Ä&#x20AC;b-e ay t (Water of Life), cited in Frances W. Pritchett, Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and Its Critics (London: University of California Press, 1994), p. 39.; See Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment, 2nd edn (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 29.

17

207

of Delhi. Aamir Mufti argues that a century later, in the wake of Partition, poets writing in Urdu faced again the difficulty of relocating a cultural home for the literary language in Pakis an, lea ing behind he his orical homes of Urd in ci ies like Delhi, L ckno

and

Hyderabad (Mufti, p. 228). In Clear Light of Day, Raja encounters Urdu during the summer of Partition, bringing together the histories of the upheavals, reconstructions and diasporas of the literary language. Appearing in the family home in Old Delhi, the poetry enters into the narrative not as a remnant of a nostalgic, forgotten past, but as an ongoing process, and a changing cultural landscape.

At the beginning of Clear Light of Day, Bim tells her sister that coming back to visit Old Delhi is like isi ing a gra e: i does no change. I onl deca s (Desai, p. 5). Aija Ahmad arg es ha

he momen of decolonisa ion i self is e perienced in he

li era re of he period no in he celebra or mode b

hole range of Urdu

as a defea , a disorien a ion, a diaspora

(Ahmad, p. 118). The writing of the self in Urdu literature can only be experienced as an exile from a specific time and place in which the poetic language lived. For Bim, the life has left the city along with her siblings and their lived experiences of pre-Par i ion India. In he no el s s r c re, ho e er, Tara s arri al in Old Delhi in heir childhood home sparks an ac of remembrance of their brother, and therefore a tangible link to the spatial and temporal place of Urd in Old Delhi; as Bim had a choice be

o ld no

een Hindi and Urd

remember hose da s before Par i ion (Desai, p. 47). I

hen s den s

as hese possibili ies held o

Raja, especiall a heir neighbo r s ho se here Urd poe r

o

as reci ed and recei ed b an

audience, that situates the language firmly within a memory of Old Delhi as a productive crosscommunal space (Desai, p. 49). This project of building a framework and restoring the foundations in which the past literary sensibilities of Urdu and Islamic culture could thrive in India is therefore revisited in the twentieth century, as it was in the aftermath of the 1857 Mutiny.

208

In Raja s absence in he presen da se ing of he no el, Tara is horrified b Bim s disa o al of her admira ion for her bro her s poe r , charmed

orld

ilf ll and cr ell smashing p ha

i h her c nicism, her cri icism (Desai, p. 26). Bim s re ri ing of her

childhood memories reflec s he confla ion of Raja s depar re from Old Delhi

i h he

communalist idea which Desai articulates in her later novel In Custody, ha Urd is s pposed o ha e died, in 1947 . 20 Amina Yaqin argues that throughout her work, Anita Desai explores Urd as he c l ral objec of a li ed e perience in pos -Par i ion India .21 It is important to note, in this respect, that the Urdu poets Raja studies in Clear Light of Day are famed for using he li erar lang ages s ch as Hinda i or Rekh a . These erms, of en sed b poe s and abo

poe r , iden if a par ic lar mode of

ri ing in a sca ered or mi ed lang age

ih

both Sanskrit and Persian origins and the varieties of Hindi and Urdu language before their formal linguistic categories.22 In Clear Light of Day, the nineteenth-century poet Ghalib is one of Raja s fa o ri es, Tara and Bim finding ol mes of his poe r

hen searching his room.

The poetic form of the ghazal as one of Ghalib s fa o ri e modes of ri ing and one described in he in rod c ion o a collec ion of his poe r as he cro n je el of Indo-M slim poe r .23 In one particular ghazal, Ghalib ri es, Ho co ld Rekhta be he en recite to him the words of Ghalib

Like his!

24

of Persian? J s once,

With the post-1857 claims of modern Urdu

to Persian and Arabic sources, and Hindi to its Sanskrit ones, Rekhta literature becomes, as Imre Bangha arg es, more han one of the most important meeting points between Hindi and

Anita Desai, In Custody (London: Vintage, 1999), p. 53.

Amina Yaqin, ‘The Communalisation and Disintegration of Urdu in Anita Desai’s In Custody’, in Alternative Indias: Writing, Nation and Communalism, ed. by Peter Morey and Alex Tickell (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005), pp.

89–114 (p. 91).

22 Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, Early Urdu Literary Culture and History (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp.

23–29.

23 Frances W. Pritchett and Owen T. A. Cornwall eds., ‘Introduction: Ghalib’s Life and Times’, in Ghalib: Selected Poems and Letters (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), pp. 1–20 (p. 10).

24 Mirza Asadullah Khan, Ghalib: Selected Poems and Letters (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), p.

41.

20 21

209

Urd ; i is he shared earl life of he

o grad all separa ed lang ages.

25

A mi ed

language, therefore, offered poetic expression in both Hindu and Muslim worlds of literature.

Moreover, the form of the ghazal, now popularised in modern global culture, represents, in Frances Pri che s phrase, a li ing genre

one which has crossed multiply through language,

space and time.26 The form, cultivated in the fourteenth-century Sultanate courts of Delhi, became a wide ranging vehicle for the poetic articulation of love, loss and longing. The great Urdu poet of the twentieth century Faiz Ahmed Faiz famously employed the form of the ghazal in his political poetry, this heritage of Urdu literary culture becoming af er 1947 a si e for he elabora ion of a selfhood a odds i h he geome r of sel es p in o place b Par i ion (Mufti, p. 243). Poetic expression in mixed and forgotten languages becoming, as Aamir Mufti argues, he forms of elabora ion that do not consecrate the nation-state as the natural horizon of culture and community (M f i, p. 243). Desai deploys these poets and poetic works within her narrative, a reminder from memory of the multiplicity of the ways in which we can identify with and remember the past.

Raja s imi a ion of he grea Urd poe s hro gho

he s mmer leading p o Par i ion

in India, ho e er, becomes e cessi el roman ic , and Bim describes his hea , limp bod as she lifted it as spent and sapped as a bled fish, and the city of Delhi burning down about hem (Desai, pp. 47, 60). Raja s ffers, lamen ing he loss of he H der Ali famil and he communal violence of Partition, with the subject of Urdu becoming thereafter a stagnant and indulgent nostalgia. When reading Raja s poe r , Bim no es ha imi a ion of

each

as a me ic lo s

ha he had read, memorised and reci ed (Desai, p. 168). Ra her han rene ing

Urdu literary culture, Raja had simply longed for a mythological return of its former glory.

Imre Bangha, ‘Rekhta: Poetry in Mixed Language,’ in Before the Divide: Hindi and Urdu Literary Culture, ed.

by Francesca Orsini (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2010), pp. 21–83 (p. 83).

26 Frances W. Pritchett, ‘Urdu Literary Culture Part 2: Histories, Performances and Masters’, in Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia, ed. by Sheldon Pollock (London: University of California Press, 2003), pp. 864–911 (p. 907).

25

210

When clearing awa Raja and her famil s old papers, Bim si s do n o read one of her his or books. Interestingly she chooses a history of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb and finds her mind s illed a las

pon reading an acco n of his b rial:

Laying her open book across her ches , she la

i h her e es closed, repea ing he emperor s las

ords

o herself like a pra er. She fel ears seep from nder her e elids in ol n aril [ ] The lef a map of ri erbeds in he d s (Desai, p. 168)

The image Desai evokes with tears falling from Bim s bod and crea ing a map of ri erbeds speaks directly to a poetic rebirth. The significance of rivers in South Asian history and geography is rooted even in the naming of the land: as a word used by Turko-Persian conq erors, Hind s an refers o a erri or mapped b i s connec ion o he ri ers ha r n through it.27 The land is effec i el reborn

hole again hro gh Bim s ears

hich form i s

geographic plains, effectively disrupting the modern linguistic and cultural categories which seek o di ide i : Hindi: Hind : Hind ism = Urd : M slim: Islam.

28

Bim envisions herself

with the emperor, on his deathbed with his last words resting upon her chest, claiming a language and a spatial territory for herself and her memories. Loss is not all consuming for Bim, but transformative. The transformation is crucially of an Urdu literary image into a contemporary experience of a lived syncretic culture.

Desai in her novel does not simply portray the failure of Urdu literature to move beyond its romantic nostalgia for the glory of the Mughal empire and a pre-Partition India, but instead

See Abdul Jamil Khan, Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide, Algora Publishing, 2006, ProQuest eBook Central <https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/gmul-ebooks/detail.action?docID=319222> [accessed 20 May 2020].

28 King, p. 75; Faiz Ahmed Faiz does something similar in his poem ‘Black Out’ (written during the India-Pakistan War of 1965) in his use of the metaphor of rivers and renewal. For a discussion of this poem see Mufti, Enlightenment in the Colony, pp. 228–29.

27

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uses the language and literature to transform the concepts of absence and loss. Urdu literature f nc ions, Pri che arg es, as a game of fashioning a new framework for history

ords , allo ing for the creative possibility of

one that relies on cultural, lived memory (Pritchett,

Nets of Awareness, p. 92). Yo don kno an Urd , o can

nders and, Raja sa s o Bim

as he recites poetry to her (Desai, p. 47). Ironically however, it is Bim who is tasked with remembering he li ed memor of Raja s childhood and he e is ence of H der Ali s famil in their neighbourhood. It is a nostalgia that Svetlana Boym theorises in The Future of Nostalgia as reflective .29 Where restorative nostalgia gives way to a desire to restore a mythic nation that has been lost, reflective nostalgia embodies the impossibility of recapturing the past entirely. Reflection upon the past allows within it a space for ambivalence and creativity.

Unlike Raja, Bim and her sister do not merely mythologise a golden age of Urdu in India and lament its passing, they are tasked with remembering its living presence in the face of a nation in the process of forgetting and erasing its history of language and culture. Their memories throughout the novel run counter to the officially sanctioned history, culture and language of the nation state. In sustaining the memory of Urdu literature within the sphere of the domestic home, childhood and a pre-Partition past, Desai articulates the possibility for a reflective nostalgia in a cross-communal literary past.

Reflecting women The traditional poetic form of the ghazal in Urdu literary culture is encompassed by the figure of he lo er, reflec s on he

ho

hile longing for his inaccessible (human) beloved or (divine) Beloved,

orld as i appears o him in his al ered emo ional s a e (Pritchett, Nets of

Awareness, p. 89). Reflection renewed through a poetic lens is not simply a desire to reinstate

Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic Books, 2001), p. xviii. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

29

212

ha

hich has been los , b

sho [s] he social life of he l ric s bjec (Mufti, p. 230). Desai s

reimagining of the Urdu literary tradition of longing is transformed, rendering the figure of the lover as a woman rather than a man, and her longing for the inaccessible is rooted in the familial, domes ic sphere. Raja s depar re from Old Delhi follo s moreo er from heir A n Mira s dea h, an impor an ma ernal fig re in he children s li es. Bim no es pon Mira s dea h that she could not help but recall he lines of poe r she had read in Raja s book, The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot:

Who is the third who walks always beside you?

When I count, there are only you and I together But when I look ahead up the white road There is always another one walking beside you Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded I do not know whether a man or a woman — But who is that on the other side of you?

(Desai, p. 100)

The ha n ing of A n Mira in Bim s imagination represents the ever present, yet absent, subject of loss hro gho

her life. I o ld s gges here ha bo h A n Mira s role in he narra i e and

her name deliberately invokes a history and legacy of Indian poetry. The sixteenth-century poet Mira (alternative spellings and incarnations include Meera, Miraji, Mirabehn and Meera Mai) was a bhakti saint from Rajasthan. Mira has often been associated from the nineteenth century i h a conscio s self-representation of Rajputs through the medium of his orical ri ing and an example of a pure Hindu heroine. 30 Yet her story, one of devotion to God, her lyrics of love

Nancy Martin-Kershaw, ‘Mirabai in the Academy and the Politics of Identity,’ in Faces of the Feminine in Ancient, Medieval, and Modern India, ed. by Mandakranta Bose (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp.

162–82 (p. 168).

30

213

and longing, and her persecution for having transgressed caste boundaries, reflect a different legac . Mira s ri ing of experiences of being exiled from a homeland have become influential for genera ions of

omen and s bal ern classes o inser

heir o n e perience of

disempo ermen and resis ance in o he Meera poem .31 Both the feminised figure of the lover and the poetics of longing speak to a forgotten history of the nation.

Tara remembers ha as her bro her lef childhood behind, she and Bim ere ac all comrades-in-arms for he p rs ed Raja oge her no

and Raja el ded hem bo h (Desai, p.

116). Desai not only transforms the traditional figure of the lover, but the subject of longing itself becomes shared by the two sisters. Bim recalls affectionately the memories of stealing in o Raja s room oge her, of searching his bookshel es, r ing on his clo hes and ligh ing his cigarettes (Desai, pp. 131 34). The youthful solidarity of the sisters is shaped from the beginning by a search for their absent brother. At the end of the novel, Bim finds that her sis er s isi had forced her o re-examine memories, re-read long forgotten letters and poetry i had cos her b cons an l dragging her apar in o lo e and hos ili , resen men and accep ance, forgi eness and ha e (Desai, p. 169). This e amina ion of he self, of he dispara e parts of memory which resist being held in a monolithic narrative of a childhood, and of a na ional his or , ser e o break he c cle of mo rning for he impossibili of m hical re rn (Boym, p. viii).

In a speech given in Urdu in a Delhi mosque in 1947, Abdul Kalam Azad, the Muslim scholar and President of the Indian National Congress, told his crowd:

Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar, Reena Dube and Renu Dube, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Meera's Medieval Lyric in Postcolonial India: The Rhetorics of Women's Writing in Dialect as a Secular Practice of Subaltern Co-authorship and Dissentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, boundary 2, 31 (2004), 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;46 (p. 8) <https://muse.jhu.edu/article/174862> [accessed 20 May 2020].

31

214 I want to remind you that these bright etchings, which you see all around you, are relics of the Qafilas of o r forefa hers. Do no forge hem. [ ] Learn o crea e o r o n s rro ndings, your own world.32

Memor of India s Islamic pas pro ides a basis on

hich o b ild ne

political ideologies without forgetting or erasing living history

landscapes, ne

recalling instead that Urdu

language and history might allow for the creativity to envision a shared postcolonial world.

Bim finall house

ells Tara a he end of he no el ha she ill s a in Old Delhi o see H der Ali s

and repair i . Tell [Raja] I m

Im

ai ing for him

I want him to come

I want to

see him (Desai, p. 176). Transformed b her sis er s isi and her res rfaced memories, Bim is no longer lef behind in Old Delhi. Desai recen res he narra i e of Par i ion, gi ing bo h a lang age and f

re o hose lef behind . Tasked

i h repairing he old H der Ali ho se, a

history which until now has belonged only to her brother, Bim assumes the role of the modernis Urd poe s in recons r c ing he me aphorical endangered mansion of Urd poe r and thus keeping alive the memory of a thriving cross-communal past in India (Pritchett, p.

39). Desai importantly regenders the canonical Urdu poetic figure who longs for his beloved; in her bro her s absence and inabili

o crea i el fashion a f

re for he li erar c l re, Bim

must herself take up the task of rebirth and rebuilding. The narrative furthermore centres itself around the theme of hospitality: Bim waits with open arms to receive Urdu and its history back to Delhi, taking charge of the space and present to which she can now belong. Ultimately, Bim s in i a ion o Raja o isi her in Old Delhi in i es he possibility of a South Asian future shaped and narrated by the lived, intensely domestic and local memory, able to work against the racially and linguistically homogenous narratives of the nation. This is the project, as Mufti o ld describe i , of

nse ling the finality of Par i ion (Mufti, p. 255).

Abul Kalam Azad, Selected Works of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, 11 vols, ed. by Ravindra Kumar (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 1991), III, p. 84.

32

215

Clear Light of Day reminds s again a he end of he no el of Raja s reading, his ime i h a line from T.S. Elio s Four Quartets (through an idea itself borrowed from the Bhagavad Gita): Time he des ro er is ime he preser er. For Desai, to forget cultural, individual memor is o re ri e his or in he mos f ndamen al of a s. Lang age ho e er, persis s in bearing i ness o some forgo en o nd . 33 Desai s narra i e cen res on Urd li erar radi ion as a means of hinking hro gh e ile and displacemen . As M f i reminds s: To be in e ile is o engage in a cons an effor o remember, o redisco er, a self ha is a home (Mufti, p. 240).

Over the course of the novel, Bim imaginatively remaps her childhood home through her memories, creating her own space that interweaves forgotten histories and languages. Bim sees ho

her o n ho se and i s par ic lar his or linked and con ained her as her

hole famil

with all their separate histories and experiences (Desai, p. 182). Urd lang age and li era re is not absent, but contained in memory in the novel and sustains the creative ability to imagine af

re landscape of India, and i is, as Bim reflec s, no binding hem i hin some dead and

airless cell b

P

gi ing hem he soil in hich o send do n heir roo s (Desai, p. 182).

c i : Decembe 2019

In her next novel In Custody (1984), Desai allows Urdu poetry to live on past the life of its a hor and in o ha of a Hind acol e: [De en] had accep ed he gif of N r s poe r and ha mean he as a c s odian of N r s er so l and spiri [ .] He co ld no den or abandon ha nder an press re (Desai, In Custody, p. 226). Menozzi argues that In Custody reflects a form of what he terms pos colonial c s odianship , separa ion and appropria ion .34 In reading Desai s

hereb poe r migh

ransmi be ond

ork from Clear Light of Day to In

Cathy Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996) p. 4.

34 Menozzi Filippo, Postcolonial Custodianship: Cultural and Literary Inheritance (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 58.

