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UNIT 1 SOME ASPECTS OF FICTION

t
S ructure

1.2.1 The Novel as Fiction

1.2.2 Fiction as History

1.3.1 Some Problems

1.3.2 Shift to Prose in the Eighteenth Century
1.3.3 The Novel as a New Literary form
1.3.4 The Ndvel as Comedy
4 LetUsSum Up

s the word fiction' poses problems, the aim of this unit is to examine the relationship
etween fictional and realistic depictions. The novel can be seen as dealing with
uestions, issues as well as with the 'facts' of history. The eighteenth century is the
entury of prose as well as the rise of the novel, with both prose and the novel focusing
the common ways of life. The novel emerged as a new and significant mode of
iting - becoming more than a means of providing entertainment, it became a means of
dical questioning that would lead to a change in entrenched attitudes. The aim is to
iscuss these questions in the course of this Unit.

This is the fvst Unit of the first Block in your course on t'he British Novel. As such, you :
will find that we discuss some basic issues here which will help you to understand not
just Tom Jones but also the subsequent novels prescribed, so go through each section
carefully and critically. Now that you are doing a Master's degree, you will need to read
widely and variously. Try and find some of the"books on the novel recommended at the
the end of the Block from yo& local library and try to read these alongside this Unit. Its
not compulsory for you to read these books but reading them will certainly enhance your
understanding of the novel as a literary form.

1.2 THENOVEL
1.2.1 The Novel as Fiction (9)

.As against imaginative or fictional, the novel is a realistic form. It presents that segment
of life and society, in more or less approximate terms, which has been seen and -
experienced by actual men and women of a particular period. The concept of mirroring or
reflecting an object is more significant in the case of the novel than it would be in the
case of poetry or drama. There is indeed the assumption that a social situation with its
problems and issues is faithfully recorded in the novel and that the reader does not come
across any major flights of imagination on the part of the writer. Also, in the novel, there
are no concentrated descriptions that point towards the dark recesses of the mind, the
mysteries of the soul, as it were. At the time of writing, the novelist seems to have
definitively concluded that his men and women are ofithe day-to-day kind, working,
Tom Jones chatting, moving around, without the high furnishings of the soul, psyche or mind. They
I seldom poeticise or see themselves in the heroic mould. While pursuing their ordinary
goals of securing bread and butter which entails most of their waking hours, the peasants,
craftsmen and traders of a specific social world are part of mundane situations. The job of
the novelist is to see how these people conduct themselves, enmeshed as they are in their
specific surroundings.

- While reading a novel, we may feel that we have been transported to z) different world
with its own laws, rules and regulations. Towns and villages, markets, streets and
pathways hold out as actual places'with their distinct colouring and feel. Yes,the
emphasis is on actuality.Not only are the people shown as speaking with their very own
mannerisms, but ordinary information about their appearance, condition, opinions and
states of mind also is imparted by the author in his or her own voice. This second aspect
of the writer's practice implies that the describing person, the novelist, has an opinion
and a point of view according to which shehe judges without much scruple the actions of
the different characters selected, consciously and with an ostensible purpose, for
presentation. The judgement of the writer is biased as all judgements are. The biases
obviously indicate that the writer is totally immersed in the overall fate of the characters
as well as the effect of their behaviour on the life and nature of the society. In this sense,
the writer can be seen as a responsible member of the actual society of that time as well
as the society reflected in the novel.

The remarks of the author meant clearly for sharing with the reader, lend authenticity to
the description in the novel and make the reader accept it as a truthful account. This leads
to a state in which the reader is strongly drawn into the ethos of the world of the novel.
In the course of reading a novel, therefore, the reader may feel that he or she is witness to
an actual happening in which real peoople have been involved. The words in the text do
not merely signify something outside of or away from them. Instead, the words are there
on the page as a picture or pictures which introduce the reader to their world and bind
him or her to its specific aspects. There i; no wonder that the reader of the novel would
get fully absorbed in the goings on of the world chosen for representation in the work.
This is what I mean by the novel as a realistic form.

'Imaginative' on the other hand denotes an unreal thing, a 'creation' of the mind of a
person gifted with an unusually inventive and powerful imagination. It is also suggested
that words in a text under the imaginative category have to be taken as tools and that the
artist works with their help to fulfil hisher specific artistic, moral or spiritual purpose. .
This purpose may be to produce a literary work of exceptional symbolic spiritual
significance.

What is fictional then? The word "invented" or "invention" is yet more mehingful in
this case. It denotes that the account presented in a work bears no relation with the reality
of life as we know it - it is imaginative and more, it is 'fictional.' In this sense, fictional
would be more appropriate a term for poetry.

Isn't fiction a "non-fact," a lie? Most of us wish to leave the existing world of hard
routine and drugdery so that we move to another in which we can do what we like,
where "wishes would be horses." We also notice that the maker of the lie, a liar, is an
interesting person as against one who preaches high morality. Have we watched the
behaviour of a liar closely? If we have, we would mark that a liar, a compulsive liar, is
one who is mentally alert, and all the time notes changes in the faces of the listeners, who
keeps track of their moods, and constantly struggles to find out what his or her audience
wishes to hear. The liar accordingly modifies the lie as it is in progress. This is because
of the fact that the ligr is highly inventive and imaginative. But there is a difference.
While poetry and drama are also invented and imagined, they cannot be equated with a
 . On the other hand, they are "high truths." Is it not because of this 'lie' aspect that the Some ~ s ~ e & s
vel has been associated with fiction? While poetry and drama talk about the Truth, the of Fiction
iversal all-embracing wisdom, the novel as a fictional piece may rest content with
resenting an ordinary life-situation. In this way, the irony behind the 'fictional piece'
annot be missed. Or can it?

I
.2.2 Fiction as History

8
iction or fictional has come to acquire such strong affinities with the novel that we use
e two synonymously. Walter Allen in his book The English Novel has drawn our
on in this regard to the issue of artistic representation- the way a writer gives
to an experience in herhis work. Characters in a novel symbolise specific attitudes
ven society and the writer conveys through them those significant impressions
she or he has gathered from the surroundings. Characters and social impressions
ge into each other and the end-product strongly binds us to the represented action.
the writer does not merely 'gather' impressions from life. What happens is that
sions precede characters and are in fact moulded and re-made into characters by
uthor. In this sense, they a E truly fictional -moulding and remaking imply that the
s imagination has been at work in an intense manner. There is also the problem of
ation that the writer is supposed to invent. This means that
ers in the novel cannot be constructed and rendered flesh and blood unless they
placed in identifiable circumstances of our own world. The men and women in a
ur links with the period in which the writer has lived and stand
e actual trends that existed at the time. Through Allworthy, Western, Jones y d
stance, we gain close familiarity with the developments in
d. The process is complex but the truth is quite simple. In a
rcumstance, the society of a period becomes a necessary
of fiction. Fiction becomes significatft history.. That is how the line between
imaginative and the real gets blurred and history intrudes inevitably into fiction. In
alter Allen's words:

"Perhaps charactery was neyer anything more than a literary exercise, but its
ion to novel is obvious. The first magnificent fruit of its marriage with
, however, is seen in works of history, especially in the great portrait
of Clarendon's History of the Rebellion. This was inevitable. Before the
hich must to a greater or less degree be an imitation of the actual world,
could be born, there had to be works already in existence which were not
imitations, that is not fiction, but faithful descriptions ofjhe actual world. So,
among the strongest influences on what was becoming the novel were works of
ke Clarendon's and sobedy careful accounts of real life adventure,
distant countries, and strange peoples like Dampier's A New Voyage Round the

e question posed here is whether fiction comes to gradually resemble history, or to put
way, history becomes the all-important subject of fiction. We can take the
and say that around the eighteenth century in England,
matter of vital interest for the common writer who sets out to do
upon the behaviour and problems of ordinary men and women.

ever, the novel is different from history in one important respect. History as we see
a long continuous process with6ut a clear tangible beginning as well as an end -it
s on unfolding itself beyond its specific actors of a period, its men and women who
active within it to influence and change it. On the other hand, the novel begins at a
icular point of life in society as well as ends at another point. Those two points in the
1, recognised and chosen by the author are extremely significant, because between
Tom Jones them lies that segment of social life -captured as it has been through words -which
vibrates with meaning at every turn and also contains within itself a totality and a certain
truth. It is a significant difference between history, the life of actual people at a given
time, and a literary work. In the examination, students are generally asked to comment on
the ending of anovel and tell the truth that has been constructed with its help. Why?
Because it is assumed, and rightly perhaps, that the end matters in terms of the lesson
which the novelist set out to convey to the reader. Replace the word "lesson" with the
word "moral" and what we have is a fable which has to establish a useful aspect of
human wisdom relevant to the, period in which the writer lived. The reader gains this
wisdom by virtue of arduously following the course of events depicted in the novel and
sees that the author conscidusly took him on a specific journey in imagination. The same
thing can be perceived in an account of history but with less emphasis since the historian
is much more answerable to the ac&ality of events, the socio-historical reality of the .-
perio4under study. In history, moral lessons can be noticed as merelyscattered, and the
person, the historian, if he chose to clearly underline these morals, can be accused of
violating laws of objectivity. He may face the accusation of allowing subjective biases to
play the decisive role in the presentation of the historical account. Yes, there are lessons
in history, but they are the tentative creations (of course, no useful study of history is
possible without them) of the perceiver 6r the interpreter, not of history as such. For
instance, a specific 'understanding' of history can be countered by 'another'
understanding. You can see contrasting lessons conveyed by another interpreter of the
pame period in history. This is becalhse history is no single person's or group's creation .
-in fact, being a bigger continuum, it is not the creation of any person, group or, even,
the whole society of the specific period. Simply taken, it is found there when we are born
and it would, hopefuly, be there when we die. In contrast, the novel is an author's
creation -it entirely belongs to him or her. If the individual so wished, the writing of
the novel could be indefinitely deferred or the idea altogether discarded. Such is'the grip
and bind of the author on the novel, on its writing. Starting fiom the idea of the fictional
piece, the author gives it slant and direction. One can go to the extent of saying that the
author has a large number of alternative strategies to choose fiom. This means that the
shaping of the novel involves a great deal of flexibility.

1.3 THE EVOLUTION OF THE NOVEL

1.3.1 Some Prablems

It is useful to go into the h o r y or genesis of the novel in England. There are a rage *

number of books on the subject that provide good information about prose works ip the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The idea in these books is that the prose works of the
earlier period can be clearly linked up with the novel in the eighteenth century. The
common point between the two seems to be prose. Then, there are the stories of
discovery, exploration and adventure, which also have laid claims to parenting this
modem literfvy form. It is suggested that the spirit of curiosity necessitated a loose
fictional form which provided enough scope to the writer to collect information as well as
to question, analyse and assess the new material. These stories centred around 'the
wandering rogue,' a rootless, un-tied persona whose fascination for new and unknown
places could hold immense appeal for the pader. Add to them the imaginary, totally
'fictional' pieces written by their authors i# different countries of Europe to entertain the
reader, taking him or her on an imaginary voyage to the world of mystery, wonder and
magic. In these, nothing 'real' was intended for projection, their fundamental motive
being to give pleasure. Curiosity, suspense and story-telling were supposed to bring these.
writings closer to the novel. In this context, all one can say is that important as these
imaginative efforts are in their respective languages and periods, they scarcely enlighten
u s about the emergence of the novel. All that has come in the wake of such a venture is
 guesswork. In fact, the fault in such a genesis-tiacing exercise is that it is based on Some Aspects
concept of literary history. The term 'literary history' denotes that there is a of Fiction
ct linkage within literature between works written in the past with those written later,
that, in a manner of saying, literature produces out of itself. There is also a tendency
ure these days of going to the philosophical writings of the
in which specific literary works were composed. This is done with a view to
ing how a particular writer's sensibility was moulded by those philosophical
and trends. The suggestion is that apart from the literary works already existing,
hilosophical tendencies which produce new literature. Under this scheme, the
merely seen as moulding the available literary material to suit hisher cultural
s and of extending the literary horizon a bit further. This assumption should
gone into and examined. Literary history, or even history of literature for that
is a concept that requires careful handling by the student of literature. I am not
that there cannot be a history of the novel theoretically speaking, but that it cannot
dependent of that larger history with its specific struggles to break free from
les. It is really disappointing to see that reference to actual events,
economic and political ones, is missing in discussions about the

I
1. .2 Shift to Prose in the Eighteenth Century

ldom been a medium of serious creative endeavour before the eighteenth

. Barring a few exceptions, writers of the past chose verse -longer poems,
of definite or indefinite length -to share their views,
e audience. That is how it had to be, since the audience
the selected few. Till the middle of the seventeenth century, poems could
circulating among the narrow circle of friends and fellow writers because
presumed to appreciate imaginative work. The idea of the mass of
Id be approached through the printed word emerged only in the
ry. Why? Did something peculiar happen in the later period?

in the eighteenth century came to locate some new issues in society and
d them with a seriousness hitherto unnoticed. As said above, one of these issues
was more than a subject of debate through the presentation of which the
o critique a particular relationship. Earlier, the act of marriage reminded
ions of social propriety, class distinction and religion -it was truly
instance, the Restoration marriage, the marriage encountered in the comic
Restoration period, was between those men and women who came largely
m. The would-be partners in marriage talked with some self-
ought of choice, need and purpose) and finally joined each other in
matrimonial schedule-their background and social upbringing
to rethink or breach the social code of the male-dominated family.
-established institution essentially reflecting the nature of the older
s could not invest much thought in an isssue which remained
f the partners in marriage were bold and courageous, narrowly
ould be seen only around the seventies of the previous century
the impact .of.recent upheavals or changes. But matrimony could not be considered
ificant point of living, confined as women were to the home. The higher plane of
d itself with such vital priciples as honour, privilege, acquisition
things changed radically in the first quarter of the eighteenth
e to consider marriage as a whole set of new considerations-
ge, commitment. And what stood in focus was not merely the
us, alert and honest, but the woman, the new womaq who was
ce in society, who saw that new horizons of fulfilment and
 liberty had opened in the wake of the socio-political churning England had gone through
a few decades before. The epithet 'middle class' is not to belittle or denigrate the worth
of these people on whom it had fallen, tb fearlessly as wqll as intelligently, confront the
mighty world of privilege. They were the common people of England who had moved
upfront by dint of hard labour and industry and who not only asserted their right to
equality but also influenced the,policy-making of the nation. They led the lower masses
in thought and attitude and e&ctively resisted the Ways of old tradition. Their kind of
sharp rational questioning, self-assurance and vigour found a true medium in prose. The
' common people of England, particularly the middle classes, wanted to know and
understand. They enjoyed talking. For them, dialogue was more important than statement
since it provided to them an opportunity to question and disagree. They also aspired to
theorise and philosophise and evolve through tliis a new way of responding to the
environment. They took pleasure in crackingjokes and playing with language. Far from
being complacent about popular norms, they happily shocked their friends and critics
alike. All this required larger accounts and representations. Fielding particularly
exemplifies this activated mass of people in England and he lets them talk in their natural
style which is prose, the medium through which life in the market, the street, on the road,
at the inn, conducted itself.

1.3.3 The Novel as a New Literary Form

We have to think about the factors which inspire a writer to choose a particular form
from those already existing or, as happened in the eighteenth century, evolve a new one
so that it served as an appropriate vehicle for his purpose. The process of the evolution o f
a form is highly complex because one can see in it a concrete dialectical interaction
between a writer's 3rge to communicate and an environment which on its part iq hardly
passive, which persists in its ilireatening posture wit11 the exisqng modes of expression. I
particularly want to stress the presence of women, a whole lot of them, in'the eighteenth
century society who had the leisure to relax at home with a book or periodical in hand as
well as the inclination to know how to dress, walk and converse but also to contemplate
upon the questions of right and wrong in life. They were no ordinary women. They were
the wives of those men who had become more productive than members of any other
social group in the economic field, who organised manufacture from procurement of raw
material and employment of artisans to work with it to making available space for
collective activity and looking after the deployment of correct methods that the artisans
would use to turn out finished goods. More than this, they arranged money for all this
activity which saw them through in the final activity of selling the goods in the market so
that profits came flowing in. It appears to be a simple activity of the economic kind on
the surface but is actually a highly challenging and problematic social activity affecting
life-conditions as a whole. This is because in the course of this endeavour, the involved
men who were also creating a new value pattern, a novel way of makink sense about
tendenciesthat were thrown up in the life in the market. Still more, the market as a new
powerfbl centre of activity spread out to cover all vital areas of existence including
ideology and spirituality.

Some significant developments could be seen in the early eighteenth century ip England
on the literary-cultural plane. One of these was the rise of the periodical -a magazine or
pamphlet which sought to engage the average person in useful conversation. This average
person was the middle class city-dweller, the gentleman proper or the gentleman in the
making who had an interest in the daily occurrences of life, who did not want to merely
put two and two together but to also develop a no-nonsense pragmatic understanding to
guide him. Such needs were earlier fulfilled in tlie case of the lower masses by the village
parson who interpreted the age-old principles of life and behaviour for the benefit of the
common person. However, the difference between the need of the new middle class city-
eller we have in mind and the common person with whom the parson communicated Some hpecta
in their social positioning -the former also asking for pleasure while receiving of Fiction
uidance. Naturally enough, this new gentleman-in-the-making looked elsewhere
service in the direction of a non-religious, secular agency. Hence the fulfilment
ed by the periodical - an instrument which did away with the compulsion of
a specific place at an appointed hour and instead provided the service at one's
. Of course, for availing oneself of the service, one had to meet the precondition
. This the particular individual could well afford in the given social
. In its infancy, the novel incorporated some of the functions and traits of the

e Novel as Comedy
in the eighteenth century differed immensely from that in the seventeenth
.It became lighter in vein and dealt wit11 those issues which could be easily
ake the case of social manners under whose overall perspective questions such
and love were considered by the writers. The relationship of love became
portant in social discourse in which great emphasis was laid on individual
an and the woman together took the decision to marry and thus set at
ssures of family and society. As a consequence of this empllasis in the
century on decision-making by the individual, norms and principles of
came under severe criticism. One of the reasons why an ordinary person
associated wi@ heroic qualities such as courage and fearlessness was that an
segment of society, the middle class to be precise, stood to gain from protest
ince that weakened the hold of the privileged sections on social behaviour.
c, marriage became a means for the middle class to question the values
used by entrenched interests. The focus on social manners takes us away
serious%pestions of work, shelter and upkeep to be provided by a society to its
. Only those who have solved the problems of bread and butter think of evolving
iour. The issues of virtue, goodness, morality and kindness which fall
ry of ethics and manners are of great interest to the progressive
s. Further, the discussion of manners suggests that the members of this
ally capable of improving their behaviour, that they have
lose look at their norms and principles in ordzr to adopt a strategy to
progress and improvement. In this sense, the improvement in manners is
y a question of active choice. The individual in such circumstances is expected to
of histher social environment so that slhe can then take guidance from
the environment can be inimical and become an
ction is something that is beyond the imagination of this highly

e perspective of manners as we understand them, can we adequately define love

iage? Well, love in such a case would be a relationship between two persons
latively free from social constraints. Society can certainly cause problems to
would not prove more than a mere inconvenience. On the other hand, love for
d the woman involved would be a challenge they have to meet in order to
ish - love offers them scope to draw upon their inner resources and assert,
s of meeting it, their selfkood.

say that froni such a love, the journey to marriage is a more or less smooth
union between the young people, even when they are socially unequal - one
m a poor background and the other belonging to the upper. social stratum -
ising of eyebrows and some clever scheming by a few to thwart it. But the
m orthodox quarters may at the same time inspire some other members in
Tom Jones society to stand in support of the lovers. This clash ending in merely the ruffling of a few
feathers, therefore, does not lead to dangerous hostility and violence as it did in the past.

Were love and marriage challenges in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for the
individuals who were involved in the relationship? The answer is obviously no. Neither
love nor marriage could be separated from the social structure of the time. It was a bond
that decisively affected the elite in their pursuit of power, prestige and honour. Both were
"social" and "political" events - they made statements about the families, the dynasties
,md the important streams of traditional behaviour to which the specific persons belonged
and which came into play when certain individuals decided to take the "law" in their own
hands

1.4 LET US SUM UP

One of the points on which the middle classes of the eighteenth century were exercised
was transition. 'fie question these sections confronted was : How to interpret the change
that was taking place around them in the world of manners and attitudes consequent upon
the economic power they had come to acquire. There is no doubt that change was
desirable. But could it be pursued with vigour which is possible only when one is sure
about the positive outcome? Obviously, history could not be rolled back as the
entrenched interests of the landed gentry wished and whom the village parson in his
religious wisdom tended to serve. We come across innumerable arguments against an&in
support of change in the books written in the eighteenth century in which 'modem' was a
much criticised word. At the same time, we notice a definite shrillness in the words of
those who opposed change. Perhaps, they were fighting a losing battle. On the other
hand, change in itself did not denote anything specific and tangible. Because of this, one
could clearly discern a vacuum iri the 'spiritual' temtory. It so happened that the writer
stepped forward to fill this vacdurn through the mould of 'conversation in prose.'
.I Introduction
.2 A Reading of ~ o k ~ o n e s
2.2.1 ALookatTom'sStory
2.2.2 Problematic Nature of Squire Allworthy
2.2.3 The Philosopher and the Clergyman: Their Comic Nature

happenings in life since his purpose as a writer is not to offer explanations and

revolt and Sophia's adamant posture notwithstanding, the final picture emerging
. Toin Jones Of course, we see a movement against hindrances. However, problems multiply with
each new development. This results in the regrouping of the forces hostile to the peculiar
social_energyI talk of. The reader is given to feel that this energy is not properly
harnessed. In fact, narrow orthodox formations (the moral-religious system, patriarchy,
etc.) create serious obstructions in its way. As the novel progresses, the reader helplessly
watches that the agents of the status quo (Blifil, Square, Thwackum and Squire Western)
consciously thwart any possibility of challenge to the interests of property and privilege.
A clear sense of dismay is discernible at the end, with Fielding failing to offer any 'real'
answer to the questions posed in the novel. In such a situation, the author could perhaps
provide only a 'comic' solution. The question I want to pose is : Is this a success or
failure of the author?

2.2 A READING OF TOM JONES

2.2.1 A Look at Tom'; Story

The novel has been given the title Tom Jones. At the obvious level, the book is a story of
Tom's life from the time he was born till the time he married Sophia. Let us take a glance
at some important points raised through the depiction of Tom's life. The novel opens
with the discovery of a young male child on the bed of Squire Allworthy. The child is
given the name Tom Jones and is referred to as a bastard, an obvious object of ridicule,
rejection and condemnation. The discovery puzzles and confuses the moralistic-
traditional society of the time. The disturbed individuals and families of the place fail to
adopt a sympathetic attitude towards Tom -Mr. Allworthy being the only exception to
the rule. This great benefactor accepts the child as his own and gives good reasons in
support of his decision. Allworthy's nephew Master Blifil and Jones share the geneiosity
of the benefactor equally. The treatment that the two get bears testimony to Allworthy's
sound principles of Christian behaviour and the reader is reassured that Jones would
receive proper upbringing and care. The answer, therefore, to Jones's problem of
preservation comes, as we see, from a good and understanding Christianity which
unhappily is beyond the scope of most of the inhabitants of the place. What also strikes
us is that Mr. Allworthy, because of his privileged position, could alone rescue the
helpless foundling from difficult circumstances. It would have been totally different if
Mr. Allworthy, the good Christian and an example of moral rectitude, were an ordinary
person. We witness that Allworthy's decision to adopt the child starts off a whole series
of loud and not-so-loud protests as well as suspicions about his motives. The question
emphatically asked many a time in the novel is: Isn't Tom Mr. Allworthy's own son
since, to the questioning and ever-suspecting people of the household, nothing else can
explain the latter's action?

Allworthy's decision to adopt Jones is undoubtedly an act of transgression in traditional-

moral terms. More, it clearly touches upon economic aspects such as the inheritance of
land and money. The world of landed property and privilege has so far used Christianity
to legitimise its existence and has pushed higher virtues beyond the purview of common
people. Allworthy shocks the privileged group by consciously selecting the contrary way
of interpreting his religion.

2.2.2 Problematic Nature of Squire Allworthy

However, we become conscious of a certain kind of pompousness in Allworthy. We note

that he stands alone in the novel and enjoys a status high enough to be accepted as a
moral judge of everything happening in his neighbourhood. Standing alone is not a happy -
situation -it denies to the person concerned a sense of involvement and participation in
the common occurrences of life. Placed at a distance fiom everyone, Allworthy would
 ow only that which he perceived in others. This can create problems of comprehension As we First
d consequent taking of decisions. There is no denying that he may carefully go into the Read : Tom
ues,faced by the people at large and offer sane advice to them. But this, as we have Jones
,places him on a high pedestal by virtue of which he preaches to others (rather than
ng with them) the high principles of morality. Earnestness and sincerity of purpose
him a sense of superiority by which everyone at Somersetshire remains overawed.
at I wish to emphasise is that interpreting situations in the light of Christian goodness
benevolence is Allworthy's forte and an active principle in his behaviour. On the
ther hand, standing apart from common action (disinterestedness and an impersonal
de, come to mind in this context) and judging on the strength of reason and kind
ion was indeed a value in the age of enlightenment. We become a bit puzzled,
erefore, to see that Allworthy misjudges things quite frequently in the novel. When he
does this, we become acquainted with that great irony of which Fielding is an
acknowledged master. Consider for instance this statement of Allworthy :

You know, child, it is in my power, as a magistrate, to punish you very

rigorously for what you have done; and you will, perhaps, be the more apt to fear
I should execute that power, because you have, in a manner, laid your sins at my
door. ... for, as no private resentment should ever influence a magistrate, I will
be so far from considering your having deposited the infant in my house, as an
aggravation of your offence, that I will suppose, in your favour, this to have
proceeded from a natural affection to your child ... I should indeed have been
highly offended with you, had you exposed the little wretch in the manner of
some inhuman mothers, who seem no less to have abandoned their humanity,
than to have parted with their chastity. It is the other part of your offence,
therefore, upon which I intend to admonish you, I mean the violation of your
chastity. A crime, however lightly ittmay be treated by debauched persons, very
heinous in itself, and very dreadful in its consequences. The heinous nature of
this offence must be sufficiently apparent to every Christian, inasmuch as it is
committed in defiance of the laws of our religion, and of the express commands
of Him who founded that religion (66).

re, the author has deliberately chosen to withhold from Allworthy the true information
ut Tom's parentage. Having clone this, he has given full freedom to the speaker to
upon the ills and evils of immoral behaviour. In addition, phrases such as
doned their humanity,' 'violation of your chastity,' 'Him who founded that
eligion,' etc. underscore the pomposity of Allworthy unmistakably. We should also keep
mind the fact that the novel as a whole is to take a sharp critical look at chastity,
stancy, humaneness and kind sympathy, with Jones seen as learning about them in the
as he grows up. The author administers a series of shocks through Jones's conduct in
cult life-situations. In fact, under the broad scheme of the author, Allworthy is going
be thoroughly manipulated by Blifil, an aspect designed to show the hollowness of
bstract principles which we uncritically adopt.

I.
.2.3 The Philosopher and the Clergyman - Their Comic (?) Nature
rom here, we move on to the situation in which the job of imparting moral-intellectual
dance to Tom is assigned to Square and Thwackum by Allworthy. The author has
eived and drawn these two comically. While Square projects the secular atheistic
lays stress on correct and consistent human behaviour, Thwackum
everything in strictly religious terms. They are so much given to a
representation of principles and ideals that every remark they make amuses
e reader. Fielding uses them to a plan which is to provide through them an entertaining
scourse on trivial as well as important matters that Tom and Mr. Allworthy face from
sffering analysis that they never once sit back &ponder. Instead, they rush in to offer
,a:t simple predictable views. This is an example of how educators come to obstruct the
~~ental'growth of a pupil. On his side, ironically, Mr. Allworthy feels quite satisfied with
ine arrangement he has made for the moral education of Tom and Blifil.

The writer's plan under which Square and Thwackum work has another aspect to it. As
the two teachers go about their business of leading the pupils on to the path of
enlightened behaviour, they gradually come to serve a purpose other than comic and
begin to seriously influence the action in the novel. This compels the reader to think that
the consequences of thqir 'real' conduct could be sinister. For instance, their attempt at
"
winning the attention of Mrs. Blifil is not merely comic. It is true that in this venture,
both Square and Thwackum prove to be foolish while Bridget emerges as a clever
manipulator. Still, the episode is too damning for the philosopher as well as the preacher.
Can such people fulfil the charge which Mr. Allworthy has given them? In fact,
combined with the conspiratorial skills of Blifil, the practice of Square and Thwackum
can quite comfortably 'mislead' Mr. Allworthy himself who apparently is the reigning
deity of the novel. Till the end of the novel, ~ l l w o r t keeps
h ~ the reader impressed byhis
"all-worth" and sharp intellect. And yet much remains unachieved. In fact, Blifil almost
brings about the destruction of Tom and sets at nought the happy prospects of Sophia.
We, therefore, conclude that Square and Blifil become part of the big evil machine of the
novel and that their 'comic' nature turns more and more dangerous and, therefore, un-
comic as events unfold in Tom Jones.

' 4 What does Tom symbolise?

Tom's character stands out in the novel as one which i~ entirely 'unformed.' He appears
to be a mere lump of clay. He has that classic inability to adhere to a given code since he
would not understand its worth or relevance. It is a different thing that by nature he is
kind and generous. Yes, 'nature' is the word. Therefore, good is not good or desirable per
se in his case. Instead, it is 'natural' for him to be good. As the reader sees, Tom suffers a
great deal for being naturally good and selfless. It is entirely understandable, therefore,
that conventions, traditions and norms do not mean anything to him but as so many
rr~inorhurdles in the way.

We are particularly struck by Tom's attitude towards women. Tom always treats women,
irrespective of their social standing, as equal to men. His behaviour in this context is not
influenced by that exploitative attitude under which the malesare supposed to manage .
the affairs of soc'iety and women have to merely act as their appendages. He contains
within himself the purity of a 'human' than the distinctive traits of a 'male' which can be
taken as a gender construct of a given society. This 'human' in Tom constitutes the
essential good qualities both of menmd women. In fact, in some respects, one can see
anore of 'the woman' than 'the man' in him -the softer, purer, more honest and
empathy-prone aspects that we have come to historically associate with a woman's
*emperament.Apart from this, he can scarcely apprehend that people would act under
?anow considerations of profit and on that account take advantage of anyone's gullibility
:a.~d innocence. But,'= noted above, innocence is Tom's strong point. It is this which
sets him apart from those people, of high as well as low birth, who have become un-
innocent in the process of living. Still a n a e r trait of Tom's character is that he isgreatly
courageous and fearless and has the requisite strength to go ahead in the business of
5ghting. He would more often than not be able to conquer his enemy if engaged in a fight
aith him.

30 many qualities can be rarely visualised in an individual. It is this which suggests that
Tom emerges in the novel more as an idea and a spirit than a flesh and blood character. I
- 3 'idee,' not an 'idea! ' The latter has connotations of 'fmishedness', something which
 ready there for the human beings to look up to, something like that we find in Mr. As we First
orthy's case. No, Tom is not that kind of an ideal. On the contrary, Tom exemplifies Read : Tom
idea of 'spontaneity' and 'natural behaviour.' As an idea, Tom also critiques that Jones
ch is detrimental to the naturally good aspect among people. If Tom's character is to
reted thematically, he can be viewed as that idea of spontaneity which remains
of constant struggle with a pre-existing structure of norms and conventions.
I,

2.3 RELATIONSHIPS IN THE NOVEL

2.3,l Tom and Sophia in Togetherness and Contrast

o we compreheild Tom's fascination for Sophia? We know that he has

mate with Black Partridge's daughter, Molly Seagrim. Is it merely that
tiful, elegant and has a goddess-like quality about her charm? No, Sophia
re than this ideaiised version of a woman. Her social helplessness against her
r's ways is not an ordinary occurrence and leaves a deep impact on her personality.
g threat of a marriage with Blifil lifts her up from an abstracted existence
her the horrors of certain doom. Sophia is so entirely convinced of her
Blifil as husband that when Mrs. Honour, her maidservant, mentions Blifil
,sweet, handsome man," Sophia angrily remarks, "Honour, rather than
wife of that contemptible wretch, I would plunge a dagger into my

the response of that doll-like figure who always moved about in sweet and
urroundings. After Sophia runs away from home in the company of Mrs.
see her more and more as a concretised individual struggling to move away
dise' that was her home. She becomes more and more 'real' in this process.
e from that w e a l world strangely prevents her from becoming an ordinary
all-accepting individual who would get reconciled to anything because
out in the particular circumstance. At the same time, she is definitely not
ntaneity or naturalness. But she has that which Tom doesn't -a sense of
needed and an inner life which is a product of introspection and self-
e strength of this, she finally becomes a truly thinking individual. Mark
that she writes in London to Jones :

A promise is with me a very sacred thing, and to be extended to everything

understood from it, as well as to what is expressed by it; and this consideration
may perhaps, on reflection afford you some comfort. But why should I mention a
comfort to you of this kind? For though there is one thing in which.1 can never
comply with the best of fathers, yet am I firmly resolved never to act in defiance
of him, or to take any step of consequence without his consent.
I
equired to compose a totality of understanding which as a
idual to proceed towards virtue and goodness. I consider that
vigou would soon weaken and lose themselves in anarchic
and sustained by a rational self-appraisal. And the trait of
be 'acquired' with effort, it is not 'spontaneous.'

Fielding, a conscious and an analysing-commenting artist, shares with the

perspectives of Tom and Sophia and indicates a meaningful linkage
He seriously believes that the two perspectives complement each other
of a significant totality.
Torn Jones Though apparently dissimilar, the attitudes of Tom and Sophia have some common
points. For instance, kindness and generosity are qualities they share. Again, both have
the capacity to rise above their immediate personal interests. There is no denying that
Tom is deeply in love with Sophia and would sacrifice anything to win her hand. Still, he
decides many a time to sacrifice this wish if that ensured her safety and preservation.
Sophia, too, places personal happiness far below her duty towards her father -she
would not marry anyone if Squire ~ e s t i m did not approve of it. The only point she
sticks to, and it is a high point of her self-assertion -is that Squire Western would not
choose a husband for her. She makes it abundantly clear that if that happened, she would
leave all and run away to the farthest corner of the world to preserve that highly personal
and sacred temtory of conscious choice. This is a trait of individual self-assertion. But
we should not lose sight of the basic morality of this position. This can also be
considered an attitude of self-abnegation that an individual adopts with a sense of
conscious choice. Tom and Sophia seem to be moving in the direction of this attitude
which they finally come to symbolise. It also imparts a unique value to their characters
and transforms them into inspiring examples of conscious activist behaviour. Particularly
in the case of Tom, self-abnegation corn> out to be his strongest redeeming feature,
strangely in one who apparently loved easy pleasures and indulgences and scarcely
observed the high principle of cznstancy. But such is life!

23.2 Tom as Squire Western's Companion and Friend

In one important respect, Tom is closer to Squire Western than he is to Mr. Allworthy.
There is no doubt that Tom has always remained attached to Mr. Allworthy as an
obedient child. He has been brought up under the affectionate and indulgent gaze of a
virtual parent. The essential spirit of this phase lasts in Tom's behaviour till the end of
the novel. But there is no easy sense of give and take between Tom and Allworthy -
they do not interact at the level of 'equality.' The one speaks with dignity and the other
listens with reverence. On the other hand, Tom is a friend to Squire Western. They hunt,
dine and laugh together. When Western learns of Tom's various affairs with women, he
is pleased no end with his pal's successes. Western is conscious that Tom is of doubtful
parentage, a bastard, mixing up with whom may violate the norms of social intercourse.
More fundamentally, Squire Westem is full of that raw energy with which Tom himself
is abundantly gifted.

However, the difference between the two is equally immense -Squire Western is .
nature's own to the extent of being a beast. Bereft of true education in the ways of social
--
conduct he has rarely, if ever enjoyed the benefit of advice from others -Western
continues to remain till the end a wild and untamed animal. Mark the way he decided to
leave the pursuit of his daughter midway as he caught sight of a hunter wiQ a pack of
hounds venturing out into the forest. There is still more crudity in his imposing strict
physical restrictions on'sophia. Worse, he cares little for Sophia's right to choice in
marriage and doesn't mind employing force to get her acceptance. Tom's attitude
towards Sophia, as we know, is opposite to that of Western's. What can Tom make of
such a friend as Squire Western? A good person, though thoroughly impulsive and
unpredictable.

2.33 The Father-Daughter Angle

In fact, one should have a second look at Squire Western's 'goodness,' something by
which his dear daughter stands befooled, born, as she thinks, to fulfil daughter-like duties
to a 'great' father. She associates fatherhood with sanctity and quite strongly feels that
the father should belong to an altogether different category. She has her way at the end of
the novel but the terms of her vi~foryvis-A-V~S her father are highly 'emotional' and,
 ,restrictive (for the disadvantaged female) as against rational and realistic. An As we Fimt
f this kind in the daughter does not make sense to the reader because of the Read : Tom
on involved. In her c&e, it has been always been a one-way affair. Jones
Western is a picture of fondness, yet his love for the daughter is of a
nthinking. At the time of the final resolution of Sophia's marriage in
11, the reader may be swept off by the force of sentiment oozing from the

doesn't have in mind Squire Western the man but the mythical father who
his child into being. It is in this sense that I say Sophia is 'befooled.' The concept
ful daughter fulfilling her filial obligation would hardly cohere with Squire
's long and oppressive history of subjugating a wife because she was a woman,
,born to remain servile. Or maybe she sees the gap between the father and
Western and wishes that the two images join. It is interesting to note that
only character in the novel who openly opposes a woman's right of
en and unabashedly preaches women's suppression.

ability should look out of place in such a character and I wonder as to

ould harp on his innocence and sweet foolhardiness. He appears 'comic'
helplessly with his sister on account of Sophia's marriage. But we also
ntext is different and that the brother is mindful of the money and estate
dd to this the fact that the sister is a political being with opinions that
feminist even today. Fielding seems to have consciously visualised
le vis-a-vis her brother in that Squire Western is raving mad most of
ster is the right counter-force (her education, conduct and politics a14 at
e) to check him. But Squire Western can also think of mundane
ers like money even as he is an amalgam of folly, vigour and uncontrolled energy.
unds his role as a woman-hater.

2.4 LET US SUM UP

\

ppears to be the story of Tom and Sophia. But Tom has a benefactor,
f teachers and a number of friends. He also has quite a few enemies.
Sophia is not merely an individual with that name but also a
e. She also has a confidante. The situation of love in which Tom and
rings many other people into play. All these people have their own
om what they do towards the novel's central pair. I have given some
unit. In the next one, I would go further into the ramifications of the
as been built around Tom arrd Sophia
U

2.511 GLOSSARY

t
Soc 1 energy: The general emotion that affects and activates large
groups of people at a particular time. Such an emotion
is generated in transitional periods in history.

1
Pat ' rchy: A specific mode of social organisation in which the
male-dominated family structure is the rule. It
particularly suppresseswomen economically socia7ly
and legally.
Tom ones
, *a 5 ,
Inner life: The point or solitude m a person's life in which
emotions and feelings sustain the individual in situations
of distress. This idea works behind expressions such as
the thinking being.

Significant totality: Georg Lukacs's concept. The unified experience that a

writer captures in hisfher work. The act of capturing
implies that the writer considers the experience fully
reflective of the nature of his society.

Individual self-assertion: Quite close to "expression of individuality." This is

seen in the case of a character who takes a bold
stand, silent or vocal that works contrary to the
interests of a group, an institution.

2.6 QUESTIONS
1. As a novel, Tom Jones is deceptively simple, with a story that makes no
significant demands on the reader. Do you agree?

2. Do you see the projection of a moral viewpoint in Tom Jones as one through
which the author aims at correcting distortions in human behaviour? Discuss.
.2 Varieties of Female Representation -fiom Low to High Strata
3.2.1 Bridget as an Intelligent User of Skills
3.2.2 Molly Seagrim and Mrs. Waters
3.2.3 Lady Bellaston's Degradation & Vacuity
.3 Fieldings Narrative Strategies
3.3.1 Role of the Narrator

.4 Let Us SumUp

is unit, I shall acquaint you with the complex nature of Tom Jones. Yes, we should

cio-historical developments within its ambit. I say this because Fielding is more than a

lear not merely fiom the prefatory chapters he has added to each book in the novel b ~ t

uations. I plan here to focus more upon the behaviour of characters and the situations
which they find themselves.

across as a repository of wisdom and Tom as an eager though inconsistent learner

. We also saw that there always remained a great distance between the two at the
1 of communication. How about Tom vis-a-vis other characters? I took up this
Tom Jones
3.2 VARIETIES OF FEMALE REPRESENTATION-FROM
LOW TO HIGH STRATA

We are struck by a great variety of women characters in the novel. It is indeed surprising
how Fielding assigns such clear and distinctive traits to each one of them. He must have
had a large fund of social experience to draw upon and a keen eye to set apart one type of
female existence from another. I say this because unlike men, who have a share in the
power-structure at different levels in the world of the novel, women have to be largely
restricted to their sexuality.

3.2.1 Bridget as an Intelligent User of Skills

As noted above ,Bridget Allworthy, in spite of her superior social status, is 'wooed' ( a
mild form of being sexually approached) by a number of people at different points of
time. She is not good-looking. Still, marriage with her can be planned by aspirants such
as Captain Blifil, and the senior Blifil. Square and Thwackum, too, consistently try to
win favour with her. What is clear is that these four have always hoped to attain money
or power through sexually exploiting, and more pertinently, subjugating her. Bridget
knows it quite well and thinks of using it to further her own ends -a quite 'legitimate'
way in the circumstances to use her position as a woman. In Fielding's view, "So
discreet was she in her conduct, that her prudence was much on the guard, as if she had
had all the snares to apprehend which were laid for her whole sex" (54). She cleverly
manipulates the philosopher and the clergyman and reduces the two to the level of abject
seekers of sexual favours. We should also not forget that it is Bridget who is the firsr
woman in the novel to violate the code of matrimonial sanctity, by which her great
brother swears so much, and gives birth to a bastard who, as we see, raises her role of
committing ever-new violations of the sexual-matrimonial code to a different level
altogether.'And ironically, the dead Bridget has had her way in the end in so many
different senses. She is able to do so largely because social privilege protected her from
crude encroachment by any of the males. Also, she is less gullible because of superior
upbringing and education than other women in the novel. Be that as it may, we are
presented through her with an attitude of counter-violation of the all-suppressing
patriarchal code by a woman. This planned act of negation by her can be appreciated
'comically' and 'heroically.'

3.2.2 Molly Seagrim and Mrs. Waters

Molly Seagrim attracts the reader's attention more compellingly as a symbol of

aggressive female sexuality. Fielding seems to be deriving a great deal qf fun from her
depiction, but the laughter of 'comedy' is seldom at her cost. Instead, he clearly upholds
Molly as a powerfblusymbolof human vigour and raw sexual power. Molly has none of
the prudish, hypocritical sense of chastity of which Fielding accused the heroines of
Richardson's novels. In fact, Fielding visualises Molly in excessive animalistic terms. It
occurs to us later that this wild, unrestrained, almost overflowing sexuality becomes in
the novel a sharp comment onLady Bellaston's promiscuous behaviour. We see Lady
Bellaston planning her affairs cynically with different men on the strength of skills and
home-work. In the latter's case, sexuality changes into a sick routinised behaviour. Tom
himself loses much of his dynamism and gusto as he interacts with her. Her morally
debilitating influence upon Tom is comprehended quite well by Sophia herself. This is
reflected in her certain rejection of Tom till things reveal themselves in a radically
different light at the end.
 rs yet another variety of female behaviour. She has a long history of Important
a1 harassment. The two harassments can't in fact be separated. But we Thematic Areas in
distorted sense of values regarding relationships. Perhaps, her affair with Tom Jones
military officer with no rootedness in settled existence, has left an
n her -a mark of easy utilitarian relationship. Any new male can
a series of such happenings may eventually land her in a
I
surface, we may note a few similarities between Mrs. Waters and Tom in their
e to sexual morality. But a close look would reveal that insofar as the relationship
een the two is concerned, Tom is an object of seduction, to which he undoubtedly
umbs rather easily, while Mrs. Waters is the seducer. More, we have seen Tom
ly in all situations unlike Mrs. Waters who can't be called innocent.
seems to be to confront the reader with the disastrously unsettling idea
ge. In fact, we do not become entirely free from the horror of Tom
ng possibly gone to bed with his own mother. In this case, chance only helps. But
ce or no chance, the situation is such, with Tom's recklessness and lack of serious
spective and Mrs. Waters's worse than amoral ways (we have to distinguish between
two), that the protagonist of the novel might as well have been his mother's partner in
hance, it is the omnipotent narrator who rejects the option and
des to make the novel an epic and, therefore, pull Tom out of the possibility of incest.
e author's decision were to make the work a tragedy, the novel would be a repetition
us. But that is not the genre to which Tom Jones belongs in its basic spirit and
rs. Waters helps us see the enormity of unscrupulous sexuality -it
mes crude and excessive in her case with the passage of time. In this way, the
ose behind the introduction of Mrs. Waters in the novel is not merely to contribute to
the plot but to offer another variant of female behaviour. With its help,
nanity of Mrs. Fitzwater, whose sob-story appears episodic and narrow
scope as well as the cynical disregard for ethics and scruples behind Lady Bellaston's
ell-orchestrated operations.

Ig !
.2.3 Lady Bellaston's Degradation and Vacuity (?)
ielding considers Lady Bellaston in strictly moral terms and finds her deficient in
re' as well as 'education.' She is presented as actively participating in masquerades
re the men and women of the upper stratum of society entertain themselves. The
ene is typically eighteenth century and reflects a growing amount of laxity in morals
ng people in higher London circles. When Tom, innocent as he is, is exposed to this
osphere, he does not see the moral degradation and vacuity underlying it. On her part,
Bellaston is struck by the looks of Tom and plans to keep him as her lover. A cool
r of games in fashionable London, Lady Bellaston employs clever stratagems to
ep Tom away from Sophia and uses her social standing as well as money to ensure that
remains firmly in her grip.

t of her personality in which this projection of Lady

novel. Here, I refer to Lady Bellaston's inherent fears as an
secure woman in the presence of Sophia's sweet and dignified ways. Lady Bellaston is
t individualistic, self-centred and mean. We hardly see any idealism or moral sense
I hand, Sophia is driven by a superior sense of love. We perceive
intense urge in her to self-question. Sophia is tom apart between her lover and filial
things have all along remained alien to Lady Bellaston. In this clash of
is bound to lose. The presence of a superior sensibility has made
a woman totally reassured of winning Tom's love. The sense of
Bellaston points towards that whole boredom of the stagnant life (the
formation) into which the upper stratum of the English society has
TomJones fallen and which denies its women the pleasures of being honestly and loyally related to
the members of the opposite sex. If we look back fiom the scenes of London life to the
way people went about their business in Somersetshire, we realise that the high and
mighty as well as the poor and helpless remained firmly rooted in a life of relative
stability and honesty there. On the other hand, the London atmosphere is too cynical and
cold to allow simple pleasures of natural give and take. Lady Bellaston becomes acutely
aware of the growing loneliness and uncertainty in her existence as a woman.This is
specifically caused by her watching Tom as totally absorbed in the thought of joining
with his beloved Sophia. The only way Lady Bellaston can assert herself in the situation
is to thwart the efforts of the two lovers to join each other.

Where does the novel'come to an end -in Book seventeenth or eighteenth? It is again a
difficult question to answer. Fielding seems to be keeping the two options open and
inviting the reader to make hidher own choice. Looking at the novel @oma close
realistic angle (words such as convincing, acceptable and logical come to mind in
association with 'realistic'), we feel that Tom has become too helpless and weak (he
cannot fight the whole structure single-handed) to even wiggle out of the situation in the
given circumstances. The 'logic' of events in the novel strongly suggests that Tom is
destined to fail, which in his specific case means losing Sophia as well as all connections
with Mr. Allworthy. This points towards the likely success of Blifil's sinister plans, who
operates in the novel in the manner of Fate, out to systematically destroy Tom's
prospects of fulfilment at the end of his journey.
9
The narrator says as much in the seventeenth book and calls Tom's situation desperate.
But this kind of 'realism' does not seem to go well with the spirit of the novel. Instead,
Fielding sets much store by the 'comic approach' which stresses the vital significance of
human intervention moved by the urge to change. It is this urge and attitude which
inspires the narrator to continue into the eighteenth book and tell the reader confidently
that Tom and Sophia were not born to fail.

3.3 FIELDIN%'S NARRATIVE STRATEGIES ,

3.3.1 Role of the Narrator

I shall discuss at length the question of narration in a separate unit. This is essential since
the importance of this fictional device is immense. However, a brief comment is
necessary here. -

I see a kind of omnipotence in the narrator of Tom Jones. He can do whatever he wants
to. He can, for instance, give a specific direction to the course of events and influence
decisions of characters. More, he can defend his actions with the force of argument. This
serves a useful purpose in the novel and compels us to think about the identity of the
protagonist. Normally, the author is himself the narrator. However, we come across many
authorial comments that are to be accepted by the reader as such and those others where
the author talks tongue-in-cheek. The problem is further compounded when we see the
narrator at work not in the sense that he narrates a saga but that he creates a saga after his
own liking and judgement, and narrates it in the very process of creating it. The author
himself combines this kind of role in ToqJones. Still, as the action unfolds, we see a
distancing between the narrator and author as well as the creator and author. This has
happened because the 'history' called Tom Jones has been conceived in the broadest
-
possible comic mould a serious analyst and commentator wearing a comic mask has
taken upon himself to 'create' a 'history' according to the law of probability and
convenience. Nay, this serious-comic voice does not accept any discipline for itself and,
 t, rides rough shod on territories of morality, religion, ethics, love, beauty, carnal Important . ~y
S, meannesses, etc.
Thematic Areas in
Tom Jones
se who see the narrator as the author himself, would face the difficulty of proving
the whole unfolded 'drama' in the novel can be no more than an extension of
ess -that the unifying element in the novel is the author's
This goes against the clash of perspectives in the novel with Fielding n d
to provide coherence to a number of discordant voices. Tell me
- Mrs. Waters, Allworthy, Bridget, Tom? What I think is that the
nstitutes a dramatic interplay between various pa& and these parts
existence independent of the author's consciousness. Yes, in the absolute sense,
or has been conceived and created by the author but once that has
4 s beg'ilh influencing and determining the course of happenings
. If we do not accept the concrete existence of the
ors in Tom Jones, we would be hard put to comprehend those points in the
ss where things stop 'moving.' We notice that wherever this happens, the
ely explaining many things, but invents arguments, situations,
appenings, and even total reversals of fortune. The narrator never fights shy of
e for such interventions and bravely moves on to tell unbelievable things.
the joke is practised invariably under the pretext of 'histoyy.' I feel that the serious
entator has withdrawn himself many a time from behind the mask or,
,allowed the mask to be peculiarly shaped by the comic intention.
then, are masks. In either case, Fielding the author seems to watch
ent of the action.

3.4.2 P h c a as Segments of Life :the Country, the Road, the City

important thematic aspect of the novel is the division of life in segments. These'
ular representations bear the stamp of the place to which they belong. Together,
concrete segments bring to life the whole diversity as well as interrelatedness of
enth century English life. As a faithhl observer of contemporary situations,
ng presents the true picture of his surroundings, doing it with the intensity and
of a creator of history.

re are three distinct places in the novel -Somersetshire, the road (paths, towns and
spread over the distance between Somersetshire and London), and the city of
ncerned, these three represent distinct.phasesin his
r instance, Somersetshire stands for a dull and stagnated existence. In
arned men, Square and Thwackum (who interpret situatione
lace has been managed and governed since a long time by narrow
ief. Magistrate Allworthy uses his intellectual might just to help people
ey commit. Squire Western quarrels or socialises with neighbours on
nary principles. The common people - men and women - fight it out
s whenever a disagreement between them takes place. Others steal or
its, they also cheat. Among the clever ones, Blifil mixes truth and
at he can outwit the best of men. But what we largely see is a
movement is circular - you come back to the point from where
r attention to Sophia's mother who married the wrong man. The
going to marry a wrong man (Blifil) under circumstances that are
ink of another detail, Partridge, the supposed father of Tom, is
lace and Jones is equally well forced to run away from it. This
s that movement and liberation lies elsewhere though Tom and
is consciousness do not know where and how exactly they
is certain is that Somersetshire holds no hope.
 1

Tom J0'iu.s The s 4 n d place, the road, stresses Tom's need to move and explore. The road also
gives Tom scope to reach another place where joining with his beloved may be possible.
It holds our hope. On her part, Sophia becomes gradually aware of the value of marriage
with a person gifted with natural goodness. This 'road' is rough and difficult, both
literally and metaphatically. But it is here that the action is. There is no place better than
the road to present the vibrant life of eighteenth century England. Fielding gives us a rare
view of the people on the move. The reader sees the soldiers going to fight for causes that
may determine the political nature of the country. But these soldiers, in their amorphous
military formation behave as individuals with whom the common reader can easily
identify, and whom our hero joins for a short period. In fact, Tom thinks for a while to
become a soldier - the only difficulty with him is that a career in the military will take
him away from his other 'destination,' Sophia. Fielding persists with the depiction of
fights, journeys, escapes, etc. in the Man of the Hill episode also. We can imagine, too,
the variety of social life that the England of the eighteenth century contained - the
innkeepers,travellers in stage-coaches, doctors, priests, barbers, or the gypsies making
merry in a secluded part away from the road. The 'road' as a phase of Tom's search and
exploration, as mentioned above, is not smooth or straight and can give unexpected jolts
to the traveller.

The city of London offers a radically different picture. There is 'life' all right but no
movement, apart from *at which is noticed on%e surface. The world of intrigue and
scandal is seen to engulf everyone. We also perceive a conflict between the country
squire ( Allworthy, Western) and the lord (Fellamar) in London. For Western, it is
unthinkable to .have Lord Fellamar as son-in-law - the two worlds of status and
privilege(of the countryside and the city) being in a state of antagonism. As Lady
Bellaston and Lord Fellamar become active to tame and ensnare Sophia, one feels that
there is no chance whatsoever of Sophia and Tom uniting. Here, Fielding raises the
question of Tom's efficacy as a hero struggling for survival in an atmosphere fraught
with threats and dangers. Still more serious is the issue that contending groups converge
upon London, a world which itself is quite crisis-ridden, to find a solution of their
problems. As we have discussed elsewhere, the city of London makes the possibility of
'comedy' extremely narrow as the fighting faculties of Tom gradually decline.

3 3 3 Breadth of Fielding's Realism

It is easier in the case of Tom Jones than most other English novels to move out of the
presented situations. The narrator remains insistent that Tom Jones is not a fictional work
but history. The division of the description into three clear parts takes us into the manner
in which the countryside and the city coexisted and reflected upon each other.
Coexistence is a weak word since the relationship between the two social segments was
anything but kind and pepceful. The metaphor of the city in Tom Jones signifies a
moribund lifemode and the sooner it is replaced or wiped out by the country (Tom-
Sophia intervention), the better. The writer could not adopt a harsher attitude towards the
social set up of his time. Understandably, it evoked a violent response.

i Fielding's sense of realism stands further enhanced by his view of the countryside which,
as he sees it, contained a large amount of the natural and spontaneous. In spite of this,
Fielding offers a thorough-going critique of the good as well as the negative characters in
the countryside by persistently presenting them as targets of ridicule or irony. He does
not seem to be sufficiently sure that the vigour and zeal of the simple people can see the
society through. In many cases, Fielding understands the ills and evils of Somerset to be
entirely insurmountable.
 more of the political aspect to it as against the social. Here, the current of Important
nger. Rebellion by a section of society and the effort of others to quell it is a Thcmatlc Area
point of reference. What England seems to need is a check on lawlessness but in in Tom Jwd
's view, this check should contain in large measure the support of the common
Tom's gusto is quite akin to Molly's. Fielding's prpscription is not narrowly
an entertainment through fiction that makes the kader aware of the follies,
evils of human behaviour through deployment of technique. This is what most
and American criticism is preoccupied with. Instead, the prescription is political
which Tom Jones shocked the eighteenth century reader. If Johnson tended to
immoral and 'vicious,' he did so because he understood-it as going against
*
norms. For Johnson, these forces were of morality and decency in life.

we move on to the higher plane of social history. The novel is not merely
but history. Tom signifies the emergence of a new group of people in the
ntury English society. This group took independent positions and enjoyed
rejecting whatever obstructed its social progress. The group had an outlook
sm and constructive intervention. This approach marked the behaviour of
s such as Tom and Sophia who were enlightened and modem in the true sense
ever, Fielding finds the scope of their onward journey in the novel
e see in the novel a fine interplay of actual, fearsome conditions on one
rvention on the other.

lose sight of the fact that human initiative may not succeed
ly. The energy and dynamism of individuals is to be tempered by a great deal of
f successfully countering the challenge of orthodoxy acd social
e an alternative strategy of action. 'Nurture' is to play an important
strategy, meaning thereby that people like Molly, Partridge, Mrs. Miller and
be left behind in favour of those who would acquire genuine moral
ellectual daring and economic power. Fielding is strongly

-
may help us reflect upon the hypocrisy and callousness of Bocieties, nations
es in the modem world and inspire the reader t? fearlessly critique them .
and action. Most of the criticism coming from western countries seems to
k this aspect. This practice of academic criticism quite rampant in
clouds ow,understanding of such fictional classics as Tom Jones.
Tom Jones . Our job as students and teachers is to struggle for a fresh human-centred perspective.
,'
More thw others, Fielding needs to be rescued from such vastly influential
considerations as plot-structure, irony and artistic authenticity.

3.5 GLOSSARY
Significances: The word is popular with modem critical theorists. The
plural in the termmbliberate since this is supposed to
critique the validity of one, all-important meaning.
"Significances" in a novel relate to the different
characters and situations.

Privileges in a society have a logic and a pattern which

evolve from the fact of birth, money etc. Politics,
religion and moraliJy manifest the interests of
entrenched sections who together constitute such a
stmcture.

Sexuality: This particularly refers to female sexuality which is

sought to be curbed and undermined in terms of morality
and tradition. The word denotes a natural physical urge
in both males and females.

Animalism: Animal-like behaviour in human beings. Tom Jones and

Molly Seagrim are good examples of it. Even though
the term is positive if contrasted with hypocrisy, by itself
it locks in "culture" and developed human traits.

~tarian: Not related to ideas or morals. According to it, things

are understood in terms of their narrow usefulness. A
bourgeois trait.

Narrator : The idea behind this word is that the author's opinion or
voice may be different from that of the teller of the tale.

3.6 QUESTIONS
1. In what way do the women characters in Tom Jones appeal to you? Have they
been set apart from men in the world of the novel? Give reasons in support of
your answer.

2. What is the significance of places in Tom Jones? Do they stand for different sets
of codes prevalent in the eightienth century English life? Discuss.
 1
UNIT 4 CHARACTERS AS CHARACTERISATIONS

1 Objectives
1 Introduction
i Problems of Characterisation
1 4.2.1 Point of View in Fielding
1 4.2.2 Typical and Individual Characters
1 4.2.3 Jenny Jones's Character
) 4.2.4 Social Dimension of Incest
I Realistic and Comic Characters
1 4.3.1 Jenny Jones - a Character in the Realistic Mould
1 4.3.2 Characters in the Comic Mould
i Let Us Sum Up
Olossary
Questions
I1
4.d 1
OBJECTIVES
TheJaimis this unit is to give you an insight into Fielding's attitude to society as
exe bplified in his portrayal of comic and realistic characters.
1

4.1 INTRODUCTION

t
Th Problem
in fiction refer to actual men and women in society. They are visualised
r in human and social terms. While reading a novel, you would have come
scriptions of the appearances and habits of important characters. The
es information about their age, station in life and relationship with one
er, very soon we start hearing them speak in the first person which means
h m the descriptive mould. The dialogue assigned to them puts them
in which they have to carry out their specific plan of action. This 'plan of
ly called the plot of which all characters are a part.

,then, is a plan or sequence of incidents which is important for us I ~ g e l y

it has men and women in it. Good writers pay great attention to the visualisation
men. They work and rework them to make the account appealing
s~selectthose aspects of society for depiction which directly relate
aspects of the world captured by the author combine so well with
work gains an identity of its own. This is the problem. It is
to separate one part of a work for consideration while others are kept

isibility of a Wo; k

re parts or segments in a literary work which can be understood in separation? My

is that a literary work can be considered a complete and unified whole and may
the reader as such. We can go to the extent of comparing'the work with a living
ism to stress its oneness and integrity. There is a point in saying that a book cannot
p in parts unless we want to "murder it." Harsh words these, but we know that
Tom Jones the effect of a literary piece on the reader is of a different kind than that of a
philosophical treatise. One way to explain this difference is to say that a novel or a poem
is indivisible and has what can be called its inviolability.

But what do we make of the fact, while reading a book, that a specific aspect of it draws
our attention more clearly than the others? To put it differently, how does it happen that
in our discussion about texts, certain areas get exclusive emphasis while the rest are more
or less entirely ignored? Some of these areas can be identified as characters, the opening
and ending as well as the process through which the action moves inexorably towards the
ending, one or more recurring references (symbols, metaphors, myths) and the specific
presence and role of the author. I am talking of the class-room discussion or the seminar
format under which the 'serious' readers exchange their individual impressions about a
work with one another and assess the validity of one impression against the other.

When I say "in our diskussions," I have to be aware of the significant encroachment the
serious student of literature makes on the work's territory, its world with diverse
segments of life, meaning thereby that "divisions" and "separations" of the kind reflected
in "impressions" actually take place not in the text but in the mind of the reader. All
discussions about literature, the whole critical enterprise stands upon this exertion and
effort of the reader to "make sense" of a book in her or his individual context. A
consideration of "aspects and parts" - they are arbitrary divisions - of a book helps us
as its critical readers to enter into its nature and spirit. No doubt the divisions contribute
mightily to our comprehension of the author's urge to share his or her response to the
prevailing environment. It is this urge, this response of the particular author, which
constitutes the work's distinctiveness or inviolability -the unifier of the work being its
maker. We understand a lot more acutely the author's world, social and cultural, through
his work, his particular response to it.

The Common Reader versus the Critic

But there is another format, that of the comprehension of a literary piece by the "common
reader," the educated sections in the larger society, as different from the "specialist
reader," the student of literature and the critic. The common reader may not be
"professionally" interested in seeing those nuances which presumably take our response
to a higher plane, he or she may instead seek a direct link of the work with the world
surrounding him or her. This happens many a time in the case of the works which reflect
specifically on contemporary issues. The common reader may feel that the book in
question - the poem, the novel, the play - contains a message and a statement about
the actual situation of the time. The question is : How do we as serious "uncommon"
readers of literature deal with such an attitude?

In my view, the idea of literature as cahying a message should always be cherished, *

though we notice that most of the criticism coming from the western academe has
discarded it. The academy in the first world, that is how they have to be called by us,
tends to divide the human creative-intellectual endeavour in separate compartments~
economy, politics, philosophy, print and audio-visual media, ideology, literature, theatre,
linguistics, the arts, etc. Under this scheme, the message has been assigned to politics,
ideology or the media. Literary criticism, on the other hand, has come to gradually
constitute the "internal areas," the linguistic-textual aspects of a book. But can we, the
members of a third world society which stands deprived of even the basic means of
subsistence, afford the luxury of a class-room or seminar format? In fact, Raymond
Williams reminds the reader in the developed world of the west that literature should be
firmly placed "in society."
 Characters as
4.2 PROBLEMS OF CHARACTERISATION Characterisations

,characters afford important clues to the author's attitude and response. They
about the way the author's mind works in the process of understanding
nality within a particular system. But before I comment on a character or a
ers in Tom Jones from the angle of human personality, I wish to state that a
work of fiction is always a symbol, a concretised pattern of social
hat I imply is that social behaviour can be a good subject of comment - you
iour good, bad or just acceptable. This goes against the notion
not be analysed except in psychological terms An individuality
novel has nothing to do with a flesh and blood human being - it is a
dividuality, not an actual one. Let me explain further. A character's
or what is called characterisation reflects essentially upon (tells about) its
creator - the author - and not upon that 'personality' which a novel
tain within itself. Arnold Kettle struggles with this idef throughout his
An Introduction to the English Novel. But Kettle does not resolve the
what he calls "life" and "pattern" and merely settles down to accept
two separate types of fictional works under the categories of "life" and
as argued that there can be a certain type of character which engages
reader in realistic-experiential terms - the reader feels the way the
d that the reader enters the emotional world of the character'. For
this is "life" as captured by a novelist. Kettle's category of "pattern" the opposite
the author's moral or social viewpoint. To my mind, it does not
er whether a character has more or less of "life" in the sense Kettle
. I also add that recognition of "life" in a character in fiction may
to unnecessarilyexplore his or her "psychological depths." How does a critic
course, we read a number of books which analyse a character's mind, going, for
sons why Maggie in The Mill on the Floss decides to run away with
er, the question is whether we explore her mind or study the
iety, family, etc.) that influenced her perception. Such a critical
ut Maggie but George Eliot. I reiterate that the character in fiction
an extension of the author's consciousness. On the other hand, the reader, in the
1, gets acquainted with the author's understanding Bnd point of

4.2.
1 Point of View in Fielding

's case, identifying the attitude is not a problem. Unlike most English
ielding clearly states his'socio-ideological position. When he as an author
a particular character or is critical about an issue, he offers sharp comments
approval. Of course, while doing so, he adopts the comic mode and we have
his repertoire of comic devices is immense. Nevertheless, none among the
r left in doubt about the author's critical stance, If found unacceptable,
people are ridiculed and exposed unambiguously in his works. It is also to be
at more than the comic devices and dramatic presentations of events and
is Fielding's remarks which enlighten and alert the reader. To say that
ays ironical and sel *3mforthright in his remarks is wrong. The fact is that
largely informed by that deep commitment to virtuous conduct which
strong involvement in social affairs. Consider the 'non-comic' and quite
is statement : "I would not willingly give offence to any, especially to
in the cause of virtue or religion. I hope, therefore, no m;r.nwill, by
erstanding, or perversion, of my meaning, misrepresent me, as
any ridicule 06 the greatest perfections of human nature; and which
fy and enoble the heart of man, and raise him zbsve the brute
 Tom Jones ' creation" (130). To iiiiss out on tliis serious aspect of comment wliicli tlie autlior shares
with his reader would deprive us of mucli which in Fielding's view is the wisdom of
human life.'fl~is forms an important part of liis character-presentation.

4.2.2 Typical and Individual Characters

The two co~iceptsof tlie 'typical' and 'individual' can be gainfully enlployed to understand
Fielding's characterisation. Typicality stands for tlie broader traits of a person's
behaviour. Under tliis view, a clergyman as a member of tlie profession and a
maidservant would behave as all clergymen and other maidservants of tlie period. In the
use of typicality, the writer's aini is to suggest that a society largely moulds and shapes
the behaviour of its members. The meii aiid women living at a time bear tlie stamp of
their society and its ways. While representing characters tliis way in a work, tlie writer
implies that there isn't mucli need to explore the deep urges and desi!es of people. In this
sense, the typicality of a character becomes a significant means of gaining insights into
the reality of the particular historical epoch to which tlie author belongs. But the concept
of typicality by itself does not appreciate specificity and distinctiveness in a cliaractcr -
it swears too much by the 'general.'