33

216

Custody, we are charged with remembering a non-formal history, the recognition of its absence providing the tools to deconstruct the formally written histories of the nation. At the end of the novel, a Hindu guru performs a song for an audience in a garden in Old Delhi. As Bim listens, she realises ha he g r sings he Urd poe Iqbal s l rics (a fa o ri e Urd poe of her bro her s) and no es ha he old singer s oice rose higher, in an p ard spiral of passion and pain (Desai, pp. 182 83). Traumatised cross-communal spaces in the wake of Partition still contain within them these shared histories of language and literature; Desai writes with the belief that language has the power to open up these spaces, particularly in the domestic home and community, for lived cultural memory to become a new, reflective history of the nation.

This history becomes one in which absence is vividly present and forever changing, creative of new narratives that interrupt the purity of ethno-nationalism.

Desai wrote at the threshold of the renewed fundamentalist assault on Indian politics.

Decades after the publication of Clear Light of Day, India again faces an increasingly ethnocentric and fascistic rhetoric towards its history and its Muslim population. On the 9 th of December 2019 the Indian government passed the Citizenship Amendment Act, granting fasttrack Indian citizenship and legal status to Hindu, Parsi, Sikh, Buddhist and Christian immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The bill notably excludes any Muslim immigrant from obtaining citizenship. This is part of a distinctly right wing Hindu nationalist project in India, continuing from the implementation of the National Register of Citizens in Assam in 2013-14 which saw two million people in the state of Assam stripped of their rights as citizens and detained in camps, the majority of whom were Muslim. The Home Minister in India has since announced that the NRC will be implemented across India by 2021, publishing a Model Detention Centre Manual which will be used to construct detention camps in all Indian

217

states.35 The protests in India following the bill in December (and again in February of 2020) were led largely by students; the Indian government responded with severe police force, entering the University of Jamia Millia Islamia and beating students. Today, under the cover of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are rounding up and imprisoning the (Muslim) protest leaders.36 In Clear Light of Day Raja is forbidden from attending that same university Hindu boy st d ing Urd he is old:

o

ill be orn o bi s, o

as a

ill be b rn ali e (Desai,

p. 52). On the 15th of December 2019, a student, Rahool Banka, was seized by police inside the Jamia Millia Uni ersi

librar , and bea en hils police a n ed him: Allah ka naam kyun

nahi lete ho [ Wh are o no calling o

for Allah ].37 In an interview for an article in The

New Yorker in December, writer and journalist Rana Ayyub was asked whether India s persec ion of M slims migh dri e her o lea e he co n r . She replied simpl : I m no lea ing [ ] I ha e o s a . I m going o ri e all his do n and ell e er one ha happened.

38

Works cited Ahmad, Aijaz, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures (London; Verso, 1992) —— Aijaz, Lineages of the Present: Ideology and Politics in Contemporary South Asia (London: Verso, 2000) Ahmad, Aziz, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment, 2nd edn (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999)

Tawqeer Hussein, ‘'How is it human?': India's largest detention centre almost ready’, Aljazeera, 2 January 2020 <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/human-india-largest-detention-centre-ready200102044649934.html> [accessed 20 May 2020].

36 Nileena MS, ‘Amid lockdown, Delhi Police target and arrest anti-CAA protesters from Jamia Nagar,’ The Caravan, 15 April 2020 <https://caravanmagazine.in/politics/anti-caa-protesters-jamia-arrested> [accessed 20 May 2020].

37 Quoted in Ahan Penkar, ‘At AIIMS, doctors and police treated detained Jamia protestors with hostility, ridicule,’ The Caravan, 17 December 2019 <https://caravanmagazine.in/amp/politics/jamia-millia-islamia-cabcaa-aiims-student-protest> [accessed 20 May 2020].

38 Rana Ayyub, cited in Dexter Filkins, ‘Blood and Soil in Narendra Modi’s India’, The New Yorker, December 2019 <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/09/blood-and-soil-in-narendra-modis-india> [accessed 20 May 2020].

35

218

Anderson, Walter K., and Shridhar D. Damle, The RSS: A View to the Inside (Haryana: Penguin Random House India, 2018) A

b, Rana, ci ed in De er Filkins, Blood and Soil in Narendra Modi s India , The New Yorker, December 2019 <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/09/bloodand-soil-in-narendra-modis-india> [accessed 20 May 2020]

Azad, Muhammad Husain, Āb-e ayāt (Water of Life), cited in Frances W. Pritchett, Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and Its Critics (London: University of California Press, 1994) Azad, Abul Kalam, Selected Works of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, 11 vols, ed. by Ravindra Kumar (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 1991), III Bacche a, Paola, The (failed) prod c ion of Hind

na ionali ed space in Ahmedabad,

G jara , Gender, Place & Culture, 17 (2010), 551 71 Bangha, Imre, Rekh a: Poe r in Mi ed Lang age, Before the Divide: Hindi and Urdu Literary Culture, ed. by Francesca Orsini (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2010), pp.

21 83 Basu, Amrita, Violent Conjunctures in Democratic India (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015) Benjamin, Walter, Illuminations (London: Fontana, 1973) Bhatnagar, Rashmi Dube, Reena D be and Ren

D be, Meera's Medie al L ric in

Postcolonial India: The Rhetorics of Women's Writing in Dialect as a Secular Practice of Subaltern Co-a horship and Dissen , boundary 2, 31 (2004), pp. 1 46, Project MUSE <https://muse.jhu.edu/article/174862> [accessed 20 May 2020] Boym, Svetlana, The Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic Books, 2001), p. xviii Caruth, Cathy, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996) Das, Veena, Critical Events: An Anthropological Essay on Contemporary India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995) Desai, Anita, Clear Light of Day (London: Penguin, 1980) —— Anita, In Custody (London: Vintage, 1999), p. 53 Faruqi, Shamsur Rahman, Early Urdu Literary Culture and History (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001) Golwalkar,

M.

S.,

Bunch

of

Thoughts

[1966]

<https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.201991/page/n3> 2020]

(Bangalore, [accessed

1968).

20

May

219

Gol alkar, M. S., E rac s from We or Our Nationhood Defined, in Hindu Nationalism: A Reader, ed. by Christophe Jaffrelot (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp.

98 116 Gopal, Priyamvada, The Indian-English novel: Nation, History and Narration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) Hansen, Thomas Blom, The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999) H ssein, Ta qeer, 'Ho

is i h man?': India's larges de en ion cen re almos read ,

Aljazeera, 2 January 2020 <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/human-indialargest-detention-centre-ready-200102044649934.html> [accessed 20 May 2020] Khan, Abdul Jamil, Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide (Algora Publishing, 2006), ProQuest eBook Central <https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/gmulebook/detail.action?docID =319222> [accessed 20 May 2020] Khan, Mirza Asadullah, Ghalib: Selected Poems and Letters (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017) King, Robert D., Nehru and the language politics of India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997) Martin-Kersha , Nanc , Mirabai in he Academ and he Poli ics of Iden i , in Faces of the Feminine in Ancient, Medieval, and Modern India, ed. by Mandakranta Bose (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 162 82 MS, Nileena, Amid lockdo n, Delhi Police arge and arres an i-CAA protesters from Jamia Nagar, The Caravan, 15 April 2020 <https://caravanmagazine.in/politics/anti-caaprotesters-jamia-arrested> [accessed 20 May 2020] Mufti, Aamir R., Enlightenment in the Colony: The Jewish Question and the Crisis of Postcolonial Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007) Penkar, Ahan, A AIIMS, doc ors and police rea ed de ained Jamia pro es ors i h hos ili , ridic le, The Caravan, 17 December 2019 <https://caravanmagazine.in/amp/politics/jamia-millia-islamia-cab-caa-aiims-studentprotest> [accessed 20 May 2020] Pritchett, Frances W., Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and Its Critics (London: University of California Press, 1994) â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Frances W., Urd Li erar C l re Par 2: His ories, Performances and Mas ers , in Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia, ed. by Sheldon Pollock (London: University of California Press, 2003), pp. 864 911

220

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Frances W., and Owen T. A. Cornwall eds., Ghalib: Selected Poems and Letters (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017) Thapar, Romila, S ndica ed Hind ism, in Hinduism Reconsidered, ed. by Gunther D. Sondheimer and Hermann Kulke (New Delhi: Manohar, 1991) Walder, Dennis, Wri ing, represen a ion, and pos colonial nos algia , Textual Practice, 23 (2009), 935 46 Yaqin, Amina, The Comm nalisa ion and Disin egra ion of Urd

in Ani a Desai s In

Custody , in Alternative Indias: Writing, Nation and Communalism, ed. by Peter Morey and Alex Tickell (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005), pp. 89 114

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69156

Waiting for Gödel Ioana Radulescu

So that hatever the object, our thirst for possession is, b definition, insatiable.

1

The 1930s is probably best described as a period of complete turnarounds. Not only had the entire world experienced four years of one of the deadliest and traumatising wars, a global pandemic, economic recession, poverty, and widespread social unrest, but it was also ill-fated to repeat this history in the years to follow. As if happening in a parallel universe, the arts and sciences of the early and high Modernism seemed to flourish out of this residue of contrasting ideas. At what was considered to be the height of scientific discovery, at least following Albert Einstein s theories of general and special relativity, the 20th century announces the complete reversal of established assumptions on which human knowledge had been premised up to that point. Kurt G del publishes the Incompleteness Theorems which expose the inherent inconsistency in any mathematical system, and thus contend that certain properties are outside any value

e can demonstrate neither their truth, nor their falseness. G del s theorems not

only shattered the mathematicians trust in deduction, as a means of proving the certainty of axiomatic beliefs, but also impacted the whole fabric of Western thought, thus paving the way

1

Samuel Beckett, Proust , in Proust and Three Dialogues with Georges Duthuit (London: John Calder, 1965), p. 7. Further references are given after quotations in the text.

222

to a generation characterised by relativism and scepticism. At the centre (sic) of this essay lies Deconstruction, a form of philosophical and literary analysis founded by Jacques Derrida around the time Beckett and Barnes were writing, which questions the fundamental oppositions inherent in Western thought, binar oppositions hich assign more value to one of the elements in the pair, such as, presence over absence; form over meaning; speech over writing. To deconstruct is to explore the tensions inherent in this hierarchical ordering, to reveal the more peripheral aspects of a text, to displace the centre of interpretation. Paramount to this approach is the idea that language is an imperfect tool of expression, predicated on a system of infinitely deferred signs

what we intend to express is never fully contained in the

words that we employ.

It is against the backdrop of a dead-end of meaning that Nightwood (1936) by Djuna Barnes and Samuel Beckett s Endgame: (1957) A Pla in One Act were born. This essay will propose a deconstructionist analysis of the texts, contending that both texts expose the limitations of a world constrained by language and time. Whilst Beckett concerns the futile endgame of repetition rendered b the limits of kno ledge, Barnes engages in an equall futile act of writing otherness. Both texts, as we shall see, are nonetheless driven by a covert desire or hunger for revelation.

The play analogically enacts the absurdity which it decries. The inconsistency between Hamm s questions and Clov s ans ers alludes to a human limitation hich renders this absurd effect

the Derridean impossibilit of arriving at fi ed meaning,

come forth from himself and

ho kno s others onl in himself [

hereb

man [

] cannot

] (Beckett, Proust, p. 66).

The dialogue bet een Hamm and Clov suffers from a linguistic malad , an aphasia

hich

fails to establish a connection between the question and its answer, referent and sign. Constant interruptions created through

a ns and em dashes dela

completel erase the sentences grammatical logic: Me

Hamm s lines and at times

[he yawns]

to pla ; No, all is a-

223

[he yawns] -bsolute. 2 Furthermore, the interactions between Hamm and Clov are characterised by a pattern of incongruity which reinforces the meaninglessness of their verbal exchange. As if caught up in an inconsistenc morass, Clov s ans ers never directl respond Hamm s questions; instead, the appear to perpetuate semantic deferral. You feel normal? , inquires Hamm, to

hich Clov replies I tell ou I don t complain (Endgame, p. 1037). In other

instances, especially with questions which demand serious replies, Clov seems to resort to a heuristic model of answering, one which also inevitably produces a digression, such as when Hamm asks Wh don t ou kill me? I don t kno the combination of the larder (Endgame, p. 1038). Not only does the mentality of Endgame s players create a sense of solipsism, hereb thought remains imprisoned in its structure , but it also renders an act of rational production completely futile. 3 This is particularly evident in the pattern of exclamations which at once repeat and diminish the lines of characters through their parodical nature: Mean something! You and I, mean something! [Brief laugh] (Endgame, p. 1045). Like Gรถdel s theorems, meaning in Endgame is merely a matter of aleatory either-or, a continuous oscillation bet een a Then e ll die and a Then e on t die (Beckett, Endgame , p. 1037). This is also why players indulge in an absurd repetition of signifiers as in a vain endeavour to explain themselves. In the hollo . What hollo ? The hollo ! , struggles Nagg to clarif , as if forcing the word to signify itself (Endgame, p. 1042). Reduced to a one-act play, Beckett implies, life does translate into this indecipherable melange of superfluous signs which never arrive at a fi ed meaning. The pla s central concern, therefore, lies in the contradiction, if not the paradox, between habit and desire. Once all the resources of thought are exhausted and man realises that revelation is not in store for him, the only option available is to desire complete

2

Samuel Beckett, Endgame (1957): A Pla in one act , in Modernism: An Anthology, ed. by Lawrence Rainey (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), pp. 1035 61 (p. 1036). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

3 Eric P. Lev , Disintegrative Process in Endgame , Sam el Becke T da /A j d h i, 12 (2002), 263 79 (p. 267).

224

extinction, and that is, death. The play problematises the impossibility of evading this system of habit, which in turn reinforces the idea that it is impossible to imagine a life brought to completeness , to a standstill. 4 Borrowing from Schopenhauer s pessimism, Hamm and Clov could be seen to have reached a point of no evolution, no change. Have ou not had enough? and I al a s had lead to the inference Then there s no reason for it to change (Beckett, Endgame, p. 1037).

Whilst having had enough is negativel charged and should, in a normal s stem of logic, be deemed a sufficient reason for change, it nonetheless does not. Conversel , in the pla s orld, repetition becomes a sufficient reason for it to persist; I al a s had is devoid of value, it does not communicate an emotion, it simply is part of the reality of repetition. Thus, the appearance of an unremitting monoton

becomes the rule, and the absence of the idea of evolution

condemns the orld and mankind to being al a s the same, ithout solace .5 As if caught in an eternal recurrence, ever da becomes a da like an other da , as long as it lasts (Beckett, Endgame, p. 1040). Temporally speaking, the absence of evolution also clarifies the possibility of repetition. If we take Vladimir JankĂŠlĂŠvitch s theory of time as a point of reference, then time is onl to the e tent that it is irreversible and is under a continuous process of becoming.6 Due to the hapa

character of e istence, the possibilit of repetition is inevitabl ruled out.

In Beckett s dramatic conte t, time simpl

stops being perceived as a flo ; rather, it

disintegrates into units, moments for nothing ,

hich no longer cumulate into a

hole, no

longer add to a progression (Beckett, Endgame, p. 1060). In Endgame, the players appear suspended in atemporality, in a continuous not-yet which is, however, fixed. Indeed, as Levy points out, time appears to parado icall perpetuate its o n irrelevance and to resemble an

4

Steven Connor, Presence and Repetition in Beckett s Theatre , in Samuel Beckett: Repetition, Theory, and Text (Colorado: The Davies Group Publishers, 2007), p. 137.

5 Georg Simmel, Their Position in Cultural Histor in Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, trans. by Helmut Loinskandl (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1991), pp. 8 9.

6 Aaron T. Loone , The Temporalit of Human E istence and Action , in Vladimir Jankelevitch: The Time of Forgiveness (New York: Fordham University Press, 2015), pp. 77 92 (p. 81).

225

Ouroboros, a thing which eats its own tail (Lev , 264). The fact that the characters remain(s) motionless coupled ith their shared handicap to neither sit nor stand are visual manifestations of this constant state of stasis (Beckett, Endgame , p. 1040). This relentless oscillation between action and its retardation is also visible in the verbs the players employ.

NAGG: Could you not?

(Pause) Would you like me to scratch you?

(Pause) Are you crying again?

NELL: I was trying.

(Pause) HAMM: Perhaps it s a little vain.

(Beckett, Endgame , p. 142)

The use of modal verbs could ,

ould impl an intention to act, deferred b the present and

past-continuous tenses. If modal verbs are a prolepsis of a future action, then the continuous tenses only disturb this intention. Of course, the question is why do the characters insist on flashbacks which allude to a nostalgic past? Here, William Worther and Beckett himself may elucidate the dilemma. When referring to Play, Worther suggests that by focusing on the literalised act of performance, characters are completely free, en situation, and the pla longer requires reference to the pree isting

no

orld (Connor, 130). Conversel , then, the

evocation of the past in Endgame renders the exact opposite effect, characters are not free, and

226

instead perpetuate sameness. If the present is filled

ith moments of the past, then the pla s

stillness is reinforced.

Most importantly, memory is flawed; it involves an act of representation which can never bridge the gap between the original and its image. In the context of the play, memory is at most a sedative, numbing the characters further. Moreover, it also enacts the poisonous ingenuit of Time

hereb e istence can onl be comprehended retrospectivel (Beckett,

Proust, p. 4). In this sense, we can say that Hamm and Clov are only their past in this fixed present of the pla . And although all life long ou waiting ends with the uneventful end

ait for that to mount up to a life , the

Then one da , suddenl , it ends, it changes

for nothing, providing no revelation of it all, onl

onder of

and all

hat can have brought it on

(Beckett, Endgame , p. 1056) Instead, the endgame of pla and lose is finall lost (Beckett, Endgame , p. 1060).