The "individual" in a character could means two things: firstly, it denotes tliat
sensuousness which draws the reader close to the character, establishes an imaginative
link betweeeii the two and the reader "becomes one" with it. Authors achieve it through
the psychological projection of characters in which not just the decisions taken but the
processes through which the particulq person reached liis or her resolutio~lsare
communicated to the reader. There is a whole aesthetic argument based upon a
character's "individuality" and "sensuousness"which certifies that character's, or even the
whole novel's, authenticity. This stands in opposition to another character who is merely
typical and, therefore, stands for an idea. This, as I see it, is a narrow view of the concept
of "individuality." If we adopted this view, we would be constrained to believe that
Fielding's novels, and the characters in them, lack tliat verve as well as delicate seqse of
feeling in a situation which is the hallmark of intensely human writing. More, we might
even visualise opposite polarities between the typical and the individual, the former
standing for the social and the latter for the human.

The second meaning of the "individual" has greater validity, in that it points towards the
particular phenomenon of which a character is a part. In fact, we cannot separate a
character from the larger phenomenon under whose specific (because historically created
at a juncture) rules it operates. Fiction criticism should go into tliis relationship between
the character and the phenomenon and find out tlie way in wliicli the two "create" a
specificity together. Thus we see that the peculiar pattern of events presented by tfn
author may or may not impart "sensuousness" and "authenticity" in human terms to its
actors, it may not show them as "breathing" and "living," and yet engage the reader's
attention in its descriptions because of the close identification the presented pattern may
establish between the reality of the work and that of the reader. Do we not generally think
of our own world, go over our fears and predilections while reading a good novel? In
this sense, Fielding's characters may in fact be more "real" and "un-theoretical"than, for
instance, those of Richardson's.

4.2.3 Jenny Jones's Character

I
To illustrate this, let me deal with Jenny Jones's character in Tom Jones at some length.

r
Jenny ones has been shown in three phases - as a young woman when she found
herse f to be much brighter than others in the neighbourhood; as a middle-aged person
when she met Jones for the first time at Mazard-Hill; and finally as one surrounded by
 icious glances but quite on her own in London. To begin with, let us address the ~hu&cteraas
tion: what could be the motive of the author in presenting her in Somcrsetshire as a Cbamcterisations
intelligent student as well as a sensitive individual? The author derives a great
leasure from her virtuosity which in a mere maidservant would be out of place.
es her highly unpopular in the neighbourhood, particularly among women who
ened by her qualities of mind. That she wins close intimacy and friendship with
orthy is proof of her impressive accomplishments. Does Fielding wish to
e "comic-heroic" qualities to her as a character which he visualises in a
truggling individuals from the lower classes - consider Fanny, Joseph and
s in Joseph Andrews? My answer would be in the affirmative since Fielding
Jones as a character to empkasise a high degree of dynamism and agility.
he author's purpose to use her as a fictional device through which the blind
Il as stupidities of the majority of people can also be pinpointed? Add to
patience and forbearance discerilible in her behaviour when Mr.
borately castigates her for the sin thht she has not committed. Her loyalty
t ordinary. The quality of her sincerity to a trapped woman would
estern proud. Of course, the reader is to believe till the very end that
f Tom. Keeping this in view, it is aot hard to ionnect some of the traits
with those of Jenny as his "mother," strengthening the assumption
e protagonist has an importance of her own and is by that logic a
nce. Her expulsion by Allworthy from the neighbourhood of
eight of attention she has received in the beginning of the novel.
e first phase of Jenny's career is that just when she has raised
s an important character, she is made to disappear (as Jenny Jones) .
ovel forever. Again, the question is : why? As we view her
hase, we find that Jenny has undergone radical change and become an altogether
\

aid that Fielding's characters are static, that they tend to retain throughout
r initial shape and form. Some of the characters may be of that kind, they
ay a simple unchanging role, conceived as they are in the "humorous" mould. It is
ional role, assigned to serve particular demands in their case. This we will
in the discussion. What I say at this point is that Jenny Jones as Mrs.
be easily recognised in view of so much happening to her in the previous
. For instance, she has acquired a new name not just formally and ,
ad, she has over the long period become a typical army officer's woman
settled, sexually exploited, stupid, insensitive. Where are those qualities of head
stantially above most women in Somersetshire? What has remained of
rs. Waters is the habit of striking easy relationships on the sly. The
telligent young woman to a clever calculating middle-aged woman.
t only recognises this change consciously, and remembers the kind of person
s was when young, he also keeps in view the social process in which the
ccurred. Even ordinarily, Fielding is fond of charting the life-course
aring information with the reader about significant past happenings
rs. While there may be other fictional purposes such as intensifying
ind these numerous discourses Fielding presents, one quife
nt motive in the present case is that the author puts almost the whole blame for
line in Jenny Jones at the door of society. This is done deftly in
acterisation under which we see a whole system and structure critiqued
It may as well be said that the crudities and amoral ways in Mrs.
nces of the brutal rigidities of the society in which she has lived

t
Field g works to a plan as he shows Mrs. Waters caught in the web of circumstances.
Thin of the situation in which Tom meets her for the first time - a woman "stripped
Tom Jones half-naked, under the hands of a rufian, who had put his garter round her neck and was
endeavouring to draw her up to a tree" (440-1). She faces an attempt at robbery by a
desperate criminal in a forest where chances of getting help are remote. The atmosphere
is "wild" in more senses than one. After she has struggled for a while, Mrs. Waters is in a
state of total incapac~tyas she (in torn clothes) is shouting to be saved. This resembles
the natural behaviour of an animal to ward off the blow and escape injury. On being
rescued, Mrs. Waters turns, almost instantly, into the impulsive mould of sexuality. This
seems understandable in those surroundings. The incidents subsequent to this at the
Upton inn are hilarious on the surface. Actually, they also take effect under a pattern
which is highly oppressive - the threats held by economic subsistence, moral
principles, social etiquette, manipulative strategies of the lower people, all forming a
sophisticated network at the inn which may be seen as evolved for preventing animals to
gain liberty. This I call the general plan elaborately conceived and executed by the
author. But the plan is only a plan, a framework. Mrs. Waters as a character may or may .
not adhere to the code which the h e w o r k seeks to impose on the members of society
in general. And the strength of Mrs. Waters as a character lies in that she assiduously
violates the code while her physical energy is constantly sapped by the intense pressures
of struggle. But she is weakened 'physically' by the various assaults from centres of
power - a husband in search of an absconding wife, a father closely following (on
horse) his daughter so that he can capture her and hand het over to a husband in marriage,
a young woman in pursuit of a lover, husband, etc. These not merely threaten Mrs.
Waters's privacy with a lover, but also end up in snatching that lover who grows
conscsons by and by about the value of purity, Loyalty and virtue. Looked at from-her
angle, the Upton inn is a battleground where she loses (physically) most of what she
longed to achieve. But she does not give up. If she is a lively and entertaining player at
t l ~ IJpron
t inn, a highly successful comic character, it is because she has been presented
in conc'rete terms by the author. She breathes. This I call a "concretised" character in
whom the typical traits have been highly individualised. I borrow the phrase fiom Georg
I ukacs to call this "concrete typicality" which in my opinion is the strong point of
characterisation.

4.2.4 Social Dimension of Incest

In the third and last phase, Mrs. Waters appears just one of the many characters who have
converged upon London to be of some use in the resolution of Tom's p r ~ b l e ~But, s . is
t s r presentation of individuality by the author compromised in the process of moving
tewards the city? I do not think so because in spite of the horror caused by the revelation
that she is Jones's mother, she strikes the reader as a person who committed the sin of
incest with the least awareness. Secondly, incest has individualistic-moralisticovertones
- the individual is condemned to remain in a mental state of sin by a society whose
,moral code hetshe has wilfully or otherwise violated. But it is to be interprdted and
3%dged in a society which has given birth to much graver distortions of morality and
ethics. There is a kind of primitivism in incest and the act points towards that distait past
when relationships had not yet become fully and properly defined, and that this had given
a vague and mythical dimension to a violation of social codes. On the other hand, the
eighteenth century London society hides much moral-sexual distortion beneath the veil of
secrecy and gradually reduces male-female interaction to a self-seeking manipulative
level. To put it more clearly, hypocrisy is a much greater sin for Fielding than incest
because in the former case, there is a falsity and dishonesty to which an individual
consciously commits himself or herself, and society discreetly overlooks the act.
However, in the latter case, the individuals involved as well as those sympathetic towards
them feel "horrified" and morally "repelled." Fielding as author is quite clear when he
says :
 Both religion and virtue have received more real discredit from hypocrites, thm
the wittiest profligates or infidels could ever cast upon them: nay farther, as these
two, in their purity, are rightly called the bands of civil society, and are indeed
the greatest of blessings; so when poisoned and corrupted with fraud, pretenoe
and affectation, they have become the worst of civil curses and have enabled men
to perpetrate the most cruel mischiefs to their own species (130-1).

ewed differently. On knowing that Mrs. Waters, with whom Jones has been to
e other than Jones's own 'mother' Jenny, Partridge's face looks "paler than
es fixed in his head, his hair standing on end, and every limb trembling." In
I-social code regarding incest gets further established through the feeling of
nough, the reader gets to know that those considered guilty of the "act"
Retrieval of Tom and Mrs. Waters from the tight spot - it is a different
Waters knew all along that she had never mothered a child - makes all
relief. Again, incest to Fielding in the last pages of the novel is an act that
once or a few times, but an act nevertheless. Compare this with the
don under cover and which the London society wilfully ignores. We can
Bellaston's efforts at engaging Tom as a lover an act. Instead, it is an

~
1
I

4.3 1 REALISTIC AND COMIC CHARACTERS

4.3.1 Jenny Jones-a Character in the Realistic Mould

se is: How does Fielding characterise Jenny Jones as Mrs. Waters

i
y, she is not as much in focus in this phase as she was at Upton.
towards the end of the novel becomes totally subservient to the interests of Tom
the capacity to substantially influence the course of action in
use the novel is supposed primarily to be the story of Tom and
ng is interested in showing how Sophia and Tom finally
uld be to miss the whole point. Of course, apparently the novel
its centre, but at a deeper level, it is about the world with
,the world in which they have to live and under whose logic
lationship. Jenny Jones also ends up getting a cleaiance from
ansgressions. The question can still be asked : Where would
s difficulties have been overcome as he turns out to be the
s a consequence, distinction of birth is bestowed upon him.
s a respectable person of the gentleman class, Squire Western
to give his daughter's hand to him. But the whole arrangement,
be a mere joke in comparison'with what Tom and Sophia
. This is the crux of the matter. Tom and Sophia unite only
wrestling and effort on the part of the author. In a
sense, they do not mavy because the logic of the specific circumstance does
it, their final fate being as problematic as that of Jenny Jones.

e time, Jenny Jones should be understood in terms of her realism, as one who
fate of all underprivileged women in England. Mark the number of such
e novel - Molly, her sisters and mother, the landlady and Susan the
at the Upton inn, Mrs. Miller, Nancy, etc., and our view of the hardships
not merely at the sexual level but also on the economic-social plane is
can scarcely overlook the hurts that life has given to these women.
ividly presents these women and exhibits a great deal of fellow-feeling
is struck by Fielding's portrayal of Susan the chambermaid at Upton
re so large that no swelling could be perceived in them, and moreover
--

T O _Jones
~ they were so hard that a fist could hardly make any impression on them" (447). In spite
of the humour, the crude violence to which ordinary women were subjected is not lost on
us.

Ldetus remind ourselves that Jenny is one of these women, the only difference is that she
is mentally better equipped and can on that strength communicate more impressively
with her superiors. Because of this, she receives a hostile response fiom others. Even the
best of men in the novel (Mr. Allwcrthy) thinks it proper to throw her out of the place
altogether 0x1 account of the moral outrage she is supposed to have committed. Mr.
Allworthy has been given the charge to keep the social surroundings morally clean. The
punishment of expulsion is also meted out to Partridge but Jenny Jones is to suffer more
than him - being a woman, she is fated to be abused sexually in a world ruled by
patriarchal notions - chastity, propriety, loyalty, etc. Keep in mind the ideological
environment of England at the time : a woman as privileged and prote~tedas Sophia
would invite crude verbal assaults. Consider what Ensign Northerton says about Sophia
at the Uptori inn : "I knew one Sophy Western that lain-with by half the young fellows at
Bath" (342). Squire Western's appreciative remarks about Tom's free and reckless
"affairs" with women, his victories and conquests, come to mind.

4.3.2 Characters in the Comic Mould

I have so far talked about Jenny Jones who belongs to the category of realistically drawn
chqacters. These characters face threats and challenges from their society which they are
born to bear with. They give that impression. Their tragedy is that the novel is not
focused upon them. As a category, th&e characters forfn the realistic background, this
baing their true function. However, the category of "comic" characters is different. They
influence the action in a major way. "Comic" would include, apart fiom Squire Western,
Miss Western, Thwackum, Square, Mr. Allworthy and Blifil. Fielding's comprehension
of these characters is in terms of an idea, that is along abstract-theoretical lines. They
could be defined as Mr. Good, Mr. Spontaneous, Mr. Evil, Mr. Hypocrite, Miss
Aggressive, etc. Fielding seems to have evolved a whole concept of the ';comic"
character. This has little to do with the comedy of humours of the previous century and
before. Fielding has departed fiompe comedy of humours by making e~tensiveuse of
real and concrete situations in whieh the action is made to take place. The arena of action
is not human nature, the essence o/f human behaviour on earth which is the human
beings' temporal home. That is dvhy events and situations in Tom Jones are persistently

d
called "history." If Tom Jones ere not "history," for instance, but a revelation of human
nature for the purpose of prese ing it from evil, it would have been a different sort of
writing. Fielding tests the efficacy of qualities the comic characters represent in actual
surroundings. This enables him to evolve a new kind of characterisation, that which
embodies initiative and optimism. Also, he stresses the desirability of these qualities in
his own society. The reader is compelled to examine the larger tendencies that characters
drawn under this mode qymbolise. See the contrast between Jenny and Mrs. Fitzpatrick
(realistic mode) on one side and Mr. Allworthy and Blifil (comic mode) on the other.

4.4 LET US SUM UP

Fielding wishes to share with the reader the firm belief that it is possible to attain
goodness and virtue in life. Making his comic characters a part of this positive struggle,
Fielding shows to the reader the fundamental value of virtuous human conduct-Mostof
the comic characters in Tom Jones taste defeat temporarily or permanently in pursuit of
their goal. Yet, all seem to gradually realise the true'worth of one or the other moral
principle. In the process of fighting along in life, they perceive that virtue in theory is not
what it may come out in practice. Mr. Allworthy's humility in the presence of Sophia in

38 .
 Characters as
k of Tom Jones is an eye-opener - he could not "see" whatever happened
s: Tom's parentage, Blifil's machinations, Thwackurn's complicity, etc, Characterisations
how abstract 'ideas' fail in a world that is the product of a variety of contending
s and perspectives and whose roots are in actual "history." Allworthy's humility is
mic answer to actual threats fiom social forces which assume not only realistic
Molly, Jenny Jones, Partridge, Mrs. Miller, Lady Bellaston, etc., but also
Blifil, Thwackurn, Squire Western. The two kinds of characters -
s - complement each other, they work under a perspective whose basic
attainment of virtue and enlightenment through continuous effort.
U

4.5 ( GLOSSARY

i1 '
I
Org inism :

I
Other important derivatives are organic and organicism. It
denotes something living and growing. Society as well as
literature are conceived under this in terms of evolving
naturally, as if from within. This concept underplays analysis
and rational reconstruction.
TheBcommon reader : A distinct category of perceptionjn the twentieth century.
I
Earlier, there was no distinction between the common reader
I
and the specialist. The division has come to gradually acquire
t

i ideological overtones. For instance, if literature appeals to the

i I common reader, it has the capacity to influence society.
However, the specialist may view literature as just one among
i many responses - all being subject to examination and
comment in the academic-literary world.
I
behaviour : Also individuated or individualised behaviour. Human
behaviour captured in literature in specific terms. A character
presented as no other, as unique. Bringing forth this aspect, the
writer takes recourse to a number of factual details.

i
Li e and Pattern : Arnold Kettle's words. He has used the former in the sense of
vitality. A character, living and talking, may have a lot of
strength and dynamism in him or her. "Pattern" points towards
common social traits. Tales with a moral reflect a "pattern," an
"idea" that applies to most of the people in life.

An important concept in modem criticism theory. According

to this, the author's or a character's point of view significantly
alters the given reality of a period.

Originally Karl Marx's word. Georg Lukacs developed the

idea considerably. Typical symbolises the larger social aspect
without which a literary work would lose its appeal. It relates
to character as well as overall representation. We identie with
a novel because, according to Lukacs, characters and the
narration/description in it tells us about our conditions.

ealistic mode : The mode that draws us towards the actual conditions of a
period. A particular experience or happening is at its centre.
Tom Jones Comic mode : Under this mode, the writer makes broad observations about
life and behaviour. The writer's view and purpose have the
upper hand in it.

4.6 QUESTIONS

1. What do you understand by the term "characters as characterisations"? Do

characters in a work of fiction not reflect "actual" men and women in life? How,
would you relate to the characters in Tom Jones? Discuss.

3. How do we reach Fielding's point of view in Tom Jones? What role does it play
in the shaping of characters and situations in the novel?

10
 CONCERNS?
tructure

Objectives
Introduction
Introductory Chapters : Their Relevance
5.2.1 The Instructional Aspect
The Many Episodes in Tom Jones
5.3.1 Why is the Man of the Hill Episode Integral to the Novel?
Let Us Sum Up
Glossary
Questions

.O OBJECTIVES
Ithe previous Unit we looked at some of the key characters in Tom Jones and the
.oblems of characterisation. In this Unit let us look at another aspect of Fielding's
chnique a$ a novelist -the question of plot. Some believe that there are several
ctraneous elements in the novel which can be easily deleted without any adverse effect
I the overall plot. Is this true? Or is it that each detail is relevant and integral to the
:heme of the whole novel? By reading this Unit carefully, you will be able to formulate
:awned answers to these questions.

.1 INTRODUCTION
he modern critic lays special emphasis on the unity of a literary work - that element of
ie book which keeps its different parts together. This element is related to the principle
f form, call it the plot, the structure or the arrangement of happenings and events under a
~nsciousartistic plan. In our opinion, such an emphasis would naturally ~ o r against
k
ke meaning q d message of the literary work. While reading a novel, should we enquire
hether its descriptions and representations cohere with one another to move towards an
'tistic unity7 One cannot have much quarrel with this principle in the abstract but
ifficulties occur when it is used by the critic to question the validity of certain loose-
boking episodes or references. In the first place, 'the central concern of a work can
~mfortablycoexist with certain other major or minor concerns. In fact, in a novel, which
self is a "loose" form, many "extfaneous" elements can be introduced by the author for
le sake of commenting upon the general issues of the period in which he or she lived.
ut more importantly, the so-called minor or secondary episodes or incidents may
?gage the attention of one reader more than that of another. This happens because the
ino or elements may have something inherent in them that sets the mind of a specific
:ader or set of readers thinking. I have in mind the third world reader today who needs
lore than artistic unity. So far as Tom Jones is concerned, it is full of references,
~mments,characters and happenings that do not appear to be strictly relevant to the
om-Sophia relationship, presumably the central concern of the novel.
Tom Jones
' 5.2 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS :THEIR RELEVANCE
Fielding can certainly be accused of bringing in a great many extraneous elements in Tom
Jones. I refer to those elements which do not fit in with our notion of 'the novel,' a
straight description of events under the overall requirements of a plot-line. Whatever falls
outside these requirements becomes under this view not merely unnecessary, but
downright objectionable and wrong. Think of those introductory essays given at the
beginning of each book in Tom Jones. And there are eighteen "booksyyin the novel. That
means eighteen essays. The titles of some of these essays are : "Of the SERIOUS in
Writing, and for what Purpose it is introduced"; "Of Love"; "Of those who lawfully may,
and of those who may not write such Histories as this"; "Containing Instructions very
necessary to be perused by modern Critics" and "A Farewell to the Reader."

It seems that Fielding has chosen these topics at random and that he ;wants to share his
ideas directly with the reader. It also gives us the impression that Fielding does not
consider it necessary to relate these ideas in a direct sort of a way to the evolving action
of the novel -for him it does not matter whether those ideas have a bearing on the
novel or not. Ian Watt has remarked that Fielding assumes the role "of a guide who ...
feels that he must explain everything which is to be found there; and such authorial
intrusion, of course, tends to diminish the authenticity of his narrative." This is what we
see superficially. But is this actually the case? In the first place, what are those ideas
about? Among the topics picked up here by me, there are things like "the serious" in
writing and the purpose for which it is done, love, the implications of novel as history,
the job required of the critic and the act of final leave-taking by the author. Fielding's
wording of the topics suggests that he is informal and relaxed in tone, to the extent of
being casual. All this can make us demand that the novelistic depiction be edited and
these essays be scrapped. Would it make a difference to the novel? Those among us who
condder these essays redundant would obviously say that it would not only make no
diffsrence to the novel at all, but in fact add to the quality of presentation, making the
whc le thing look pointed and sharp. I do not agree: Yes, these essays do not affect the
urr21ding of the story in any way and are in that sense dispensable. But without them, the
novel would not be the same. It will lose in its enjoyment-giving capakity and take us
away from the narrator-author's friendly presence. Can we afford that? Considering the
pros and cons of Fielding's intrusive nature, Ian Watt admits that "Few readers would
"'-p Lo be without the prefatory chapters, or Fielding's diverting asides, but they
aubtedly derogate from the reality of the narrative." For Watt, "the reality of the
- rative" consists in an altogether different fictional mode, the one that S'amuel
chardson, Fielding's contemporary adopted. Surely, for Fielding the most important
llm of a novelist is to provide guidance as well as enlightenment to the reader rather than
what is termed "experience."

5.2.1 The Instructional Aspect

Secondly, do we not need to know something about the issues that Fielding has touched
upon in these essays? Isn't literature in general and the novel in particular supposed to
provide instruction to the reader? The eighteenth century writer - think of Swift, Pope or
Johnson -understood the importance of instruction much better than their counterparts
in the twentieth century. The question we have to ask is : Where do we look for $he
broadly acceptable views on important ;spects of life? Do we leave that job to the
opinion-maker in religion, in politics, in social-ideological-culturaljournalism? In
Fielding's scheme of things, all these areas frm which the opinion-maker operates in
the modem world,-westernas well as the rest, merge into the wider area of the novel. Let
us not forget that Fielding performs the twin role of entertainer and educator in his time

42
 that for.him it is as important to acquaint the reader with tlie right views as to give Artistic Unity or
Socio-cultural
Concerns
irdly, in the specific context of the plot, Fielding thinks it appropriate to equip the
r intellectually to grasp the truth of the presented description and to judge for herhis
nefit the behaviour, manners and morals of the characters in the novel. Fielding does
ot expect the kader to go into the complex aspects of morality, truth and courage on
own and in fact thinks it his duty to add to the common sense of the reader. The
uctory essays given at the beginning of the books in Tom Jones have this specific
ctive-related significance.

5.3 THE MANY EPISODES IN TOM JONES

1 Critics, particularly modem critics, are divided on the validity of the "not infrequent
longueurs" in Tom Jones. The Man of the Hill episode is one of these. Some others are :
, Mrs. Fitzpatrick's narrative; Tom's encounter with the gypsies on his way to London and
li I complications of the Nightingale affair. Do they merely add to the bulk of the novel? In
I the sense that they reveal a number of features of the characters involved in them, they
surely take us deeper into the social reality of the period. In my view, an episode is a
crystallisation of certain general tendencies of behaviour i t a particular time. In this way,
it can lend breadth to the envisioned life in the novel. We can with its help construct
explanations of the thorny issues that emerge in the course of the main action of the
I novel. They constitute the world in which Tom and Sophia fought their specific battles.
By offering various choices of action and alternative strategies of behaviour, they also
significantly break the finality of the central narrative. What Tom and Sophia did was
because they chose to do so and that they could go another way if they so desired.

I 5.3.1 Why is the Man of the Hill Episode Integral to the Novel?

To illustrate the points made above, let us take a close look at the Man of the Hill episode
which has been specifically at the centre of controversy among most twentieth century
critics. Its analysis can help us identify Fielding's larger social as well as moral concerns.
The analysis may also shed light on Fielding's view of the epic nature of the novel. R. S.
Crane, an American critic of the New Criticism school, for instance, is not happy with
Fielding's various comments, explanations and episodes in the novel because with their
help, he thinks, Fielding merely "states" his position. Particularly, Crane is not sure about
the "positive values this (the Man of the Hill's episode) may have" in the plot structure of
the novel. On his side, Fielding has presented the episode as the old man's "History" and
"Story." Fielding's purpose ostensibly is to integrate "his History" and "Story" into that
of Tom Jones7.Secondly, the Man of the Hill's story -the account of his life from early
years to old age - is fact-based. Isn't that what we mean by history? But "Story" also
signifies a fictional account - something that individuals in their context perceive and
present. The Man of the Hill himself tells his story. May be, he wants to justify his
decision to stay alone, totally cut off from the world in which he was born. Hence the
story - an imaginative construction - is told by him. Let us then look at some of the
important aspects of the "Story" and "History" presented by Fielding in the old man's
words. From the meeting of Tom Jones and Partridge, both travellers, with the Man of
the Hill springs in the novel "a very extraordinary adventure," which is not merely in
t m s of an incident involving robbery and physical attack. It is also Tom's and
Partridge's confrontation with a person who went through the highs and lows of life and
experienced a great deal of pain. That is how the account of life of the Man of the Hill is
"the story of an unhappy man" which Tom and his companion hear with uncommon
interest. It is a tale with a beginning when the Man of the Hill was a child and an end
when he had after a lapse of a whole active life reached the conclusion that "Man alone,
Torn Jones interest. It is a tale with a beginning when the Man of the Hill was a child and an end
when he had after a lapse of a whole active life reached the conclusion that "Man alone,
the king of this globe, the last and greatest work of the Supreme Being, below the sun;
man alone has basely dishonoured his own nature, and by dishonesty, cruelty,
ingratitude, and accursed treachery, has called his Maker's goodness in question, by
puzzling us to account how a benevolent Being should form so imperfect and so vile an
animal" (43 1). It is a long sentence and the Man of the Hill seems to be struggling with
words to say something profound. While in this characterisation of human nature, man
has been referred to as "the king of the globe" and "the last and greatest work of the
Supreme Being," there is the realisation, based on observation and experience, that he is
actually "imperfect" and a "vile animal."

At the time of expressing this view of mankind, the Man of the Hill is an old man and has
lived in seclusion for a long time. He remains firm in this belief in spite of the strong
argument that Tom presents to him. As we see, only once (when the old man talks to
Tom and Partridge), does the old man budge from his decision to keep away from
humans and enter into an open exchange of views with a fellow being. Tom, the avid
listener in this episode, speaks but little. Tom's comment occurs only at the end of the
account. Here, his aim is to comprehend and interpret, in his o v q specific context as a
learner, the old man's version of a series of happenings.

If we calculate, the old man has talked of events, personal ar social, that took place in the
late seventeenth century England. The reader of the novel is supposed to feel one with
Tom in this curiosity, honest concern as well as absorption of truth about social life. This
seems to be the intention of the author. As Fielding sees it, Tom is the discerning,
critical, evolving, error-committing and learning character. The account of the Man of the
Hill is a part of Tom's education.

An important aspect of the personality of the Man of the Hill is that he has travelled a
great deal during his life -from home to Oxford and from there to London and many
small towns and villages, as well as the countries of Europe. He shares with Tom Jones
this trait of moving around the world in order to seek peace of mind. In fact, there are
many more similarities between the character and circumstance of Tom Jones and those
of the Man of the Hill. For instance, the Man of the Hill has an unloving mother and an
affectionate, well-meaning father. He also has a brother taking to evil ways and
becoming a strong adversary to the younger brother, a good and promising lad. The
exposure of the Man of the Hill to the environment at Oxford, London and elsewhere
reminds us compellingly of the ordeals suffered by Tom during his journey. Both are by
temperament good, helpful and generous. If Tom listens intently to the "History" of the
Man of the Hill, it is largely on account of these and other similarities. What I mean is
that in this sense does the story of the old man become "History," or at least a part of
Tom's history. When Tom's attention is disturbed by the queries and silly interventions
of Partridge, he (Tom) shows clear annoyance and irritation, not merely because those
are acts of discourtesy. There seems to be a great amount of turmoil and churning in the
mind of Tom as he listens to the step-by-step progress in the account of the Man of the
Hill.

From the way Tom and the Man 6f the Hill stike a friendly relationship in the beginning
of their meeting, we get the impression that Tom Jones is standing face to face with his
own future. In the particular context, the Man of the Hill feels obliged that Tom saved his
life when it was under threat from the robbers. This is how the two respond to each other
at very moment they begin their conversation which leads to the long account of the
life of the Man of the Hill :
 " Woever you are, or whithersoever you are going," answered the old man, "I Artistic Unity or
have obligations to you which I can never return." Socio-cultural
"I once more," replied Jones, that you have none :for there can be no Concerns
merit in having hazarded that in your service on which I set no value. And
nothing is socontemptible in my eyes as life."
"I am sorry, young gentleman," answered the stranger, "that you have any reason
to be so unhappy at your years."
"Indeed I am, sir," answered Jones, "the most unhappy of mankind."

re, does Tom not feel the way the old Man did in the bitterest phase of his life? As a
the old man suddenly becomes interested in Tom's affairs. He goes on :
I
-Perhaps you have a friend, or a mistress," replied the other. "How could you,"
cries Jones, " mention two words sufficient to drive me to distraction?" "Either
of them are enough to drive any man to distraction," answered the old man. "I
enquire no further, sir. Perhaps my curiosity has led me too far already."
*
"Indeed, sir," cries Jones, "I cannot censure a passion which I feel at this instant
in the highest degree. You will pardon me, when I assure you, that everything
which I have seen or heard since 1 fust entered this house, has conspired to raise
the greatest curiosity in me. Something very extraordinary must have determined
you to this course of life, and I have reason to fear your own history is not
without misfortunes" (402).
- 11n fact, we notice that Tom takes the initiative in this conversation and implores the old
/man to acquaint him with the experiences he has had in life. Why? "Your own history is
) not without misfortunes" sends such strong indications of the existence of pain in Tom's
life that for a moment the reader may well forget the existence of the Man of the Hill and
1 focus entirely on Tom's state of mind.
11
, I The point I am trying to make make is that the social environment has a lot to answer for
! in the case of the Man of the Hill. That is one reason why Fielding refers in such
1 elaborate terms to the atmosphere i0 Oxford and London. Why did the Man of the Hill
1' feel
I
insecure and vulnerable in the early phase of his life? In this context, Fielding
deliberately builds up a contrast between the old man and Tom in spite of the many
I similarities we notice between the two. Tom has himself been a bastard child, a
foundling. There are few, if any, kind gentlemen in Tom's surroundings who would take

I
I
' care to defend and protect the weak. Squire Allworthy is an exception. On the other hand,
there are hordes of cheats, thieves and rogues roaming the streets who might offer an
alternative path of career to an ablabodied young man aspiring to gain riches and the
)
I
attendant comforts. During his time, the Man of the Hill joined the p u p of gamblers and
I Tom could equally well join such people against whom he happens to defend hapless
men and women. Since both have an uncommon p o u n t of morality and fellow-feeling,
basic Christian virtues in their cases, they somehaw manage to steer clear of vile ways.

However, that does not change the social scene around them. It is this, in my opinion,
1 that Fielding unquestionably emphasises in the Man of the Hill episode, something that
we tend to forget in our long and extended discussions about plot structure, Fielding's
1 characterisation, irony, method of narration, and so forth. To my mind, there is an
1 essential linkage between this vision of society and the deployment of vatious techniques
by the author to acquaint us with the world in which he, the author, lived. The
i significance of the Man of the Hill episode lies in that it is more strictly "realistic,"
) narrowly "historical" than the "History of Tom Jones" which can in a restricted sense be
I termed a "success story" involving a large number of chances and coincidences to
1 support it. Fielding, the honest perceiver of social trends, carefully includes the meeting
Tom Jones of Tom Jones with the Man of the Hill so that he could go into the dynamics of Tom's
progress with a critiquing presence in the novel. William Empson has said that through
the old man's account, "Fielding meant to give a survey of all human experience (that is
what he meant by calling the book an epic) and the Old Man provides the extremes of
degradation and divine ecstasy which Tom has no time for; as part of the structure of
ethical ,thought he is essential to the book, the keystone at the middle of the arch .,. the
whole setting of the book in the 1745 Rebellion gets its point when it interlocks with the
theory and practice of the Old Man. So far from being "episodic," the incident is meant to
be such an obvious pulling together of the threads that it warns us to keep an eye on the
subsequent moral development of Tom." The typical western reader of today can
scarcely see the logic behind the existence in Tom Jones of the Man of the Hill beyond
the fact that he is a clumsy, and therefore, unnecessary presence. Should we not think
about the reasons behind the western reader's lack of sensitivity towards the horrifying
social scene in England? We can scarcely overlook the number of incidents through
which Fielding's novels alert the reader to murders, rape, molestation, waylaying, etc. on
the country roads and in the towns. Is this realism of no value to the modem reader? The
'developed' western world seems to shy away from its "History." It wishes to
derecognise its past. Fielding as a presenter of social reality during this tine causes
embarrassment. The modem western critic is understandably more interested in the irony
and the abstract philosophy behind the irony in Fielding's novels. The reader of a third
world country would do well to doubt the various abstract appreciations showered upon
Fielding. I assert that these appreciations have their roots in modem-day western politics
and ideology.

In fact, the difference, if not contrast between the Man of the Hill and Tom Jones helps
us appreciate the emergence of the colossus-like figure of Tom Jones, a figure that lets us
interpret the eighteenth century society as a playfield for the sporting exploits of a hero.
As against the deep and total seclusion of the Man of the Hill stands the struggling and
participatory character of Tom Jones who understands his scenario differently. The
pursuit of a goal, the endeavour that the existing structure allows a hero equipped with
the self-assurance of a competitor, lends immense appeal to Tom's character. Tom is a
fine combination of broad virtues, such as honesty and truthfulness, ahd an amorality
that hits strongly at conventional rigidities as well as hypocrisies of the day. The contrast
between the attitudes of the Man of the Hill and Tom Jones also show4 Fielding's
intellectual-perspectivaltilt towards the successful completion of Tom's journey through
life. It is a choioe for "comedy," a successful resolution of problems through the author's
intervention. Fielding seems to have seriously decided to pull Tom out of that feeling of
nothing being "so contemptible in my eyes as life."
1-1 ?tellectual churning taking place in Tom's mind as he listens to the story of'the Man
'ill, seems to finally slow down as the Man of the Hill comes to the end of his
&. Now, Tom is at the end of the tunnel. He has taken stock of the upheavals in the
life of the Man of the Hill and come to the conclusion, tentatively at least, that the old
man took an extremely idealistic view of his circumstances. At this juncture, Tom
doesn't share the old man's final view (yes, the view has a finality that is oppressive)
about life :

I was now once more atliberty, and immediately withdrawing frQmthe

highway into the fields,'i travelled on, scarce knowing which way I
went, and making it my chief care to avoid all public roads, and all
towns, nay even the most homely houses; for I imagined every hiunan
creature whom I saw, desirous of betraying me.

At last, after rambling several days about the country, during which the
field afforded me the same bed, and the same food, which ~ a t k
I
bestows on our savage brothers of the creation ... [availing myself of] an Artistic Unity or
opportunity of once more visiting my own home; and of enquiring a little Socio-cultural
into my affairs,which I soon settled as agreeably to my brother ... Concerns
I [whose behaviour] was selfish and ungenerous ... and fiom that day to
this my history is little better than a blank (428-429).
I
is a ring of the pristine sincerity and moral rightness in these words of the old man,
oted by "homely houses" and "Nature bestows on our savage brothers of the
n," the tone 'of the speech being that of hurt innocence and purity. However, Tom
pressed by the wisdom. He goes over and comprehends in detail the story which
ees, a version of the narrator in spite of the facts constituting the truth of the
s is Tom's comment based on his analysis :

\ In the former part of what you said," replied Tom Jones, 9 most heartily and
\1 readily concur; but I believe, as well as hope, that the abhorrence which you
express for mankind, in the conclusion, is much too general. Indeed you here fall
I ilito an error, which, in my little experience, I have observed to be a very
I common one, by taking the character of mankind from the worst and basest
, among them; whereas indeed, an excellent writer observes nothing should be
esteemed as characteristical of a species, but what is to be found among the best
and most perfect individuals of the species. This error, I believe, is generally
, committed by those who, from want of proper caution in the choice of their
friends and acquaintance, have suffered injuries from bad and worthless men;
( two or three instances of which are very unjustly charged on all human nature ....
I

( ...If t h e was indeed much more wickedness in the world than there is, it would
( not prove such general assertions against human nature, since much of this
arrives by mere accident, and many a man who commits evil, is not totally bad
1 and corrupt in his heart. In truth, none seem to have any title to assert human
nature, since much of this arrives by mere accident, and many a man who
commits evil, is not totally bad and corrupt in his heart. In truth, none seem to
1 have any title to assert human nature to be necessarily and universally evil, but
(thosewhose own minds afford them one instance of this natural depravity; which
lis not, I am convinced, your case (43 1-432).

e, this speech is addressed to the Man of the Hill. We notice breaks in the
ges and modifications in words, and the general unease with the way the
t is given form. Tom's uncertainty and hesitation, particularly in the beginning
frees himself from the straight, unilinear logic of his companion reflects a mind
search its specific path. However, there is no given path; Tom has to
the basis of his requirements in a world that has moved away from the
arlier, even at the time the Man of the Hill was young. The period in
went through the ups and dovhs of life and the one in which Tom is
y and metaphorically, have a gap of at least sixty years, quite
n the context of English history -the seventies and eighties of the
century and the twenties and thirties of the eighteenth century.

ave seen the importance attached to artistic unity in modern critical

texts are readers's texts in the final analysis. The idea of the author
er is important in a particular kind of a novel. Apart from an
velist is a teacher and a moral guide. We have also discussed the
many "stories" and episodes in Tom Jones. The Man of the Hill
Tom Jones +isode is an integral part of the novel. The episode is a "History" that puts Tom in
perspective. The reader is required to think of the two historical periods in comparison
with each other - the late seventeenth century and the mid-eighteenth century. The
realism of the Man of the Hill episode may be embarrassing for the modern western
reader. How does it strike you as a third world reader?

5.5 GLOSSARY I

Artistic unity: This refers to the concerns of the modem western critic
according to whom the inner components of a work should
well cohere under an aesthetic pattern. The idea has its source
in Aristotle.

Anthorinl intention: Sometimes, events in a work, driven as they are by their

internal logic, move out of the control of the author. In such a
case, the conscious purpose of the author stands subverted. In
the process, the author learns a great deal fiom hidher own
representation.

History and Story: The former is taken generally as a representation on the basis
of facts. The story, however, is wholly imaginary. The
question is: How does the story have a bearing upon history?
The relationship between the two is the crux of fiction
criticism.

5.6 QUESTIONS

1. Can the various episodes in Tom Jones be dispensed with? What is Fielding's
purpose behind their inclusion in the nsvel? Write a reasoned answer.

2. The novel is supposed primarily to give pleasure (comic or aesthetic) to the

reader. Discuss Tom Jones in the light of this statement.
IJNIT 6 FEMINIST CONCERNS IN FIELDING

.O Objectives
.I Introduction
!2. mia age and Female Sexudity
' 6.2.1 Tom's Affinity with Women
6.2.2 The Idea of 'poaching' in the Novel
6.3 Pregnancy in Tom Jones
6.3.1 Pregnancy with Bridget in Focus
6.3.2 Marriage Critiqued Sharply in Bridget-Summer Alliance
6.3.3 Historical Metaphor of Pregnancy
6.4 Letussum Up
6.5 dlossary
6.6 Questions

6.0 OBJECTIVES
This unit aims to acquaint you with the question of marriage as a social institution in Tom
Jones. You will see that marriage in the eighteenth century England was used
extensively to subjugap women in a framework that took its commandsfrom economic
interests. You will also realise that women evolved their own specific strategiesto
counter the male onslaught through marriage. What is going to particularly impress you
. is that Fielding views his women characters with great sympathy and understanding.

6.1 INTRODUCTION
Fielding is one of the most pro-woman writers in English fiction. Isn't it amazing? This
is substantiallybecause he is not merely a keen observer of reality but also one who
recognises and accepts people as they are. This means that he doesn't wish to impose his
views on them. His moralist bias is expressed in terms of opinion and conv$tion but not
in terms of representation in fiction. As we notice, he allows his characters to tread their
own individual paths. For instance, if Fielding finds the women of his day indulging in
sexual liberties recklessly, he would go critically into the larger phenomenon than say
that the specific women be castigated and punished. More, Fielding sees most libertinous
tendencies among women as matters of nature's assertion -suggesting that this is how
women behave in actual life and that, therefore, they should be appreciated for their
spontaneity and uninhibitidness in sex. In fact, Fielding would have been harsh towards
them if they went against spontaneous and uninhibited behaviour. This is the essence of
Fielding's comic genius and realism.

6.2 .MARRIAGE AND FEMALE SEXUALITY

Talking of the women represented in Tom Jones, we can usefully focus on the institution
of marriage. Marriage, as Fielding sees it, is a socio-economic alliance between males
&d females. Think how and why the two Blifil brothers scheme their mamiage with Miss
Bridget Allworthy: Think bf Tom. His intimacy with Sophia would not get sanction
because the marriage between the two would not qualify on socio-economic grounds. On
the other hand, the young Blifil, the likely inheritor of Mr. Allworthy's fortune, would be
Tom Jones considered the most suitable boy for Sophia, irrespective of the fact that he does not love
her and she on her side strongly and clearly hates him.

The term "socio-economic alliance" for marriage is a broad one. What actually comes
into practice in marriage is the conduct-code. Under this code, particularly, the woman
loses all identities as a human being - the specific name, the station, the right to decision-
making, an activist pzkicipation in given situations, etc. Fielding has observed that the
conduct-code of marriage suppresses women's spontaneity more than that of men -the
difference can be seen in the example of Squire Western and his wife. The latter died
early in life largely because she as a wife could see no scope of true relationship with her
husband under what came to be a called a marriage.

However, outside marriage women behave fieely to the extent of being aggressive.
First, they do not merely 'flirt,' but actually seduce men and lead them straight to bed. If
Squire Western is shown as a great hunter in the novel, Molly Seagrim has been shown
no less as a fighter and marauder. Secondly, the philosopher spotted in Molly's bed by
Tom arouses in us a sense of ridicule and disgust .-; his practice goes against his precept
as he sheepishly reveals himself in a state of undress. Not Molly. In her case, it is raw
sexuality. Though her own mother and sisters as well as the neighbourhood do not
approve of her ways, Fielding is far from critical towards her. Another version of female
sexuality - pleasure-giving and natural - is presented through Jenny Jones. Tom has also
come of age by the time he meets her and we notice greater reciprocity between the two.
What we scarcely notice, however, is that under Fielding's scheme, such reciprocity is
not witnessed between partners in marriage. Instead, we see wives running away fiom
husbands and husbands in hot pursuit of them -they have to get back their wives into the
marriage-mould. Thus, female-sexuality and marriage stand in contrast to each other.
Does it not have its basis in Fielding's attitude towards women?

6.2.1 Tom's Affinity with Women

Tom's own sexuality is equally uninhibited and pronounced. But we have to recognise
that he shares this trait more with women than men. Firstly, he learnt about its existence
fiom Molly, a woman conceived outside the family or marriage-mould. His sympathy
and kindness towards all women has its source in his sense of gratefulness to both Molly
and Jenny Jones, Tom has that softness, sentimentality and considerateness in his nature
which women haye nurtured in him. No other male in Tom Jones is like Tom in this
respect.

We should also consider that no male, apart from Tom, has what can truly be called
sexuality. In Mr. Allworthy, there is a great deal of intellectual toughness and stamina.
He also has deep sentiments as we notice in the last book of the novel. But he is not the
man to communicate with a woman on equal terms in a relationship. Squire Western has
a passion only for hunting. Square and Thwackum are not capable of realising the true
nature of sexuality. For Blifil, a woman is a mere object of sex. See the way he fantasises
about Sophia in moments of solitude. Sophia appears to him in his dreams as someone'
who has a body passively responding to male assault.

Fielding's approach to the question of true female sexuality is exploratory and highly
subtle. Sexuality in the case of Sophia is &own as evolving into a kind of bliss thrbugh a
great deal of fears, uncertainties as well as longings for a companion who would follow a
different conduct-code than the one normally encountered. But she is definitely for a
code, not a fiee play of the impulse. What can this different code be? Sophia doesn't have
an answer to this question. But she knows, and her knowledge is based on acute
obiervation, that raw nature and total spontaneity by themselves would lead humans
nowhere. Tom also has gradually realised this truth. Insofar as positive principles of
 in a given life-frame are concerned, the two have to construct them together. Feminist Concern8
would not be negated. Rather, it would be tempered. To be more precise, in Fielding
is going to be at the centre of all that Sophia and Tom are going to construct
e of a special code of love-companionshipmarriage. Is this possible to attain
given lifeframe? Neither of them is sure. But they would try to evolve it since
lone is going to be the basis of their relationship.

a
6. 2 The Idea of 'Poaching9in the Novel

ile talking about Fielding's feminist concerns, I wish to draw your attention to a few
ific areas of human behaviow and sensitivity that emerge in Tom Jones as striking.
of these areas is what I prefer to call 'poaching'.

ies a central place in the novel both in the literal as well as

e literal incident of stealth is referred to by Fielding in Book
k George, Tom decides to be active on the land of Squire
f partridges brings to the fore Tom's childish foray into
never killed the birds. The reason why Tom has owned up
save Black George from punishment. But this idea of
d encroaching on someone else'4 territory is exploited time

at one level suggests that the private space of an individual is always vulnerable
ovel opens with the whole neighbourhood becoming curious about the
f Tom's parents, particularly Tom's mother. Begetting Tom was a secret act
een two individuals. But the act of which two? Most people in the novel have
d unto themselves that this should not remain a secret. Then, also think of the
t r which Sophia is kept till the moment people come to know that she is
with Tom and wants to marry him. Still further, we see towards the end of the
t even those among society who belong to the privileged sections move about in
faces masked - they are afraid that someone would violate their private
ng at various levels of meaning, this active metaphor adds to the richness
I complexity of the text.

Iding's perception of the society as an organic whole enables him to go into the basic
ects of its structure. Is there a .clear demarcation between one man's domain and
ther's? Should a particular man's or woman's space not mean a habitat that has come
being for useful intermingling with others? If that is the case, we should probe the
re of this social intermingling. The author considers it serious that sociql
ingling in the world of Tom Jones soon degenerates into interference and worse.

I t us briefly analyse Fielding's use of the metaphor of 'poaching.' It can be dealt with at
ree levels -economic, ideological-moral, and in terms of gender.
I

ere are various instances of poaching as social trespass in episodes related to money-
rs. I have indicated a few already. The wooing of Bridget Allworthy by various
men like Doctor Blifil, Captain Blifil, Thwackum and Square indicates the lust for
ney. Similarly, Blifil's attempts throughout the novel to outshine Tom exemplify the
ire to absorb Allworthy's estates and property. Fielding's endeavour in the novel is to
ow these people illustrate not merely lack of principles. Their being active on
eone else's property is an example in miniature of a larger eighteenth century
nomenon where a new set of people, all highly motivated and aggressive, compete for
acquisition of power on the social plane. This economic poaching serves to bring to
e fore a society that is acutely conscious of money and class and tries to manipulate
ings on the basis of this power. Fielding does not specifically pass judgement on
Tom Jones characters. Instead, he investigates loopholes in a certain set of people. This problem is
focused on with a view to redefining the conventional relationship within society. What
can be a feeling of sharing, compassion and understanding turns into a matter of
interception when either 'duty' or right is forgotten. What appears to me most significant
in this phenomenon is that it is always the woman who stands at the receiving end of the
social onslaught perpetrated to grab property and money-power.

The same idea is explicated in what may be termed as incidents of 'moraYreligious

poaching' in the text. Thwackurn and Square not only try to impel Tom to follow their
principles but also prefer Blifil to him in order to have their hold on the power-structure.
The same tendency is shown by Squire Western and his sister in their dealings with
Sophia. Fielding suggests to the reader that helshe examine these characters carefully.
Tom exhibits qualities that the others lack. Tom's generosity, benevolence and
tenderness in relationships go radically against the actual life-manoeuvrings in which all
males are involved.

This exaltation of a male character over practically all the female characters proves to be
an excellent point of entry for questioning Fielding's own ideological stance vis-a-vis
the female characters. Is the author biased towards 'man'? Does he, therefore, indulge in
'gender-poaching'? By 'gender-poaching', one means that the novelist considers
'woman' as merely a good device with the help of which he could drive his message
home and further his plot. The question certainly remains since Sophia is not seen for a
long time in terms of a concrete individual entity with a voice and mind of her own. Her
delineation in the novel is along different lines - she asserts herself truly only at the end.
One might say that she hardly herself asserts even then. What happens is that she
helplessly agrees to make her father happy. Fielding closes the novel on a "comic" note,
not a "realistic" one.

Is Fielding trying to present the eighteenth century society as it then existed? Or is he

hinting at a universal phenomenon where men always dominated woman? The text
doesn't offer answers to these and such other questions. It only presents a number of
perspectives - all clashing with one another. For instance, there can be a case of 'gender-
poaching' from a strictly feminist point of view. If one pursues the latter then one finds
that Fielding is trying to suggest more than one answer to the problem. This modernist
characteristic of complexity and multiplicity of voices is indeed an achievement for a
novelist who was writing way back. The reader, after seeing Fielding in this light, begins
to perceive another kind of 'poaching' that transcends the boundaries of the text and
enters the realm of the genre to which Tom Jones belongs - "a comic epic poem in
prose."

6.3 PREGNANCY IN TOM JONES

Pregnancy constitutes an important aspect of the narrative of Tom ~bnes.Pregnancy also
I
4
affects the lives of women alone - there is no social arrangement that ensures protection
and help to pregnant women. It's a different matter that we do not easily notice the
hardship caused to women in this respect. If a society were properly organised, the fact of
pregnancy would expect both men and women to carry the burden together. Instead, the
society in Tom Jones subjects women caught in the pregnancy trap to untold miseries and
1
sufferings. In fact, pregnancy becomes an instrument in the hands of the eighteenth
ceatury society to subjugate women. When we read Tom Jones, we find that Fielding
uses pregnancy as a literary device to bring out the social helplessness of women
belonging to the different strata.
 ice" here includes two levels of working, thematic and structural. The Feminist concerns
ect will take us into the moral-critical direction while the structural will in Fielding
see the presence of pregnancy at the centre of the fictional representation in
should deal with them separately and then work towards a unified idea of
on that Ibm Jones contains within itself. This scheme of interpreting the
throw light on the historical necessities that Fielding lived under as a

ote of the fact that women remained at the receiving end of the legal and
and that pain, servitude and anguish were the lot of either the poor and
women, or both. Does this immediate context, for Fielding have roots in .
ry of English society? The answer would be a definite yes. Fielding is
ing back into history and looking at his social context from there. There
le references to happenings, developments and characters of which
s a deft use to enlighten the eighteenth century context.

Pregnancy with Bridget in Focus

6-3*~~
es were to be the story of Bridget Allworthy and her son Tom, it would
us upon the sense of insecurity the women of the day suffered from. We can
the mother and son facing criticism from everyone all their lives. Mr. Allworthy
ndered financial assistance for their upkeep, but he would not approve of the
conduct. See the way Mr. Allworthy thinks of sexual transgression as sinful.
e terminology is'that of a good and sincere Christian.

elding uses the pregnancy of Bridget outside wedlock to heap condemnation on

n example of his moralist concerns. The fear of likely social condemnation
1s Bridget to make that pact with Jenny Jones under which the latter owned up the
'I for causing disgrace to her sex and, therefore, had to leave the place. Jenny's
4 ss is remarkable in the sense that she keeps her word to Bridget till the very end.
! toughness also reflects upon the intolerance of her society towards women. In
1 e, the social hatred for her is also for Bridget who in fact felt more frightened of
ble exposure. Compare this with Molly's pregnancy. Molly doesn't much care
sdain that people would heap upon her for being morally lax. However, the fact
m feels compelled to marry Molly, or he would lose whatever credibility he has
e Hall as a good person.

more important aspect of pregnancy is that it has been structured into the very
of the novel. Fielding did it consciously. He made Bridget's pregnancy a .
for the existence of the protagonist - the novel is the story of a bastard child
on the bed of Mr. Allworthy in the beginning itself. Whatever happens
of his illegitimacy for which a'woman's pregnancy as a

hile, let us free ourselves from the author of Tom Jones and look at the novel as a
something that embodies a meaning independent of the unity given to it by
.The metaphor of pregnancy can then be applied to the "history" of Tom Jones
way. How do we take a pregnancy outside wedlock? As already suggested,
y is a natural human act. Summer, the father of Tom, and Bridget spent a great
e together at Paradise Hall, fell in love and became physically intimate as a
e of mutual attraction. The fact of pregnancy, then, isn't linked with
chance but warmth of human togetherness. Miss Bridget, not the loveliest
L <
Tom Jones, experienced love of a kind that no other character in the novel
perience. A secret pact between lovers, it had a dignity of its own. It is
we have been told that Bridget remained loath to change this relationship
I
Tom Jones into a marriage with her lover. Why? No answer to this has been provided in the text.
Allworthy tells Jenny:

I confess, I recollect some passages relating to that Summer, which formerly

gave me a conceit that my sister had some liking to him. I mentioned 'it to her for
I had such a regard to the young man, as well on his account, as his f8therYs,that
I should have willingly consented to a match between them; but she expressed
the highest disdain of my unkind suspicion, she called if so that I never more
spoke on the subject (837).

One wonders as to why Bridget "expressed the highest disdain" of Allworthy's suspicion
regarding her relationship with Summer. Thus says Jenny of Summer : "a finer man, I
must say, the sun never shone upon; for besides the handsomest person I ever saw, he
was so genteel, and had so much wit-and good breeding" (835). Jenny also lets Allworthy
know that Bridget would have told him one day that she was Tom's mother and that she
was deeply pleased on seeing Tom so well looked after. Against this background, it
doesn't stand to reason that she wished not to many Summer. Jenny's description of
Summer also makes us conscious about the traits Tom has inherited from Summer - "so
genteel, and had so much wit and good breeding." Here, "wityycan also signify basic
intelligence which Tom had aplenty.

6.3.2 Marriage Critiqued Sharply in Bridget-Summer Alliance

My guess about Bridget not marrying Summer is that her decision fits in with the critique
of marriage that the text unfolds at its structural centre. In the context of the mystery
surrounding Tom's birth, Jenny comments upon the basic idea of marriage. This is what
she says of her own state to Allworthy:

...after much reading on the subject (of marriage), I am convinced that particular
ceremonies are only requisite to give a legal sanction to marriage, and have gnly
a worldly use in giving a woman the privilege of a wife; but g a t she who lives
constant to one man, after a solemn private affiance, whatever the world may call
her, hath little to charge on her own conscience(841).

The passion behind these words indicates that Jenny's critique of marriage has the
writer's concurfence. Even if it were not so, the criticism applies considerably to the fate
of most women in the novel. The women in Tom Jones appear to constitute a category
apart from men. Some of them suffer subjugation through marriage, others defy it in their ,!
o w individual ways (Miss Western and Lady Bellaston). Jenny is quite sharp iq
perception since the broad context in which she has spoken these words is that of Bridget
who would keep the love-segment of her life free from the marriage-mould. It may be
::.at, Bridget wished to impart a sense of sanctity to her love for a man in her own
specific manner by making what can be called a statement against a socially szinctioned
alliailce. As a consequence, she decided to produce an illegitimate child.

63.3 Historicai Metaphor of Pregnancy

From pregnancy to begetting an illegitimate child is an area that may encornpasstnot

merely the contemporary society but the larger historical epoch in which this
phenomenon of woman's assertion reveals itself.

The idea of pregnancy, birth and legitimacy/illegifimacycan be stretched far in Tom

Jones. I wonder whether woman's association with nature is broadly acceptable in the
case of Fielding. We have already considered Bridget's behaviour vis-a-vis Summer as
 Feminist Concerns in
om'S behaviour vis-a-vis various women. ~ eUSt contemplate pregnancy and Fielding.
in terms of a pmess. world of Tom Jones changes considerably after
7 s birth. lt appears that a new element has been introduced in Somersetshire, that a

is to *ow in the womb of society from the time of Tom's birth and the
acceptance oftbe responsibility of his upbringing by Mr. all worth^. The
that always haunts the reader is whether Tom would make his grade in the world
hss been throw into. m e initial social hostility towards him becomes understandable
us once we begin to look upon the metaphor this way.

hment is characterised by two of its pillars in the novel - Mr. Allworthy and
este-whose estates are adjacent to each other. Mr. Allworthy can get an
ritor only if his sister gets married. Squire Western has only a daughter. This fact
reflects upon their world which cannot move forward on its own and, therefore,
of stagnation and decay. One cannot see much hope in the marriage of their
kin - BIifil and Sophia - since Blifil the male is deficient even in the capacity to carry
forward Allworthy's perspective of benevolence and age-old virtue. On her side, Sophia
is to passi&~ywait for someone really dynamic to join her.

This is, however, not to suggest that women stand for nature alone while men invariably
symbolise mind or consciousness in the novel. Fielding is quite insistent on showing
Miss Western as an aggrqssive propagandist and Sophia as a tough thinker. As we notice
in the last book, Sophia matches Mr. Allworthy well in argument.

In him, Tom also has a generous dose of nature (Tom's impulse denotes only that) which
is indifferent to principles of society. An innocent and good-hearted youth, Tom is
always brave and forthright. There is total absence of hypocrisy in him which is his most
appealing aspect. It is this which endears him to the women in the novel perhaps because
women are found hypocritical only under duress - they have to be on the right side of
male-dominated vested interests so that they could preserve themselves. Looked at this
way, Tom's joining with Sophia in marriage becomes a necessity for society to
reinvigorate itself. Their marriage symbolises the possibility of a new trend taking root in
the prevailing society - a trend that can effectively challenge the outmoded ways of the
aristocracy. It can also put up the nature-society clash in which society would be cleansed
of its ideological dross.

6.4 LET US SUM UP

I admit that this argument is abstract and may even look far-fetched. However, my
purpose in explaining an area of the novel in such terms is to make you aware of a
paradigm that does exist in Fielding. I started by saying Fielding is one of the most pro-
w~~ writers in Engiish. DO such aspects as "poachingv and "female sexualitywnot
us to build up a thesis that goes against male-dominationand the &ifice of
hypocrisy in eighteenth century English society?

6s GLOSSARY
-
The person who supports the cause of women in a male-
dominated society. The feminist view also undedines the need
for an alternative Woman-oriented viewpoint.

respect for a perSon's individuality which is outside

the domain of social viewing. The eighteenth cenbly scemcd by
and large averse to this idea.
Tom Jones Historical~ e t a p b o r:Representation of characters/situations in such a manner that it
draws the reader's attention strongly to important changes in
history.

6.7 QUESTIONS

1. Fielding is not as sympathetic towards women as he is towards men. Do you agree?

Give a reasoned answer.

2. Would it be correct to say that in Tom Jones, Fielding considers marriage a mere
socio-economic arrangement under which women feel continuously suppressed?
Discuss.
 JONES

I
S ructure

7.0
7.11
Objectives
Introduction
- 7.2 The Problem with Modem Criticism
I
I
7.2.1 Tom Jones as Plot
I 7.2.2 Tom Jones Preaches a Doctrine
I 7.2.3 Individualistic Notion Behind Sexual Ethic
1 7.2.4 Absence of the Concrete Individual
7. Changing Appreciation Over Centuries
7.0 Let US sum u p
715 Glossary
7 16 Questions
I
I1
40 OBJECTIVES
unit, my purpose is to acquaint you with important critical views on Tom Jones.
in other chapters of this block where I have used
or two of a critic to clarifL my own position. My focus in those chapters has
Jones. Here, I consider a few critical attitudes. I wish to share with you the
or comment quite obviously sheds light not only on the text but also
of good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable. In that sense, all
reader," invariably betray in their remarks their own
in this Unit hopefully should inspire you to

1
I

$1 INTRODUCTION
Unit is heavy in t e n s of ideas and you have to read this at least twice tb fully
and it. Through continuous pondering you should learn to distinguish between

ng's Tom Jones and then try not to think about it. I am sure you would not
effort. I am not saying you would like it. In fact, you may hate the novel.
the power of the book. Yes, you can never be indifferent towards Tom Jones.
book, it is full of challenges and may appear 'dangerous.' When I read it the first
for study in my M.A. course, I found it rather simple. Perhaps, at that time,
s interested only in the "story of the novel," in the events and episodes associated
Tom as he gradually moved towards marriage with Sophia. It appeared to be a love
e eighteenth century English surroundings. The story, as I saw it, started
irth and ended with his marriage. It was too familiar a thing and, therefore,
Confusing this story of Tom and Sophia with the novel as a whole, I
Jones could hardly be called a significant literary work. It also set to
g's own professed aim as a writer to shun romances. For. instance, what is
e Tom-Sophia relationship if not a romance? How wrong I was! I didn't realise that
is relationship was merely an excuse for the novelist to explore some very important
glish society of the period. At the same time, the novel contained immense
I say that Tom Jones is 'dangerous' as a book. It considers nothing unworthy of comment
and leaves no vital area of human life untouched. More, it tends to shake a lot of our
established notions. In the course of reading it, we may wonder whether anything in
human behaviour is sacrosanct. I ask : Does modem criticism try to come to terms with
the 'shocking aspect' of the novel?

7.2 THE PROBLEM WITH MODERN CRITICISM 4

I sometimes feel that Fielding's contribution to the development of fiction as a cultural

weapon is underplayed in English criticism. Yes, there are innumerable references to his
powefil irony. One also hears of the complex plot of Tom Jones. There are quite a few
good long analyses of his craft as a novelist. But if you are asked to form a total view of
his writing in general and Tom Jones in particular on the basis of most available
criticism, you would find yourself guessing as to what he conveys to thi reader in terms
of an attitude or outlook. In the so-called traditional criticism, particularly written in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some importance was accorded to humanism, moral
values, goodness, honour, and so on. But the twentieth century criticism (we can also
broadly call it 'modern' criticism) is wary of dealing with these things and considers only
craft, technique and method worth the reader's attention. The question is : Why irony and
plot-structure? Why not social criticism and an alternative strategy to evolve a moral-
intellectual stance? Modem criticism circumvents these issues and merrily goes on to
explore voices, narrativelnarratives and structure/structures. There is no doubt that these
are important. But are they important in themselves? A considerable chunk of 'modern'
criticism gives evidence of this belief. And it is wrong. My answer to such a question
would be different. I would say that irony and other fictional devices used by Fielding
fulfil an important purpose. This means that we should mainly endeavour to understand
that purpose.

To my mind, literary criticism should aim at formulating that which the writer wishes to
convey to the reader. That should be in focus. Ask the modern critic this question and the
response would be something like this : "Well, focus? O.K. Our focus should, of course,
be on that which is to be conveyed to the reader. And what is conveyed is the sense of
irony. Attitude? Yes, Fielding's attitude is ironical. Nothing is outside or beyond his
irony." This would be a smart answer. But also a superficial one. Because "the sense of
irony7'and "ironical attitude" signify a rejection of everything in life, or at least placing
right and wrong on'an equal footing. It can be said that contemporary analyses of
literature suffer from a barrenness not witnessed before. And this is because the
contemporary critical comment deliberately, as if under a carefully chalked-out plan,
avoas what Fielding wants to communicate to the reader.

As a great realist, Fielding looks at his society with deep critical interest and finds that
society totally submerged in orthodoxy. To Fielding, this orthodoxy is spread over the
entire English life. The writer of Tom Jones notes with concern and anger that all those
with social authority and power in the eighteenth century society are bereft of sensitivity,
fellow-feeling and kindness. They can be seen as callously going about their ways, giving
the impression that nothing outside their immediate interest is of any value.

7.2.1 Tom Jones as Plot

&

Let us consider some critical opinions on Tom Jones in detail. R. S. Crane in his essay
"The Plot of Tom Jones" focuses attention exclusively on Tom's character in its process
of evolution through various encounters and happenings in the novel. In Crane's opinion,
the value of the plot lies in the "capacity of its peculiar synthesis of character, action and
thought." Crane examines the sequence of incidents under the overall pattern of action
11s the plot a mere "substrate" and a "material system of action." According to Some Critical
,the aspect to be emphasised is the artistic quality of a work which consists in Opinions on
a particular emotion in the reader. It is this artistic quality which imparts plot to Tom Jones

s idea of plot in Tom Jones is not complete without reference to the particular
tudes, ups and downs, in Tom's life and the way his fate is interpreted by the
between the "beginning" through the "middle" to the "end" of the novel. In
s opinion, it is a comic, and not "tragic" pleasure that the novel affords. For Crane,
"is no Iago" but one who suffers from gross "ineptitude" in spite of his
ulative skills. Crane says that Blifil "merely is a clever opportunist." All other
rs with whom Tom interacts are also comic. Insofar as Crane is concerned,
" gives merely happiness. Crane does not appreciate the highly negative and

ing nature of Squire Western as well as his sister whom he calls "blundering pair
s" and Dowling's role of an acquiescing, amoral confidante whom Crane defines
s "the man always in a hurry.'' This is a way of saying that Tom is not faced with
angers since Blifil, Western and Dowling can only create minor obstructions.
t the tendencies they represent? Should the plot not address such questions?

ly, the success of the plot of Tom Jones lies according to Crane in its capacity to
mic pleasure to the reader. In Crane's opinion, this process suffers wherever
brings in extraneous elements (he calls them faults) such as long episodes,
s intrusions and unnecessary introductory essays in each book. Obviously,
and long authorial comments, as Crane sees-them,come in the way of the
's enjoyment. The fault seems to lie with the pleasure principle which defines
aries within which the action is to be viewed. Why.say that Fielding is to merely
ic tale? For Crane, not instruction but pleasure is of paramount importance.

iewpoint reduces the appeal of the novel to the generation of comic

Crane argues that Tom's character is the comic rallying point of the novel and
that falls outside the purview of the protagonist dilutes the artistic quality of the
f this, Crane is unable to grasp the realism of the novel, which rests upon
ng between characters -all enjoying their existence not merely vis-a-
other but also the environment within which they act. One can
ue of the plot of Tom Jones a lot better by referring to the society and
therein. In fact, the plot can be seen not as an integration of action,
thought in the novel with the quality of pleasure (as Crane puts it) but as a
eighteenth century society captured by Tom Jones with its apparently
m Jones as plot would appeal better if the beginning, the middle and
d to include all those episodes, essays and narratorial'comments
on the eighteenth century ethos and take the reader out of the closed
e narrator himself attempts it many a time in the novel and there is
er should not do it for the purpose of comprehending the unified
ce of the work. The pleasure-centred neo-Aristotelian concept of
rane from grasping the social critique which the plot of Tom Jones

aches a Doctrine

as unambiguously stated that Fielding set out to preach a doctrine in

reacted quite sharply to Crane's comment on Tom Jones.
view of the modem critic as limited and narrow, Empson has asserted
look doesn't take cognisance of the historical reality taking shape in
seeks in fact to avoid the concrete idea or doctrine projected through
of situations. But the modern critic has a different set of priorities.
Tom Jones Empson says that "modem critics tend to assume both (a) that it isn't artistic to preach
any doctrine and (b) that the only high-minded doctrine to preach is despair and contempt
for the world; I think that the combination produces a critical blind spot." Obviously, as
he has rightly argued, this comes in the way of appreciating a novel's true worth. Empson
remarks that "Badgered by neo-classicism and neo-Christianity and what not," the
modem critic remains ignorant about the "humanist, liberal, materialist" nature of
Fielding's writing and considers the views offered through the works as that "worldly
advice of a "flippant libertine."