This is why Hamm and Clov desire an ending. Closure in Endgame would be a privilege, it would end the cycle of suffering which is life. Even the ending of the play alludes to its repetition. The actors will leave the stage and night after night will repeat the same act.

But the desire to end this cycle is recurrent throughout the whole play. This is present, for instance, in Hamm s demands to be heard

I said forgive me!

ith the closure of an I forgive ou , but is instead deferred

a cry which is not rewarded ith an I heard ou (Beckett,

Endgame , p. 1039). Another e ample of ideal closure is the madman Hamm evokes, ho, having seen the ashes of the end of the

orld, had been spared. Forgotten (Beckett,

Endgame , p. 1049). The implication here is that to be forgotten equals being spared, for forgetfulness erases one s e istence from the memor of time.

In Djuna Barnes s Nightwood (1936), the disenchantment with the world takes place in a context of overt political and social concerns, as opposed to Endgame

here the message

is veiled under the guise of nonsensical performance. Nonetheless, they both are concerned

227

with the framework imposed by reality as it is, namely, (1) the impossibility of arriving at a standstill of meaning, in the case of Endgame, and (2) the pre-established truths

hich den

the writer the possibility of constructing new ones. Nightwood is interested in creating new narratives for the outcasts who had been left out in the course of history. Without a language that accommodates these subjects in the history of ideas, every attempt to do so is faced with a dilemma. Taking Simone de Beauvoir as an example of writing about otherness, we can contend that Barnes s stor is condemned to the same fate

At the moment that omen , or

figures of the LGBTQ+ communit , are beginning to share in the making of the orld still belongs to those

orld, this

ho established the narrative of histor . 7 By writing about

homosexuality as a woman, Barnes is twice as constrained as her male heterosexual counterparts. Hence, her challenge is to reconcile writing about outcasts using the rules of the establishment,

hile preserving the authentic character of her subjects. Indeed, the history of

those marginalised by the official record is shaped by their relation to that record .8 The text, therefore, can only be a result of compromise; the prohibition of her subjects means that Nightwood records their absence from the general narrative.

The theme of exclusion pervades the novel in different forms. Nightwood shares with Endgame an obsession with the idea that one cannot choose whether or where to be born.

Barnes s characters are either bound to appropriating a histor

hich does not represent them,

or to a central unattainable subject, in this case Robin, herself absent from the narrative. Such a condition can only condemn the characters to an incessant, catatonic to-and-fro between a hunger to be and a constant negation of that being. Cast in alienating life scenarios, Barnes s characters suffer from,

7

hat T rus Miller accuratel called, transcendental homelessness .9

Simone De Beauvoir, The Second Sex [1949], trans. by Constance Borde and Sheila Mclovering-Chevallier (London: Vintage, 2011), p. 10.

8 Julie Abraham, Djuna Barnes, Memor , and Forgetting , in Are Girls Necessary? (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2008), pp. 121 138 (p. 123).

9 Tyrus Miller, Politics, Fiction, and the Arts Between the World Wars (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 127.

228

Although in writing about outcasts Barnes displaces the centre of historical narrative, in making her characters chase an absent centre, she exposes the limits of her novel. Felix, for instance, is a character who is unable to constitute himself as a subject. The allusions to the myth of the wandering Jew make Felix a character doomed to an aimless wandering in search for a metaphorical home, an identity. The novel commences with death

the death of Feli s mother

and father. Already we notice that by making him orphan, Barnes establishes him as a character ho cannot authenticate himself in terms of his roots. He is thrust from her , violentl cut off from his origin (Barnes, p. 1). Thus, Felix can only be a character of mimicry; his identity is borro ed. We kno that he inherits from his parents the impermissible blood

hich force(s)

the mind to succumb to an imaginary populace (Barnes, p. 3). Feli is merel a collector, an appropriator of identity

he had adopted the sign of the cross (Barnes, p. 3). In this sense, as

La rence R. Schehr points out, he retains the character of the unanchored signifier, the sign that is al a s displaced, deferred.

10

Similarly, Robin seems to suffer from the same impossibility to emerge as a character.

The first time we encounter Robin, she is described through similes and metaphors to do with botany and chemistry, as if she is a specimen in an herbarium, rather than a character. Her body e udes the smell of dampness , her skin has the te ture of plant life (Barnes, p. 31). Indeed, the scene has the qualities of a tableau vivant with a still, if not deadly, character. It is perhaps no coincidence that the ord effulgence resembles the ord effig , hich also links to the recurrent metaphors of statues and ruins. Like a memor of the monument, symbolizing her life out of her life , Robin is a disfigured and eternali ed ruin, a mere trace inscribed in idols and hierogl phics (Barnes, p. 57). The allusions to death the almost Baudelairean o

as if sleep

ere a deca

and

moron of the luminous deteriorations make Robin seem as

having more of an appearance than an essence. She embodies ambivalence; Robin lives in two

10

La rence R. Schehr,

Night ood : Dismantling the Folds in Style, 19 (1985), 36-49 (p. 40).

229

orlds (Barnes, p. 31). This initial image onl establishes the pattern of description for the hole novel, since Robin is constantl referred to as a picture (Barnes, p. 33), as unable to give account of herself (Barnes, p. 44), as an enigma (Barnes, p. 41). She is, in short, of nonhuman matter, a character masquerading as a sign (Schehr, p. 43).

We could infer, then, that Barnes s characters suffer from the same shallo ness that Clov and Hamm do, rendering them empty in the context of a language that does not accommodate their existence as outsiders. We now turn to the idea which binds both Endgame and Nightwood in a final act of revolt against the limitations of language, culture and, more generall , life. The bitter impatience ith the hole apparatus of cognition , as Ho e puts it, is ultimately a result of a central desire and hunger for a revelation

hich is not in store for

humankind. In Nightwood, this is figuratively translated into an object of desire which cannot be claimed

Robin, the enigma. This longing for possession takes the form of morbid

metaphors, such as in Nora s dreams herein she takes the bod of Robin do n ith her into it, as the ground things take the corpse (Barnes, p. 51). The recurrent analogies to do with death and bur ing allude to Nora s repressed desire to contain Robin. As in the simile of the amputated hand that cannot be diso ned (Barnes, p. 53), the loss of the loved object involves the mutilation of the subjecta resemblance of Jacques Lacan s concept of the objet petit a.

Paradoxically, the object of desire, Robin, always emerges as being already lost, as in the case of Barnes s

riting of her outcasts. Like the simile of amputation, Robin is an integral part of

the loving subject, and her loss is inevitably a symbolic castration. Nevertheless, unrequited love is not the unique manifestation of the unattainable object of desire, but indeed, the entire web of unsatisfactory conditions of human existence. Whether it is love or a desire to evade time, the unattainable object is the impossible-real ultimate reference point of desire .11

11

Slavoj Zizek, The Plague of Fantasies (London: Verso, 2008), p. 15.

230

It is for this reason that Endgame and Nightwood remain stuck in s mbols of hysterical obsession translated in relentless repetition or vain pursuit. Through their elusive form, they illustrate the human

ill (to) persist in its effort, remaining transfi ed b the

impossible (Zi ek, p. 16).

Works cited Abraham, Julie,

Djuna Barnes, Memor , and Forgetting , in Are Girls Necessary?

(Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2008), pp. 121 38 Beckett, Samuel, Endgame (1957): A Pla in one act , in Modernism: An Anthology, ed. by Lawrence Rainey (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), pp. 1035 61 Beckett, Samuel, Proust , in Proust and Three Dialogues with Georges Duthuit (London: John Calder, 1965) Connor, Steven, Presence and Repetition in Beckett s Theatre in Samuel Beckett: Repetition, Theory, and Text (Colorado: The Davies Group Publishers, 2007), p. 137 De Beauvoir, Simone, The Second Sex [1949], trans. by Constance Borde and Sheila Mclovering-Chevallier (London: Vintage, 2011) Lev , Eric P., Disintegrative Process in Endgame , Samuel Becke T da /A j

d h i, 12

(2002), 263 79 Loinskandl, Helmut (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1991), pp. 8 9 Loone , Aaron T., The Temporalit

of Human E istence and Action , in Vladimir

Jankelevitch: The Time of Forgiveness (New York: Fordham University Press, 2015), pp. 77 92 Miller, Tyrus, Politics, Fiction, and the Arts Between the World Wars (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999) Schehr, La rence R.,

Night ood : Dismantling the Folds , Style, 19 (1985), 36 49

Simmel, Georg, Their Position in Cultural Histor , in Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, trans. by Helmut Loinskandl (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1991), pp. 8 9.

Zizek, Slavoj, The Plague of Fantasies (London: Verso, 2008)

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69157

Fractured Reflections: How Lacan, Derrida & Nietzsche sought to overcome barriers of the constructed self Jake Rix

Derrida s The Animal That Therefore I Am is a text commonly noted for revolving preliminarily around concepts of animal consciousness and the appreciation of animal welfare and preservation, a call to shake off antique views of humanity s self-created superiority in the zoological topography of the world. On top of these analyses, it is also important to acknowledge that Derrida uses concepts of the human self and psyche to pursue his argument, cleverly planting the narratorial lens of the text upon his own perspective

the human

while

the gaze of his cat remains an external factor, something other to himself; something other, in fact, to all humanity. In this sense, his text in many places overlaps with theories presented by Lacan, as he too challenged older beliefs regarding the human self via in-depth analyses of the individual and its place in regard to other individuals and external influences. However, the more modern Derrida takes us further by introducing the concept of the animal other to this exploration. The two passages which I will explore as an introduction to this essay

a study of

overcoming the barriers of the self show how Derrida s approach intertwines with Lacan s philosophy more closely than one may expect, whilst also shifting the offered perspective in a new direction as an expansion of the realm of psychoanalytical study. This in turn reveals a description of the self in conversation between the two: a startling and explosive breach of the

233

constructed self as an epiphany which leaves the subject exposed to according alteration. After this comparison, I will introduce different philosophical and mythological examples from throughout history in order to further explore human understanding of the malleable psyche and the means by which we can overcome its boundaries, including Nietzsche s implications toward the artistic self (in relation to Dionysian revelry) in The Birth of Tragedy.

The first passage to be explored, taken from Lacan s The Mirror Stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience , first delivered in 1949, describes the primary impact of the self-regarding or realising itself for the first time. This self-realisation in children presents the I as a primordial form , a jubilant assumption of [the subject s] specular image by the child at the infans stage .1 Lacan also describes the self-confrontation as a symbolic matrix in which the I is precipitated , relating to the realm in which the psychological construction and interpretation of the external world

the realm of the

imaginary must take place: that of the symbolic (Lacan, Mirror Stage, p. 62). The subject necessarily views itself within this realm

that of spoken or written language, imagery and any

type of symbolism which one could label

as it is within it that the subject formulates

assumptions or ideals about itself in what Lacan describes as a fictional direction (Lacan, Mirror Stage, p. 62). In a term more immediately to the impression of self-realisation, this acts as a coming-into-being , but also a coming into self-resolution, an imaginary-led concept of what the subject is from its own analysis and hypotheticalities (Lacan, Mirror Stage, p. 62). It is from the two realms of imaginary and symbolic in conversation that the subject anticipates in a mirage the maturation of his power , and an ideology regarding the stubborn construction of the self by the self is created (Lacan, Mirror Stage, p. 62). Lacan briefly highlights from this externality of influence the gestalt, or the concept of how an individual is seen through

1

Jacques Lacan, The Mirror Stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience , in Ecrits: A Selection, trans. by A. Sheridan (London: Routledge, repr. 1993), pp. 61â&#x20AC;&#x201C;78 (p. 62). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

234

symbolic and imaginary assumptions as different to its original components. This gestalt acts as a symbolic representation of the mental permanence of the I , that which keeps the self from dissolving into obscurity, as well as something which prefigures its alienating destination (Lacan, Mirror Stage, p. 62). Lacan thus describes an imagined permanence and direction, a purpose given to something without purpose, a tool utilised to keep the self from failing entirely in the physical world. In short, the subject uses the aforementioned assumptions to construct a permanent I, whilst also haunting it with the phantoms of future possibilities and assumptions (Lacan, Mirror Stage, p. 62). All this comes from a juvenile observation within the realms of symbolic and imaginary, a confrontation of the self with the self.

Derrida confronts an idea very similar to that which we descried from the above passage as a key theme in The Animal That Therefore I Am, as is acutely described in the chosen passage. Starting with a description of the bottomless gaze of the other , Derrida argues that the gaze called animal offers to [our] sight the abyssal limit of the human ; in other words, reminding us of everything we are not, the antithesis to the self.2 This takes us to the very limit of what language

or the symbolic can describe, the bordercrossing from which vantage

man dares to announce himself to himself, thereby calling himself by the name that he believes he gives himself (Derrida, p. 381). This description resonates heavily with concepts introduced

by Lacan in the prior passage, in particular the concept of man naming himself symbolically and the previous construction and maintenance of the self through the imaginary: the border at which self-consideration is brought to light. What is different, however, is the method by which this enlightenment of self is achieved (and there are different aftershock effects as a result of the initial impact, too); the animal gaze, the gaze of the complete other, is what causes this confrontation, rather than the reflection of the self on to the self. The confrontation is the

2

Jacques Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am (More to Follow) , Critical Inquiry, 28 (2002), 369â&#x20AC;&#x201C;418 (p.

381). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

235

opposite of internal, and the impact reflects theories from Lacan regarding the realm of the real, or of unutterable truth. This lies beyond the realm of the symbolic, as it cannot be accessed in any perceptive way, and to Derrida, it can be reached through the gaze of the animal other: in these moments of nakedness, under the gaze of the animal, everything can happen to me, I am like a child ready for the apocalypse…that is to say the ultimate and first event of the end, the unveiling and the verdict (Derrida, p. 381). The subject becomes nude, primordial; under the gaze of the animal other, they again become plastic, as they were before Lacan s mirror stage. The truth is unveiled, but only in an instant of extreme passion which quickly passes, a flash of sublime (Derrida, p. 381). This encounter of the self should not be reduced to simply being looked upon by an animal, but instead as a sudden realisation of the gaze of an utterly different other, a gaze of life from a perspective even further detached from the subject than simply that of another human. It is more an instant of realisation than a mundane happening.

This flash of exposure to the real (to Lacan, accessed in moments of dreaming) is described by Lacan as a confrontation with Medusa s head : a revelation of…something which properly speaking is unnameable . This petrifying, non-linguistic epiphany, the ultimate real , is an essential object which isn t an object any longer, but…something faced with which all words cease and all categories fail . 3 To Lacan, the flash of truth regarding the self is made feasible by the dream state s alleviation of […] imaginary relations , and as a result, the masked mirror image of the subject, a truth regarding the constructed self which is hidden under layers of imaginary workings, is in a single moment exposed; the effect is as if the subject is torn apart , and his isolation in relation to the world has been attained (Lacan, Dream of Irma s injection , p. 167). There is a remarkable relation between this description and the moment of confrontation with the animal other as described by Derrida; a truth is

3

Jacques Lacan, The dream of Irma s injection (conclusion) , in The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book II: The Ego in Freud s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis 1954-1955, trans. by Sylvana Tomaselli (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991), pp. 161–75 (p. 164). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

236

revealed in a blinding, indescribable flash, man is confronted with the edge of symbolic and imaginary comprehension. In the case of Lacan, however, the moment comes internally, from within the environment of the dream-state, whilst Derrida s example is triggered externally, a sublime moment of self-realisation triggered by the gaze of the animal other.

Through these explored similarities we can detect a key factor which Lacan may readily admit: that which causes brief exposure to the real (or sublime) must originally stem from something outside of the symbolic or imaginary, even the highest intellectual comprehension.

In dreams constructed within the psyche, Lacan describes moments of exposure to the real which are unfeasible and symbolically amorphic, yet which are in turn interpreted and accepted as such, an acceptance which can appear from a myriad of different directions within the symbolic realm but always represents the same thing. Of course, these flashes of incomprehensibility necessarily effect our internal workings within the comprehensible realms (those not of the real), but in order for it to remind us of our plasticity it must first remind us of our beings as grounded, not in the imaginary-constructed lofty heavens of deities but in the disregarded dirt and vegetation of earth, rid of ideological constrictions. Hence, the abyss of the real isn t hidden in the heavens but our bodies, and in relation to the world they re in. This idea can be aided by Nietzsche s early text The Birth of Tragedy, in which we see a duality between the Apollinian focus on the beautiful illusion of dream worlds

4

(that which is

ideological, intellectually heightened but necessarily, and perhaps even more directly than normal conscious thought, tied to the symbolic and imaginary) and the primitive…selfforgetfulness of Dionysian music and revelry, in which the union between man and man [is] reaffirmed (Nietzsche, Birth of Tragedy , pp. 36–7). This drunken, musical festivity, this thoughtless exposure to the real through an utter ignorance of the symbolic and in turn the

4

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy , in Basic Writings of Nietzsche, trans. and ed. by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Modern Library, 2000) pp. 1–145 (p. 34). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

237

imaginary, is felt entirely by the body and in turn is primordial, or earthly, but is transcendent of any ideological barriers constructed by the repressive inner realms. The self in this example, therefore, has proven an artistic, bodily access to the real through music and revelry. We can observe such ideas later on in the text, wherein Nietzsche argues that music in its absolute sovereignty does not need the image and the concept whilst other art forms, such as lyric poetry , do (Nietzsche, Birth of Tragedy , p. 55). The Dionysian concept of music works outside the realms of the symbolic and thus imaginary, then, and works as something felt by the body in extreme intensities of emotion.