Empson specifically picks up Fielding's "habitual double irony" to show that in Tom
Jones there is a conscious plan on the author's part to put across a highly tangible
principle of human response to established codes. To Empson, the evolution of Tom's
behaviour in the novel puts emphasis on honesty and courage. Tom's need to learn
"prudence," and to absorb the ways of the worid is great and there is a connection
between this and the "chastity enjoined by religion." But the doctrine "about the
mutuality of impulse" under which individuals learn and re-learn from interaction can be
enlarged to take care of other areas of social experience. This doctrine of behaviour is
largely embodied in Tom's evolution. Empson puts the doctrine to good use and is able
to explain with its help the significance of the apparently unconnected episodes as also
the introductory essays in the novel.

But Empson remains confined to the working of this doctrine and is seldom able to
appreciate that Fielding treats society as a materialist entity. Empson fails to notice the
clashes and antagonisms in the novel's world which is stretched to extreme limits by
.warring interests. If Fielding had to farniliarise the reader with a doctrine, he would have
done so directly or through the behaviour of a character. May be, we can see an attitude,
a critical, realist attitude evolving in the novel. But that cannot be called a doctrine,
particularly of the kind that can be easily deciphered and "preached." Empson is
prevented by his emphasis on the Christian principle to locate the relevance of the l ? ~ t
book which for him provides more than the moralistic answer. Empson says that "the
decisive question in her (Sophia's) mind is whether his (Tom's) impulses have become
corrupted; she is quite prepared again to refuse to unite by marriage the two largest
estates in Somersetshire." In my opinion, marriage or joining of estates isn't the central
issue in the novel and Mr. Allworthy or Sophia aren't the judging or determining agents
of the action presented. Instead, Fielding's main purpose is to attempt a "history" of
Tom, through which he wishes to capture the dynamics of the period in which Tom lived.
In this "history," Fielding wants to show that the environment is heavily weighted against
any individual enterprise -marriage, love, social freedoms, and so forth. In this sense,
Fielding's introductory essays and the comments scattered all over the text are not
"literary prattle," as Empson calls them, but observations that put a question mark against
all available modes of thought including the doctrine of "mutuality of i~npulse"that
Fielding is supposed to project. If there is a deployment of double irony, as Empson
asserts, its chief use in the novel is to assert realism, to acquaint the reader with the
impossibility of resolving vital issues. "Comic" should be interpreted to mean "unreal,"
something that the writer wishes to happen but knows that it cannot happen. Empson as a
liberal humanist seems ill-equipped to appreciate Fielding's realism.

7.2.3 Individualistic Notion Behind Sexual Ethic

Middleton Murry has discusseg the 'sexual ethic of Tom Jones' and said that there is no
specific principle governing the novel in respect of sexual chastity or purity. He perceives
that it is broad virtues of human behaviour such as honesty, truthfulness and simplicity
which constitute the core of Tom's actions in the nov'el. It is pointed out at the same time
that Tom is castigated on many an occasion by different characters for his sexual
indulgences and indiscretions. However, Murry opines that Tom is not criticised for
 Some Critical
author and that Fielding would have us delve deeper into the circumstances Opinions on
sexual ethic of the novel. The point to consider is : Why should Tom Jones
arms of Molly Seagrim? In fact, they are not "~harms"in the
ofthe word. What happens is that she seduces Tom, and he on his side
d being taken advantage of. The reason for Tom's innocent responding to
a1 advances is that he is new in this game of love. This is compared by
with Tom's relationship with Mrs. Waters. Murry sees Tom as sviking an entirely
Mrs. Waters where we witness more mutuality and spontaneity
. Still, what should we make of that nagging sense of guilt in Tom's
e from the memories of his sweet exchanges with Sophia? In spite of the
itfle possibility of marriage with Sophia, Tom could not altogether
be loyal to her. Noticing that in both the relationships, Tom remains a
rry is constrained to remark that Tom is "rather a backward lover;
that makes him desire."

ematic for Murry is to explain Tom's attitude towards Lady

case, it is not easy to absolve Tom of breaching the code of honour, one
e broqd virtues the novel is concerned with, in that he accepts regular money for
ces of love to Lady Bellaston. In Murry's view, this has turned a large
of critics against Tom for the depths of degradation that he has touched. Murry
look at money this way and thinks that Tom considered it no more than financial
ended to him in time of distress. Murry's discussion takes note of
this episode as he argues that Tom has maintained consistency vis-a-vis his larger ethic of
which the sexual ethic is a part. Murry agrees to "the potential sordidness of the
but defends Tom on the plea that even though he lacked "positive physical desire for
Lady Bellaston," he felt a sense of "genuine gratitude" to a friend. Or at least, Tom is
paying back, as a point ofhonour, for the help Lady Bellaston has rendered him. TO
M u h , this is a ~e€?naCtment of the scene between Lady Booby and Joseph, with the
I difference that Joseph had the benefit of guidance from Parson Adams in ~~~~~h
Andrews, while Tom had no such help.
Murry lays a great deal of emphasis on Tom's goodness which is both strength and
weakness. This odd mixture of the tyo, endears Tom to us and also "leads him into his
entanglements." Defining this trait apart from the novel, Murry says that "Good nature is
a natural and effortless goodness expressing itself as imaginative sympathy with the joys
and sorrows of others." A person of Tom's vigour and honesty may gradually move
towards what can be considered right. Love in-such a case might prove immensely
helpful. In Murry's view, "Consummation of physical passion between a man and a
woman of good nature who love one another, Fielding holds, very definitely, to be the
supreme felicity attainable on earth. And that is the end of Tom's adventurous
pilgrimage."
I have presented Murry's argument in some detail. This has greater significancethan
most discussions we come across elsewhere. Still, it fails to link the 'ethic' with Tom's
specific circumstances. Muny discusses the ethic under the liberalist perspective where
individuals evolve their own rules of conduct. The "sexual ethic," thus remains
individual-centred and doesn't reflect upon the social constraints under which men and
women operate. We are left to ponder whether Fielding propounds such a free libertarian
principle. Murry doesn't t&e sufficient note of the author's attitude which is .
~ncompromisinglycritical ofthe social mores of the time. The 'ethic' of Fielding was a
part of the larger moral principle Fielding wished to propound. This principle made
Fielding critique even the norm by which Tom and Sophia (as husband and wife) would
like to be governed. There is a sense of the approaching threat in the last pages of the
under which Sophia and Tom wodd become less sure of attaining fulfilment.
by the way Ihe smiev
p u l l 4 towards ciq
Rung loversboundjfl
Tom Jones marriage may have become more-anttmore apprghensive about openness, goodness or
inner discipline being able to bring mutuality and joy in matrimony. Fielding's strong
sense of realism warned him against too much optimism and hope.

7.2.4 Absence of the Concrete Individual ,

Ian Wan's R e Rise ofthe Novel contains an important discussion on Jones. Watt
Compares the novel with Richardson's ClarzssaHmlowe and talks about the hue kinds of
realism these novels exemplify. By now, it would have been clear to you that realism
stands for an author's interest in the society of his time and his purpose to find
connections between the different forces active in it. Watt notes that the psychological
aspect of human personality is almost totally missing in ~ielding'snovel and that it has a
different conceptual mould than Clarissa. Watt tells us that Tom Jones uses the method
of broad social comment and satire while the latter probes the consciousness of a
character in relation with her or his behaviour. This can be seen as providing mlidity to
the particular character's existence. Saying that Tom Jones's "basic direction is toward a
return to the norm," Watt criticises the novel for what he calls its "static quality." In his
opinion, the deciding ideological factor in Fielding's scheme of things is "his belief in the
class premise" and that "The ultimate task of Fielding's plot ... is to unite the lovers
without subverting the basis of the social order; and this can only be done by revealing
that Mr. Jones, though illegitimate, is genteel." This according to Watt highlights
Fielding's basic attitude which is anything but "egalitarian." Watt explains the point
further by saying that "in Tom Jones, ... society and the larger order which it represents
must have priority, and the plot's function, therefore, is to perform a physical rather than
a chemical change: it acts as a kind of magnet that pulls every individual particle out of
the random order brought about by temporal accident and human imperfection and puts
them all back into their proper position." Watt's whole argument has its basis in his
preference for the psychological "subjective dimension" that Richardson imparts to his
characters, the quite explicitly stated complaint being that "Fielding does not make any
attempt to individualise his characters." We may note here that Ian Watt uses the same
concepts, such as "static" and "dynamic" or "social" and "individual",as those employed
by Arnold Kettle in The Introduction to the English Novel. However, Kettle does not
show pronounced preference for "the individualised" and remains f i y l y stuck to the
view that a critic's job is to identify specific ideological and artistic tendencies and
comment upon them than to "prescribe" one approach in preference to the other. On the
other hand, Ian Watt is prescriptive.

7.3 CHANGING APPRECIATION OVER CENTURIES

"'hv is it that critical opinion on Fielding' Tom Jones is so strongly divided? We have
ie tzference of Samuel Johnson who said that he scarcely knew "a more cormpt work."
On the other hand, Johnson, says Boswell, "estimated the compositions of Richardson
<toohighly." Boswell has further written that "In comparing those two writers, he
(Johnson) used this expression; 'that there was as great a difference between them as
between a man who knew how a watch was made, and a man who could tell the hour by
looking on the dial-plate."' Later, in the nineteenth century, Coleridge remarked: "Upon
my word, I think the Oedipus Tyrmnw, the Alchemist, and Tom Jones, the three post
perfect plots ever planned. And how chwning, how wholesome, Fielding always is! To
take him up afier Richardson is like emerging fro9 a sick-room heated by stoves into an
open lawn on a breezy day in May." It is interesting to see how Johnson expressed
fondness for an author who explored psychologicql depths of a human being and how
n all
Coleridp chose to admire a writer who dealt with manners, AS we h o w , J ~ l ~ n s ohas
along been a~soci~ted with the social and Coleridge with the psychological dimension in
literature.
 s that the nineteenth century was not so very hostile to Fielding as the eighteenth Some ~riticaf
. In fact, it was quite appreciative. See Thackeray paying such a huge Opinions on,
ent: Tom Jones "isthe most astonishing production of human ingenuity. There is Tom Jones'
ident ever so trifling, but advances the story, grows out of former incidents, and
d with the whole. Such a literary providence, if we may use such a word, is
o be seen in any other work of fiction." Thackeray said this in his lecture in 1840 on
h Humorists". George Eliot in the course of her great novel Middemarch
us on Fielding: "A great historian, as he insisted on calling himself, who
iness to be dead a hundred and twenty years ago, and so to take his place
ng the colossi whose huge legs our living pettiness is observed to walk under, glories
remarks and digressions as the least imitable part of his work, and
those initial chapters to the successive books of his history, where he seems
-chair to the proscenium and chat with us in all the lusty ease of his fine
Fielding lived when the days were longer (for time, like money, is measured
hen summer afternoons were spacious, and the clock ticked slowly in the
' We have to particularly mark "his place among the colossi whose huge
g pettiness is observed to walk under." Also, in spite of the broadside
tained in the "least imitable parts of the work" (here, George Eliot is appreciative)
"when the days were longer," George Eliot is more than just indulgent and
reciative. Isn't it radically different from the way Fielding's works were received by
contemporaries such as Richardson and Johnson?

ivision with regard to Fielding continues well into the twentieth century with Ian
unambiguously asserting that individualisation in characters, which Fielding sorely
alone can ensure proper attack on a given social structure. Watt would have us
e that Fielding's comment was geared towards maintaining stability. Arnold Kettle
o said that Fielding had full faith in his world and was "very sure" of it. Kettle has
r remarked that Fielding is "fundamentally confident -confident that the
s of human society, that is to say his society, can and will be solved by humane
eling and right reason."

7/4 LET US SUM UP

,

i
oes it not look odd that a major chunk of English novel criticism in the twentieth
c ntury does not give serious thought to Fielding? And it is not entirely due to the fact
at Fielding wrote in the eighteenth century, the period in which the novel had not
e erged as a full-fledged literary form. F. R. Leavis, for instance, did not consider it
a propriate to include Fielding in the 'great tradition' of English fiction since, in his
inion, the novelist lacked depth of insight. In Kettle's An Introduction to the English
ovel, Fielding has been discussed together with Richardson and Sterne as if by way of
c ntrast.

t the same time, the nineteen-thirties and forties saw a renewed interest in Fielding, the
itical attention shifting from abstract questions of manners and morality to the inner
ts -plot, characters, irony -of the literary work. The shift has created a new
blem of cutting off the work completely from the society in which it was written.
rn Jones in particular has been viewed as an eclectic work with no strong central
ctive to bind the different strands active within it. One does not know for instance
character or voice to look towards for the right, serious answer. Neither the author-
tor, nor the many characters, particularly the good ones - Mr. Allworthy, Tom,
ia, Mrs. Miller, Partridge - offer any definitive clue to the attitude or opinion that
e most suitable for the age of reason, social ascendancy and progress. '
 -

Tom Jones In my opinion, the problem lies basically in our own position in the twentieth century. I#
we look at literature as a means to afford pleasure and instruction at the superficial
or as something that would make us aware of the issues of literary theory and
we would miss out on most of what Fielding has to offer.

In this way, we see appreciative as well as condemnatory responses to Fielding at

different points of time in the last two hundred and fifty years. In the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, these come from writer-critics who were not bound to the class-
room or the seminar-hall. These writer-critics published in periodicalsthat reached the
masses the way film and television do today. At the time, the periodicals made a great
deal of impact on the tastes and preferences of readers. In fact, Johnson made the idea of
the,likely influence on readers the basis of his criticism. In their own way, the critics and
writers of the earlier centuries openly shared their biases with readers. However, they
were not narrowly partisan in the manner in which the modern critic is, tied down as he
is to the modern bourgeois notion of literature as art alone. Most modern criticism seems
to be strongly opposed to Fielding because he fosters among the readers the sense of
ruthless questioning of humbug and double-dealing, and the sense of rejection of the
dubious ways of the various power-centres operating in society. Perhaps, Fielding as well
as a number of nineteenth century paradigms do not particularly suit modern capitalist
interests. The selectiveness as well as circumspect responding of the modern cultural
centres should be assessed in this light. We in the third world have to specifically relate
to this aspect. And Fielding leaves most of us uncertain, if not actually disturbed. At
least, that proves my initial contention that it is impossible to overlook or bypass
Fielding.

7.5 GLOSSARY

'.7, Romance: A category of writing that presented an imaginary world and -

took the reader away from real-life concerns.

* Fictional devices : This refers to the practice of a novelist who consciously

manipulates characters, situations, etc. Such a writer would use
everything in the novel as a device.

Comic pleasure : All writing can be broadly viewed as tragic or comic in terms of
the pleasure it may afford. This means that there can be tragic
pleasure (does it not sound paradoxical?) as well as comic
pleasure. The original division was made by Aristotle.

Totality : It stands for the work of literature as a unified whole with a

nature of its own.

Neo-classicism : The eighteenth century doctrine which sought inspiration from

the great qualities and virtues of ancient classical literature. The
scope of neo-classicism was limited to the narrow ideological
tequirements of the middle class.

Liberal humanism: The twentieth century non-class belief that seeks a separate
territory for the freedom-loving and understanding individual
who shuns any kind of role but that of an uninvolved observer in
society.

Libertarian principle : It implies a kind of anarchic behaviour under which the person
looks upon society as a restrictive agency.
 I
Some Critical
Subjbtive dimension : Recognition of inner psychological processes behind the actions Opinion on
I of characters. Tom Jones

Critic's position : The viewpoint - involving social sympathy, ideological support,

political preference, etc. - from which the critic observes a
work or trend.
-
7 . 6 0

Do you agree that Tom Jones should be primarily viewed as providing comic
pleasure? Discuss.

Critically examine the statement that Fielding is far from a great novelist since he
"does not give individuality to his characters."
UNIT8 NARRATION IN FICTION AND THIRD
WORLD PREFERENCES
Stucture

Objectives
Introduction
8.1.1 Fielding as Narrator
How Do We Understand Narration?
8.2.1 Fielding as Highly Conscious Narrator
8.2.2 Fielding's Partisanship
Relevance of Tom Jones to Us
8.3.1 Concept of 'the third world' and its usefulness
8.3.2 Interrelatedness history between societies
8.3.3 Tom Jones and its social backdrop
Let Us Sum Up
Glossary
Questions
Suggested Reading

8.0 OBJECTIVES

After reading this Unit carefully, you will be able to further understand the nature of
narratorial practice and its role vis-A-vis an audience, particularly an audience like us
located in the third world. The discussion in this Unit will help us to rethink our own
position as readers in the third world and to relate Tom Jones, an eighteenth century
British novel, to our own context in the twentieth century.

8.1 INTRODUCTION
8.1.1 Fielding as Narrator

On the surface, the novel has two voices to represent the opinion of Fielding : the
narrator's voice and that of Squire Allworthy. The narrator butts in at many a point in the
story in the form of 'I,, where he talks more or less as the author. We can see this
happening where he distinguishes between a dispassionate observer and one whose
stance is clearly partisan. "I would not willingly give offence . to men who are-warm in
the cause of virtue or religion"(l30). Here, the narrator as author gives the impression
that he is on a mission to establish a positive principle in society and stake his all for the
furtherance of that principle, in his case "virtue or religion." The point is : what is that
virtue or religion? Virtue and religion are projected, invariably satirically, by Square and
Thwackum. Square allows his doctrine of the right to be coloured by narrow
considerations of "favours" from Bridget. In the process, his pronouncements become
shallow and ridiculous. Thwackum interprets religion to put up a defence for young Blifil
and attack Tom's interests. Both Square and Thwackum lack what clearly is virtue or
religion. In fact, in the phrase "virtue br religion," the two are seen as one princ'iple -
two names for the same thing. In such a case, aren't Square and Thwackum intellectual
devices to put forth not acceptable or positive ideas but distortions that occur when virtue
is sought to be pursued by men and women in given circumstances? When Square and
Thwackum have been shown as straying away from the path of the right conduct, they
are made targets of harsh criticism as well as ridicule by Fielding. As far as Fielding's
own response to the question is concerned, it is that "both religion and virtue have
 Narration in
Fiction and
Third World
Preferences

.- -

narrate is to tell. This means that while reading a novel in which there is narration, t&
der faces the teller of the tale at the level of imagination. For this act of telling on the
art of the author, an audience is assumed, be it a gatlierihg in a village, a cluster of

a narrative, in contrast believes in constantly breaking the reader's concentration, telling

him or her again and again, at regular intervals, that what is being read is a novel in
which all happenings are unreal, imaginary, fictional and that they are open to a variety I

of interpretations even within the novel. The author of such a novel believes that in the
presented account, there are truths -no single, over-bearing, all-determining Truth. Tom
Jones is an example of this kind of a novel.

8.2.1 Fielding as Highly Conscious Narrator

There are two prominent as well as distinct aspects of narration. One is that the audience
under the arrangement of a gathering facing a narrator has its own set of preferences,
expectations and aspirations. One can clearly see an actual process of the narrator
fnoulding and remoulding the audience's response in the novel. The narrator seems to
keep a close watch gn the way the audience would,reactto the different comments in the
novel -the way inlwhich the reader would consciously or unconsciously construct the
meaning of the narration. In one sense, the audience is involved by the narrator, as if
under a plan, to act Out an imaginary situation in which the role of the narrator is
directional or directorial -to lead the activated minds of the audience towards a general,
collectivised experknce. It is a difficult thing for an author to do. In Fielding's particular
case, the emphasis is on activating the audience's mind, along with offeringspecific
to the solution. However, the struggle to make sense of the goings-on in the novel
has to be carried on entirely by the reader.

6
! Tom Jones
The second aspect of the narrative relates, away from the nature of the audience, to the
-
person the narrator is his mental make-up, imaginative capability as well as putpose.
This is to mean that not everybody, even when she or he has the required mental make-
up, sensibility and value-system, can be a narrator, that not everybody can state through
the spoken or written word that which would relate to the group of people whom the
moral teacher is to guide. Particularly, the imaginative capability of the narrator has to be
of the dramatic kind under which the teller of the tale extends the scope of feeling as well
as thought to a variety of characters, men and women constituting the tale. A person
having the skills of an actor using a monologue would be a competent narrator. This
capability would substantially affect the sense of purpose of the narrator since the
narrator would invariably alert, even disturb the audience - yes, the narrator is out to
effectively communicate an experience and such an experience has to be morally
acceptable. What I mean is that the moral guide cannot afford to merely critique an
existing system of beliefs and that there is to be a valid point of view from which to
critique. The situation is so tight that even 'pure entertainment,' if there can be one,
would have to follow the rule of propriety -that it may not be correct to laugh at
anything and everything. In this context, the author's 'genius' and 'judgement' are key-
concepts. In Fielding's own words : By genius I would understand that power, or rather
those powers of the mind, which are capable of penetrating into all things within our
reach and knowledge, and of distinguishing their essential differences. These are no other
than invention and judgment; and they are both called by the collective name of genius,
as they are of those gifts of nature which we bring with us into the world. Concerning
each of which many seem to have fallen into very great errors: for invention, I believe, is
generally understood a creative faculty; which would indeed prove most romance-writers
to have the highest pretensions to it; whereas by invention is really'meant no more, (and
so the word signifies) than discovery, or finding out; or to explain it at large, a quick and
sagacious penetration into the true essence of all the objects of our contemplation:This, I
think, can rarely exist without the concomitancy of judgment : for how we can be said to
have discovered the true essence of two things, without discerning their difference, seerlls
to me hard to conceive (437).

From here, we move on to the actual practice of the narrator in the novel. The narrator as
a person and a conscious member of society fulfils the specific purpose of enlightening
and educating his audience which is his community. He may directly talk to the
assembled people to share his personal views with them or indirectly through characters
in the tale who present their point of view in their dialogue. For instance, we can
straightaway identify the view of the author from that of the character in a given
situation. If the situation gives an ironical colouring to an opinion, what in effect happens
is that a kind of doubt has been sown in the mind of the reader. Irony, then, is a mode
through which an author 'disorients' the reader, to shake up the complacency ofthe
audience about an established notion. All this is deeply narratorial which means that the
author introduces the element of dialogue into the mind of the reader. In the process, the
narrator enjoys immense freedom, he is not bound to the logic of happenings and can
break the tempo of the account abruptly. As already suggested, the novel is popularly
seen as casting a spell on the reader, putting him or her to sleep. However, what we do
not realise is that that is only one kind of the novel. Another kind of novel believes in
waking up the reader, breaking the spell over him or her and freeing them from the effect
of the tale. This breaking of the spell is deemed necessary since the reader can grasp the
content of the work only when he or she is wakeful, whenever he or she is 'distanced,'
alienated from the presented account. In such a case, the story in the novel is pushed
behind and the narrator stands face to face with the audience using all his tricks as a
stage-performer to communicate with them. In the bargain, he may also take liberties
with the story -the chain of events - and give unnatural-looking, 'unrealistic' twists t0.k
As we have seen, this suits his purpose. Thus, the audience can be truly taken for a ride in
the course of events which cease to be important in themselves, which are there in the
 i
talc:because the narrator has chosen to include them. Why does the narrator choose so Narration in
ma y times to violate the norms of direct, all-consistent and harmonious account? The Fiction and
ans; er is that the tale is of secondiiry importance, the primary issue being the Third World
est, lishment of a perfect rapport with an audience that is highly curious, involved and Preferences
:acti e at the imaginative level.

8.2112 Fielding9sPartisanship

On pects of the narrative act have been grasped in their correlation, we can
ass e of Fielding as a narrator, an intelligent communicator as well as a
tea nse of the word. We should not forget that the eighteenth century
rea rature looked up to the author as a guide and philosopher. That is why
Fie straight away address his reader in the following manner : "I am in reality
the f a new province of writing, so I am at liberty to make what laws I please
the ese laws, my readers, whom I consider as my subjects, are bound to
be1 in and obey, with which they may readily and cheerfully comply. I do hereby
ass all principally regard their ease and advantage in all such
ins

Ful to idealise his role as a friend and teacher on the strength of what
he "principle" of not merely the writer-reader relationship but of the
vel and living, in honest as'well as courageous terms, in a given
SO( According to Fielding, this principle "presides, governs, directs, judges, acquits,
anc according to merit and justice; with a knowledge which nothing escapes, a
Pel nothing can deceive, and an integrity which nothing can corrupt."

A ! nificant aspect of Fielding as a narrator is that he is far from "objective, as we

unc tand the term. Instead, Fielding is unashamedly partisan. Not only that Fielding
dis uishes quite clearly between good and evil but he also knows the dangers of
' kec g his views to himself. How does the author communicate to the reader that there
cat two or more kinds of 'objectivity' and that the same set of 'facts' can be made to
aPl different by two narrators or presenters? Fielding responds to this question with a
rar ense of clarity. He says :
\

For let a man be never so honest, the account of his own conduct will, in spite of
himself, be so very favourable, that his vices will come purified through his lips,
and, like foul liquors well strained, will leave all their foulness behind. For tho'
I the facts themselves may appear, yet so different will be the motives,
i circumstances, and consequences, when a man tell his own story, and when his
, enemy tells it, that we scarce can recognise the facts to be one and the same
(379).

To ,then, is to widen the range of interpretations and to make the reader feel that
the in which he or she lives is not rigid as destiny or fate but is amenable to change
-t ber of differing views are possible about a situation or an issue with the
na~ r taking a position other than that of most characters in the text and also
OC( ly the author. What I imply is that the presence of multiple voices introduces a
ser ash among different social attitudes which (the clash) has a definite bearing on
the elf - the arena of such dashes.
Tom Jones RELEVANCE OF TOM JONES TO US
8.3
I

We look at the western texts from the reigning viewpoints in the English-speaking
western societies. However, we have become aware of this fact only in #he 1ast"coupleof
decades. The question is : How much aware are we of this and what exsictly is the nature
of our awareness. Earlier till the nineteen seventies, we in the English Departments in
India had not realised that concepts such as 'human predicament,' 'the suffering
anguished individuals,' etc. were closely related to the specific social conditions and the
broad politics of the upper stratum of those societies.

Let me say a few things about the country we belong to, a democratic society and polity
that has emerged out of the imperialistic stranglehold through struggle. That can
hopefully define for us the nature of our socio-cultural life and the viewpoint that we
could adopt in reading literature. All of us know that India was a colony of England till
- 1947. The British exploited us and managed our affairs in their interest. "Affairs" is a
vague term; it would perhaps be better to say that apart from subjugating us socially, they
also ruled us ideologically and culturally for almost two hundred years. This is what I
mean by India having been a colony.

This colonial past still hangs heavy on us. The question is, in what form?

It is no doubted accepted today that our perspective of literature has to be our own, of the
society and country to which we belong. We are an underdeveloped economy and society
and live in our day from one crisis to another. We cannot consider ourselves equivalent to
western capitalist societies in resources and facilities. Nor can we say that we are free
from our orthodox and rigid notions of caste, creed and tradition. But more negative than
these in our behaviour are the preferences we cherish for things western -languages,
literatures, philosophical-ideologicalviewpoints, political prejudices. It can well be said
that the powerful decision-making section of our society mentally belongs not here but to
the west and it is this section which is a role-model for the rest of our society.

This phenomenon of crises and distorted preferences is not peculidto our country and
can in fact be noticed in a more or les pronounced form 'in all those societies which have
suffered exploitation and subjugation at the hands of an imperialist bower. It is these
countries, ex-colonies all, of which India is one, which constitute the third world, as
against the first world (the developed western societies put together) which historically
played the role of oppressor and victimiser.

8.3.1 Concept of 'The Third World' and its Usefulness

!'hat does the third world signify as a concept and to what extent can we use it to
understand the worth and relevance of the English novel? The question is connected with
history in the sense that over a period of time, particularly between th= eighteenth century
and the twentieth, the world has moved towards a division between the economically
dominant countries and those whose strength in economy has gradually declined. In fact,
economy does not work independent of Social and ideological spheres which means that
the economic progress of a country or a group of countries owes a great deal to the
broader social development that toolcplace there. We all know that the procesq of
colonisation in the western world set in a few centuries ago and resulted in the emergence
of a peculiar pattern of happenings. We do not have the space here to explain the causes
of these developments but one thing can be certainly identified as an important feature of
the modem world -the existence of a large number of ever-weakening societies as a
direct consequence of the exploitation by the developed nations of the west. These weak
and economically-dependent societies constitute the third world today, most of whom
 Narration in
red as colonies of one or other country of the west till the recent.pad Needless to Fiction and
that subservience to the mighty first world is the single most determining feature of Third World
third world which is at the receiving end not merely economically but also Preferences
cally, ideologically and culturally.

are these weak nations aware of their dependent position today? My answer is that
of them having gone through nationalist struggles against imperialist powers and
more or less partial successes in their respective wnfmntations have such an
-
areness and, therefore, do feel hamstrung by a number of constraints.-

8.33 Inter-relatedness between societies

iterature is an important human product and is greatly influenced by its time and place.
What I mean is that literature is produced by men and women who live in a specific
set-up whose pressures and compulsions they constantly bear and to which they
reactand respond as the situation allows. In other words, literature iq$
of such a reaction and response. Assuming that this general principle
' applies to all societies, I would say that the literature of our society and time is a form of
our responses expressed in language. The question is :Can the responses of another
country and society be related to us inour time?

I
The obvious answer to this would be in the affirmative but there arise a host of problems
the moment we consider the kind of relationship that gets established between one
society and another at the cultural-literary level. But I wish to face this question squarely
and understand the nature of links we may establish between Fielding's Tom Jones and
us.

To understand for us in India the significance of Tom Jones as a text, we have to consider
that the work belongs to England in 1747, the year in which it was published. The
implfcations of the mention of the specific year are that Tom Jones should be viewed as a
comment on the specific sauation prevailing in England in 1747 and that the text is an act
of immediate cultural internention at the hands of its author. Both "comment" and
"htirvention" are important because the fiurpose of the text was to share a point-of-view
and an understanding with its reader and i b make her or him aware of the topsy-turvy
state in which the society found itself at $he time. Fielding does not seem to be *
comfortable or happy with his social enkironment and is faced with a host of nagging
questions such as morality, honour, tiue religion, fulfilment, and so forth, and whether it
is possible to realise all or any of t&m in the given situation. For instance, what is the
fault of Tom that right from the beginning, he has to be at the mercy of somebody?
Insofar as inner qualities and attributes are concerned, Tom has them in ample measure
-in fact, he is better endowed in this respect than anyone else in the novel.

For us today, Tom would appear to be a literary device through which the writer
confronts us with certain features of the English society of the time when the novel was
written - bad roads, bad law-and-order situation, callous upper classes, dishonest
teachers, immoral clergymen, self-seeking and insensitive city-dwellers, and so on.

111 another
sense, Tom Jones captures the unfolding historical contradiction of England in
the eighteenth century. This means that it is not a textper se, but a literary happening that
takes us closer to the reality of England at the time. This is how Raymond Williams
would look at Tom Jones, a text that should be placed in society and history and through
which we should see the broader reality of England. For instance, don't we see here a
new kind of relationship between what Williams calls the country and the city?
Tom Joncs 83.3 Tom Jones and its social backdrop
What picture of the social contradiction -the antagonism between the merchant capital
and landed gentry -does Fielding's Tom Jones represent? And does this contradiction
affect the way Fielding captures the basic traits of his characters? My answer is t+t
Fielding, concerned as he is with the fate of traditional norms, finds the staying
the landed gentry greatly weakened. He has realised as an author and a responsib e
qi,
citizen of his country that odds are almost totally against Squire Western, othehse a
Of

powe6l social figure. Western's moral position has been eroded to the extent that he
cannot but appear a ridicuous figure -a bumbling idiot -in the novel. But he is rather
a poor example of a whole class losing its hold on the society. The better example is
Squire Allworthy. Though right unto himself, Allworthy doesn't effectively control his
own immediate environment. Mark the way his servants and ordinary neighbours treat
him. Fielding combines in Allworthy's presentation the traditionalism of a squire and the
rational, open-minded, exploratory view of a progressive bourgeois. But we have to go
by the use his rationalism is put to, which is to uphold the value of tradition in a new
context, something changed and modified to suit the present. It appears that Fielding is to
a great extent sympathetic tow'ards Allworthy -whenever Allworthy faces
discomfiture, Fielding's tone changes to that of friendly concern.

On the other hand, the rising middle class asserts itself quite vigorously. This powerful
social section intervenes in its society with an unprecedented gusto which has behind it
the serious involvement, ruthlessness as well as the amoralism of a merchant-capitalist.

In still another way, Tom Jones tells us in our context that tradition and orthodoxy should
be subjected to critical examination and seen for what they are in reality. Jones stands in
our context to all the entrenched social interests and exposes their stagnation, hypbcrisy ,
and irrelevance. Even as a foundling, Jones gains close intimacy with Sophia Western, a
true lady in the making who in the conventional sense is supposed to marry the best
person in the neighbourhood. This would suggest that a marriage between a bastard and a
young beautiful woman from the uppet social stratum is unthinkable. But such a marriage
has been placed at the centre of the novel. The argument put forward by the author in
favour of such a marriage is that if it satisfied the requirements of love, honour, mutuality
and spontaneity, it should be regarded acceptable. That is how Sophia understands the
question. Fielding seems to be saying that the most important person to take a stand on
this issue is Sophia the individual and none else. It is quite clearly stated that Sophia
would not have anyone -her father, aunt or the impressive-sounding neighbour -
impose upon her a husband. On Jones's side, the consideration once again is individual
choice. Marriage based on deep emotionality between a man and a woman and their
serious commitment to each other is the only precondition of an acceptable partnership in
-* -imony.
- .

8.4 LET US SUM UP

Fielding is an enemy of sanctimoniousness. You would have noted that Tom Jones as a
text goes entirely against myth and myth-making, that the author, in fact, takes pleasure
in exploding myths. Consider the myth of mother, daughter, son or father that existed in
the English psyche in the eighteenth century. In the context of Tom Jones, Sophia and
Tom are going to work under the pattern of none of them. There is so much of healthy
individuality in them (on the plane of an idea) that they are simply Sophia and Tom. The
notion of relationship as understood in their environment is not to affect them one bit.
Another question that the novel deals with is that of morality. There may be difference of
opinion among critics regarding Fielding's stand on morality - some have felt that he '
propagated immorality and licentiousness while others thought that he moralised. It is
 ffficult to explain Fielding's view of good behaviour, gentlemanliness, honour or Narration in
ile all such issues are at the centre of Tom Jones, Fielding takes great care to Fiction and .
eneralised answer. Why? Perhaps because in Fielding's opinion, there can be no Third World
d answers on significant issues. According to popular notion, the bastard in Preferences
resented inhibited social behaviour, revengefulness and sense of insecurity.
also stood for raw sensuality since he had his origin in 'nature' which was
ciety-based notion of legitimacy. Thus, the bastard in popular perception was
erial for villainy. On the other side, the legitimate child, the one born in
considered normal, dutiful and socially responsible, someone who carried
social virtues. It was accepted that the legitimate child would grow to play
ero in a given social set-up. Fielding deliberately reverses this thought-
akes it the subject of his comic representation. We in the third world could
e such thought-patterns as racist, casteist or retrogressive, traditional and

h most Fielding criticism has dwelt upon Fielding's "Christian" virtues of love,
eling, kindness, honesty and moral courage as seen at work in the behaviour of
orthy and to a lesser extent in that of Tom, what has been largely overlooked is
ng doesn't let go of any opportunity to poke fun at Christianity as believed and
n England. Or else, how do we reconcile Fielding's representation of the
th the rest of the novel? There is also a minor remark on an Indian practice and
notice in Fielding's tone any prejudice, condescension or ill-wilt against an
ciety thousands of miles away from England. Also, the episodes relating to
ple are as comic, fast-paced and raucous as the ones where distortions of
ong the English have been shown. This sense of unsparing critique of a
cture with an intellectual gusto, rarely witnessed elsewhere in English
hing that'we could make a part of our mental make-up.

Opinions that emerge in the course of a novel in the form of

responses. The conflict between voices in an important part of a

+: work.
Those countries which constitute neither the developed capitalist
world nor the socialist world. The third world countries are ex-
colonies and have remained under-developed. They have a
~ number of common features.

This refers to the attitude of the author. Under the

interventionist frame-work, the author boldly critiques his
society with a view to changing it. Intervention stands opposed
to reflection or depiction in a work.

and structure : Human beings live and operate within them. Broadly, they
denote society. However, system and structure tell us of an
established set of rules and codes which are open to examination
and analysis. Some authors understand them as Fate.

1.
1: How far can a reader from a third world country relate to the events and
happening in Fielding's Tom Jones? Give a reasoned answer.
 A

Tom Jones 2. A reading of Fielding's Tom Jones can help us understand the problematie nature
of our own society and ethos. Do you agree? Give reasons in support of your '
answer.

8.7 SUGGESTED READING

All page numbers with respect to quotes from Tom Jones refer to the Penguin Classics
edition, Henry Fielding: Tom Jones edited by R.P.C. Mutter, 1985.

Ronald Paulson (ed.), A Collection of Critical Essays , in the series Twentieth Century
Views, Prentice Hall, 1962.

Ronald Paulson and Thoman Lockwood (eds.), Henry Fielding: The Critical Heritage,
Routlege and Kegan Paul, 1972.

Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel, Chatto and Windus, Penguin1963.

Walter Allen, The English Novel, Penguin 1984.

Arnold Kettle, An Introduction to the English Novel, Unwin Hyman, l950;rpt. Universal
Book Stall, New Delhi, 1991.

R. S. Crane, "The Plot of Tom Jones," in Henry Fielding : Tom Jones, Norton Critical
Edition, 1973:

William Empson, "Tom Jones, "Norton.

Andrew Wright, Henry Fielding: Man and Mask; Chatto and Windus, 1965.
 I,

UNIT 1 THE NOVEL IN ITS CONTEXT

4
St ucture

Objectives
Introduction
The Eighteenth Century in Europe
1.2.1 Conditions in England
1.2.2 The Enlightenment
1.2.3 The Beginnings of Romafiticism
1.2.4 Jane Austen's Work in the Context of the Romantic Movement
1.2.5 The Rise of the Novel
1.2.6 Jane Austen and the Development of the Realist Novel
Jane Austen's Life and Works
Let Us Sum Up
Glossary
Questions
Suggested Reading

I,

1.a OBJECTIVES

t is meant to provide a general introduction to Pride and Prejudice by

at the immediate social and cultural environment in which it is written and
,and by relating the text to the eighteenth century tradition of realistic fiction.

1.1 1 INTRODUCTION

f the intellectual and historical context as part of the study of a literary work
undertaken with two main aims .The first of these is to try and recover ,
he thought-patterns and influences that the author comes in contact with,
r not consciously. These need not necessarily be seen only as forming a
d' against which the text is written, but as playing into the text and
it along with other texts, not all of them fictional ones. Intertextuality is
of the areas such a study is interested in. The second is a consequence of the
involves looking at the implications of authorial choices of form, genre and
relation to the influences mentioned above.

1.2 1/ THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN EUROPE - --

century is usually spoken of as a period of supposed stability in

in fact be seen as one of the most turbulent periods in European
siderable social unrest as one of its features. There were important
read changes in the social and political consciousness of Europe at this
peasants beginning to move from rural estates to the towns, increased
tion and travel as well as the economic gains and contact with other
bout by imperialism.

Iso a period associated with revolution. The fast-growing middle classes

having to pay taxes to support an expensive aristocracy which contributed
omically to society (except in the form of patronage of the arts) but retained
ilege and political power.
-. The most extreme form taken by this
\@rideand Prejudice dissatisfaction was of course the Revolution in France, but its impact was much
wider, and was felt all over Europe.

The French Revolution began in 1789, on July 14 of which year the Bastille was
stormed, and the king (Louis XVI) was removed from the court at Versailles. The
Revolution then moved through several, increasingly radiciil phases, beginning with
the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, going on to the eventual abolition of
the monarchy and the execution of the king, followed by the Reign of Terror (1793-
1793), the establishment of a new government called the Directory and the eventual
rise of Napoleon Bonaparte who became Emperor in 1804.. The French Revolution
greatly influenced British politics and philosophy at the time, but there was a gradual
shift away from the early enthusiasm with which English radicals like Paine and
Godwin had greeted it -Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France
(1790) is proof of this. Paine replied to this work with The Rights ofMan (179 I) thus
setting off a long-lasting debate between conservative and radical thinkers.
Wordsworth and Coleridge, interestingly were both to eventually change their minds
about the French Revolution, as they were forced to acknowledge that, far from its
professed aims of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, it had come to mean anarchy and
cruelty.

1.2.1 Conditions in England

Class divisions continued to be fairly rigid in England at lcast, though Jane Austen,
does in her novels explore the beginnings of class mobility. This period h?s been
considered the most violent in English history since the Civil War, and it also
witnessed a repression of the citizen's rights in the form of restrictions on the
freedom of speech and assembly, and a suspension of habeas corpus. In addition,
survival was'difficult for the vast majority of the population, and the extremes of
wealth and poverty coexisted in close pro imity, a situation more or less guaranteed
2
to give rise to dissatisfactions. A fast-gro ing population which began to be
concentrated in the new industrial areadwhose development went along with the
gradual enclosing of land to provide larger arable holdings, something Jane Austen
-- must have seen at close quarters, since she lived in Hampshire and Kent, both areas
of agricultural poverty. These enclosures, in turn, gave rise to a greater accumulation
of the poor in urban areas. Mortality rates were high in the congested cites. Dr.
Johnson once estimated that at least a thousand persons died each year in London
from hunger and related diseasesj and was told that this was a considerable
underestimation. Though social reform was beginning to be an issue among many, it
was notyet strong enough to overcome the more common attitude of a strong fear of
popular unrest. This was also a period that saw the emergence of modern capitalism
in the shift from a mainly agrarian economy to an increasingly industialized one
centered upon the market.The result of England's having gone through - and
survived-a political revolution in the seventeenth century, made it possible,
paradoxically, for democracy to develop despite the restoration of the monarchy.
James I1 (a Catholic) who came to the English throne in 1685, was overthrown by
Protestant Slaterman under William of Orange, who invaded England in 1688,
forcing James to flee to France. The English Parliament then crowned William and
his wife Mary, but also passed legislations severely restricting the powers of the
sovereign.

Along with these economic and political developments came deeper social changes,
and a questioning of the very idea of society, its supposed nature as a civilising force,
and its values. This scepticism about,society -clearly present in Jane Austen's
work--does seem r e s ~ c t e dto writers and thinkers, and though it spread gradually, a
far-reaching change in the middle-class values of the time cannot be supposed to have
been an immediate result. The prevalent intellectual mood of the time is an
interesting one in that it combines a belief in the progress of human capacities and in
the universals of 'Nature' and 'bason' with a questioning and even a subversion of
the optimism that saw 'man' as a fulfilled and enlightened being. This optimism can
 ly seen in a phrase often repeated at the tiiri"e,-"the Age of Improvement'.
Context
ment' cames connotations of a self-satisfied pride in the progress of
knowledge (significantly, this was also the time when encyclopedias first
pride not particularly tempered by the acknowledgement of the divine
ent even in the humanism of the Renaissance. One area where
' manifested itself, and which is clearly satirized by Jane Austen,
landscape improvement' and the improvement of old country houses like
n Court in Mansfield Park. In Pride and Prejudice, one of the things
ires about the grounds at Pemberley (and this is intended to be
owner, Darcy) is the fact that they have not been subjected to
d retain a natural appearance.

13.$ The Enlightenment

y given to an intellectual movement
ssociated with the eighteenth century, though its origins can be traced back
an that. Its most im$,ortant feature is a belief in reason as a
characteristic of human beings. (dong with th$s goes the idea that reason, if
used, is the right weapon against superstition and tyranny. Reason is thus
consistent with revolution. The roots of the Enlightenment have
as' far back as the 13th century, which saw a
d appropriation of, Aristotelian logic by the medieval
omas Aquinas who used the logical procedures elaborated by
to defend the dogmas of Christianity, thus bringing together two concepts
icy)which had been largely polarized before this period. This
uld not, however, remain confined to the church's purpose of
d as had happened in the pagan culture of its origin, it
to question traditional ideas and beliefs. The Renaissance
, a group of thinkers in Italy and France in the 14" century, argued that the
ires an admiration of his creation, and especially of
that creation. Of all creation, humanity alone has the
this power is seen as a divine one, humans are therefore
o share his creative power. 'Reason' in
on sense, powers of observation and
thought and the exercise of this faculty becomes a moral
was however only one strand of thought in the
by no means strong enough to overcome the dogma and
itself in witch-hunts and wars of religion and of imperial
idea of 'Nature', inherited along with other R-enzissance absolutes of
n', is not during this period a fixed or uniform one, and
e with time. To begin with, it means whatever is
' or human civilization, but this soon gives way to a
ceptior-,that sees the fullest developfnent of nature in art and civilization.
is that of nature as an inner moral law that is imprinted in the minds of
ppropriated by very different - and often mutually
d variously made to fit the purposes of ethics, satire,
oclassicism, a literary movement that advocated
f, classical writers (especially the Romans)
d 'proportion' to literature. Writers like Dryden,
Johnson emphasized the need for order and harmony as a safeguard against
and excess to which human society is prone.

with Enlightenment thought is the

he concept, the nature and the bssible extent of
ons posed by this kind of philosophic thought are
ether we can know anything at all, and if so
dge' is now conceived as a conceptual
ty. 'Truth' cannot be demonstrably proven or
ad as a relative and culturally contingent idea.
ot an eternally relevant absolute, that morality
also becomes relative and cannot be imposed on anyone. Descartes sees the
knowledge of one's own existence as the minimum of human knowledge, and allies it
with the human power of thought.

Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for
everybody thinks himself so abundantly provided with it that even those most
difficult to please in all other matters do not commonly desire more of it than
they already possess. It is unlikely that this is an error on their part; it seems
rather to be evidence in support of the view that the power of forming a good
judgement and of distinguishing the true from the false, which is properly
speaking what is called good sense or reason, is by nature equal in all men.
(James Fieser (ed.) (1996) Descartes. Discourse on the Method of Rightly
Conducting the Reason and seekingfor Tmth in the Sciences 1637, Internet
Release)

This passage provides an example of the Enlightenment 'absolutes' of 'reason' and

'good sense', locating them in 'nature' and in doing so, offering a definition of the
latter term. The human (more specifically the social) behaviour that resulted from
ideas such as these are certainly satirized by more than one writer in the eighteenth
century, Jane Austen among them.

The Enlightenment has been criticizedby current literary and cultural theorists, as much for
its idkals as for its failure to live up to them, but its confidence in human 'nature' and
human capacity has certainly decisively shaped the subsequent intellectual history of
Europe and the Enlightenment notions of human rights and religious tolerance, even
if they have been often deviated $om in practice, remain among the most powerful
principles in the public life of the twentieth century, and can be seen to be behind the
various liberationist movements that have emerged during this period. The following
quote from the theorist Michel Foucault, provides yet another idea of why the
Enlightenment is essential to subsequent Western thought's understanding of itself.
For Foucault, the enlightenment does not predate the 'modem' but is its starting
point:

... we find ourselves asking whether modernity constitutes the sequel to

the Enlightenment and its development, or whether we are to see it as a
rupture or a deviation with respect to the basic principles of the 18th century.
I wonder whether we may not envisage modernity rather as an attitude than
as a period of history. I do not pretend to be summarizing in these few lines
either the complex historical event that was the Enlightenment, at the end of
the eighteenth century, or the attitude of modernity in the various guises it
may have taken on during the last two centuries. I have been seeking, on the
one hand, to emphasize the extent to which a type of philosophical
interrogation, one that simultaneouslyproblematizes man's relation to the
present, man's historical mode of being, and the constitution of the self as an
autonomous subject is rooted in the Enlightenment ... We must never forget -
that the Enlightenment is an event, or a set of events and complex historical
processes, that is located at a certain point in the development of European
societies. As such, it includes elements of social transformation, types of
political institution, forms of knowledge, projects of rationalization of
knowledge and practices, technological mutations that are very difficult to
sum up in a word, even if many of these phenomena remain important todaq
(Foucault, 1984)

I quote the passage at length because it seems to me to convey very clearly a feature
of the Enlightenment that we tend to ignore, namely its plurality. This is also evident
from the fact that much of the Augustan attempt to protect inherited absolutes by
looking to the past came from the awareness of imminent change. Once we get away
from a picture of the Enlightenment as a unified and monolithic event or moment in
histoxj, we are better placed to look at Jane Austen's novels as drawing on many
 i
quit different contemporary strands of thought, and also to see thkm as attempting to
deal with a fast-changing reality instead of a supposedly 'stable' one.

1.2.1 The Beginning of Romanticism

in Europe roughly covers the period from the mid-
to the mid-nineteenth century. Though it involves a move away from the
The NoveI in its
Context

c and critical rationalism of the empirical thinkers (Locke and Hume in

ar) its stress on 'Nature' as an ideal places it very much within the
ent, of which it could be seen as one of the main developments.
'nature' from civilization, in favour of primitivism, and
to replace the linking of nature with 'reason' hy allying it instead with the
or 'fancy'. The stress came to bc on human subjectivity as well as on the
of the external world, since the imagination was seen as creating and

in The Mirror and the Lamp identifies one of the constitutive elements
dual rise of the Romantic world-view in the shift from the eighteenth-
view of nature to the idea that "the mind is creative in perception, and an
an organically inter-related universe." Though Abrams is speaking
regard to Wordsworth, the statement is also more broadly applicable
an understanding of Romanticism in general. Wordsworth, according
mains within the eighteenth century tradition of thought in many
ite some radical departures from it, the most important of these
a universal human nature (chiefly characterized by reason and
g) and the idea that the shared opinions and feelings of mankind are the best
for the aesthetic. This does go to show that the development of Romanticism
nly in opposition to Enlightenment thought (or, to put it simply, the
did not necessarily shape itself as against the preceding period)
ventual - one might even say the necessary-development of the
ought not to be ignored in this context, because though he is
of as belonging to a period later than Jane Austen by virtue of
ely, a 'Romantic' poet and an 'Augustan' novelist, they were in
oraries. Though he does not figure among Jane Austen's mentioned
er and Crabbe are the best known of them) Wordsworth was
1811 when her first novel was published.

fining traits of Romanticism is the tendency to privilege individual

d expression over the collective or the social. Personal 'sensibility'
de the categories of race, sex and class. In literature this means a
subjectivity, on spontaneous expression and on the internalising
se features of Romanticism clearly emerge (not necessarily
sten's work. Look for instance at the way in which
ice' causes her to think in a certain way about both
act according to a completely subjective reality - insofar
h has very little to do with things as they actually are, or turn .
he fact that there is finally one unequivocal truth which
at the end of the novel, and not simply everyone's own version of the truth,
this 'subjectivity' from being canied to the extremes that are explored by
ist literature. I think that the nature of this truth itself, is
the process by which it is reached by the main characters,
of this the fact that there is no moment of revelation
of Elizabeth's consciousness, and that the reader has been led astray
er. What do you think?

1
1.2.4 Jane Austen's work in the context of the Romantic movement.

Jane usten's work does take into account the two 6pposing.setsof impulses that
e m e r t in the two decades (1798-1818) when she wote most of her novels. This is a
final in Cnmli-h I:+-..+..-- :& ---L:-A AL- -:-LA---AL ---A
Pride and Prejudice concern with the social context of human beings with the romantic emphasis on the
individual self in isolation. Meenakshi Mukherjee sees Jane Austen's major
contribution as the extension of the 'self (which had so far been all-male) to include
woman. Jane Austen wrote and published her novels when the Romantic movement
in literature had begun to emerge, though her novels are usually read as part of the
eighteenth century tradition af reason and good sense which this movement reacted
against. She ridicules the lack ~f realism, falsities of sentiment and lack of
psychological veracity in the treatment of character in the novels of sensibility and
the gothic novels which enjoyed great popularity in her time. Her first novel,
Northanger Abbey (published in 1817 after her death) exposes through parody the
sentiments and perceptions associated with gothic romances and Sense and
Sensibility (18 11) similarly points out the danger of an uncritical acceptance of the
cult of sensibility.

Jane Austen's refusal to include magical, miraculous or fantastic elements in her

writing, her distrust of emotional effusiveness, and her choice of ordinary human
beings instead of grand or heroic figures as characters for her novels, must be seen in
the context of the rise of the novel earlier in the eighteenth century, when 'realism'
intended to affirm a 'scientific' outlook and democratic values -the newly ascendant
middle classes defined these against the fatalism and mysticism of the romances. But
Romanticism is more than a re-assertion of outmoded and earlier discarded
irrationalities - it also voices dissatisfaction with the inherited ideals of rationality
and good sense. The instinctive and passional self of Romantic literature also
repudiates what it saw as the repressive and qualified uniformity of these ideals. Jane
Austen has been, on the one hand, accused of ignoring this aspect'of Romanticism,
and on the other, identified as one of its initiators in the genre of fiction. Ruth
Vanita, for instance, sees Jane Austen as a Romantic novelist because of her interest
in the juxtaposition of inner and outer worlds, the movement of the individual
consciousness between these worlds, and the insistence in the novels on love and
friendship as the best basis for human community.

Do pause for a moment here and consider the nature of 'Romanticism' as a literary
category. I think it is important to remembec that while we need to posit this and
other such categories, to place each individual author firmly in one category or the
other is a more suspect hterprise. Suppose that we were to look at 'Romantic' texts
in terms of certain shared features that they might possess in very varying degrees,
instead of necessary conditions that they must conform to in order to be accepted

5
wit in this category. There do remain authors and texts that can inhabit two
cat gories simultaneously,and Jane Austen seems to me to be one of them, being
both Romantic and Augustan. The question as to whether the presence of such
authors or even genres (the domesticnovel for instance has usually been considered
less of a 'Romantic' genre than the lyric poem) can bring about a redefinition of the
categories themselves, is a rather more complex one which I shan't go into here.

6.2.5 The Rise sf the Novel

The emergence of the novel as a form of realistic narrative in the eighteenth century
came about with an acceleration in the changes that had been taking place in the
social structures of Europe since the Renaissance. The narrative form of the romance .
reptesented the values and attitudes of a feudal society, both heirarchical and
relatively static, which was challenged by the expansion of market forces. Classes
and groups associated with trade and manufacture now gained ascendency in society,
a development that brought along a confidence in human power to change one's own
existence or destiny. Religion was correspondingly redefined with a stress on the
individual's spiritual e~perienceand the emergence of a secular morality based on the
idea of personal restponsibility. This new set of values is embodied in the novel
during its development in the earlier half of the eighteenth century with the writings
of Defoe, Fielding and Richardson. In the process, the novel took the form of realism
and adopted the necessary technical devices to embody in a narrative form the
 .--. - .-
.

and values which (for p q o s e s of convenience) we call enlightenment The Navel,in.lts

Context
The new genre was challenging enough in its emergence to call for
with the 'heroic' genre of the epic.

Austen's W o r k and the Development of the Realist Novel

to Jane Austen, a decline in the significance of the novel had

o consider which we have to look at the concrete fonn taken by
nt humanism in the eighteenth century. Towards the end of the
a consequence of the compromise effected through the
1688, the same classes which had earlier been engaged in a
power, came together in a relatively unified social formation,
of large sections of landed aristocracy, the rural gentry and the middle
ociated with the professions and with trade and industry. A workable
different interpretations of the values of enlightenment
ideals of reasofi and good sense. The 'consensus' mentioned
ave a fixed meaning despite its apparent structural unity,
sections of society viewed it differently according to their comparative
their perspective for accommodating a variety of opinion.
lists of the eighteenth century show an awareness of these inner
as attempts to project them in their works. One of
lop effective technical devices to embody all the aspects of
g its contradictions. One of these contradictions relates to
the individual in the community. While the landed
ntly responsive to the individual need for an assertion of
ions of the rural gentry and the middle classes associated
ssions, trade and industry were prepared to concede a much wider area'
the individual. However, even here, the individual freedom of women
restricted. Both Fielding and Richardson deal with the problematic
relation between the individual and society, and try to resolve the
the rights of the individual are somehow balanced by
obligations to society. The treatment of the theme of love and marriage in
of both these writers reflects their position on these important issues,
aid to give greater importance to the subjectivity of the

e of tension was the split between thc' idealistic aspirations of the

the materialism of society. These conflicts both found expression in,
d the development of the realist novel -particularly the novel of social
comedy-in England. The literary device of the judicious observer and
ecame a method used by novelists, not only to highlight the existence
s, but also to stress the need for finding a resolution. A third
present in the conflict of class interests. Within the apparently unified
consisting of different classes and groups, there existed incessant
as the century advanced, the terms were increasingly weighted in
ustrial and commercial classes. Richardson's Pamela-offers an
ic resolution of this conflict of class interests, effected through the
e deserving lower-class individual into the higher class. One of the
g and Richardson is that they evolvd a narrative form which was
gister these contradictory aspirations as well as to suggest a

ny Burney and Maria Edgeworth, who were e an; Austen's

ssors, the differences in the perspectives and attitudes of the
factions of society seems to have becomealmost intractable.
lace women characters at the centre of their work, they are even
the problematic relationship between the individual and society.
novels become sentimental and unrealistic, because of the
hvnwhnle ac well nc the innhilitv pithpr tn V P ~ I I A ~ Sthe
~ P onncnncllc
which appears unsatisfactbry to them, or the confdmce to find a viable solution to
the problem.

As noted earlier in this unit, Jane Austen consciously and deliberately identified
herself with the eighteenth century tradition of realism in the novel though she
doesn't imitate the methods and techniques developed by her predecessors, or adopt
their values and attitudes. Instead she makes creative use of an inherited tradition to
deal with the issues and problems of contemporary social developments, to try and
find a proper comic resolution to conflicts, while continuing to show an awareness of
their acuteness. She came fiom a section of the gentry which had strong links with
the middle classes belonging to the professions, trade and industry, and which played
an important role in working towards a resolution of these conflicts because it had a
real interest in preserving stability. The "universal truths" of the Augustan ideal -
reason and good sense-are stated in her texts but are then subjected to an ironical
subversion.

1.3 JANE AUSTEN'S LIFE AND WORKS

I shall here offer only a brief outline of Jane Austen's life, and suggest that you read
at least one of the many available biographies which offer mare detailed analyses of
her personal experience in relation to her work.

Jane Austen was born on the 16" of December, 1775 at Steventon in Hampshire. She
was the seventh of the eight children,( and the second daughter ) of the Rev. George
Austen who was the local rector, and his wife Cassandra, (nie Leigh). Jane Austen's
father had a fairly respectable income of about E600 a year, and belonged to the
landed gentry, but was certainly not a rich man. His wife, however, belonged to a
family (the Leighs) which was proud of its aristocratic links. Since the couple ran a
boy's school at the parsonage where they lived, Jane and her brothers and sisters
grew up alongside the students, and as a child, Jane was (like Catherine Morland in
Northanger Abbey) both fond of and well-acquainted with boy's games.

In 1783, when Jane was eight years old, she was sent, along with her sister
Cassandra, to a school run by a Mrs. Cowley (who was the sister of one of their
uncles), first in Southampton and later in Oxford, but they returned home after an
infectious disease broke out at the school. Two years later, in 1785, they were sent to
the Abbey Boarding school in Reading, on which Mrs. Goddard's school in Emma is
supposedly based. In her parents' opinion, Jane was actually too young to go to
school, but reportedly insisted on accompanying Cassandra, from whom she was
inseparable - her mother said of the situation that "if Cassandra's head had been
going to be cut off, Jane would have hers cut off too". Except for the short periods of
time she spent at these schools, Jane Austen received no other formal education
outside her family. She did learn, along with her sister, the accomplishments - chief
among them how to draw and play the piano- considered necessary for girls. She also
read quite widely and was acquainted with both the serious and the popular literature
of the day, including the novels of Fielding, Richardson and Fanny Burney (the title
for Pride and Prejudice is taken from a phrase in Burney's Cecilia.) The thtee novels
that she praised in her famous "Defense of the Novel" in Northanger Abbey were
Burney's Cecilia and Camilla, and Maria Edgeworth's Belinda and she once wrote
that she and her family "were great novel readers, and not ashamed of being so." One
of the favourite pastimes at the rectory was the staging of amateur theatricals, which
throws an interesting light on the apparent disapproval of play-acting in Mansfield
Park, causing some critics to see it as influenced by the changed moral climate of a
period closer to the Victorian age, than that of Jane Austen's childhood3ane Austen
wrote her Juvenilia between 1787 and 1793. This early work consists mainly of
parodies of prevailing literary trends (such as in Love and Friendship) which were
later collected in three manuscript volumes. Usually dedicated to one or the other of
 t
her latives or family friends, and circulated among the same circle, these pieces are
clea ly written above all for the amusement of her family.

work on earlier versions of Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield

The Novel in its
Context

Abbey between 1795 and 1799. Their working titles were

First Impressions and Susan respectively .But First
d by the publisher to whom Jane Austen's fither showed the

apparently enjoyed social events like balls and parties, and was
fond of dancing - a famous (though clearly malicious) description of her
Mitford calls her "The prettiest, silliest, most affected, husband-hunting
at she could remember. An early romance (in 1795-6) that ended because
oney on both sides, may have been an unhappy experience that surfaces
of money and marriage in the novels. Jane Austen eventually never
her father's death in 1805, Jane, along with her mother and sister,
,staying there only a few months before going on to Southampton, and
there to Hampshire in 1809.

Northanger Abbey was sold to a publisher, but it did not appear in p'rint until
years later, while Sense and Sensibility appeared anonymously ("By a
Pride and Prejudice, as First Impressions had now been renamed,
mber 18 12, and published in January 1813, to a favourable reception
n was followed by another later in the same year. A second edition
ility was published in October 1813, followed by Mansfield Park
ad already started work on Emma, which appeared in December
n was begun in August 1815'and completed exactly a year later. She
another novel, Sandition in 1817, but had to give it up because of her
She died at Winchester on July 18, 1817, (of a disease
me, but later conjectured to have been either Addison's disease
gia') and was buried in Winchester Cathedral. Persuasion and
ere published posthumously toward the end of 1817 in a
ur volumes, with a "Biographical Notice of the Author" by her

1.4 1 LET US SUM UP

htenment is looked at as the manifestation of the intellectual and political
prevalent in Europe during the course of the eighteenth century. Jane
ork is then considered in the context of the Romantic movement which
emerge at this moment in history. Secondly, the rise of the novel and of the
ist fiction to which Jane Austen's work belongs, are traced with a view
er work within a certain literary tradition, and also looking at the ways in
nstitutive of that tradition .
1
I

1.5 ( GLOSSARY

Habea Corpus Latin term used in a writ requiring a person to be brought

before a judge or into court for the purpose specified in the
writ.

Subja ivity Consciousness of one's perceived states; the quality or

condition of viewing things exclusively through the medium
of one's own mind or individuality.
Universals What is applicable-to,br involves, all the individuals or .
species of a class or genus; an abstract or general concept
regarded as having an absolute, mental, or nominal
existence.

1.6 QUESTIONS

1. . What are the main aspects of Enlightenment humanism which gave rise to the
need for a new type of narrative-inthe eighteenth century?

2. Mention some of the technical devices used by novelists in the eighteenth

century, which Jane Austen uses in a modified form.

1.7 SUGGESTED READING

Willey, Basil The Eighteenth Century Background. London:

Chatto and Windus, 1953.

Foucault, Michel What is Enlightenment: Was ist Aufklerung? Unpublished

ms.trans1. Catherine Porter in Paul Rabinow ed. The
Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon, 1984.

Watt, Ian The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and
Fielding. London: Chatto and Windus, 1957.

Uphaus, Robert Ed , The Idea of the Novel in the Eighteenth Century.

U.S.A: Colleagues Press, 1988.

Tomalin, Clare Jane Austen: A Life. London: Viking, 1997, Penguin, 1988.
 I
UNIT 2 MAIN THEMES IN PRIDE AND

Objectives
Introduction
'Pride' and 'Prejudice'
2.2.1 The Title
2.2.2 The Characters
Love and Mamage
Let Us Sum Up
Glossary
Questions
Suggested Reading
I
I
\

2.3 OBJECTIVES

objective of this unit is to offer a possible point of entry into the text by looking
title and picking out as major themes, the characteristics or feelings to which it
These are first looked at in isolation and then in the context of some of the

~
2.4 INTRODUCTION
I

best to begin with a tentative outlining of what we are doing in setting out
ernes' from this (or any) text. The term 'theme' when used in relation to
text, has been variously used to mean an argument, a claim, or an issue
text, but this working definition does not specify whether or not the
ly raises questions or also proposes answers, and whether thematic
a text depend entirely upon a deliberate attempt on the part of the author
in issue. I think that on the whole we shall restrict ourselves to the
d look for authorial intention with regard to Pride and Prejudice, but do
keep in mind that what Arnold Kettle says about Emma ("the subject ... its
-
lized significance, is not easily or even usefully abstracted fiom the story")
most as well here.

2.21 'PRIDE' AND 'PREJUDICE'

I
I

ortant aspects of Jane Austen's treatment of pride as a theme become more

telligible to us when we see her work in the context of the eighteenth century
of the realistic novel. Because of the rational and secular framework of the
enlightenment humanism, pride is not presented here in theological terms
is seen as a common and verifiable fact of human experience whichcan .
and understood through reasoning. The eighteenth century also
emergence of the new science of human psychology where human
ces, ideas, feelings, emotions, and experiences in society begin to be studied
of methods and concepts used by physical scientists in their study of
mena. Parallel to the concept of matter as a substance which,-despite
,form, remained essentially the same everywhere, this new science goes
along with (and perhaps even leads to) the evolution of a concept of universal human
nature by thinkers like Hobbes, Locke and Hume. In the physical sciences, elements
are classified under different categories, such as metals and non-metals, gases and
solids, and are regarded as the basic units of matter which, through different
combinations, form the various substances found in nature. Human nature, if
similarly considered, could be seen as consisting of some basic traits which combine
in different proportions and combinations to form the personalities of differ&
individuals. Human traits are similarly placed in the categories of 'appetites',
'impressions', 'sensations', 'passions' and 'ideas'. In the analysis of a compound, an
important part of the job is to break it up into its elements and see how these elements
interact with one another. A similar model begins at this time to be used for human
personality which is studied by breaking it up into the traits mentioned above and
seeing how they interact with one another in order to produce the specific human
personality u ~ d e study.
r

Jane Austen's treatment of pride conforms to this pattern cf scientific and rational
analysis. Commenting on pride, David Hume underlines its two special attributes. In
A Treatise of Human Nature, he tells us that as against passions like love, where the
self draws pleasure from its orientations towards others, the object of pride is the self
alone. Pride is then in other words, a form of excessive self-absorption, self-
centredness, self-regard or self-esteem. The second attribute of pride, according to
Hume is that unlike hunger, greed and lust, pride does not arise from specific bodily
organs or the needs of the self, but it is "pleasurable to the self by virtue of
demonstrable externals which are seen as possessions whether they are mental or
physical possessions." Jane Austen's treatment of pride shows its different varieties
where both these attributes are clearly visible to a greater or lesser degree.