We can then go further in tying this overcoming of the ideologically created self with Nietzsche s later theory of will to power, his secret to life which is described in Thus Spoke Zarathustra as that which must overcome itself again and again .5 This will is a binding force between all living things, a clear example of a bridge between the animal other and human perception. We necessarily need this bridge for Derrida s confrontation to occur, as that which is the other must be in some way comprehensible, in some way empathetically reachable, despite being so far distant from us. Here we can explore Nietzsche s further utilisation of the body as quintessential in his writings, how we are the body entirely, and nothing beside; and soul is only a word for something in the body (Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, p. 61). We can thus observe a link between celebration of the body as a means of truth in a manner that works in hand with the Dionysian man, a rejection of the heavenly (or imagistic) soul as anything transcendent, but grounded in the body, in the earth. When Derrida encounters the experience of the real under the gaze of the animal other he feels an overwhelming feeling of plasticity as ideological barriers are broken, the moment is felt through the body rather than symbolically analysed through the intellect, the catalyst of the real is experienced externally

5

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (London: Penguin, 2003) pp. 61â&#x20AC;&#x201C;163 (p. 138). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

238

(just as with the music of the Dionysian) and we see proven flash of truth

in this overwhelming, sensuous

Nietzsche s argument that [t]here is more reason in your body than in your

best wisdom (Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, p. 62).

So, to reduce Nietzsche s terminology where possible, Dionysian revelry and music can act as a gateway for us to catch glimpses of the real, through bodily, not intellectual, experience. To Lacan, dreams can offer these gateways, and to Derrida (in the specific text studied) the gaze of the animal other is one, too. Yet these examples, though coming from the last hundred and fifty years, only rephrase ideas which have been circulating about the human psyche for thousands; perhaps, they needed re-emergence in the west after the idealisation of man became the pinnacle of its Renaissance movement (Not only this, but Christianity has always celebrated the superiority of man and dismissed animals as minor insignificances, at best products

and thus examples

of God s power). The close involvement of man to

animals and earth is prevalent in many religions and practises from throughout history across the globe, noted in examples of gods with the ability to transform into animals, or the potentiality for man himself to become one, too.

A prime historical example of utilising bodily transformation is Greek mythology, which commonly describes gods morphing into animals in order to carry out their (typically sexually oriented) plans, [Demeter, who had transformed into a mare to hide from gods and titans] did not…deceive Poseidon, who transformed himself into a stallion and covered her, from which outrageous union sprang the nymph Despoena […] .6 Humans can also be subject to this zoomorphism: […] distraught with grief, [Alcyone] leapt into the sea. Some pitying god transformed them both [her and Ceyx] into kingfishers (Graves, p. 309). The former example implies a great power behind the unknown of the animal other, not just through the

6

Robert Graves, The Greek Myths: The Complete and Definitive Edition (London: Penguin, 2017), p. 120. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

239

direct implications of a god being present in the shape of an animal, but also of the potentiality for any animal to be so. This aids in our argument of the animal other as a form of mysterious externality to the human and their constructed self, one which can expose to us in a wondrous flash (just as Zeus descended upon DanaĂŤ in a shower of gold); a brief exposure to the sublime, to the truth (symbolically metaphorical as it is in mythology), a feeling that can only be sensuously experienced rather than symbolically, which is perhaps why these transformations often lead to sexual encounters. In regard to the latter of the two transformations, the concept is more direct, with implications that the self is fluctuating and variable, susceptible to manipulation via the real (in this case represented by the pitying god ). The animal other, although being everything discussed in the former exploration, is close to us in our grounded reality, capable of being reached through zoological bridges between species (just Nietzsche s will to power bonds humans to all living entities).

We can also locate several religions which relate man closer to the status of nature in general, with exemplars including Paganism or, as will be studied here, Shinto. Described by Kuroda Toshio as an indigenous self-consciousness , this elusive Japanese religion worships a binding spirit, Kami, which is directly associated

or seen as one with nature and is a

driving force of the universe. 7 A driving, connective universal force already brings to mind Nietzsche s will to power, however Toshio s analysis of the religion (alongside including nature worship and taboos against [impurities] ) as having no system of doctrine , and existing in diverse forms as folk belief but at the same time possess[ing] certain features of organised religion , certainly opens up conversation regarding spiritual views of the self (Toshio and others, p. 1). This discussion of Shinto as vaguer than an unequivocal religion have concrete mythologies and doctrines

7

those which

and more as a self-consciousness defined by

Kuroda Toshio and others, Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion , in Journal of Japanese Studies, 7 (1981), 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;21 (p. 3). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

240

practises rather than study, immediately implicates it as a state of mind and thus of selfidentification. Immersing oneself within the physical world and the beauty and power of nature (or, more specifically, a world which is a culmination of both physical and meta-physical, with worship of holy powers and metaphysical objectivity as detected within, or at one with, the physical universe, in a manner quite similar to Taoism), is a powerful method of reaching sublime realisations regarding the self, something that the British Romantics of the 1800s were so fixated upon. Rather than using the specific feature of the animal other, however unlike the examples within Greek mythology

and thus

this method of self-realisation is rooted in a

grander sense of man in relation to the universe in general; more closely, then, to Nietzsche s Dionysian man.

In regard to the self, all of these examples prove a means by which its ideological constructions can be overcome. Framed in Lacan s triality of the imaginary, symbolic and real, this essay has explored these methods of truth-hunting regarding the self, and how different thought-processes or approaches have led to the same goal. Whether through dreams, the animal other, Dionysian revelry combined with will to power or celebrations of the natural sublime, the end-goal of finding gateways to the real concerning self-identity have been explored and celebrated accordingly.

Works cited Derrida, Jacques, The Animal That Therefore I Am (More to Follow) , Critical Inquiry, 28 (2002), 369â&#x20AC;&#x201C;418 Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths: The Complete and Definitive Edition (London: Penguin, 2017)

241

Lacan, Jacques, The dream of Irma s injection (conclusion) , in The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book II: The Ego in Freud s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis 1954-1955, trans. by Sylvana Tomaselli (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991), pp. 161–75 —— Jacques, The Mirror Stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience , in Ecrits: A Selection, trans. by A. Sheridan (London: Routledge, repr. 1993), pp. 61–78 Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Birth of Tragedy , in Basic Writings of Nietzsche, trans. and ed. by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Modern Library, 2000) pp. 1–145 —— Friedrich, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (London: Penguin, 2003) pp. 61–163 Toshio, Kuroda, and others, Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion , in Journal of Japanese Studies, 7 (1981), 1–21

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69158

Gender Disassociation and Identity Displacement as an Effect of Victorian Depictions of Disability: John Halifax, Gentleman a d The W he ed A Jasmine Rothon

In John Halifax, Gentleman (1856), Phineas Fletcher, feeling uncharacteristically strong and health , tells us that for that one night, at least, I felt m self a man . 1 By telling us that only when he is unusually strong can Phineas feel truly masculine, the author, Dinah Mulock Craik, implies that, in his lifelong, inescapable infirmity, he is not ordinarily masculine enough to be considered a man. In The Withered Arm (1888), Thomas Hard pla s with concepts of beaut in relation to disfigurement, presenting a disabled woman who feels unable to identify with her femininity. In these two texts, Craik and Hardy toy with concepts of gender, and associating with common tropes of one s gender, highlighting that gender expression and feelings of gender identit relate heavil to one s ph sicalit . As a man enfeebled b his illness, Craik s Phineas Fletcher is consistently feminised and aligned with female characters. Conversely, Hard s Gertrude Lodge, once considered delicatel feminine, feels exhaustingl unable to perform her feminine duties as a wife due to her untreatable physical disfigurement, as she is

1

Dinah Mulock Craik, John Halifax, Gentleman (London: Readers Library Publishing Co. Ltd., 1856), p. 60.

Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

243 pulled further and further from any form of gender identity. Through the acute feminisation of Phineas, and Gertrude s disassociation with her once evanescent femininit , it is clear that Victorian writers assign disability a sense of gender in a disparaging way, creating a sense of disassociation of gender and identity displacement for disabled characters. 2 Throughout my exploration of the two texts, I will be analysing their presentation of gender disassociation. For the purposes of the essay, this term means how characters fail to identify to their gender in typical ways, and how they express concepts of androgynous or cross-gender identity.

In Craik s John Halifax, Gentleman, disability is depicted as unmanly. Whether this is through depicting Phineas as child-like or feminised, he is rarely presented as an adult man, especiall in comparison to the perfect masculinit of John Halifax. Phineas disabilit comes in the form of extreme physical weakness and constant fatigue, leaving him unable to walk, either without support or at all at varying points of the novel. Partially, the feminisation of Phineas comes from the fact that he is housebound. Phineas is unable to work and is therefore bound to the domestic sphere of the home. This aligns Phineas more with Ursula than John Halifax, ultimately feminising him. Given that this novel endorses separate spheres for men and women, as seen through the constant naming of Ursula as simpl

the mother following

her marriage to John, it is especially pertinent that Phineas is housebound. Craik makes a distinct decision to show women in the home, and men in the workplace, so in keeping Phineas in the feminine sphere, she feminises the disabled character. Interestingly, Rosemarie Garland Thomson tells us that femininit and disabilit are often equated in literature, as the

are cast

as deviant and inferior; both are excluded from full participation in public as well as economic life .3 We can see how Craik s characterisation of Phineas is aligned with a tradition of writing

2

Thomas Hard , The Withered Arm , in The Wessex Tales (London: Macmillan and Co., 1912), pp. 1 20 (p. 3).

Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

3 Rosemarie Garland Thomson, Politicising Bodil Differences , in Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2017), pp. 1 224 (p.

19).

244 women as a diminished man , especiall in relation to a dichotom between domestic and economic life: women are never economic beings, and neither is Phineas (Garland Thomson, p. 20). In writing Phineas Fletcher, a disabled man, in feminised terms, Craik characterises him as less-than-manl in multiple implicit wa s. I suggest that Phineas feminine domestication begins when he meets John Halifax, who is paid to take [Abel s] son home (Craik, p. 13). As soon as the protagonist is introduced, his purpose is keeping Phineas in the home. This masculine/feminine d namic is furthered, as John confirms that he is used to work and would accept an thing that [he] can get to do (Craik, p. 13), in terms of labour. When John Halifax is introduced, he is presented as an able-bodied, masculine figure who is comfortable with any manual, honest work, and his purpose is immediately shown to be keeping the disabled, feminised figure of Phineas in his rightful place: the home.

Opening up this idea of Phineas as a domestic female character, later in the novel, together Phineas and Ursula seem to make up the single figure of John s wife, which presents Phineas as acutel feminine. In these later chapters, Phineas behaviours are distinctly aligned with those of the mother, as he is a domestic figure. This can be seen when Ursula asks, Will you

John thinks it had better be you

will you give a message from us to

Maud s

governess? (Craik, p. 209). In this moment, Craik makes it clear that Phineas has been rendered domestic in their household, and that he can be trusted with interpersonal and pedagogical tasks. This characterises him in alignment with the mother, and highlights that, in his disabilit , Phineas household role is reduced to that of domesticit and is thus feminised.

RH Hutton notes that it is hard to suppress the fear that Phineas Fletcher will fall hopelessl in love with John Halifax, so hard is it to remember that Phineas is of the male sex , which encapsulates how Phineas is aligned with Ursula; in his infirmity, Phineas sees John in a romanticised, heroic light, which makes his character appear intensely feminine, and he even

245 appears as a mother and wife. 4 Earl in the novel, John states that Phineas is a little less beneath our [Ursula s] notice than I am (Craik, p, 99). Although he refers to social status, this has the effect of further aligning Phineas with Ursula, and the two seem to morph into one companion figure for John. Phineas is constantly feminised, by himself and by others, by being aligned with Ursula. This sense of femininity through association is extended by Phineas himself, who often aligns himself with the feminine figures of a family. For example, at one point, Phineas describes how he could understand how an father might have been proud of such a son, any sister of such a brother, any young girl of such a lover (Craik, p. 69). Despite initially referring to a father figure, Phineas reverts to imagining the emotions of a sister and a young girl, highlighting how, especially in his feelings toward the strong, caring John Halifax, the modus operandi of Phineas mind is feminine. Phineas disabilit means that he sees John as a strong, masculine figure, positions him towards the mother/wife role. We can see how Phineas seemingly feminises himself in his feelings towards John, so we can determine that the fact that his disability has weakened him pushes him to rely on strong, masculine figures in a feminine way.

Phineas experiences of motherhood condition him towards feminised behaviours.

Interestingly, Phineas notes that his mother died before he could remember her, which suggests that for the majority of his life, his family had consisted of his father and himself. It is possible that Phineas occupies an acutely feminised role because of the lack of a female force in his domestic sphere; without a feminine influence, and being already housebound due to his disability, I suggest that Phineas began to take on a domestic, feminised role, in order to fill the absent role of the mother and wife. Indeed, his role in the Halifax household later in the novel reasserts this, as we can see that he is aligned both with Ursula and the governess, as

4

RH Hutton, Novels b the Authoress of John Halifax , North British Review, 29 (1858), p. 258, cited in Melina Moore, John Halifax, Gentleman , Nineteenth-Century Disability: Cultures and Contexts, <https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/items/show/20> [accessed 7 December 2020].

246 mother figures. Phineas lack of a mother figure forces him into a feminine role in order to fill a vacuum of femininity in the household, and his childhood experiences offer more to suggest a feminised character. He tells us that Jael, the onl womankind we ever had about us, and who

certainl gave no indication of her sex in its softness and tenderness (Craik, p. 16).

Therefore, compared to his female acquaintances

harsh, cold personalities, Phineas

mannerisms and behaviours often feel more typically nurturing and soft, which serves to make him seem effeminate even in comparison to female characters. Also concerning his childhood experience, Phineas is often described in childish terms, which furthers the sense of unmanliness. Craik presents Phineas in childish terms in his first meeting with John Halifax, describing how Phineas felt that though I was his senior, I seemed with him, out of m great weakness and infirmit , to feel almost like a child (Craik, p. 18). This quotation shows us ver explicitl that Phineas disabilit positions him as a child, especiall in relation to the ablebodied John Halifax. Furthermore, Phineas describes not how he was perceived, but how he himself feels, so I would note that this perception of disability in terms childlike vulnerability is indicative of a social outlook so strong that it has pervaded his sense of self.

Similarly, Phineas is feminised in his inability to act as an heir to his father s business.

Here, the dynamic between John Halifax and Phineas Fletcher seems akin to an arranged marriage between Victorian households, as their friendship secures Abel Fletcher an heir.

Phineas disabilit leaves him unable to undertake, and therefore, understand Abel Fletcher s tannery business, which leaves an heir-shaped hole. In casting John Halifax as his apprentice and heir, Abel Fletcher feminises his own son due to his disability. This becomes clear when Abel tells John that thee [John] hast in some measure taken that lad's place (Craik, p. 67), highlighting that John is the son that Phineas could never full be. This is furthered b Phineas open and distinct distaste for tanner , as contrasted with John s eagerness to work, which is shown when he describes how I [he] disliked the tan- ard and all belonging to it (Craik, p.

247 20), whereas John does not care what it is, if onl it s honest work (Craik, p. 21). Phineas describes openl that he cannot stand his father s business, and his infirmity prevents him from taking an active part in it, and so Phineas is feminised as a quasi-daughter who cannot stand to inherit. Conversely, John Halifax is immediately willing, if not eager, to work at Abel Fletcher s tanner , and his able body, combined with his eagerness, will increasingly position him as a viable apprentice and heir. By positioning Phineas as both unwilling and unable, Craik positions him less as a son, and more as a daughter, and so through his disability, he is feminised. In John Halifax, Gentleman, Dinah Mulock Craik consciously casts the disabled Phineas Fletcher in roles of the housewife, mother, and governess, as well as the doting lover.

In characterising Phineas in constantly feminised terms, we understand that disability was perceived by her Victorian audience in concepts of fragility, inability, and domesticity.

In The Withered Arm , there is a slightl different d namic between femininit and disability. Here, we see a woman who is disfigured by another woman. Thomas Hardy considers what we mean by ability and disability, as well as considering the implications of disability and disfigurement for women at this time. Firstly, the focus on the heavily physical description in The Withered Arm

establishes a setting for complex discussion on

disfigurement. Before she is even seen, Gertrude is described as a ros -cheeked, titsy-totsy little bod

(Hard , p. 69). In focusing on the unseen woman s ph sicalit , it is made clear to

us from the offset that Gertrude Lodge is valuable for her appearance alone, which establishes a setting in which her later disfigurement will prove to be extremely traumatic. Indeed, Rhoda focuses on Gertrude s appearance as a means of judging her value. For a lifelong labourer, Rhoda values people b virtue of their bod s ph sical abilit . She asks her son to judge if [her hands] look as though she had ever done housework, or are milker s hands like mine (Hard , p. 71). For Rhoda, individual worth comes from one s abilit to do manual labour, as this is how income is generated, which reflects the 19th century context of the industrial

248 revolution, as we can see Hardy commenting on the necessity of physical ability to survive, rather than positioning it as a convenience or luxury for Rhoda. In believing that personal worth relies on physical ability, Rhoda condemns Gertrude as less able even before her arm is disfigured b Rhoda s dream, as we see that the delicate, feminine bod is seen as ornamental, but ultimately not valuable.

Indeed, Gertrude s daint ph sical description as a beaut is emphasised in contrast to the harsh, corporeal description of Rhoda amongst the other milkmaids. First introduced as the thin worn milkmaid (Hard , p. 70), we are alwa s made to see Rhoda as a working body.