2.2.1 The Title

The title of the novel may not provide an instant clue to the 'meaning' of the text, but
it does indicate at least one theme in fairly unambiguous terms, offering an indication
to the text's chief concerns as well as a useful starting-point for a study of them. The
title should not be misread to mean that Jane Austen is deding here with two entities
called 'pride' and 'prejudice', which are independent of each other and exist
separately in the personality and behaviour of different characters. It would, for
example be too simplistic to assume that Darcy embodies pride and Elizabeth
prejudice. It soon becomes clear from the text that prejudice is largely considered as a
consequence of pride reflected in the attitudes and behaviour both of the person who
represents pride and of those who react to it. Pride shows itself in weaknesses -
pomposity, stupidity, snobbery or eccentricity -which may make the character's
behaviour is look funny or ridiculous. It may also produce a sense of frivolity which
makes it difficult for a character like Lydia to understand the consequences of her
own actions and makes her insensitive to the pain and suffering she causes others.

2.2.2 The Characters

The text identifies and analyses different forms of pride as they are revealed in the
behaviour of various characters, and the difference among them emerges, more often
than not, as largely one of degree. In some cases, however, a qualitative difference in
the nature of pride is brought out. These different forms of pride are discussed in
greater detail later, but it is important to remember here that two such forms are
explicitly distinguished from each other in the rather pedantic definitions of "pride"
and "vanity" provided by Mary, according to whom "Pride relates more to our
opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us". For once she
might be held to be correct, as far as events and revelations of character in the course
of the narrative appear to bear out her opinion that pride involves a sense (perhaps
even an excessive sense) of self-esteem or self-regard. Still, the more important
distinction working behind this difference is that while a sense of dignity and self-
respect are substantially presedt in one form of pride, they are almost negligible in the
 Main Themes in
Darcy's excessive self-esteem is 'pride' of this kind, while Wickham's self- Pride and Prejudice-1

ted in varied ways by different characters. Thus the distinction

anity of Mr. Collins and that ot' Sir William Lucas, or the vanity of
e de Burgh and that of Mrs. Bennet becomes differentiated because of
esence or absence of other qualities. In order to achieve a sharper focus on
haracters are made to represent a quality opposite to it, so that they can
arison and contrast. So while Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet represent
of pride, Bingley and Jane stand for modesty and candour, and the
tter pair helps us in understanding the full meaning of pride in the
rmer, between whom misunderstandings and prejudices delay the
of a relationship. The achievement of happiness in love, therefore,
nt upon the development of a proper understanding of weaknesses

sive self-regard' is based on an external possession which is not a personal

t but something acquired through a quirk of chance or fortune (inherited
le) pride takes the form of snobbery. Pride as selfishness pervades
ent in Pride and Prejudice insofar as people's attitudes towards
depend on the benefit or gain they can derive from them. The most
tance of this kind of pride is of course Wickham but it is also present in the
mportance given to petty conveniences and the lack of interest in anything
a narrow range of personal interests in characters like Mrs. Bennet, Lydia
two Bingley sisters. As excessive self-esteem which goes with a legitimate
ity and independence of spirit, it is most notably present in Darcy,
abeth Bennet and Mr. Bennet also possess it. Pride in this form
st a distorted or perverted expression of the dignity and integrity of the

0th haughtiness and snobbery are shown to make people unsociable or cold
emptuous, self-centredness and selfishness do not prevent them from being
d prone to gossip, and in the case of Wickham, even enticingly agreeable.
may make a character assertive like Elizabeth Bennet or eccentrically
ike her father. Snobbery may make a character superciliously non-
ve like the Bingley sisters when they have to mix with people of inferior
make them officiously patronising, domineering and rude like Lady
Bourgh. Pride in the form of vanity which is often a combination of
self-centredness can make a person pompous like Mr. Collins, fatuous
am Lucas, giddily talkative and insensitive like Lydia or fretful like

se forms of pride are demonstrated both through dialogue and authorial

nt. One main interest is of course the pride of characters like Darcy and
th, actdally a curable distortion of a positive concern for integrity and
dence of spirit. But this positive side of self-esteem can be viewed as a
not fully covered by pride and will be discussed separately when love is
as a theme of the novel.

enth-century thinkers who posit the concept of universal human nature

analogy of the physical sciences in another respect which is relevant to
n's treatment of the theme of pride in Pride and Prejudice. In the physical
structure of argument is raised on the bases of sensory data obtained
h experiments in the !&oratory or information collected from reliable
ther observers. ' f i e important thing in this empirical method is the
rifiability and impartiality of the data. The new science of human nature
what were called the 'impressions' and the structure of the argument
empirically after trying to eliminate subjective biases or providing a
margin of error for them. Biases caused by the pride of the observer or
g the sources of such errsrs.,
 -

P ~ Uand
. RCJU~IC~ In Pride and Prejudice we are shown the 6 9 s in which observation, and
, subsequently communication, become distorted by the pride of those involved in the
process. The title Jane Austen gave to the first draft of the novel was First
Impressions,, The novel persistently brings to our notice the unreli'ability of first
impressions, even those of intelligent and observant people like Elizabeth and Darcy.
On account of his prejudices (rooted in pride), Darcy manages to offend the ladies
assembled at the Meryton ball by not paying them the attention that courtesy
demands -even Elizabeth is dismissed by him with a casual remark to the effect
that she was "tolerable" but not attractive enough to make him want to dance with
her. Elizabeth's hurt vanity similarly distorts her judgement of the characters of .
Wickham as well as Darcy, something she acknowledges later saying, "How
humiliating is this discovery.. ..But vanity, not love has been my folly."

Also notice the way in which every important incident in the novel is preceded by
some rumour or followed by gossip, both obscuring the true version of things - this
serves to emphasize the need for a disinterested analysis of what comes to us through
hearsay. Language, Jane Austen seems to be saying, is a tangled web since the
subjective colouring it acquires under the interests of individuals and groups (which
is one meaning of pride or vanity in the novel) has to be recognised and examined in
cirder to get through to the truth. This 'truth' is, importantly, valid for the entire
community or society, that is to say it is not a subjective truth.

Pride is not an absbction here, but a general notion which codifies a large area of
human experience under a system of cognition and evaluation which had been
evolved by eighteenth ceiltuv thinkers on behalf of a dominant social formation
playing an active role in shaping the historical development of English society.

2.3 LOVE AND MARRIAGE

Jane Austen's iqterest in pride could be seen as part of her concern with another
theme, that of exploring whether the possibilities of a meaningful and durable love
relationship (that ends in marriage) between a young man and a young woman, ,do
really exist in the society of her times. Marriage is analysed on two levels - in terms
of external obstacles like patriarchy and property relations (see 3.4) and in terms of
the characters' personal attributes. Pride seems to be among the most harmful of such
attributes since it has td be overcome by a process of self-education before love can
culminate in marriage.

In all love comedies, and more generally, in literature that centres itself around the
theme of romantic or sexual love, the man-woman relationship is invested with an
extraordinary significance and is considered an experience that transforms the lovers.
The best example is the exalted notion of love in the medieval romances where it is
considered at par with religious devotion. As pointed out earlier, (see 1.3.5) the novel
had emerged in the eighteenth century in conscious opposition to the traditional
romances. Most of the attitudes and conventions found in the earlier romances were
discarded as outdated and irrelevant. An exception was, however, made in the case
of love as a theme and the high value attached to it as an experience. The eighteenth
century witnessed the emergence of a widely popular tradition of novels where love
was a dominant theme, Richardson's Pamela being the prototype of this kind of
novel. Love was treated here as a prized experience comparable to that in the -.
romances, but there were important differences. For example, love was not shown in
isolation from other emotions and urges, but had to grow and develop by countering
their presence. The novel of sensibility which followed in the second half of the
eighteenth century maifitained, on the whole, the psychological and social realism
achieved by Richardson in Pamela but the gap between the noble aspirations of the
lovers and the crudely materialistic and manipulative social environment became
much wider here.
 i
Jane usten discarded the indulgent subjectivity of the novel of sensibility and
resto ed to love comedy the realism it had earlier possessed in the writings of
Rich rdsoil and Fielding. In order to understand the distinctive features of Jane
Aust n's treatment of love in Pride and Prejudice we should perhaps go back, as
A.N. aul has suggested in The Action of English Comedy to Shakespeare's comedy
of lo e which represents the initial break with the medieval notions of romantic love.
t important distinction between the courtly love of the medieval romances
as portrayed in Shakespeare's comedies, however, lies in the latter's being a
If-affirmation and expression for the individual, whereas courtly love had
a total surrender of the self. While giving priority to love as a theme,
e did not separate it fiom social activities since as a mode of self-
it formed an integral part of the larger agenda of general emancipation..
of the personal and the social significance of love in Shakespeare's
it quite natural that it should take the form of a durable union in
society a space had been created for marriage to
taneously a union between two individual's which signified the sanctity,
nd persistent strength of their love and an institution which fitted them
ely into prevailing social hierarchies. In the comedy of love, mamage was
culminating point in this twin process of self-affirmation and social
en the love comedy made its appearance in the eighteenth century
ically as a continuation of this tradition. However, we often find in
gence between the significance of mamage as the culminating
en two individuals, and its meaning as a means of their
e prevailing social hierarchies.The novel at this time also
ithin which assertion of an individual autonomy could be
e pressure in this regard was particularly acute in the case of
who were neither accorded the full status of independent, sensitive and
human beings nor given parity in property rights and economic opportunities.
herefore, had to include as a necessary part of its structure a
robing of the conditions under which the possibilities of a
love relationship could be actualized in contemporary social
understanding of Jane Austen's handling of the theme of
1 be helpful to take into consideration a significant change '
place in the social and cultural climate of English society at the specific
en she wrote her novels. The aftermath of the French Revolution and the
ngland and France made the social groups in the culturally
ly distrustful of the radical politics implicit in the ideal of
individual they had accepted earlier as an integral part of
value system. The emphasis on an individual's right to
f had by this time become so pronounced in the general
rvative shift took place, it became virtually impossible to
ly. The dilemma was resolved by muting down the
a1 of individual autonomy substantially but affirming at
intensity than before, its operative power in the
onships. It is this intensified affirmation of the ideal
sonal relationships that enabled Jane Austen to lend
rojection of love between Elizabeth and Darcy as a
tonomy as individuals and reinforce this impression
etween Jane and Bingley.
ver, to be emphasized that in bringing this superior conception of love
,Jane Austen does not underestimate the presence of attitudes and
n society which go against it. She recognizes the cynicism and disdain
nd the view of them as mere objects of pleasure or as the route to instant
which were prevalent among a section of the dominant social and cultural
ickham represents this attitude in Pride and Prejudice, though Jane kusten +
limited interest in the moral and psychological make-up of such
~ ~

Pride and Preiudice

There is another negative attitude which Jane Austen takes more seriously -that of
the materialism and economic individualism of the up-coming middle classes. Jane
Austen deliberately shows the love relationship slowly gaining strength and maturing
by contending against the pull of this negative force present everywhere. The varied
forms it can take are brought out vividly before us through different characters in
Pride and Prejudice. We can see it in its grosser forms in the dullness and pomposity
of Mr. Collins or the obtrusively meddlesome and domineering behaviour of Lady
Catherine. It is present in characters like Mrs. Philip who loves to collect and
transmit idle gossip. We can also see it in the supercilious finickiness of the Bingley
sisters. Mrs. Bennet, too, is governed by this spirit as her obsessive concern for the
marriage of her daughters is based on the presumption that daughters are perishable
commodities to be disposed of quickly before their market value goes down and the
young man to whom they are to be married off are reluctant customers to be
assiduously cultivated to make them agree to complete the transaction.
Jane Austen presents two pairs of lovers in the novel in order to show that the
concept of individual autonomy she is invoking is quite complex and a single pair of
characters would not give us a fair idea of the full range of human qualities she wants
to put into their love-relationship. While Elizabeth and Darcy represent an actively
assertive form of independence and critical intelligence, the secondary emphasis falls
on Jane's and Bingley's candour and goodwiI1. For characters like Elizabeth and
Darcy or Jane and Bingley, marriage primarily means culmination of a love
relationship which starts with mutual physical attraction but necessarily includes
feelings of mutual respect, esteem and confidence" (11, XIX). Most marriages in the
novel do not conform to this ideal, but the manner in which the story of the heroine's
love has been built up demonstrates that such an ideal has sufficient social validity
and is to be recognized as a real possibility that can materialize in the normal course
of happening in the prevailing social environment. All the four characters who
successfully achieve maniages of love are normal products of the middle-class way
of life and have their distinctive space in the society. The structure of society with its
class and gender iniquities is not challenged politically, but substantive opportunities
for fulfilment of love are located within its ambit. This emphasis on the "self-
education" of the hero and heroine and the insistence on discovering a vantage-point
of compatibility between love and prudence, both indicate that Jane Austen's
treatment of love and mamage is located in an exploration of the best possibilities
available within the limits of the existing social order. Her challenge to class-based
snobbery, patriarchal smugness and bourgeois philistinism has to be viewed in this
perspective.

2.4 LET US SUM UP

'Pride' and 'prejudice' are picked.out as two of the text's main themes, and are
considered with reference to the humanist conception of character. These two themes
are seen to open up several others, especially those of love and mamage. The themes
are also considered in terms of the individual characters, in the portrayals of which
they are constitutive factors.

2.5* GLOSSARY
Autonomy Personal freedom (of the will) to self-determination
Philistinism An attitude lacking in liberal culture. The term is derived
fiom contemptuous references to the Philistines, a group of
warlike people who occupied the southern sea-coast of
Palestine, and constantly harassed the Israelites.
 Main Themes in
2.6 ( QUESTIONS Pride and Prejudice-l

Discuss briefly and illustrate the two kinds of pride which, in your view,
figure most prominently in Pride and Prejudice.

2. I What are the salient features of the system of thought in terms of which pride
has been dealt with as a theme in Pride and Prejudice?

2.7 1 SUGGESTED READING

Hardy 1 Barbara A Reading of Jane Austen. London: The Athlone Press,

I
1975, rptd. 1979.

David
Y"ey Ed. The Jane Austen Handbook. London: Athlone, 1986.
UNIT 3 MAIN THEMES IN PRIDE AND

Structure

Objectives
Introduction
Women
3.2.1 Social Position
3.2.2 Education and 'Accomplishments'
Money and Property
3.3.1 Income
3.3.2 Settlements
3.3.3 Entails and Inheritance
Marricige
Let Us Sum Up
Glossary
Questions
Suggested Reading

3.0 OBJECTIVES

The objective of this unit is to look at the ways in which the contemporary realities of
women's livep'and their position in society inform the treatment of these aspects in
the text.

-- p~ --

3.1 INTRODUCTION

I'd like to begin with these extracts fiom a poem called The Unsex'd Females written
by Richard Polwhele in 1798:

See Wollestonecraft, whom no decorum checks,

Arise, the intrepid champion of her sex;
O'er humbled man assert the sovereign claim,
And slight the timid blush of virgin fame

...Soon shall the sex disdain the illusive sway,

And wield the sceptre in yon blaze of day;
Ere long, each little artifice discard,
No more by weakness winning forid regard;
Nor eyes, that sparkle from their blushes, roll,
Nor catch the languors of the sick'ning soul;
Nor the quick flutter, nor the coy reserve,
But nobly boast the firm gymnastic nerve;
No more affect with Delicacy's fan
To hide emotion fiom congenial man;
To the bold heights where glory beams, aspire,
Blend mental energy with Piission's fire;
Surpass their rivals in the powers of mind,
And vindicate the Rights ofWomankind."
 Main Themes in
Prlde' and Prejudice-2

ical, diabolical instruments; - But, Sir Anthony, I would send her, at nine
Pride and Prejudice
Now look at another conversation, this time from Persuasion. Anne Elliot and
Captain Harville are arguing over whether men or women are more constant in love.
Captain Harville says "I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not
something to say upon woman's inconstancy ...but you will say, these were all
written by men." to which Anne replies, "Perhaps I shall ...Yes. Yes, if you please,
no references to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling
their story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in
their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything."

Both speeches serve, in very different ways, to give us a clear picture of the
contemporary condition of women's education, and of the results of its inadequacy.
The absence of any system of state-supported education (though there were local
charity schools) in Jane Austen's time was crucial in the denying of education to
many women, since the 'Grammar schools' which existed to teach upper-class boys
did not admit girls. The only alternatives were private boarding schools of the kind
that Jane Austen herself attended, and the education imparted here was generally
acknowledged to be of a not particularly high order. Most girls were simply taught at
home by masters or governesses, and were not allowed into either the 'public
schools' like Eton or the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. This meant in effect
that women were barred from any knowledge of the classical languages (Greek and
Latin) and usually also of history, political thought, philosophy, in short of most
branches of learning. Instead they were taught accomplishments such as needlework,
drawing, singing and playing the piano, which were considered attractive abilities
that might come in useful in securing a husband. Not necessarily pursued with either
talent or application, and not even always of much practical use -consider Lady
. Bertram's never-ending and utterly purposeless "carpet-work" in Mansfield Park-
these skills are brought up repeatedly in Jane Austen's novels. In Pride and
Prejudice, there are a number of scenes where women have to display their
accomplishments in a social situation. Mary since she lacks beauty, is forced to rely
on her musical abilities in order to be noticed in society, and she is described as
"always impatient for display". There is a conversation on the subject of women's
accomplishments at Netherfield where Bingley expresses surprise at the number of
skills young ladies are expected (and do) possess. These skills are detailed, and they
include painting tables, covering 'screens', netting purses, singing, dancing, drawing,
and an acquaintance with "the modem languages", and Darcy adds to this list by
saying that a woman ought to also be well-read. Later on Lady Catherine interrogates
Elizabeth about her accomplishments, lectures her on how to improve her piano-
playing, and makes the extremely dubious assertion that "If I had ever learnt, I should
have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to
apply."

3.3 MONEY AND PROPERTY

3.3.1 Income
. Most women had no independent means of income and were completely dependent
on their fathers, brothers or husbands. Professions were closed to women, as was
politics and this provides an interesting context for Elizabeth's remark about Lady
Catherine - ". ..though this great lady was not in the commission of the peace for the
county, she was a most active magistrate in her own parish". It is an ironic remark
since it was actually impossible for a woman to be a magistrate or a justice of the
peace. One of the very few occupations (and almost the only respectable one) open to
women was to be a governess., but in fact the occupation brought poor pay, an often
miserable social condition, and not much respect. The only real way for a woman to
get money, if she had not inherited it, was to marry for it. Jane Austen herself, though
she earned enough from her novels to become economically independent during her
 -

years, knew from personal experience how restrictive it was to be dependent, Main Themes in
on loved ones. Unmarried women also had to live with their families, and for Pride and Prejudice-2
leave her family or guardians without approval, even if it is in order to marry
does), was considered a radical step.

t3
3 .2 Settlements

ent', which is considered very important if not absolutely necessary in

marriage, is a legal document intended to ensure that the property which a
s to marriage will ultimately belong to her, and after her, to her children.
which grants the husband more or less complete control over such
a safeguard functions to at least prevent too blatant an appropriation of
en though the wife may not have personal control over it during her
settlement is usually part of a pre-marital financial agreement tnat
ace either between the couple themselves, or between their familics, and it
o guarantee a certain amount of money to be inherited by the children of the
age, for example the five thousand pounds which are "settled by marriage
Bennet and the children" and out of which Mr. Bennet has to give
as part of the marital agreement settled upon with Wickham. The
e settlement not only in negotiating the terms of a marriage, but also
ase) in bringing it about at all, is used here for two purposes. First, it
ghlight the economic base of most marriages. Secondly, and in this
e importantly, it functions as an index to character, through revealing
es of greed. Wickham's refusal to many Lydia without a settlement that
ses him some financial and professional gain, calls into doubt any feelings he
be supposed to have for her.

b
3. .3 Entails and Inheritance

women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong
in favour of matrimony." ( ~ a n w
e us ten, letter of March 13, i 8 16.)

was usually the only means of social mobility for women. very few of
marry without a dowry or some kind of settlement. Most middle class
save enough money for theii own dowries. In theory a woman could
even marry without her father's consent once she had ria~T-:Jtl,;
Pride Pre,Mdiler age of twenty-one, but in practise this remained impossible for all except the
exceptionally rich women like Emma who had the freedom to live their lives exactly
as they liked. Still, one reason marriage was not to be entered into lightly was that it
was almost always for life - divorce was possible only in the event that the sexual
infidelity of the wife could beproved, and even here the husband had to get
permission from Parliament to suefor divorce. The trial was between the husband
and the wife's alleged lover, and the woman herself had no say in the matter. There
was provision for the possibility of legal separation (neither party could remarry in
this case) on the grounds of cruelty, but the husband was usually granted exclusive
custody of the children in such cases, and could prevent the wife from seeing them -
a sufficient deterrent to most women who might have thought of using the provision.

The pressure to marry that young women constantly faced from parents and relatives
is treated comically in Pride and Prejudice because it comes mainly from Mrs.
Bennet. But Mansfield Park provides a more serious illustration of it when Sir
Thomas tries to persuade Fanny to marry Henry Crawford against her will. Mr. and
Mrs. Bennet express two different ways of looking at the marriage of their children -
while Mrs. Bennet is unequivocally happy at Elizabeth's finding a rich husband, Mr.
Bennet's concern is that she marry someone she can respect, and he asks anxiously
whether Darcy's money will make her happy, not knowing of course that she is
marrying for love.

Take another look at the opening lines of Pride and Prejudice, already considered in
another context. Sharmila Bhatt (in Trivedi, 1996) a critic, points out that they
contain the idea that marriage involves a commodification not just of women but also
of men.

Since any property a woman might possess before her mamage automatically became
her husband's, heiresses were in danger of being married for their money alone by
'fortune-hunters', of whom Wickham is an obvious example -he tries to make
Georgiana Darcy elope with him in order to get to her fortune. At the same time, how
seriously are we to take Elizabeth's assertion that the sight of the grouhds at
Pemberley went some way in helping her to change her mind about Darcy? I do not
think very seriously, and yet it might well be a factor, however small. Jane Austen
does take the view that while greed and materialism are to be despised, even sensible
people must devote some serious thought to the issue of money in mamage and it is
rather foolish to ignore it completely since not only did onk harry for life (divorce
was next to impossible) but there was no social security outside it for most women.
Though this does not excuse Charlotte Lucas' decision to marry Mr. Collins "from
the pure and disinterested desire of an establishment" (nothing in the novel.really
excuses marriage without love) it does make it appear more understandable. Charlotte
is after all doing no more than choosing the option that suits her best interests from
among a number of fairly disagreeable prospects.

There have been made connections between the rise of the novel and that of the
modern nuclear family in the 17' and 18' centuries. Both reach their height during
the lgmcentury though actually the nuclear family has its origins as early as the 1 5 ~
century. Later in the 19' century, the Victorians saw the family as a rehge and
shelter fiom the outside world, and this shelter as most of all dependent on the
woman (in her role as wife or daughter) who is the ideal of domestic femininity - the
'angel in the house'. Common enough in Dickens, something of this view is also
present in the character of Famy who becomes the repository of domestic happiness
in Mansfleld Park, but this particular role is not present for the women in Pride and
Prejudice.

The text seems to hold mixed views about marriage, seeing it as a culmination of
woman's development but also as a diminishment. Though the words identified in
Jane Austen's work with the right maniage (a companionate one) are 'affection' and
'esteem', even where these were oresent in life, things were o h different. The
 of marriage for most women in this period also meant repeated childbirth with Main Themes in
e attendant physical discomfort, followed by years spent in child-rearing. Pride and Prejudice-2

e use of mamage as one of the two most common conventional endings in fiction
e other is death) provides a sense of closure, and makes it possible to bring
ether the themes and depiction of private and public life. But the use of this device
seen as an adherence to, and perpetuation of the myth of marriage as the most
and desired aim of a woman's life. Jane Austen seems to conform to this'
utwardly, but her misgivings on the subject are evident. What is undeniable is her
ss on equality in marriage, at least for the heroine, though the presence of other
tched couples make it clear that this ideal isn't always met.
I *
b.5 LET US SUM UP

ial and economic realities of women's lives in Jane

ten's time is usefbl in understanding how far these enter the text of Pride and
were extremely dependent on mamage, and their education aimed
s role alone by teaching them skills considered to make them
en. They were also supposed to cultivate, to the same end, an
d delicacy and helplessness, qualities regarded as 'feminine' and the loss of
y in the wake of books and movements that sought to
ings. Among the most influential of such books was Mary
ndication of the Rights of Women,which appeared toward the

13.6 GLOSSARY
?

1 Contemporary Of (or at) the same time in history

Unequivocally Without any ambiguity.

3.7 QUESTIONS
t

1
I 1. ldentifL the chief features of Jane Austen's treatment of love and marriage in
Pride and Prejudice
I
i 2. Does the theme of gender injustice become a part of Jane Austen's treatment
of love and marriage, and if so, in what way?

13.8 SUGGESTED READING

Atkinson, Paul Fitness, Feminism and Schooling in m e Nineteenthcentury

Woman: Her Cultural and Moral World.
Ed. Delamont, Sara & Lorna Duffin 1978.

Cohen, Paula Marantz The Daughter's Dilemma: Family Process and the
Nineteenth-CenturyDomestic Novel. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1991.

Trivedi, Harish (Ed.). Jane Austen: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. Delhi:

Pencraft International, 1996.
UNIT 4 CHARACTERS IN THE NOVEL
Structure

Objectives
Introduction
Eighteenth Century Ideas about Character
Fictional Characters
The Main Characters in Pride and Prejudice
Gender and Character in Pride and Prejudice
Let Us Sum Up
Glossary
Questions
Suggested Reading

4.0 OBJECTIVES

The objective of this unit is to offer a reading of Pride and Prejudice that lays a
particular emphasis on the characters on the novel, and that sees these characters as
embodying, in themselves as well as in what happens to them, the main themes of the
novel.

4.1 INTRODUCTION .

One of the most immediately striking things about the character-portrayals in Jane
Austen's work is the fact that nowhere, unlike in the fiction of Fielding for example,
does the reader get the impression of the characters as entirely manipulated by the
author, or subordinated to the interests of the plot. Plot here does not consist of
dramatic happenings and events, but rather arises from character, in that the changes
in the thoughts and feelings of the characters is at least as important (and often more
so) than any external event. Even a fairly dramatic event like Lydia's elopement is
important more for what it reveals of the characters of Lydia, Wickharn, and Darcy,
and for its role in effecting Elizabeth's changed feelings, rather than for the literal
consequences, which are simply that they are forced to marry, and that the marriage
does little to make society at large forget the event.

Another very noticeable feature of the portrayal of characters in the novels, and one
for which Jane Austen has been repeatedly and extravagantly praised, is their fidelity
to life, or more correctly, to 'real' people. One source, both of this feature, and of the
fact that it has been so highly valued, is the eighteenth century notion of 'nature', and
the idea that the imitation of nature as closely as poQible was an ideal of all art. It
might be helpful, therefore to look at some of the more common eighteenth century
perceptions of character.

4.2 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IDEAS ABOUT

CHARACTER

The most obvious feature of the eighteenth-century conception of human character to

a reader today is its self-confident assertion of a universal human nature which holds
true in its basic features across different historical contexts. It is impossible for us
 to question the assumptions behind such a conception of character, but In Characters in the
Novel
e do run the risk of simplifying what is a complex and detailed idea, and
ne that is behind the emergence of the modern'self or the 'subject', which
en in isolation, but has to consider them in terms of its simultaneous
tinuity with, the eighteenth-century idea of the human being.
this has already been discussed in 1.4.2 in a discussion of the passage
that we cannot escape the Enlightenment conception of
ause we cannot extricate ourselves from it. Human nature may have
d in the eighteenth century as an inclusive and all-encompassing
t does remain a severely limited one, the best example of this limitation
the approximation of human nature to 'Man'. Though this has been much
zed, it is important to remember that the bias is an implicit one - women are not
sly sought to be excluded from humanity, and indeed are often
o obviously present that they do not require special mention. 'Man' is
sically 'good' but also essentially and 'naturally' social.
f inherent 'goodness' is problematic not only from the
ective, but also from that of the Christian conception of
Christian tradition itself includes contradictory ideas of
the one hand, mankind is the supreme part of God's creation,
angels and on the other, there is the presence of original sin,
upon himself through his own deliberate fault. One might argue
human being as essentially sinful nowhere enters into the
confidence about the naturally rational and moral man, but in fact
and this is a period inevitably associated with satire) rests in no
it - at least two of the most important satirists (Swift and
evout Christians.

the human being as the most worthy subject of study, this idea of character
k to Renaissance humanism, and the emphasis on the essential and inborn
ifferent types of human character. The theory of humours, which had been
ular physiology in medieval and Renaissance Europe offered one way of
different types of characters, and saw the varying amounts and
inations of bodily fluids as formative of individual characteristlccs,temperament,
and behaviour. It is the use of 'humoured' characters in comedy that results in
th century association of the word 'humour' with comedy, wit and

assertion that man was a social being, there is a coming together of the ideas of
' and 'culture' (or society) that Romantic thinkers later saw as polarized.
s idea of the human being as formed through received impressions also
uted to the Romantic cult of personality. The eighteenth century thus debates
ly over whether individual character traits are inherent, or formed by
(see 3.2.2) and upbringing, and if inborn, whether or not they are alterable.
Prejudice includes a look at both sides of the argument (see 4.4.1) but
of attempting a resolution.

I,

4.3 1 FICTIONAL CHARACTERS

many existing models available for the analysis of fictional character, I have
E. M. Forster's for a closer look, since he deals specifically with Jane
's characters. Do remember however that Forster's analysis falls within a
ar kind of literary criticism or way of reading a text and that this is only one
any such possible readings, not all of which even accept the idea that the
ters in a fictional text merit this kind of attention. Forster, in Aspects of the
, provides the terms 'flat' and 'round' as a tool for the analysis of fictional
using them to describe two different kinds of literary character and two
f characterization. A flat character is one who does not change in the
pride a,,d Prejudice course of the fiction where he or she is found and is a 'type' with a f:w (often only
one) prominent features and characteristics. Such characters are usuallyn-.thoughnot
exclusively - used in caricature where comic effects are desired. A round
character is one who changes and develops as the story or play progresses. This
classification is useful as a guide to literary intention (to use an outdated phrase). A
flat character could be evidence that the novelist is trying to focup on aqarticular

4
quality or state of mind, while,the use of a round character, coul indicate an effort to
show personal growth (as happens with Elizabeth -contrast he with a relatively
'flat' character like Mary, who does not change in the course of the novel) or show a - i
commitment to realism, in that 'real' people are of course far more 'round' than 'flat'.
Forster goes on to specifj that none of Jane Austen's characters could really be called
flat, since 'she never stooped to caricature'. He goes on to add:

She is a miniaturist, but never two-dimensional. All her characters are round,
or capable of rotundity. Even Miss Bates has a mind, even Elizabeth Eliot a
heart, and Lady Bertram's moral fervour ceases to vex us when we realize
this: the desk has suddenly extended and become a little globe. When the
novel is closed, Lady Bertram goes back to the flat, it is true; the dominant
impression she leaves can be summed up in a formula. But that is not how
Jane Austen conceived her, and the freshness of her reappearances are due to
this. (Forster, pp 113-14)

This opinion has been contested by critics who see as evidence to the contrary, the
very fact that Jane Austen's characters are more or less clearly divided into the
morally admirable and the morally reprehensible. They see Lady Bertram as
characterized neither by the 'evil' of her sister Mrs. Norris, nor by the virtue of Fanny
Piice, but simply by indolence and weakness. Kitty would be a comparable example .
from Pride and Prejudice, an easy-going girl, not 'good' as Elizabeth and Jane are,
nor 'bad' as Lydia proves to be, if such an oversimplified goodlbad opposition is
retained for the moment.

Another such opposition that was maintained in the eighteenth century, and even by
Romanticism, but that Modernism has sought to do away with, is the dichotomy
between 'reason' and 'emotion' which are seen as polarized opposites. However, to
strictly locate the identity (as distinct from the behaviour) of Jane Austen's
characters within the terms of this particular opposition would, I think, be a mistake.
Though some critics have for example seen Elinor and Marianne Dashwood in these
terms (that Jane Austen is here conceiving of two different character types is of
course indisputable) it makes more sense to look at the modes of rational or
emotional behaviour that each of the characters in the novels exhibits at one time or
another. It has been argued that one of the reasons for the success of Jane Austen's
characters is that we are not expected, in moving from one character to another, to
shift from one level of reality to another. This means that we do not have to judge
different characters by different standards of reality and probability. Even a character
like Mr. Collins, who is certainly meant to be seen as obnoxious, is psychologically
convincing - we are told about his repressive father, and though this does not serve as
an excuse for his behaviour, it does provide some kind of explanation for it.
. Character in Jane Austen's fiction, is based on the idea of the unified subject, but sees
the subject's qualities as revealed in, and constituted by, the particular decisions and
actions which he or she undertakes, or as the case may be, fails to undertake.

4.4 THE MAIN CHARACTERS IN PRIDE AND I

PREJUDICE

I have here listed out for you all the characters who might be considered to come
under this category, and offer as a sample of analysis, a consideration of the different
 Characters in the
in the Bqnnet family in terms of their role in the text. I have also indicated
Novel
the names of those characters whom you might like to analyse in the

.Bennet, Mrs. Bennet, Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, Lydia

Bingley, Caroline, Louisa Hurst

Lady Arne Darcy, Darcy, Georgiana

dy Catherine and her daughter Anne de Bourgh

Sir William, Lady Lucas, Charlotte, Maria.