Furthermore, when her son is seen pacing along abreast of the horse (Hard , p. 73), alongside Mr and Mrs Lodge in their cart, he is aligned with a working animal, and he is further reduced to simply an able body. We can again note that Rhoda is described in corporeal, industrial terms through the word pla between pale and pail (Hard , p. 78). These homophones appear in the same sentence, with the former describing Rhoda, so we can understand how Hardy uses language to equate the able female body with concepts of labour. In comparison to the delicate, feminine beauty of Gertrude, Rhoda is characterised simply as an able body, haggard from working hard, but it is this arduous labour which creates her sense of self. Rhoda is physically described in terms of labour, which reflects her belief that a person only has worth if their body is capable of hard labour.

The interpla

between femininit

and disabilit

reall

occurs when Gertrude s

disfigurement has been developing for some time, and she feels that she is repulsive in her husband s e es. Confiding in her husband s one-time-lover, Gertrude tells Rhoda that her withered arm makes m husband

dislike me

no, love me less. Men think so much of

personal appearance (Hard , p. 83). In a similar way to how Rhoda values people by their ph sical abilit to work, Gertrude feels herself valued b her appearance; her job as Mr Lodge s wife is to be prett , and in being disfigured, she is failing him. Again, Gertrude s ph sical

249 experience speaks to contemporary notions of disability, as her womanhood means that she was judged on either her ability to work or her appearance, and here, Hardy highlights how she is unable to consistently fulfil either of these categories. In this sense, her body is as disabled as it can possibly be. There is an interesting dynamic between Rhoda and Gertrude concerning Gertrude s diminishing beaut . Rhoda s feeling for the oung wife amounted well-nigh to affection (Hard , p. 82) following her disfigurement, despite her intense jealousy previously.

Indeed, Rhoda confesses to the reader that she did not altogether object to a slight diminution of her successor s beaut

(Hard , p. 83). Evidentl , Rhoda, in her jealous feelings of

usurpation b Mr Lodge s wife Gertrude, revels in a rival s sudden disabilit . This speaks to the relationship between femininit and disabilit , as Gertrude s painful disfigurement is perceived by Rhoda to be a reward to her: she considers disability to be a hindrance, rather than a uniqueness, and takes joy in her own ability, both as a worker and a beauty, suddenly supplanting that of her successor.

Later in the narrative, descriptions of Gertrude s arm continue the sense of repulsion surrounding female disability. Interestingly, Hardy describes her arm as a withering limb (Hardy, p. 92). The use of the present participle here highlights that her condition is not fixed, but ever worsening. Furthermore, it is later described as a half-dead arm (Hard , p 99). These two descriptions

one of constant pain and one of lifelessness

highlight to me that female

disabilit was viewed as a kind of death. In losing her personal beaut

(Hard , p. 91),

Gertrude s life comes to a standstill. She obsesses over treatment of her disfigurement, be it medical or m stical, which is characterised as extremel difficult, especiall for a woman (Hardy, p. 93), and fails to maintain a happy marriage; Hardy tells us that, once disabled, Gertrude is characterised by a distinct lack of life, and her femininity is seen as something that can onl prevent her from accessing treatment. This is expounded b Gertrude s death. Hard describes how her delicate vitalit , sapped perhaps b the paral sed arm, collapsed under the

250 double shock that followed the severe strain, ph sical and mental (Hard , p. 107). In this critical moment, Hardy expresses to us that her life force was drained, firstly, by her disability, and, secondly, by her treatment of it. This suggests that disability is characterised by lifelessness whether it is reversible or not. In The Withered Arm , through the dualit of Rhoda and Gertrude, Hardy considers disability from an acutely female perspective of labour and beauty, especially concerning how this equates to worth and self-worth. Hardy does this primarily by describing it in terms of ugliness and disgust, highlighting the impact disfigurement has on the role of women; be they labourers or wives.

Finally, in both John Halifax, Gentleman and The Withered Arm , there is an important relationship between disabilit and parenthood. It is consciousl noted in The Withered Arm that Gertrude had brought [Lodge] no child (Hard , p. 91), which is especiall pertinent in relation to the fact that we know Rhoda to have mothered Mr Lodge s son, and, similarly, in John Halifax, Gentleman, Phineas never marries, let alone fathers children. In both stories, the disabled character is pictured as infertile, or unworthy of parenthood. There is a consistent social outlook on disability between both of these texts, which come from different moments of the Victorian era, as they both feature disabled infertility. In crafting disabled characters as childless, both Craik and Hardy present a view that disability is not just a halflife, but that disabled characters are not worthy of creating life. For Hardy and Craik, especially in an age of scientific discovery, but vitally before understanding of DNA and heredity, disabilit is understood in bleak, basic terms. Garland Thomson notes that Victorian societ s dominant understanding is that disability confers pain, disease, functional limitation, disadvantage, and social stigma; limits opportunities; and reduces qualit of life , which neatl encapsulates a Victorian understanding of disability. 5 Without the understanding of DNA s

5

Rosemarie Garland Thomson, Building a World with Disabilit in It , in Culture â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Theory â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Disability: Encounters between Disability Studies and Cultural Studies, ed. by Anne Waldschmidt, Hanjo Berressem and Moritz Ingwersen (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2017), pp. 51 62 (p. 53).

251 impact on heredity, treatment and respite were in short supply, and industrial revolution Britain counted value in physical ability, so I would suggest that the reproduction of disabled people is shown as something to be actively avoided.6 In showing disabled characters to be actively infertile, or as lifelong bachelors, Hardy and Craik subscribe to a Victorian view of disability in basic terms, and ultimately express the view that a disabled body is one that should not, under any circumstances, be reproduced.

These two texts make it clear that, for Victorian writers, disability is inherently gendered, a trend that they themselves perpetuate. Hardy and Craik present an interplay of gender and disability to highlight how disability feminises men, and how disfigurement defeminises women; regardless of one s starting point of gender, disabilit and disfigurement create a state of disassociation and ill-fitting identity. There is a focus on vulnerability and domesticity in John Halifax, Gentleman, which emphasises the feminised aspects of Phineas personalit , whereas the ph sicalised descriptions of Rhoda in The Withered Arm force us to view Gertrude s disfigurement as destructive of her delicate femininit . Through these two narratives of physicality, it is clear that disability and gender interact in Victorian fiction to create a sense of identity displacement, as characters do not associate, and are not associated, with their gender in a typical way.

Works cited Encyclopaedia Britannica, DNA <https://www.britannica.com/science/DNA> [accessed 15 August 2020] Garland Thomson, Rosemarie, Building a World with Disabilit in It , in Culture â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Theory â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Disability: Encounters between Disability Studies and Cultural Studies, ed. by Anne

6

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, DNA , in Encyclopaedia Britannica, <https://www.britannica.com/science/DNA> [accessed 15 August 2020].

252 Waldschmidt, Hanjo Berressem and Moritz Ingwersen (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2017), pp. 51 62 Garland Thomson, Rosemarie, Politicising Bodil Differences , in Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2017), pp. 1 224 Hardy, Thomas, The Withered Arm , in The Wessex Tales (London: Macmillan and Co., 1912), pp. 1 20 Hutton, RH, Novels b the Authoress of John Halifax , North British Review, 29 (1858), p.

258, cited in Melina Moore, John Halifax, Gentleman , Nineteenth-Century Disability: Cultures and Contexts, <https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.o rg/items/show/20> [accessed 7 December 2020] Mulock Craik, Dinah, John Halifax, Gentleman (London: Readers Library Publishing Co. Ltd., 1856)

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69159

The sins of o th cannot be ndone in age : Exploring Childhood as An Echo of Adulthood in the Works of Thackeray, Brontë, and Gaskell Jasmine Rothon

‘The sins of youth cannot be undone in age , warns the ‘death stricken Miss Furnivall at the end of Elizabeth Gaskell s ‘The Old Nurse s Story , highlighting the horrific vitality of childhood experience. 1 For Gaskell, the choices we make, and the choices made for us in childhood are key in shaping our adult life. This concept is mirrored in the lengthier texts Wuthering Heights and Vanity Fair, in which Emily Brontë and William Makepeace Thackeray respectively both track the lives of multiple characters, over multiple generations, throughout childhood, adulthood, and even through death. These three narratives engage with generational familial relationships, providing an interesting perspective on changing relationships between childhood and adult life, primarily framed through the dynamics between child and adult characters. Throughout these narratives, the relationship between childhood and adult experience is explored through parental relationships and dynamics, as this is the most familiar,

1

Elizabeth Gaskell, ‘The Old Nurse s Story , in Household Words: A Weekly Journal, ed. by Charles Dickens, 19 vols (London: Bradbury & Evans, 1850–59), VI (1852), pp. 11–20 (p. 20). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

254 yet nuanced, adult/child dynamic. Their repetitive generational naming of children creates echoes between childhood and adult experience, and parental and pseudo-parental figures either fracture or preserve the traditional relationship between children and adults here. In these novels and this short story, we see childhood expressed as an echo of adult experience, and we begin to see the changing status of both parents and children. I will first analyse parent/child relationships in the texts, especially in reference to absent parents and pseudo-parent figures, before moving onto a more general analysis of childhood experience.

In their writings, Brontë, Thackeray, and Gaskell toy with relationships between adults and children by destabilising and deconstructing them, primarily through adults who act as pseudo-parents to child characters, but also through absent parents. These two kinds of parents are especially interesting in conjunction with one another, as pseudo-parent figures often appear in spaces created by absent parents. This offers a nuanced view of childhood experience in relation to children s relationships to adults. In Wuthering Heights, the primary pseudoparent figure is Nelly, who presents herself as a parental figure to all, even Lockwood. Nelly presides over the narrative, and appears in every generation of it, which gives her a certain authority both in creating and telling it. Catherine Linton almost expressly declares Nelly her pseudo-mother, as she tells her husband ‘next to Papa and Ellen, I love you better than anybody .2 In categorising her father and her nurse together, we can see that Nelly has effectively taken on the role of her mother; she has filled the gap left by Cathy s death. In this sense, childhood experience in Wuthering Heights is dependent on adult relationships and behaviours. This is further seen in Heathcliff s waywardness, as when he is acquired by Mr Earnshaw, ‘not a soul knew to whom he belonged (Brontë, p. 35). Heathcliff is an orphan when we meet him, so he naturally sits outside of the traditional patriarchal family dynamic.

2

Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (New York: Race Point Publishing, 2014), p. 229. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

255 However, even when he works his way into Earnshaw s favour, he is still lacking a traditional family dynamic, as highlighted by the name ‘Heathcliff acting ‘both for Christian and surname (Brontë, p. 36). Heathcliff s childhood experience is framed by parental absence, and his adult life is built around cruelty and self-isolation. Interestingly, not only is Heathcliff s personal experience framed by the lack of parents, but his identity is carved around lacking children; he was named after ‘a son who died in childhood , so we immediately see that Heathcliff, like Nelly for Catherine, fills an absence to preserve a traditional family order (Brontë, p. 37).

In using pseudo-parent figures, Thackeray tends to present a less-dangerous family dynamic than Brontë. We, once again, see a parental absence filled by a pseudo-parent as Amelia gives up her son upon the death of her husband. Amelia does this as she feels she cannot provide for him, whereas, when living with his grandfather, he ‘had every comfort and luxury that a wealthy and lavish old grandfather thought fit to ‘provide .3 In choosing the option which is more emotionally destabilising for herself but provides stability and prosperity for her son, we see that Amelia preserves the safe and secure childhood for Georgy. Furthermore, when William Dobbin offers ‘to take care of Amelia and her unprotected child , it is described as a ‘civilian promise , which highlights the genuine nature of his protective oath, further indicating that pseudo-parent figures can be figures of stability and comfort (Thackeray, p. 673).

Additionally, Thackeray s use of pseudo-parents is more stable than that of Brontë s, as Georgy remains in the family. While Heathcliff is handed over to a complete stranger, and Catherine entrusted to a hired servant, Georgy is put in the safe hands of the man who successfully raised his father. More than a pseudo-parent, Mr Osborne is a grandparent, who will not destabilise familial relationships but ensure a wealthy upbringing of his grandson.

3

William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair (London: Penguin Books, 2003), p. 655. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

256 Often, in Vanity Fair, childhood experience is framed by fragmented parent/child relationships. This is especially true of Rebecca and her son, as ‘she disliked him…. He bored her (Thackeray, p. 518). Despite being physically present in Little Rawdon s childhood, Rebecca is constantly emotionally absent, presented even more clearly as she ‘forgot to take any step whatever about her son (Thackeray, p. 750). The effect that this has on her son is notable most cleverly in the fact that Little Rawdon effectively has no narrative significance.

Thackeray highlights the role of the mother to us in a metatextual way, as Little Rawdon s life is unable to go anywhere significant because of his absent mother, who is herself one of the key characters. It would stand to reason that the child of Rebecca, the protagonist of the novel, has a significant narrative arc of their own, so Thackeray s defiance of this assumption crystallises Little Rawdon s overall insignificance, due to his mother s absent parenting style.

In the progression between these two quotes, we can see that Rebecca goes from disdainful to simply absent-minded about her son, in deep contrast to Amelia who ‘cared for nothing and nobody except Georgy (Thackeray, p. 540). Amelia and Rebecca are constantly posed as foils throughout the novel, which continues into their relationships with their children. Where Amelia is doting, but rendered absent by tragic circumstances, Rebecca is always emotionally absent, and is physically absent as soon as she has the opportunity to travel, at which time she leaves Rawdon in the hands of pseudo-parents Lady Jane and Pitt.

We see a similar dynamic in ‘The Old Nurse s Story , which takes this concept further in order to highlight the generational layers of repetition in parenting behaviours, as characters go on to re-enact their childhood experiences of parenting. There are multiple layers of parenting in this short story, as Gaskell indicates the director of Rosamond s parents wishes, Lord Furnivall; Rosamond s official guardian, Miss Furnivall; her true caretakers in the manor, Dorothy and James; and finally, the true parent figure, Hester, her Nurse. Throughout this story we can see how care of a child is passed around until it falls to the seemingly rightful person,

257 but before even characterising these parents figures deeply, Gaskell highlights the nuances of parenting. There is a multitude of parent figures and parenting styles throughout the short story, so we can see how caring for a child, in a middle-class family, is nuanced and tricky. Firstly, we see how Lord Furnivall ‘never took much notice of Miss Rosamond , possibly due to his unrequited love for her mother, and that Hester doesn t think that Mrs Stark ‘did care for any one, except her mistress (Gaskell, pp. 11, 12). In the first few pages of the story, we already know that her parents have died, and two of the chieftains of Rosamond s care are disinterested, so Gaskell wastes no time in highlighting the absentia and apathy that frames Rosamond s childhood. This is particularly interesting, as we know Hester to become the Nurse for Rosamond s children in the future, so this sense of distance from her own children is replicated from her experience of childhood. Indeed, these three texts are rich in their depiction of generational repetition of action, which aligns with Kathleen Tillotson s idea that midVictorian writers sought to recreate visions of their lost childhood, due to the rapid change seen between their childhood and adulthood. She notes that ‘cut off abruptly from the stagecoach world in their youth, [Victorian writers] prolonged and idealised it in memory. By constantly recreating it, they made good their age s seeming betrayal . 4 Here, Tillotson encapsulates why Victorian texts focus so heavily on generational repetition; because their writers had experienced such intense generational development and change. In Rosamond s case, I would suggest that the concept of apathetic parents is further explored later in the text, when the secret of the manor is divulged. We are told that ‘though she was a wife and a mother, she was not a bit softened , so we can see that the legendary Maude, whose ghost haunts the manor, is also characterised as an overly emotional, uncaring parent (Gaskell, p. 18). Perhaps it is her supernatural presence that infects the behaviours of other guardians in the narrative, creating a

4

Kathleen Tillotson, Novels of the Eighteen-Forties (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), p. 107.

258 predestined predisposition for apathetic parenting, or perhaps Gaskell sought to reclaim a sense of generational stability lacking in her society.

I will now focus on the primary pseudo-parent figure in the story, Hester. Right from the beginning, Hester is tender and motherly towards Rosamond, and even the children in the frame narrative, whom she calls ‘my dears (Gaskell, p. 11). The opening of the narrative sees the tragically early death of Rosamond s parents, which is followed by Hester s oath that she ‘would have gone with the little child to the end of the world , so we can see how Gaskell immediately characterises Hester as a nurturing, devoted guardian for the young orphan (Gaskell, p. 11). I would suggest that the feature of this short story that most consistently and effectively casts Hester in the role of pseudo-parent to Rosamond is the ways in which she refers to the child, such as ‘my little one , ‘my bright and pretty pet , and ‘my darling (Gaskell, pp. 12, 11, 16). Throughout the text, we are constantly reminded of Hester s intimate, protective relationship with Rosamond through her use of affectionate nicknames, which I would argue is especially notable in comparison with the constant, and slightly confusing, naming of other characters with ‘Furnivall . Furthermore, the use of possessive pronouns furthers the sense of ownership and belonging of Rosamond to Hester, meaning that we can see her acute affection for the child, even through the pronouns.

In presenting characters as pseudo-parents in the place of absent parents, we can see that the authors fulfil the expectation of a traditional family dynamic of a parent and child.

Indeed, Thackeray, Gaskell, and Brontë offer an effective substitute for the traditional family, perhaps proposing that the Victorian concept of an ideal family dynamic is outdated and unnecessary. Conversely, we can see how some narratives use pseudo-parent figures to subvert this tradition, and to create more fractured, less symmetrical relationships between children and adults. Finally, there is a stabilising option of pseudo-parents within the family, which subverts the traditional family dynamic, but does not fragment childhood experience.

259 In Vanity Fair and Wuthering Heights, names are key in framing relationships between children and adults, as names are frequently repeated across generations. In Wuthering Heights, we see Catherine reborn in Cathy, and Linton Heathcliff s name echoes former generations in both his forename and surname. Similarly, in Vanity Fair, we follow three generations of George Osbornes, and two Pitt Crawleys. The three Georges are possibly the most significant characters as we can see that the name is a means of framing childhood identity and shaping adult prosperity in Vanity Fair, and even a demonstration of vanity itself. When the eldest George takes over care of his grandson, he ‘was as proud of him as ever he had been of the elder George , so we can see the mirroring not only of names, but of identity (Thackeray, p.

653). Identity is, here, dictated in childhood, so Georgy s grandfather s pride indicates to us that he will grow up to be just like his father, as was predetermined by his name. This repetition of names links childhood and adult experiences, as even when a new generation is born, their life as a child is inherently linked with adult experience through previous generations sharing their names. Gaskell mobilises a similar concept in ‘The Old Nurse s Story , as Hester wishes that Rosamond could grow up in the same place as her mother. This wistful notion of generational repetition is starkly contrasted to the horrific childhood experiences Rosamond has at Furnivall Hall, highlighting how perhaps an identical generational childhood would have been preferable to a more individualised one. Brontë takes on Thackeray s repetition of names and uses it in a different way; to create a sense of haunting, as Lockwood describes the spectral ‘obtrusive name which forbids him from sleeping (Brontë, p. 18). Whilst the repetition of names in Vanity Fair pokes fun at the cyclical nature of children growing into adults, and mirroring their parents, and ‘The Old Nurse s Story positions generational repetition as an ideal, Wuthering Heights uses it far more seriously to portray the unstoppably harrowing nature of perpetuating childhood trauma.

260 Continuing the analysis of Amelia s separation from her son, I would argue that, in their presentation of absent parents, the writers play with contemporary politics surrounding parental authority. Firstly, we can see this when Amelia hands over parental duties to her fatherin-law, as he is more able to provide wealth and stability for her son. This is a gendered decision, as her husband s death did not take away her own wealth but did indeed take away his social authority and influence as a wealthy, successful man and soldier. Thackeray here alludes to contemporary politics, as Berry tells us that mothers were not granted immediate custody of their children upon the father s death until the 1886 Guardianship of Infants Act. Written in 1848, Vanity Fair occupies a moment of parental politics which dictates automatic authority and custody to the father, so I would suggest that Thackeray satirically exaggerates this to the point that even a child s grandfather has more parental authority than the mother, as ‘the law did not accurately reflect rising public sentiment about the family, particularly the role of the mother .5 Here, we can see that Thackeray highlights the undervalued role of the mother in childhood experience, as he presents the socially held view that it is more important to have a socially significant masculine example than a caring female parental figure. There is a similar gendering of parental roles in ‘The Old Nurse s Story , as the unnamed father of Maude s child is constantly absent throughout the child s life. This is a converse gendering of parental roles to that of Thackeray, which could come from differing perspectives of male/female writers.

Gaskell presents to us the conscious absence of fathers, especially in illegitimate or unconventional relationships, whereas Thackeray laments the involuntary absence of a devoted father and highlights a mother s ineptitude in the face of single parenthood. Gaskell s interpretation of motherhood is far more sympathetic: a young woman is abandoned by the father of her child, and left with unaccepting parents, who ultimately cause the death of her and

5

Laura C. Berry, ‘Acts of Custody and Incarceration in Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall , NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, 30 (1996), 32–55 (p. 34). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

261 her young child. For Gaskell, the condemnation of young, single mothers is a matter of life and death, but Thackeray clearly sees it as a commitment to the welfare of a child.

The interplay of gender and parenthood in ‘The Old Nurse s Story continues, as we see how, in a similar way to how Little Georgy s life is dictated by his grandfather, Rosamond s future is decided by a wealthy cousin rather than her primary parental force, Hester. Although Hester is not the biological or familial guardian of Rosamond, she is the force of stability and constancy in her life, as Hester remains consistent when Rosamond loses her parents and moves to live with new guardians. Hester tells us that ‘I should have liked Miss Rosamond s youth to have passed where her mother s had been , and we later know the Manor House to be a place of fear, discontent, and secrets, so we can see that Hester s wishes would have been of greater benefit to the child (Gaskell, p. 11). Despite her proven wisdom, and her closeness to Rosamond, Hester simply has to obey orders following the death of Rosamond s parents. This appears to be an allegory for the status of mothers, similarly to that of Vanity Fair. Written in 1852, this story also predates any real rights for mothers, so it is clear that both Thackeray and Gaskell highlight the diminished role of the mother by suggesting that a distantly related male relative is of more influence and benefit to a child than their mother/mother figure. Indeed, Emily Brontë considers this same public sentiment in her writing. In Wuthering Heights, mothers are othered almost completely, featuring generally only in death or in ‘pseudo form, whereas father figures are presented as more instrumental in crafting childhood experience. In a similar way to Thackeray and Gaskell, Brontë considers a parent s death in order to present masculine parental dominance, but we also see an absence of mothers rather than of only a father, or both parents. There is no significant mother figure for either Heathcliff and Cathy, or Edgar and Catherine, all of whom are emotionally unstable and wild. Thus, where Thackeray light-heartedly satirises the diminished role of the mother, Brontë is more aligned with Gaskell in seriously highlighting the danger of entrusting childhood stability with the father, or a

262 masculine guardian figure, alone. For Thackeray, the mother is a submissive, absent figure, whereas for Brontë and Gaskell, the absence of any maternal power is a tragedy which perpetuates childhood instability.

In relation to contemporary social outlook on childhood, both novels were written shortly after, but set securely before the Infant Custody Bill of 1839, which saw the status of a child shift from being property to a recognised person (Berry, p. 32). I would suggest that Heathcliff s narrative—a warped ‘rags to riches story—neatly echoes this social development, as we see him grow from an orphan whose pronouns were originally ‘it rather than ‘he , to ‘usurper of [Earnshaw] s affections , and finally to the ‘landlord of Thrushcross Grange (Brontë, pp. 33, 36, 1). Heathcliff begins as subhuman and grows to become the favourite child; through Heathcliff s progress in his childhood, we can track the progressing status of the child in the eye of the law. Additionally, in ‘The Old Nurse s Story , we hear the narrative of an unwanted, hidden child go from shame and invisibility to a haunting dominance, as Maude s daughter is a visceral, powerful force even after her death. I would also suggest that the significance of pseudo-parent figures in these texts is possible only through the expanding personhood and agency of the child, as they are only able to be parental figures by being seen as a guiding force by the child themselves. If the attachments of children were not figured as narratively important, as is possible through expanding childhood agency, pseudo-parent figures in literature would not be possible.

Vani

Fair,

The Old Nurse s Story , and Wuthering Heights offer nuanced

perspectives of childhood, figuring them not only as echoes, but as a force of creating adult experiences. These narratives frame childhood in relation to adult experience primarily, and most interestingly, through the role of parents. The parent/child dynamic is identified as the closest and most intricate adult/child relationship, and the one through which children understand adulthood. As Thackeray, Brontë, and Gaskell toy with these relationships by

263 figuring and refiguring them, they truly highlight the importance of parent-like figures on children s development. The pseudo-parental figures disrupt the traditional dynamic, as they are able to occupy a space of deep care without biological attachment, and biological parents are often characterised as cold and uncaring. Whilst biological parents are cold figures, who offer their children little but transgenerational burdens, pseudo-parents offer warmth, love, and a model for children to follow. Thackeray, Brontë, and Gaskell draw on contemporary thought on the role of parents and the status of the child, to open up a new space for parents in narratives, offering a nuanced perspective on childhood experience.

Works cited Berry, Laura C., ‘Acts of Custody and Incarceration in Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall , NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, 30 (1996), 32–55 Brontë, Emily, Wuthering Heights (New York: Race Point Publishing, 2014) Gaskell, Elizabeth, ‘The Old Nurse s Story , in Household Words: A Weekly Journal, ed. by Charles Dickens, 19 vols (London: Bradbury & Evans, 1850–59), VI (1852), pp. 11– 20 Thackeray, William Makepeace, Vanity Fair (London: Penguin Books, 2003) Tillotson, Kathleen, Novels of the Eighteen-Forties (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956)

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69160

Disturbing Identity: Migrants and Refugees as Abject Age

i Fa ih A i

Edge of Heaven

Erin Waks

According to psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva, the abject is what disturbs identity, system, order [...] [and] does not respect borders, position, rules .1 Kristeva defines the abject as a state in which a subject does not fit neatly within a boundary, rendering it undefinable, and thus resulting in feelings of horror, or abjection, towards it. In line with this, Fatih Akin s migrant and refugee characters in the film Auf der anderen Seite undermine what is constituted by national categories and identities, by destabilising their very meaning. 2 Amongst academic criticism on the film, much of the film s politics of nationalism have been examined, particularly in relation to the politics of exclusion and isolation that are brought to light in the film. The way in which characters belong to dual categories, and have multiple allegiances, is of particular prevalence within analysis of the film. 3 Within the context of popular Turkish films depicting themes of migration and exile, particularly amongst other films by Akin and

1

Julia Kristeva and Leon S. Roudiez, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 4. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

2 Auf der anderden Seite (The Edge of Heaven/Ya am n K s nda), dir. by Fatih Akin (Anka Film, Corazon International, Dorje Film and Norddeutscher Rundfunk, 2007). Further references to this film are given after quotations in the text.

3 M i ad Nic C ai h, Mig a W i i g a d he Re-I agi ed C i : Di c e f I c i /E c i , German Politics & Society, 33 (2015), 84 99 (p. 84).

265 even more so in relation to waves of Turkish immigration to Germany, this film depicts the reality of such migrants and refugees.4 For example, similar films by Akin include Crossing the Bridge and The Cut, and other films in the genre are typified by works such as Farewell to False Paradise by Tevfik Ba er. Building on this, using a psychoanalytic theory, Kristeva s notion of abjection, often associated with horror, to discuss nationalism in a non-horror film, illuminates the ways in which the treatment of outsiders is innately horrific rather than purely political, and causes equally abhorrent feelings and disgust.

The film is centred around the lives of three families, all of whom are abject due to their dual nationalities or status as exiled. First, there is the Ozturk family Yeter, the mother, moves from Turkey to Germany and works as a prostitute, eventually being hired by Ali Aksu, another Turkish immigrant living in Germany. His son, Nejat, later meets Yeter s daughter Ayten, after his father kills her mother. He tries to help her, as do Lotte and Susannah, a German mother and daughter who react differently to one another in response to Ayten s illegal status in Germany. The themes of the film are centred around the meaning of immigration, national identity and belonging. In turn, the protagonists do not respect rules , leading to the horror caused by such abject states (Kristeva and Roudiez, p. 4). These abject characters disturb the German-Turkish binary and are consequently exiled or hated. This essay employs Kristeva s theoretical framework regarding the abject, in conjunction with ideas about national identity stemming from Homi K. Bhabha s The Location of Culture, in order to argue that such characters are presented in this way due to their need to define themselves against such national identities, thereby creating their own individual, hybrid identity. 5 This discussion will use English subtitles of the film in order to examine its presentation and reception within Europe, although it must be noted that this is indicative of the importance of crossing language barriers,

4

Jame P. Ma i , C i g B idge /C i gC e : The Fi f Fa ih Aki , South Atlantic Review, 74 (2009), 82 92 (pp. 82 92); M ie C ica , Ma c i i a d T a a i a Pa adig : The Ci e a f Fa ih Aki , Colloquia Germanica, 46 (2013), 21 46 (p. 22).

5 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 4.

266 and thus national borders, a further reflection of the film s transnational aims. This article will analyse how abject figures do not fit within either their home or host culture, before moving on to an examination of how such cultures can never be fully observed, as they are not innately homogenous. This will reveal how the abject state is, in Akin s film, essential, for, in line with Kristeva s ideas, it permits the characters to define and create their own individual identities, rather than conforming to a pre-given set of rules.

Abject characters define themselves as such by departing their native country and attempting to integrate within a host society, in this case Germany. It is their inability to do so, which highlights their outsider status, thus transforming into a rebellion against the system.

The abject in this film refers to the subject position in which each protagonist finds themselves, by their position as characters with dual national allegiances. Since all characters openly display signs of both German and Turkish identity, it is arguable that they embody these characteristics due to their inability to hide their full identity, so identify themselves as such.

They are abject to both the viewer and to themselves, as they all openly struggle with the sense of belonging. Kristeva argues that abject lives are based on exclusion , suggesting that despite initial attempts to integrate, these characters will never be able to fully do so (Kristeva and Roudiez, p. 6). Structurally, the film is based on three parts, the first two demonstrating the incongruity of characters within their host culture. Entitled Yeter s death and Lotte s death , both take place outside of the native homeland of the subject, implying the inevitable failure of each character to escape the reach of cultural boundaries, since each character dies once attempting to leave the constraints of their national boundary, or homeland. Yeter Ozturk, a Turkish prostitute living in Germany, and her daughter Ayten, a Turk seeking refuge in Germany, face the struggles of refuge, political asylum and outsider status. Repeated extreme close-ups, for instance on buses, draw attention to their darker complexions in comparison to others on the bus. Both are revealed as Turkish from the start Yeter through her own

267 admission, Ayten due to her primary location in Istanbul and heavily accented English, a further example of her inability to leave behind her national roots despite trying to integrate into a more globalized, anglicized society. Perhaps, then, Germany comes to represent Western society, and Turkey the East. Consequently, the film comments upon the inability of any outsiders to integrate within Western society. As such, native national identity is highlighted, and cannot be ignored or escaped for the remainder of the film, in Yeter s case for the rest of her life.

Commentary on the inability to fit into society can be examined from the outset with the character of Ali Aksu, an elderly Turkish man living in Bremen, Germany. During the first scene in Germany, Ali walks in the opposite direction to a protest for European unity, alone.

The wide camera angle, focusing on his smile and confidence whilst walking against other Germans, elucidates not only his inability, but also his unwillingness, to conform to German society. His isolation, emphasised through the mise-en-scène through his appearance as the sole subject of the camera s focus, in the centre of the wide shot, further accentuates his lack of social integration. He later meets the Turkish prostitute, Yeter. Even whilst trying to conform to Western society, using German prostitutes who speak the German language, Ali is drawn to Yeter, without knowing she is Turkish. The dark colouring of Yeter s apartment draws Ali in by its contrast in tone from the outside, and by its sensual allure, with the main tone being red.

He looks down on her, perhaps indicating his attraction to other outcasts, further emphasised.

This suggests unquestionable loyalty, and attraction, to his native culture, albeit subconsciously. The reverse camera angle here also alternates between filming from behind each character, whilst keeping the back of the head of the other in the shot. This means that they appear to be on the same level, perhaps indicating their linked identities as outsiders. Ali is later deported back to Turkey, proving his inability to escape his Turkish roots. His nonchalance during the bridging deportation scene reflects his acceptance of Turkey as his

268 homeland. He tries to conform to German society, but loyalty to his Turkish culture means he cannot fully transcend this border. Consequently, he is stuck in the liminal space, on neither side of a national border, the abject state. Ali cannot integrate, so constantly reaffirms his Turkish identity, which is further demonstrated through the paralleled composition and graphic match of the scenes when showing Ali and Yeter during their first exchange. He is not successful in resolving the tensions that [the immigrant s] liminal position at the crossover between differing and overlapping social, cultural and political environments entails .6 He is stuck in this position, unable to wholly conform to new German values of Western superiority and European integration.

Nonetheless, even though migrants and refugees in Akin s film are not fully accepted by their host country, they are no longer acceptable to their home nation either. A direct link can be made between this liminality and the existence of the abject as described in Kristeva s work, suggesting that the horror shown towards these abject characters stems from their inability to conform and society s rejection of them. It is perhaps these migrants from the East to the West, who are not accepted, and are thus seen as abject. Turkish migrants, including refugees and those seeking asylum, like Ayten, are the ones who receive the harshest treatment.

This horror, which manifests as hatred in the German characters in the film, namely Susannah, is shown by their double exclusion, whereby they are excluded from Turkish identity as well as German. Yeter s scene on the bus where two Turkish men confront her on a train for her prostitution is paramount to this. In chastising her for her betrayal of Turkish, and specifically Muslim values, the men tell her to repent, the imperative stressing how her actions cannot be a part of Turkish identity (Akin, 09:25). Repetition of the verb repent underlines the severity of her perceived betrayal, thereby highlighting the disgrace she has brought upon Turkish

6

Ma c He g, C i g Back a d F h: Ide i a d Be gi g ac a d be d B de ed W d i he Fi f Fa ih Aki , Bordered Places - Bounded Times: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Turkey, 51 (2017), 195 205 (p. 199). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

269 people living in Germany by undermining her native identity. Visually, the mise-en-scène displays Yeter and the two men through individual close-up camera angles, dividing them from one another, thus suggesting that Yeter can share neither their visual space, nor their Turkish identity from their point of view, due to her alleged betrayal of it. Thus, Yeter has strayed too far from her roots to be fully accepted, demonstrated by her initial reluctance to speak Turkish, and consolidated by her lack of return to Turkey until her death. Similarly, her daughter is expelled from a Turkish safehouse upon arrival in Germany, due to the loud and aggressive register she uses against another member. Even amongst other refugees, she cannot integrate, perhaps suggesting her abject state within her own home culture. In direct contrast from the close-up camera angles of Yeter s expulsion from Turkish culture on the train, the director employs a wide shot here, which allows Ayten s violent body movements and aggression to play out on screen. Unlike Yeter, Ayten s abject dislocation from both German and Turkish cultures takes up more visual space, indicating a restlessness and discomfort with her abject national identity, and the anxiety felt through her lack of belonging to any culture. The tone and volume of her voice here is indicative of the passion with which she feels this disconnect from many other Turks. As such, neither Ozturk is welcome within their native culture, and is physically and verbally reminded of this throughout the film.

Whilst Ayten and Yeter are obviously chastised by characters of different national backgrounds, some characters in the film feel their abject status more subtly than this. Nejat Aksu, perhaps the most assimilated within German society as a professor of German literature, also cannot fully integrate with Turkey, despite being partially Turkish by nationality. He is, as Isenberg suggests, indicative of an identity of intersections that is, a hybrid, whilst also being seen as an outsider and treated with the politics of exclusion, again due to the fear of the other, the disgust towards the abject. 7 Nejat enjoys Turkish food, including Yeter s borek and

7

N ah I e be g, Fa ih Aki ' Ci e a f I e ec i

, Film Quarterly, 64 (2011), 53 61 (p. 58).

270 Turkish literature alongside his academic passion for German literature, demonstrated through his career as an academic specialist in German literature. But, when he returns to Turkey for the first time in the film, in the film s establishing shot Nejat is seen driving alone, indicating his separation from Turkish culture, and pre-empting the theme of isolation and loneliness which reflects the abject state of protagonists throughout the film. This bridging scene demonstrates the distance Nejat must travel in order to reconnect with his Turkish roots, indicating his separation from them. When arriving at a petrol station on the Black Sea, a seaside region en route to Turkey, he does not recognise the Turkish music of Kazim Koyuncu, to the surprise of the other men at the station. 8 He stares at the shelves, unsure of what to buy.

His insecurity here is reinforced by his lack of eye contact with the other Turkish men, suggesting his inability to fully feel at home, as does his uncertainty pertaining to music and food. The diegetic music, in the background and as the focal point of the conversation, mirrors the paradox of his confused Turkish identity it is merely a background to his identity, whilst still being constantly present. Therefore, Nejat s loyalty to his Turkish roots is highlighted, but cannot be fully observed, as he has become too integrated within German culture. Nejat s hybrid identity, like Yeter s, depicts his status as abject he can fully belong to neither culture.

Furthermore, Akin demonstrates the impossibility of conforming to cultural stereotypes due to the heterogeneity of each individual national culture. 9 As such, his characters do not fit expected moulds, and so they are innately abject even within national boundaries. Applying Kristeva s theoretical framework here, one could see how even within one nation, these characters can be seen as, and present themselves as, abject because they find their own ways of expressing their culture, rather than following stereotypical cultural practices. Writing about

8

Be a G e e i, The S d f Fa ih Aki ' Ci e a: P h a d he Ae he ic f He e ge ei i The Edge f Hea e , German Studies Review, 37 (2014), 337 56 (pp. 340 42). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

9 Elleke Boehmer, Stories of Women: Gender and Narrative in the Postcolonial Nation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), p. 107.

271 language and music in The Edge of Heaven, Berna Gueneli argues the film presents a 'European polyphony':

All characters speak differently, and, therefore, migrants and foreigners are not singled out, but are integral to the film's multifaceted European soundtrack. Appearing in Germany and Turkey, these sounds help to create a similar aural space featuring multilingualism and accented languages across borders.

(Gueneli, p. 350)

Language, accent and music form part of the varied cultural fabric of German and Turkish identity. The music in the film, written and arranged by DJ Shantel, a German DJ, reflects the range of influences in German and Turkish music a musical reflection of the mixing of national identities throughout the film. During travel scenes, Turkish music without lyrics is played. Whilst this demonstrates the influence of Turkish musical expression, the music also indicates through its absence of lyrics that experience does not always need a national language it is emotional, not categorizable. Also, the variety of music in both cultures demonstrates their polyphony. In Germany, the night club, which is the culmination of the blend of cultures, plays diegetic Turkish music in the background. The blend is mirrored by Lotte, a German, and Ayten, a Turk, sharing an intimate moment, in a similar way to how the music depicts a sharing and fusion of culture. However, the racking focus of the camera eventually settles on the couple despite being surrounded by many others, and jarring lighting.

Simultaneously, the close-up frontal camera angle, focusing on this couple but set against a slightly blurred background of a range of other people, reminds the viewer of the multitude of identities within a nation, represented by the collective, whilst reminding us that it is the creation of individual identity as a result of immigration and fusion, shown by the intimate couple, which is the cause of such variety. As such, the blend of musical styles depicts the

272 heterogeneity of identities within a culture, and the importance of the individual as its cause.

Thus, each individual inevitably falls into the abject state, since it is impossible to fit into one category perfectly as these categories are neither homogenous, nor essentialist (Herzog, p.

197).

So, what is the significance of this nationally dictated state of abjection? In Akin s film, abject characters use national categories to define themselves relationally and contrapuntally; that is, against cultures and ideas, rather than confining themselves to them. Applying Bhabha s theory of hybridity here, that individuals create a discrete identity against constrictive national categories, one can see how Akin uses his film to question these constructed boundaries, thereby allowing the protagonists to break these constraints and forge their own identities.

Through Bhabha s Third Space theory, the characters must forge identities that belong to neither category

they are unique, individual (Bhabha, p. 6). This theory posits that no being

can fall entirely within one national identity if they are the subject of various backgrounds, countries of birth, or parental nationality. As such, they must occupy the Third Space, which, like the abject, is a state in which the subject falls into multiple categories, but also none.

Instead, the subject has their own individual identity, which is distinct from all and any others.

This is in line with Kristeva s approach, as she writes that:

What is abject is not my correlative, which, providing me with someone or something else as support, would allow me to be more or less detached and autonomous. The abject has only one quality of the object

that of being opposed to I. (Kristeva and Roudiez, p. 1)

Akin s film is about defining oneself in relation to, and in opposition to, national culture. It is not important whether or not one fits the typical support network of a culture, but whether they are opposed to it. It is about individual and social struggles for recognition,

273 self-determination and the freedom to develop one s communal and social attachments without coercion , rather than needing to fit within a national culture (Her og, p. 202). The film depicts abjection as a process, an experience of relations and exclusions, rather than the refusal of assimilation. For instance, Ayten s actions are driven by the need for social change in terms of equality and education, not out of innate attraction to a certain culture. She defines her desires against what she sees in other cultures. In a pivotal scene in Susannah s kitchen, she shouts I don t trust the European Union , and fuck the European Union (Akin, 48:58). Taking place during Ayten s stay in this German home, it is indicative of the dichotomy between Ayten s anti-establishment views, and Susannah s pro-European stance. Ayten is neither driven by Turkish values, against which she is fighting, nor by European values, as demonstrated by her aggressive tone in responding to Susannah, Lotte s German mother, and her affirmation of Eurocentric values. She is purely fighting for what she personally and individually believes is right. The costumes Ayten wears are significantly darker than those in Susannah s kitchen or clothing. Her clothes are partially borrowed from Lotte: she has learnt and been influenced by both cultures, and then takes her own approach. This is mirrored through her journey in the film she has left Turkey, but cannot integrate within Germany, the culmination of which is her deportation. Thus, she is an outsider in both cultures, so defines herself in opposition to both, as Susannah labels her, someone who just likes to fight (Akin, 48:39).

Visually, Ayten s politics of self-location are displayed.10 When she leaves Turkey, she sits on a boat amongst others, however, when she returns, she stands at the front of the boat. The camera angle films her from behind, staring out into the open sea, away from the direction in which she is moving, so facing Germany when returning to Turkey. She is alone and is the focus of the medium shot, perhaps depicting her success at forging her own individual

10

GĂśnĂźl DĂśnmez-Colin, Turkish Cinema: Distance, Identity and Belonging (London: Reaktion Books, 2008), p.

15.

274 identity. The pace of the scene slows, and there is an absence of dialogue, suggesting Ayten s individual sense of peace that cannot fit within common discourse and language. The angle from behind indicates Akin s perspective that this is the goal, the creation of the I , to adopt Kristeva s phraseology. The sea, as well as the wind blowing Ayten s hair, depicts her freedom, which has only arisen as a result of her experiences rooted in various national cultures. As such, the depiction of Ayten as abject highlights the purpose of the abject as a need to define oneself against national cultures, breaking these boundaries, in order to develop a sense of self.

To conclude, through an analysis of Kristeva s notion of the abject in relation to the portrayal of migrants and refugees within Edge of Heaven, it can be argued that Akin s characters become excluded from multiple national identities, resulting in a state of a lack of belonging, or isolation. Against the backdrop of Turkish and German cultures, Akin s characters fail to fit within either binary. They are neither fully German nor wholly Turkish, and even so, cannot fit within either due to the heterogeneity of each culture. As such, Akin s message goes a step further. His abject characters are shown as such not because of a failure to conform, but rather a need to rebel or fight a need to, as Kristeva argues, define oneself in opposition to what causes such horror, the ultimate abject state.

Works cited Auf der anderden Seite (The Edge of Heaven/Ya am n K s nda), dir. by Fatih Akin (Anka Film, Corazon International, Dorje Film and Norddeutscher Rundfunk, 2007) Bhabha, Homi K., The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 2004) Boehmer, Elleke, Stories of Women: Gender and Narrative in the Postcolonial Nation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), p. 107 Cormican, Muriel, Masculinity and Transnational Paradigms: The Cinema of Fatih Akin , Colloquia Germanica, 46 (2013), 21 46

275 Craith, Máiréad Nic,

Migrant Writing and the Re-Imagined Community: Discourses of

Inclusion/Exclusion , German Politics & Society, 33 (2015), 84 99 Dönmez-Colin, Gönül, Turkish Cinema: Distance, Identity and Belonging (London: Reaktion Books, 2008) Gueneli, Berna, The Sound of Fatih Akin's Cinema: Polyphony and the Aesthetics of Heterogeneity in The Edge of Heaven , German Studies Review, 37 (2014), 337 56 Herzog, Marc, Crossing Back and Forth: Identity and Belonging across and beyond Bordered Worlds in the Films of Fatih Akin , Bordered Places - Bounded Times: CrossDisciplinary Perspectives on Turkey, 51 (2017), 195 205 Isenberg, Noah, Fatih Akin's Cinema of Intersections , Film Quarterly, 64 (2011), 53 61 Kristeva, Julia, and Leon S. Roudiez, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982) Martin, James P., Crossing Bridges/Crossing Cultures: The Films of Fatih Akin , South Atlantic Review, 74 (2009), 82 92

Wonderer Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 Winter (2020) · Copyright © 2020 · DOI: 10.26494/WONDERER69141

Modernist Geographies: The Interconnection Between Space and Identity in Virginia Woolf and Jean Rhys Rose-Anne Wright

Modernist geographies involve complex subjective and objective spaces, paying close attention to the physical, abstract, and socially constructed nuances of geography. These spaces are used

by Modernist authors to explore how identity is shaped by environmental factors. In the words of Matthe Beaumont, [a] series of significant European novels in the earl t entieth centur situated the relationship bet een the cit and consciousness, the metropolis and mental life . 1 Modernist literature displays the metropolis as a place that is difficult to navigate and one that holds an inexplicable emptiness, a place that can inherently affects one s sense of self and overstimulate the mind. Using Jean Rh s Voyage in the Dark (1934) and Virginia Woolf s Jacob

Room (1922), I will explore physical, intimate spaces such as rooms and houses as

well as more abstract, subjective spaces such as London, the West Indies, Greece and Cambridge. Both novels utilise spatial complexities as a lens, through which the central characters view themselves and use as a catalyst to explore their own identities.

1

Matthe Beaumont, Modernism and the Urban Imaginar 1: Spectacle and Introspection , in The Cambridge History of Modernism, ed. by Vincent Sherry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2017), pp. 220 34 (p.

222).

277

Voyage in the Dark explores subjective geographies by polarising London, where Anna Morgan now lives, and the West Indies, where she grew up. From the outset, Anna observes [i]t s funn ho

parts of London are as empt as if the

ere dead . 2 Subverting common

views of the metropolis, Rhys portrays London not as bustling or exciting but as a harrowing place which, for Anna, radiates a vast emptiness which she likens to death. The West Indies, ho ever, is here Anna feels comfortable, as she states, sometimes I ould shut m e es and pretend that the heat of the fire, or the bed-clothes drawn up round me, was sun-heat (Rh s, p. 3). Rhys uses colour to juxtapose the locations, associating London with dullness and emptiness, and the West Indies as a place of light and colour. The West Indies immediately becomes somewhere that Anna, in her mind, returns for comfort and uses as an escape from the unsettling metropolitan life she leads in London. The comple it in Anna s relationship bet een the t o spaces is apparent from the beginning. She states, sometimes it was as if I were back there and as if England was a dream. At other times England was the real thing and out there as the dream, but I could never fit them together (Rh s, p. 4). Anna feels no sense of belonging in England but is physically trapped there, whereas the West Indies is a space that connects with her mentally but has become physically far removed. Anna is therefore left with fragments and memories of her home, a place she can visit onl in her mind. Anna s vivid memories of the West Indies, which arrive when her eyes are closed, reinforce the fact that the t o locations are separated from each other and

ill never be able to merge in Anna s mind

due to the polar associations she makes with both.

Rh s displa s Anna s associations

ith both London and the West Indies as spaces

which are socially constructed, due to the expectations coming from those around her. Despite growing up in the Caribbean, Anna is a white woman, but she does not identify with the social

2

Jean Rhys, Voyage in the Dark (London: Penguin Modern Classics, 2019), p. 32. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

278

indicators of whiteness, such as grammatically correct English, for example. Anna recounts her stepmother s prejudices to ards both herself and their famil s black servant, Francine, b scathing the

a that the communicate. Hester states, When ou

together in the pantr I never could tell

hich one of ou

ere jabbering a a

as speaking (Rh s, p. 52). It is

very probable that Hester is referring to the use of African American Vernacular English when she speaks of Anna and Francine s jabbering , sho ing that she is unable to recognise the individuality of people who use AAVE, reducing them merely to foreign subjects. The two women are subjected to a form of tone policing, showing that Anna is trapped by prejudice, even in her hometown and even as a white woman attempting to navigate her identity. When reflecting on her childhood, Anna states, I anted to be black. I al a s as happ because Francine as there

anted to be black. I

Being black is arm and ga , being hite is cold and

sad (Rh s, pp. 23 4). Rhys uses divisions bet een black and hite to reflect Anna s internal struggle with being white but identifying more with people of colour, creating a clash between the persona that Anna is expected to embody in a white family, and the character that Anna feels is true to herself. This notion is emphasised b Rh s s contrasts between the warm and cold in the above quote, she subsequentl relates this contrast to Anna s perception of blackness and whiteness; Anna associates England and whiteness with coldness and sadness, whereas blackness, for her, signifies the warm and the happy, reminding her of home. Anna also recalls being joyful in the presence of Francine, suggesting that she felt free in the company of people from her birthplace, whereas in England she often refers to feeling out of place and smothered by expectations to maintain behaviours that are supposedly indicative of whiteness.

England is presented through the post-colonial ga e, as Anna s diasporic e perience represents an attempt by others, especially her stepmother, to integrate her into British culture.

Anna s boisterousness and unruliness are frequently coded as black, which is evident when Hester tells her I tried to teach ou to talk like a lad and behave like a lad and not a nigger

279

and of course I couldn t do it (Rh s, p. 52). Anna is portra ed as unladylike purely because she resists behaving in such a a that is supposedl indicative of hiteness. Hester s gro ing resentment of Anna is a product of her o n prejudices and Anna s inabilit to conform, hich reflects Anna s alienation from ever one around her. Hester s use of a racial slur perpetuates this detachment and Anna s conflicted identit , as she is persecuted for behaving in a a that is true to herself, and these behaviours are consistently racialised by her loved ones. Rhys explores Anna s disdain at her o n conversation

hiteness further b interjecting Anna and Hester s

ith another memor of Francine in Dominica. Anna believes that she disliked

me too because I was white; and that I would never be able to explain to her that I hated being hite (Rh s, p. 58). Rh s reinforces that Anna is, internall , bet een the boundar of black and white, making it difficult to fit in with those around her, and this division emphasises Anna s identit crisis and her feelings of rejection due to being misunderstood by almost ever one around her. It is interesting to note that Vo age in the Dark t o tunes , signif ing t o quite separate and confrontational

as originall called

orlds , referring to the

Caribbean and London respectively. 3 The final title, Voyage in the Dark, holds atlanticist connotations; the coupling of vo age and dark is suggestive of slave vo ages during the transatlantic slave trade, an interesting nuance given that Anna is so evidently disconcerted by her uprooting from the West Indies and is unable to adapt to British metropolitan life. Anna s physical voyage is also a catalyst for her mental decline, as she is displaced and left in the metaphorical darkness, which stems from her inability to make sense of her own identity.

Physical and concrete spaces such as rooms, houses and bedsits are also utilised to displa Anna s unstable sense of home, the

esternised spaces in

hich she finds herself are

deemed to be cold and dissatisfying. Anna describes Walter s room as cold as ice and states

3

Elaine Savor , Writing colour, riting Caribbean: Voyage in the Dark and the Politics of Colour , in Jean Rhys (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 85 108 (p. 89).

280

that there

asn t a sound from an

here , sho ing that she struggles to feel comfortable

anywhere due to the lack of sound, life and warmth that she associates with England (Rhys, p.

17). Space, whether physical or abstract, is clearly a major deciding point as to whether Anna feels at home an

here, regardless of hoever is in her compan (Rh s, p. 17). In Anna s first

place of rent, she is scolded for arriving back in the early hours of the morning, the landlady stating, I don t ant no tarts in m house and thus persecuting Anna s unregulated se ualit (Rhys, p. 22). Similarly, she is made to feel misunderstood and resented by Ethel, the woman hom Anna later sta s

ith, as she becomes irritated ith Anna s nature. She states

ou can

clear out. You re no good; I don t ant ou here and You re not all there; ou re a half pott bastard (Rhys, p. 120). Anna s identit is consistentl scrutinised b those ho disapprove of it or do not understand it, which emphasises her unstable sense of self. The people who occupy these rooms discussed above, such as the landladies, Ethel and Walter, all reject her in some a , further perpetuating Anna s emptiness in a space

here she cannot be understood b

anyone or connect with anyone other than her own mind. Anna is therefore unable to occupy a space and make it her own. She attempts to find homes in Ethel and Walter, but their rejection and indeed, societ s entire rejection of Anna leads her sense of home to remain broken, fragmented, and temporary.

Rh s s use of physical space in Voyage in the Dark is also notably ambiguous. In many cases, Anna does not give many details about the rooms themselves and her judgement is predominantly led by how the rooms make her feel, rather than their physical attributes, which blurs the boundary between objective and subjective space. The novel closes in the room of Anna s ne

landlad , follo ing her abortion. The section opens

ith Anna s statement that

The room as nearl dark but there as a long ellow ray coming in under the door from the light in the passage. I la and

atched it (Rh s, p. 151). Much like the earlier discussion of

Walter s bedroom, Rh s describes this room using colour and feeling, relating it to Anna s

281

mental consciousness. The darkness in the room, with a single strip of yellow light, appears to be the onl palpable aspect to Anna, given Rh s s lack of detail here about the room itself.

Walter s room as cold hilst Mrs Polo s room is dark, suggesting that Anna cannot recognise finer details of these rooms, as they merge together and all appear the same in her mind, which echoes Anna s earlier claims that the streets of London all look the same. Between hallucinating and hearing Laurie speak to Anna s ne

landlad about her condition, Rhys

e presses Anna s incoherent ideas of starting all over again , hich is ironic given her current feelings of entrapment in a dark room and in chronic condition (Rhys, p. 155). However, Anna s mention of ello

light casting a beam in the room s mbolises a small sense of hope

as the novel closes. It is significant that Anna focuses on this light and ponders obsessively about a new start, as it suggests that she is determined to find her place in the world. Physical spaces, then, are frequently used by Rhys to assist with exploring the subjectivity of spatial relations. Space and geography are almost entirely subjective throughout the novel and is used as a tool to e plore Anna s fragmented identit and sense of home.

Woolf s Jacob

Room uses differing geographies to depict the development of Jacob

Flanders, the novel s central character. Unlike Voyage in the Dark, this novel uses third person narrative, meaning that Jacob s internal consciousness is rarel e plored; e often learn about him through the women in his life as he moves through various spaces. However, subjective space is significant throughout the novel; each phase of Jacob s life is sho n through the lens of the cities he inhabits. In Cambridge, the speaker marvels at the cit s brightness, questioning Does Cambridge burn not onl into the night but into the da ? , portra ing it as a cit

hich

does not sleep and one which may provide Jacob with the opportunity to thrive. 4 Jacob himself

4

Virginia Woolf, Jacob Room, ed. by Kate Flint (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 38. Further references to this text are given after quotations in the text.

282

is also exceptionally bright, almost mirroring the atmosphere of Cambridge, and his individuality becomes apparent at this point:

Anyhow, whether undergraduate or shop boy, man or woman, it must come as a shock around the age of twenty-the world of the elderly-thrown up in such black outline upon what we are; upon the reality; the moors and B ron; the sea and the lighthouse; the sheep s ja

ith the ello

teeth in it; upon the

obstinate irrepressible conviction which makes youth so intolerably disagreeable

I am hat I am, and

intend to be it, for hich there ill be no form in the orld unless Jacob makes one for himself.

(Woolf, p. 44)

Jacob s identit is ambiguous and enigmatic to those around him. As readers,

e are a are

that he is defiant, obstinate, and independent but other than this, Jacob s true sense of self is not trul kno n and is complicated b Woolf s aversion of the first-person narrative, as also seen in Woolf s Mrs Dalloway, where Clarissa becomes a vast shell of a being whose affects are intensel observed b those around her. The quoted line of speech, I am

hat I am and

intend to be it , presumabl spoken or thought by Jacob, displays a determination to be whatever it is that he was born to be, yet it appears that neither himself or anybody else quite knows what that is, as Jacob must make his own destiny using the world around him (Woolf, p. 44). The narrator creates an urgenc in Jacob s need to determine this fate, stating that there ill be no form in the

orld unless Jacob creates it for himself, impl ing that Jacob is his

own man and that there is nobody like him; this is why there is no mould for him to look upon, his destin is trul his o n in the making. Woolf s consistent use of third person narrative shows that although he may not realise it, Jacob dominates spaces and catches the attention of both strangers, such as the elderly woman in the train carriage, and the women that he has more intimate relations

ith throughout. Jacob s presence is strong et almost ghostl , as he is

283

portrayed through a series of memories, spaces, and people, which therefore render him inaccessible and untouchable.

The metropolis is used later in the novel to displa Jacob s uneasiness in these spaces, and this is particularly true of London. Like Anna in Voyage in the Dark, Jacob appears to feel out of place in London. The speaker states:

Nothing could appear more certain from the steps of St Paul s than that each person is miraculousl provided

ith coat, skirt, and boots; an income; an object. Onl Jacob, carr ing in his hand Finla s

Byzantine Empire, which he had bought in Ludgate Hill, looked a little different.

(Woolf, p. 87)

The speaker suggests that Jacob stands out from other people in the heart of the city and is unfamiliar with the overwhelming metropolis. The speaker refers to the surrounding people in vague terms, their only defining features being the everyday items of clothing we so often see, and objects, which are not specified. Yet Jacob, in the heart of the metropolis, is given far more specificit b the narrator. There is a close focus on Jacob s object, Finla s Byzantine Empire, suggesting that he is truly seen by the narrator and removed from the ordinary cycles of ever da life; the cro ds on the steps of St Paul s appear to have no individualit , the blend into each other whilst Jacob is immediately identifiable from the masses.

In The Metropolis and Mental Life , Georg Simmel theorises that The relationships and concerns of the t pical metropolitan resident are so manifold and comple that [ ] their relationships and activities intertwine with one another into a many-membered organism .5 Jacob, as a current metropolitan resident in London, holds complex relationships with others

5

Georg Simmel, The Metropolis and Mental Life , in Modernism: An Anthology of Sources and Documents, ed.

by Vassiliki Kolocotroni, Jane Goldman and Olga Taxidou (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), pp.

51 60 (p. 54).

284

due to his secluded demeanour. The mechanical nature of the metropolis, as Simmel suggests, fuels his enigmatic personality, and allows him to blend into the crowd and remain inaccessible, whilst also allowing those around him to recognise his inexplicable individuality. Due to his displacement, Jacob constantly appears to be in a state of disillusionment when navigating the world. Jacob is, at this point, operating in a vast space where it may seem easy to blend in, yet his difference and separation from others is apparent to outsiders. Woolf also generally portrays London as a city of unrest, as the speaker notes homeless people, prostitutes and states that [t]he streets belong to them , referring to people inhabiting the metropolis, suggesting that they find home in the streets of London (Woolf, p. 87). The city therefore greatly contrasts previous spaces in Jacob

Room. In the words of Vara Nevero , The metropolis, unlike

Cambridge or the Isles of Scill or rural Corn all, is restless and turbulent , making it difficult for Jacob to navigate his own identity as he moves through these spaces. 6 Whilst London is a place of uncertainty, Jacob finds solace in the rural spaces of Greece during his trip. When sitting on a Greek hill, the speaker states that though Jacob remained gloomy he had never suspected how tremendously pleasant it is to be alone; out of England; on one s o n; cut off from the

hole thing (Woolf, p. 194). Woolf emphasises Jacob s

comfort in being alone here and suggests that Jacob is at his best when he is left alone with his mind. Greece also appears to be the best place where Jacob can exercise his solitary existence and escape the short lived, unstable relationships that he makes with women across the course of the novel. It is interesting to note that although the speaker states that Jacob is still gloomy, it is later said,

hilst sat on a mountain, that Jacob had never been so happy in the whole of

his life (Woolf, p. 198). From

hat

e kno

of Jacob, his emotions are labile and often

influenced by his surroundings. We can infer that, at this point, Greece is symbolic of the

6

Vara Nevero , Contrasting Urban and Rural Se ualities in Jacob s Room , in Woolf and the City, ed. by Sarah E. Cornish and Elizabeth F. Evans (Liverpool University Press: 2010), pp. 154 60 (p. 155).

285

pinnacle of happiness for Jacob and that the scenic landscapes, contrasting a turbulent metropolitan London, is what momentarily revitalises him.

Woolf uses Jacob s trip to Greece to perpetuate his comple it and to displa the difficulty in uncovering his identity. Crafted by a lack of first-person narrative and conflicting displays of emotion (extreme happiness and euphoria contrasted with gloominess and melancholy, for example), she reveals that Jacob is just as enigmatic no matter where he is.

When Sandra, a woman whom Jacob meets in Greece, speaks to him, she urges him to tell me hat ou feel and hat ou think. Tell me ever thing (Woolf, p. 222). Echoing the omen of Jacob s previous relationships, Sandra desires to kno ever thing about Jacob and appears to be invested in his mere existence. Jacob is thus unable to escape the curiosity of others, whilst his introverted character yearns for time in solitude, away from the chaos of the urban metropolis and the people which it inhabits. By keeping Jacob as a figure of mystery both to other characters and the reader, Woolf subverts the genre of Bildungsroman. Jacob Room is often considered a novel of this genre, yet it is curious that it is difficult to pinpoint precisely hat is kno n about Jacob himself. Sandra s statement mirrors a similar earning from readers to kno ever thing about Jacob, and Woolf s denial of this stresses a notion that is often missed when reading realist fiction: the reader can never truly know everything about the prime character. In this case, the notion is reinforced through the narrative style; Jacob is represented solely by how others perceive him, through a third person perspective. Ho ever, Jacob s later fate proves the significance of attempting to understand others, as lack of empathy can lead to young men being viewed as incomprehensible and as having no distinguishable identity of their o n, as mere pa ns in a global climate filled ith ar. Tragicall , this is e actl ho Jacob s life plays out, having died in a World War One trench, and thus having his potential for growth and flourishment taken from him.

286

Jacob s room itself, the novel s namesake, is the most intimate space throughout the novel and is fuelled

ith meaning. The first e plicit mention of Jacob s room as a ph sical

space comes after walking in Central London. A short passage follows where Jacob reads a newspaper in his room and the speaker describes his appearance as Terribl severe he looked, set, and defiant

He judged life (Woolf, p. 133). The narrative focus is on Jacob here and his

physical features, rather than the physical attributes of the room itself, suggesting that his room is a place where we see Jacob at his most natural, as he is alone and in a private space where he feels comfortable and at home, therefore allowing the speaker to focus on more vulnerable moments where he merely sits and ponders. The room could also mirror the abstract space in Jacob s mind that is inaccessible to both readers and other characters in the book, as e are not permitted access to much of Jacob s internal consciousness, it is presented to us onl in small fragments. By the end, Jacob s room becomes a s mbol of grief and is the point

here the

emptiness that pervades the novel is most palpable. Follo ing Jacob s death, his loved ones are gathered in his room and Woolf ties the physical emptiness of his room with the emotional emptiness caused b grief. The final sentence of the novel reads She held out a pair of Jacob s old shoes as Mr Bonam is asked

hat he should do

ith them (Woolf, p. 246). This last

image is one of complete disillusionment and reflects the void left in the life of Jacob s loved ones, as the are left ith Jacob s empt shoes, hich ill never be used again due to his death and act as a constant reminder that he is gone. As readers, e ma also feel this void, as Jacob s mind was always partially inaccessible to us and we, as readers, never became fully familiar with Jacob and his identity; we may even question whether Jacob truly knew himself, or whether his premature death means that he had not had the chance to discover his sense of self.

The complexities of space and geography across Modernism derive from the contradictions fundamental to and consistent with the relationship between space and feeling.

As e emplified in the novels discussed, space can reveal one s emotions, et simultaneousl

287

alienate them. Likewise, geography may present the chance for self-discovery, whilst frustrating these attempts in other circumstances. Marta Figlerowicz states in Space of Feeling: Affect and Awareness in Modernism:

e often do not immediatel discern our affects, the

lay us open to the people around us. The gap between our affective expression and our awareness of it makes us vulnerable to our environments.

7

This is to say that unconscious

affects which manifest in certain spaces effect how or whether one operates, dominates, and controls the space. Jacob, for example, is most comfortable in his room, for he is alone with his affects and can be vulnerable. He is in control of his vulnerability without the fear of becoming a spectacle for others to marvel at. Of affect, Figlerowicz also rightly notes that People notice more of our affects than about

e might imagine but are also much less concerned

hat the see (Figlero ic , p. 5). The danger of unconscious affect, then, is that

neuroticism within the metropolis can go unnoticed. Certainly, this is the case with Anna. Her peers ma recognise Anna s unusual affect and hostilit to ards the metropolis, but simpl do not understand the trauma caused by her move to London, meaning that her neurotic affects go truly unnoticed until it is too late, and a mental breakdown occurs. Those around her believe that Anna

ill find herself in London,

et the opposite is the case. Similarl , Jacob s

relationship between space and feeling is just as contradictory due to what others expect of him versus what he can give as an introvert who thrives off a solitary existence.

The modernist space, whether physical, abstract, objective, or subjective, is one which presents an opportunity to explore identity discovery and/or identity crisis. Metropolitan geography, particularly, is portrayed as an overwhelming stimulus to the minds of modernist characters. Mark Morrison states in The Cambridge History of Modernism that the

ar

instilled in modernist esoteric and decadent imaginings a visceral sense of apocal pse . 8 This

7

Marta Figlero ic , Introduction , in Space of Feeling: Affect and Awareness in Modernism (London: Cornell University Press, 2017), pp. 1 19 (p. 2). Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

8 Mark Morrisson, Part I: Modernism in Time: The 1910 s and the Great War , in The Cambridge History of Modernism, ed. by Vincent Sherry (Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 101 22 (p. 116).

288

statement is especiall true of Woolf s novel,

hich uses

ar to displa the tragic effects of

identit conflict in Jacob s fate, and treats urban life as some hat daunting and apocal ptic through his eyes. Although it was published t elve ears later, Rh s s novel renders the metropolis just as jarring and destabilising, evoking a similar identity crisis in Anna as she explores the polarisation of two contrasting worlds. The novels explore characters who attempt to find a sense of self in the world, and do so through a fragmented existence, one where they struggle to maintain connections with others. The circumstances of the characters are vastly different, yet both novels house an undeniable emptiness at the centre, which is heightened through these spatial explorations.

Works cited Beaumont, Matthew, Modernism and the Urban Imaginar 1: Spectacle and Introspection , in The Cambridge History of Modernism, ed. by Vincent Sherry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2017), pp. 220 34 Figlero ic , Marta, Introduction , in Space of Feeling: Affect and Awareness in Modernism (London: Cornell University Press, 2017), pp. 1 19 Morrisson, Mark, Part I: Modernism in Time: The 1910 s and the Great War , in The Cambridge History of Modernism, ed. by Vincent Sherry (Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 101 22 Nevero , Vara, Contrasting Urban and Rural Se ualities in Jacob s Room , in Woolf and the City, ed. by Sarah E. Cornish and Elizabeth F. Evans (Liverpool University Press: 2010), pp. 154 60 Rhys, Jean, Voyage in the Dark (London: Penguin Modern Classics, 2019) Savory, Elaine, Writing colour,

riting Caribbean: Voyage in the Dark and the Politics of

Colour , in Jean Rhys (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 85 108 Simmel, Georg, The Metropolis and Mental Life , in Modernism: An Anthology of Sources and Documents, ed. by Vassiliki Kolocotroni, Jane Goldman and Olga Taxidou (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), pp. 51 60

289

Woolf, Virginia, Jacob Room, ed. by Kate Flint (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008)

Notes on Contributors

Um-E-Aymen Babar is a recent graduate of English Literature from Queen Mary, University of London.

Fahima Begum is a recent graduate of English Literature from Queen Mary, University of London

Jumua Begum Abida is a recent graduate of English Literature from Queen Mary, University of London

Samuel Blackburn is a third-year student reading English Literature at Queen Mary, University of London

Danielle De Leon is a third-year student reading English Literature at Queen Mary, University of London

Hemali Depala is a third-year student reading English Literature at Queen Mary, University of London

Sarah Dewi Ayishah Garrod is a recent graduate of Comparative Literature from Queen Mary, University of London

Renu Gupta is a recent graduate of English Literature from Queen Mary, University of London

Felix Ionescu is a recent graduate of Philosophy and History from University of Essex. Felix is currently enrolled on a Philosoph Mas er s degree a King s College London.

Jasmine Jones is a recent graduate of BA English from UCL (University College London). She is currently a first-year MPhil student in Medieval English (6501550) at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford.

Leda Maiello is a third-year student reading English Literature at Queen Mary, University of London

Joseph Edward Mason-Jones is a recent graduate of English Literature from Queen Mary, University of London

Alisha Jayne McSporran is a recent graduate of English Literature from Queen Mary, University of London

Maya Padamsee is a recent graduate of English Literature from Queen Mary, University of London

Ioana Radulescu is a third-year student reading English Literature at Queen Mary, University of London

Jake Rix is a third-year student reading English Literature at Queen Mary, University of London

Jasmine Rothon is a third-year student reading English Literature at Queen Mary, University of London

Erin Waks is a third-year student reading Liberal Arts, French and Arabic at Durham University

Rose-Anne Wright is a third-year student reading English Literature at Queen Mary, University of London

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