.and Mrs. Gardiner

.and Mrs. Bennet are both presented in the first chapter of Pride and Prejudice,
speech, and then through authorial comment on them and their
dic 'truth' of the novel's opening sentence is clearly an article of
th Mrs. Bennet, who is characterized by her resourceful 'nerves' and "the
of her life" which is to get her daughters married. Mr. Bemet is described as
mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the
e of three and twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife
d his character." (PP, 3) The incompatibility of the relationship serves to
up the peculiarities of both - a clear instance of marriage being revelatory of
cter. The book doesn't just end with marriage, it also begins with the portrayal
age, and if the projected marriages of the couple's five daughters were to
ccount the unhappiness of this one, a great deal of the supposedly idealistic
arriage as a suitable and desired end is undercut with cynicism. If the
arriage partner is an indication of personality (as it is throughout the
r. Bennet is being judged unfavourably for a lack of judgement and
le bias in favour of beauty". At the same time, his 'wrong' choice is
sented as a mistake that he acknowledges, and his judgement of his children's
reference for Elizabeth and his recognizing Kitty and iydia as "two
in the country"-is bope out by the novel. Mrs. Bennet, though by
rested parent, is completely lacking in knowledge of her daughters,
well as in self-knowledge: "When she was discontented she fancied herself

r. and Mrs. Bennet function to bring out the debate over the role of upbringing in
aracter-formation. Of their five daughters, two are shown to have inherited their
er's good sense, two to have demonstrably taken after their mother's silliness, and
to have more or less formed herself through pedantry (as opposed to real
ing). Considering this, one might conclude right away that people's natures are
n by the novel as inborn and dependent on the natures of their parents, if on
ything at all. On the other hand, Mr. Bennet is clearly faulted for not actively
rvening in Lydia's development, and Kitty, we are told, improves rapidly once
is away from Lydia's influence. Parental influence on, and responsibility for,
ple's characters is posited here, and Mr. Bennet is guilty of neglecting his
ghters, a failing that Mrs. Bennet cannot be accused of, however harmful her
nce. Yet there is no denying that the characters of Elizabeth and Jane are
nstituted despite (as much as by) their parents, whose failures are somewhat
mpensated for by the Gardiners in their role as surrogate parents. It seems to me
at the novel's stand on the nature/nurture question remains deliberately ambiguous
order to avoid any easy moralising in the form of apportioning 'blame' or 'praise',
well as to limit causality. Such a limiting serves to balance out the emphasis
ly between plot development and the outlining of the various characters to the
where the two merge. What do you think?
Pride and Prejudice
The inescapability of the family is brought out through pairs of characters where the
virtues of one are suspiciously close to the vices of the other - Elizabeth's frankness
and Lydia's coarseness, ~ane'ssweetness and Mary's moralism, Darcy's superiority
and his aunt's arrogance. Of the five Bennet sisters, Jane is considered the most
beautiful. On the surface, rather a bland picture of goodness, she is important because
she provides, in her sometimes exasperating refusal to form hasty or condemnatory
judgements of people, a standard besides which Elizabeth's propensity to 'prejudice'
is shown up. All the same, Jane's over-willingness to believe the best of everyone is
not held up as ideal - her father says that she (as well as Bingley) is ". .. so
complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on", and the extent to which her
happiness is in the hands of other people -not just Bingley, but also his sisters and
Darcy - as well as her relative quietness, show her to be much less capable of self-
defence than Elizabeth is. Jane's chief purpose in the novel seems to be an exemplary
one - in a society where she might have chosen to flaunt or to use her beauty more
obviously she refrains from doing so - and in providing an additional story-line
which contributes to the main one by providing occasions for the main characters
(Elizabeth and Darcy) to demonstrate their 'pride' and 'prejudice' as well as their
overcoming of these faults.

Most of the important issues in the novel are presented through the figure of
Elizabeth and the choices she faces regarding the preservation of the integrity and
autonomy of the self, the reliability of attraction at first sight and the right basis for
choosing a mamage partner. I shall not here discuss her character in greater detail
since this is done later in 4.6, but it is interesting that Jane Austen thought her "as
delightful a character as ever appeared in print". If the figure of Elizabeth is used to
criticize the conventional attractions that women are made to cultivate, it is equally
meant to provide an alternative to them by depicting a woman who is 'delightful' for
reasons other than those of beauty alone. That said however, it is important to
remember that whatever else Elizabeth might be, she does also remain beautiful, and
it is the character of Mary, the third Bennet sister, that shows us a woman who must
cope with being unattractive, Mary is described as "the only plain one in the family"
and is seen as having to rely on her supposed learning and accomplishments to get
attention. I see Mary as being in some ways an extremely problematic character,
sixce she could well be seen as falling within the contemporary stereotype of the
'scholarly' woman who is lacking in feminine charm. What do you make of this? On
the other hand, Mary could be read as illustrating the limitations of mere bookish
knowledge and the danger of becoming pedantic, especially when combined with a
lack of enthusiasm for life outside books and an unpleasantly superior and
judgemental tone. Listen to her speaking to Lydia:

Far be it from me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures. They would
doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I confess it
would have no charms for me. I should inf nitely prefer a book. (Ch.39)
..

Mary also overrates her own talents -witness the scene where she shows off her
musical abilities to Elizabeth's embarrassment. Though she appears (to me at any
rate) a somewhat 'flat' character, she does serve to bring out the complexity of the
ideal of learning and education. These are seen as desirable, but also as possibly
resulting in undesirable qualities. The decisive factor would seem to be the way in
,which learning is pursued, by whom, and above all, to what end.

Catherine (called 'Kitty') is , I think, one of the few failures in character development
in the book, since hers is a portrayal that is left underdeveloped and unelaborated.
Though two years older than Lydia, she is completely guided by the latter, and we are
shown nothing at all of her personality outside the context of her defining trait of
extreme impressionability. Lydia is however developed in detail as a character
completely incapable of restraint. Yet the portrayal is not entirely negative, and
though she is greedy, selfish and manipulative, she is certainly not guilty of marrying
 as is Charlotte Lucas. Lydia's faults are obvi&k ones and dwelt upon Characters in the
some length, but all the same, I see the fact that she genuinely loves Novel
er own way (though it is not the best way) as to a large extent meant to
d show that at least some of her faults are attributable to a faulty
do not see her as a completely 'black' picture of vice, and I think Jane
ten steers quite clear of any stereotypical depiction of the 'fallen woman'. Lydia
serves as proof to the contrary, in answering the charge that Jane Austen shows
swayed by sexual desire. Vlhat do you think?

415 GENDER AND CHARACTER IN PRIDE AND

) PREJUDICE

characters in Pride and Prejudice conform to any of the various gender-based

eristics that are held to define, and to distinguish between, men's and
's 'natures' in the eighteenth century? Before answering the question, it might
seful to take another look at the rather stereotypical outlines of these 'masculine'
'feminine' characteristics. A starting point for this discussion has been presented
.3 and in 3.2 above, but a necessary clarification in terminology is needed here. I
the words 'male' and 'female' to refer to biological difference, that is, the
sex or the other, while 'masculine' and 'feminine' are
of a set of culturally contingent norms, codes of
self-construction that are based upon, but not necessarily
er categories. So 'male' and 'female' here refer to sex,
ine' to gender. To avoid confusion, please do remember
be argued, also this distinction between sex and gender
that Jane Austen does not always use these terms with
qualifications - for instance, in calling Elizabeth an "elegant female", Mr.
s clearly incorporating the connotations of 'feminine' in the word, in that he
ehaviour that he thinks is in accordance with what society considers

are expected in this society to be (or at least to pretend to be) delicate,

and incapable of intellectual activity on the same level as men. Moreover,
eas of the selfhood, identity and role of men are being continuously revised
ult of political and economic changes and the expansion of empire,
d is still defined in terms of the domestic. But Jane Austen does not
any simplistic picture of women as victims (except of the biologically
d necessity of child-bearing). Rather she even criticizes the way in which
gain control, since they often do so through manipulation, hypocrisy and a
f affection. Her heroines are characterized by their imperfections rather
their perfections, at least when compared to the conventional heroines of earlier
of whoni Pamela is the most obvious example.

presses the opinion that a woman should strive for more than the
a1 accomplishments, and while this view is meant to be a welcome
Elizabeth does point out with irony that his expectations of women are
ealistically demanding as are those of society. Since women are judged
eir attractiveness to men, or of the superficial accomplishments they
der to make themselves thus attractive, and men are equally
standards of public behaviour, the metaphor of performance runs
ayal both of people's actual behaviour and of the societal norm that
to live up to. It is not necessarily only women who have to
the need to perform is probably more crucial for women). Darcy,
s because of his inability to "play to strangers", while Wickham
lent for doing just that. Two different kinds of personality, or two
son's personality - interiority as opposed to a public self-are
Pride md prejudice being interrogated here, and the public'self is in most cases, eventually seen to be
more a matter of role than of identity.

Another and perhaps more helpful area to locate the perception of gender difference
in this society is in the dichotomy traditionally set up between reason and emotion
(see 4.3). This remains crucial to a context where the reading and writing of novels
are seen as essentially female (and feminine) activities. If you return for a moment to
the discussion in 1.4.5 of the rise of the novel, you will recall the general
identification of the novel with 'emotion' rather than 'reason' and the way in which
the genre is criticized for its apparent lack of rigorous intellectual activity and
learning. It is because of the latter view, and the identification of the fictional with the
supposedly 'feminine' subjects of love and marriage, that novels are considered a
suitable genre for women. The fictional is often set up in opposition to the 'factual'
realm of history (see 6.2 for the relevance of this to women ) but also with the
emotional, and the domestic sphere to which it is allied. One of the most aII pervasive
of gender-differentiations has been the idea (not by any means dead today) that
women are in some often unspecified way, more 'emotional' and less 'rational' than
men. To leave aside for the moment the many and complex value judgements such an
idea brings forth, and concentrate on how Jane Austen deals with it, look first at
wonien like Mrs. Bennet and Lydia, who seem to, on the surface of things, embody it.
They are however, for all their preoccupation with mamage, more interested in the
social trappings that go with it than the emotional life it supposedly rests upon. While
the sexual thrill Lydia's feels for Wickham is made clear, she is not shown as having
any sort of interiority at all, and this does away with the possibility of showing
emotion. On the other hand, if a woman like Jane feels deeply, so does a man like
Darcy (both show less than they feel) and 'emotion' cannot really be seen in the
novel as in any way a feminine preserve or characteristic. The reasonlemotion
dualism is itself largely done away with in this book - it is impossible to see either
Elizabeth or Darcy in its terms -as compared to Sense and Sensibility, though ever
there it is present in two women characters instead of in a woman and a man.

Elizabeth Bennett, the main female character in Pride and Prejudice, is characterized
by wit, independence, and a courageous ability to admit her mistakes. These are, ,
however, generalized qualities present in varying degrees and combinations in almost
all of Jane Austen's heroines. It might be helm1 therefore to look at somc of the
common features in the portrayal of these heroines, where the circumstances in which
they are placed are shown to be almost as formative of character as the inborn traits
they possess. The material circumstances of these heroines vary widely, from the
poverty and dependency of Fanny Price to the independence that comes from the
possession of a fortwe in the case of Emma Woodhouse. But they are equally subject
to the conventions that form women's lives - indeed even women's selves-within
the society they inhabit.

The fact that all Jane Austen's novels have a strong orientation towards the lives,
characters and interests of wolnal inevitably leads to the question as to whether she
believed in and is trying to portray an essentially 'feminine' nature, and if so, what
this would constitute. I do not think that such an attempt can justifiably be attributed
to the very different and sharply individualized characterizations of women, but the
idea of there being certain ideal or desirable qualities that all human beings (and not
just women) ought to aspire to, does seem to be present in the novels. What is
interesting is while these qualities do not have much to do with the virtues
conventionally required of women, more often than not they are illustrated through a
female character. One such absent convention is the wish that women unequivocally
subscribe to the view that marriage is the only and essential fulfillment of their
selves. On the face of it, Jane Austen might seem to be upholding this idea since each
of her novels ends with the happy marriage of the heroine. But in view of the fact that
this marriage is always on entered into out of love, and after the heroine's having
5t-1
rejected other offers irrespe 've of their material desirability, this could be seen
rather as a belief that it is only the ability to form a lasting relationship based on
 r another human belng that is being praised ~d not necessarily the Characters in t l ~ c
e of having done so. Also consider Emma's clearly expressed Novel
n to many. Secondly this ability is as highly valued a quality in the men
sses it from the beginning, and Darcy comes to

ukherjee (199 1) points out that in Elizabeth's refusal of Mr. Collins'

Austen is placing before us a serious confrontation, not only of two
of marriage, but also of two opposing ways of looking at women. One
e ability to attract men as the defining characteristic of 'femininity',
mocks this, and argues instead for women to be seen as rational and
us human beings in the same way that men are. This is expressed in
s asking Mr. Collins to see her as "a rational creature" instead of as an
". The ideal of rationality as being constitutive of humanity has
cussed. What is important here is that the ideal is being extended to
to whom it was not usually considered relevant, and the
tween the ideal itself and the standards set up for women by society
. Can you think of other instances from Pride and Prejudice, where
otiopal and 'irrational' female behaviour is satirized?

U
-S SUM UP

e novel is concerned with the tacitly acceptid but not clearly formulated codes
ich determine people's choices in their interaction with one another. It is collective
efs and conventions which enable individuals to cast their desires and aspirations
atterns which have gained legitimacy through their continued practise in the
munity and have been approved by it.

ere are gradations ifi the levels of conformity to standards and norms attained in
ctise by different characters. When the novel is viewed as a comedy of manners,
haracters are not seen as having any existence independent of the community of
ich they form a part. The subjectivity of the characters and their external behaviour
both seen as an embodiment of the culture created by the community as a whole.
ile some characters may seem to have come fairly close to an adequate
esentation of the community's norms, standards and proprieties, others may
sent only a partial or even a false or distorted expression of different aspects of
mmunity 's culture.

4.b GLOSSARY
I

Espentialist Involving, or based on, a belieC3essences

Having been given opposite properties with the maximum

differences being highlighted.

I I

4. !l QUESTIONS

1. 1 What do you understand by the terms 'female' and 'feminine'? Do you find
the distinction made here between them a helpfhl one? .
Prf$"'ice 2. . Do you think that in Pride a d Prejudice, Jane Austen privileges 'education7
or upbringing over 'nature' (or the other way round) as formative of a
person's character? Discuss.

4.9 SUGGESTED READING

Mukherjee, Meenakshi Women Writers:Jane Austen. ond don: Macmillan,

1991.

McMaster, Juliet (Ed.) Jane Austen S Achievement. London: Macmillan,

1976.
 PREJUDICE

Objectives
Introduction
Narrative Techniques in Pride and Prejudice
Use of Wit and Irony
Let Us Sum Up
Glossary
Questions
Suggested Reading

k.0 OBJECTIVES

e objective of this unit is to examine the narrative of Pride and Prejudice in terms
f the various devices used towards the successful portrayal of comedy and the
evelbpment of irony. This will be discussed using some of the terms, concepts and
ethods of formalist and structuralist critidism

b.1 INTRODUCTION

ost basic sense, means the telling of a story or the recounting of

ents in a certain sequence. This working definition itself provides two of the most
narrative - the sequence of events means that the narrative is
time, and the 'telling' of the story presupposes the presence of a teller. The
d be fictional, that is to say, 'invented', or it could be factual in the sense of
th events which have taken place in the 'real' world. (This division is by no
us as it might appear, but even if it is taken as such, it is
same narrative to combine the two modes, using both by
ial is that the narrative describes events, and not just things or
s mentioned above in turn open up several others, since the
ve means that it has a beginning and an end and that the
ndomly but in an order provided either by the structure of
I n it, while the teller - within the narrative or outside it -
s one or more voices and points of view. By 'plot' is meant the order in which
presented by the narrative, as distinct fiom the order in which they take
r

ifferent genres of writing within which a narrative is to be seen or read, all

suppose different kinds of interpretation: Each of these genres -whether epic,
a, fiction, poetry, or history -implies that certain expectations, ways of reading
interpretations are being indicated and agreed upon by the writer or the speaker
the reader or the listener. These differences could lie in a number of areas,
ing plot (whether the narrative highlights its presence or tries to hide it)
ence-to an external system of beliefs, the use of irony, and the treatment of time.
important narrative distinction is the one made by Plato in Book I11 of The
ublic, between 'telling' and 'showing' - the terms for these are respectively
1 gesis' ("description of actions by an authorial narrator") and 'mimesis'
representation of action through the imitated speech of characters"). Drama is pure
I imesis, but the epic and the novel combines the two modes. Jane Austen tends
I
ward a dominantly mimetic method, since her stories are unfolded in a series of
Pride and Prejudice scenes, with a minimum of authorial description, and character is revealed through
speech more than through authorial comment, though we are given inner knowledge
about the character's minds.

The narratives of different kinds of fiction all use invented stories, but their treatment
of plot varies widely. Realist fiction, like Austen's, hides plot in the way that
historical narrative does, trying to present the events as if they really happened, and
in just that sequence, instead of, like some other kinds of fiction, showing up its plot
and the constructed nature of the sequence of events. Interestingly, both these effects
are commonly achieved (though not of course simultaneously) by !he same device -
the inclusion of references to dates and times. The correspondeqce of these dates to
I

'real' time or events is an issue only in historical fiction. I

To consider the treatment of time in narrative, take a look at the following model
provided by David Higdon for the analysis of fictional time. According to this
schema, time in a narrative could be 'process time' or time that exists to demonstrate
a process such as the growth of a hero; 'barrier time' or time that is meaningful only
with reference to a particular event, for example the time before and after the murder
in a crime story; 'retrospective time' which draws meaning by comparision with past
time, one example being the 'happily ever after' of the fairy tale; and polytemporal
time which is a combination of all the others. Which of these do you see as used in
the novel under consideration? I would see the use of 'barrier time' through the
device of the letter Darcy writes Elizabeth, and 'process time', which is the usual
time-pattern in the picaresque tradition, as present in demonstrating the growth of
both the main characters, but particularly of the heroine. As far as the sequence of
events is concerned, Jane Austen's narratives rarely deviate from chronological order.
Retrospective accounts and delayed explanations are all incorporated into the time-
span of the main action, often in the form of a letter or in dialogue, with no flashback
or prolepsis -reality isn't subjective here. The main action of her novels never
occupies more than a year, usually less, and illusion is achieved by scenic
presentation of experience.

The last feature of narrative dealt with here as an area for the location of differences
of genre is whether or not a particular narrative is capable of irony in itsform, which
is the way Frank Kermode in The Genesis of Secrecy (1979) describes the reversal
called 'peripeteia', or a deviation from the expected course of events, such as the
death of Cordelia in King Lear. Kermode sees the resultant falsification of
expectations and hopes as having the same place and effect in narrative that irony has
in rhetoric. I do not see this really taking place in the text we are looking at, where
the stress seems to be instead on the expected end working out. However, Elizabeth's
reading of Darcy's letter could be seen as a moment of dramatic irony.
I

5.2 NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES IN PRIDE AND

PREJUDICE

David Lodge, in a reading of Jane Austen which draws upon formalist and
structuralist criticism, shows how she incorporates elements of the sentimental novel
and the comedy of manners into the method of realism. He.goes on to explain the
sentimental novel as the didactic, heroine-centered love story, of which Richardson's
Pamela (1 740-41) is the best example, as well as one of the most influential in
initiating a number of sentimental epistolary novels, among them the first version of
Sense and Sensibility called Elinor and Marianne. Lodge also sees Jane Austen's
prose as crucial in the replacement of this epistolary technique by different and more
flexible methods of represeriting the characters' thoughts and feelings. Structurally '
the love story consists of the delayed fulfillment of a desire. This delay doesn't just
refer to the heroine's desire, but also the reader's desire to know whether she will get
 the man she loves or not. The delay puts the heroine under stress and this generates The Narrative of -\,,
Pride and Prejudice
the "sentiment" i.e. the feelings, anxieties, and moral choices that forms much of the
sentimental novel. Lodge abo points out that of all Jane Austen's works, Pride and
Prejudice comes closest to the form of the classic love story, though the required
delay is caused by the lovers' mistaken "first impressions", rather than by external
obstacles to their marriage. Jane Austen does not use standard plot devices such as
confessions, and the-discoveries of long-lost children or parents, but all her novels
have the basic structure of the didactic love story, with many variations,
modifications, and inversions. She does use the theme of surrogate parents (the
Gardiners in Pride and Prejudice and the Bertrams in Mansfield Park) and, in the
story of Lydia and Wickham, there even appears to be something resembling the
conventional seduction plot.
P
Three of the principal sources of interest in narrative are suspense, mystery and irony.
The first raises the question what will happen? Mystery raises the question Why did it
I happen? Irony is created when the reader knows the answers to the questions but the
i ,
characters do not. All re-readings of novels thus tend to create an effect of irony. In
Pride and Prejudice the suspense plot is provided by the story of Bingley and Jane.
t 1 According to Lodge, it is difficult to combine comedy with the sentimental novel, and
I even when it is done in the manner of Fielding, Sterne and Smollett, the comedy
1 tends to be more in the nature of "comic relief' from the main story, and usually
( takes a farcical form. Jane Austen's comedy on the other hand, is more theatrical and
I reminds us of Congreve, Moliere and even Shakespeare, because comedy in her
novels is placed within the love story rather than outside it. I am not sure how far this
1I is strictly true - characters like Mr. Collins seem to b: among the chief sources of
I comedy in her fiction.
I I
I ( A feature that is peculiar to written fiction, and is one of the constituents of fictional
I realism, is a focalizing of the action through an individual viewpoint, the chosen
viewpoint in Pride and Prejudice being Elizabeth's. Thus the reader is allowed to see
I -I Darcy only as she sees him, and is as surprised as she is by the gradual revelation of
, 1 her misconception of him and thereby creating 'suspense' in the sense described
) above. Jane Austen is also among the first writers to use "free indirect speech" -
1 reporting the thoughts of a character in language that approximates to their own
1 'idiolect'.
One of the issues faced by writers of novels in the eighteenth century was
(asto whether or not their medium could appropriate ordinary speech, and in what
ways. Jane Austen uses 'free indirect discourse' (a combination of reported speech
land description) towards this end. This is a parodic technique as becomes clear from
bassages such as this one, describing Lydia's feelings for her husband:
I

I "He was her dear Wickham on every occasion; no one was to be put in
competition with him. He did everything best in the world; and she was sure
he would kill more birds on the first uf September, than any body else in the
country."
(PP, 3 11)
I

is is one of the techniques of characterization used, since one of the effects of free
irect discourse is the illusion of depth to character. Sometimes only a few key
ords are used to indicate a particular character's crucial presence in a scene or
versation, and to ally it with the collective opinion, for example the novel's
ning sentence shows up not just Mrs. Bennet's ideas about marriage, but society's
large: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a
d fortune, must be in want of a wife." (1)

is technique allows the novelist to give the reader greater access to the character's
ughts without entirely giving up control of the discourse to that character as in the
istolary novel. It also allows for variation between the character's and the
rrator's values and lets us choose one character over the other - for instance
izabeth over Jane and Elinor over Marianne. Though Elizabeth is the dominant
pride and prejudiu centre of interest in Pride bnd Prejudici; the nadtive does often move away from
her perspective.

Jane Austen doesn't in this text intrude upon the narrative in order to come down on
the side of one character or the other, as she does in Mansfield Park, where she refers
explicitly to "my Fanny". This works so that some events and speeches remain
unsatisfactorily explained despite the fact of closure at the end. One example is
Darcy's unexplained inclusion of Mr. Bennet in the letter to Elizabeth when he is
citing her family's bad behaviour. We see plenty of instances from the behaviour of
Mrs. Bennet, Lydia, Kitty and Mary, to prove the charge true of them, but no such
evidence appears in the case of Mr. Bennet's. Many passages, including the dialogues
between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice could be performed as written
and have indeed been 'effectively dramatized on radio, television and film. Action in
these novels is social interaction, and it takes place at balls, dinners, walks, parties,
excursions, courtesy calls. Such events or gatherings as these lend themselves to
mimetic presentation, with an emphasis on "manners" and conversation.

Fielding, in his Preface to Joseph Andrews, distinguishes between the comic and the
tragic "The only source of the true ridiculous (as it appears to me) is affectation ...
Now affectation proceeds from one of these two causes, vanity or hypocrisy.. .."
[Preface to Joseph Andrews (1742) London: Penguin, 1985, p.28 ]

Authorial distance is required for irony, and the overturningof expectations for
comedy. One might ask here whether the ability to accept contradictions,
inconclusiveness and ambiguity is required in comedy or does it lead instead to
tolerance that makes satire impossible? Jane Austen never uses a first-person
narrative voice, or a dramatized narrator. The ending of the novel is important in
giving the impression of order and causality, (compare it with the similar ending of
Much Ado about Nothing where all problems are swept away, at least temporarily, in
a wedding dance). The question however remains - is the resolution of narrative an
adequate closure of the problems it has presented?

5.5 THE USE OF WIT AND IRONY

Wit, as it was understood in the eighteehth century, fulfilled several purposes, but
most importantly, a corrective purpose in the form of satire, though the Restoration
drama of the early part of the century had used wit more as a representatioil of social
mores than as a condemnation of them. A distinction can be made between the two
kinds of laughter in Jane Austen's novels, depending on wit (which is verbal) or on
humour arising fiom plot and situation. It is on this basis that literary categories such
as 'the'comedy of humours' or 'the comedy of manners' come to be formed. Wit for
Jane Austen, as for her predecessor Congreve, is simultaneously a noun ( quality of
mind) and an ad+- :he (quality of person). Congreve once defined wit as "at least the
sign to good understanding" which shows one of the basic assumptions of English
(upper class) society of the time ie, that manners, are somehow indicative of morals.
This can easily degenerate into a total identification of one with the other, and it is
precisely this that Jane Austen satirizes.

Wit, and the witty use of language are understood as a means of attaining some sort
of power by characters who would otherwise not have had it. Thus Elizabeth Bennet
uses wit to hold her own against Darcy, who has the advantages of superior birth,
family and wealth. Wit is also one of the ways Elizabeth manages to retain her self-
posession and autonomy in the face of mamage to a social superior. Fear of losing
these qualities in marriage (even in a marriage of love and companionship) is seen as
a concern that the intelligent woman must face because of the dominant and
authoritarian position offered the husband in the institution of marriage by both
society and religion. Elizabeth, who also uses wit and irony to deal with the
 ssments caused by her family; and with difficult situations like her Thc Narrative of
Pride and Prejudice
ion with Lady Catherine, can be seen to have this particular use of wit - as a
ommon with earlier intelligent heroines who fear that
If possession - the two obvious examples are Beatrice in
about Nothing, and Mirabell in Congreve's TIte Way of the
it and irony as personal attributes therefore include the ability to use social
ic artifice.for one's personal ends. But in Mr. Bennet's case irony also
apism and a shrugging off of responsibility, for which he is clearly
He shows detachment to the point of a complete lack of sympathy - Mr.
net is delighted when Jane is deserted by Bingley - "Next to being married, a girl
s to be crossed in love a little now and then. It is something to think of and gives
a sort of distinction among her companions." These words are not without some
th, or would not be in the case of a girl like Lydia, but come across as heartless
to Jane who really suffers. Irony is thus a gesture towards an illusory
om. Does Elizabeth give up her characteristic mode,of irony by falling in love
and marrying Darcy? Irony is recognized in this reading of the novel as an
of its structure. The sharpness of the irony increases or decreases in
stance which separates a particular character from this ideal,
that the distance doesn't disappear entirely even in the character
thus present here in the form of a double awareness produced'
ous access to the point of view of the characters and that of

so has a corrective purpose, where it is used to criticize, or at least to indicate

the criticism is implicit in the indication) the problems in social behaviour.
tire bases itself upon this aspect of wit. The eighteenth century, repeatedly referred
as the 'golden age' of satire in English literature - the reason for which, according
Basil Willey, is the prevalence of the belief in 'Nature', and especially in 'Nature
'. Descartes and Locke, two of the most influential thinkers of the time,
essential nature to be his rational soul. Following from this, the person
worships reason as closest to nature, reacts most strongly to the evidence of
I man unreason. The satirist (under which we might include Jane Austen) therefore
easures the aberration from the ideal, in contrast to the comedian who is concerned
I with aberrations from current social norms. The expression of wit was also
I
uenced by the Augustan desire to define life as they saw it, in language that was
I
nt, another way of 'following nature'. Jane Austen can be seen as following
and Johnson in this respect.

t owards the end of the eighteenth century, various political and economic changes
d events took place. These led to gradual changes in the philosophy and thought of
C e time, and though Nature still remained the highest ideal to be followed, it now
gan to be dissociated from Reason. Greater attention was given to human iristincts
emotions or as they were called, human sensibilities. Jane Austen thus contrasts
sibility' with 'sense' or reason, the former having a different connotation from
I hat of the modern 'sensible'. Burke, writing at this time, sums up this changing view
he says that politics should take into account "...human nature, of
reason is but a part, and that by no means the greatest part."

he rise of a new literary genre, the novel, embodied this changed perception, and
I most of the popular sentimental fiction or this time depicted a heightened sensibility
ie heightened morals and emotions, especially the former. Wit, at least as Jane Austen
uses it, became both a means of subverting the cult of sensibility, and of offering a
corrective, but her work also retains an awareness that laughter is not enough if
unaccompanied by the 'good sense' which alone produces true wit.

1I Peter Conrad sees irony as both method and theme, form and content in the book,
( since it is used in the evasion of pain as well as in subversion. Irony is the way bpt for
I a character who cannot (or chooses not to) show open contempt for society, because
I
1 . -
it tacitly acknowledges that the survival of social niceties depends on a "contractual
. .. . .. . .. . .
. . ..
pride them, a means of attack as well as of self-defense. An example of the latter being
Elizabeth's reaction to Darcy's rejection of her at the ball. Conrad also distinguishes
between irony and satire on the basis that satire diminishes the characters, and is
meant to act as a corrective, while irony shows resignation on the part of the novelist
(or the character) yho longs for change but knows that it is not going to happen -
Mr. Bennet's irony is of this kind. The difference between irony and satire would
then appear to be one of the degree of savagery in the attack, and the degree of faith
in the efficacy of the attack to bring about change. What do you make of such a
differentiation? Do you think it helpful in the study of the text we are looking at?

5.6 LET US SUM UP

This unit examines Pride and Prejudice in terms of its narrative elements of plot,
story and time, the narrative techniques used, its structure, and the use of wit and
irony as both major themes and the method by which the themes are presented. This
involves taking into account different kinds of comedy, as well as the ideas of comic
fiction in Jane Austen's time, The use of language is extremely important, since wit
and irony demand the ability to manipulate language to one's own ends - an ability
that Elizabeth uses successfully, and Wickham uses harmhlly.

5.7 GLOSSARY

Parodic hat which ridicules through mimicry

Polytemporal Involving the coexistence of, or a combination of, different kinds of

time

5.8 QUESTIONS

1. Is the narrative method used in Pride and Prejudice primarily mimetic or

diegetic? Give reasons for your answer.

2. Find at least three instances fiom the text where one of the characters
successfilly uses wit in his or her self-defence.

5.9 SUGGESTED READING

.- Higdon, David Leon Time and English Fiction. London: Macmillan, 1977.

Stokes, Myra The Language of Jane Austen: A Study of Some Aspects of

her Vocabulary. London: Macmillan,, 1991.

Brown, Julia Prewitt Jane Austen 's Novels: Social Change and Literary Form.
Massachussetts: Harvard University Press, 1979.
\
Conrad, Peter "Introduction" to Pride and Prejudice. London:
Everyman's Library, 1991
 I
I
- -
1 ---

U N ~ T6 CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES I

Objectives
Introduction
The Feminist Approach
Postcolonial Readings
The Marxist Perspective
Let Us Sum Up
Glossary
Questions
Suggested Reading

I 6.0 OBJECTIVES

tive of this unit is to provide an overview of the various approaches to Jane

red by literary criticism and theory, as well as to trace the changing
on her work in recent years. I offer an outline of the vafying emphases
n laid on different aspects of her work by various schools and critics. So
under consideration is kept in mind, a great deal of what you read here
Austen's other novels as well, some knowledge of which would help
Pride and Prejudice.

1I
\ 6.1 1 INTRODUCTION

ly been considered an important and formative part

pment of the realist novel - particularly the novel of social and domestic
ngland. All the same, there have been (both within this framework and
ber of shifts in opinion regarding the treatment of, and the positions
owledged themes of women, love, money and mamage. In an
cent anthology, Harish Trivedi provides a useful overview of
Austen , beginning with the comment that the anonym she used
) has given rise to mistaken conceptions of her work as 'refined' in a
or 'genteel' way , when in fact it is exactly the very same feminine
comes down upon so heavily. Most of the adverse opinion on her
itself chiefly on pointing out what is missing rather than faulting what is
81 adulation her work received in the nineteenth century is both
at and shared by some writers in the early twentieth century - witness
sshort story The Janeites (1923) in which Jane Austen's admirers form a
M Forster's double-edged take on 'the Janeites' - "She is my
d and re-read, the mouth open and the mind closed.. ." - while

f D.W. Harding and Marvin Mudrick, in the 1940s and 50s together
overthrow of the traditional view of Jane Austen's work as charmingly
setting out to look at the extent to which her use of irony incorporates a
e and contempt not just for the abstraction called 'society' but also for
ibles. Criticism ever since has focussed on the subversive power of her
way in which it problemati~esmany of the realities it apparently
(marriage, for example) and, increasingly, on the ways in which her texts
lves open to readings which problematize them, as well as those that take
rmdnejUdice into account their historical and philosophical contexts, which areas tend to be
ignored in New Critical readings.

6.2 THE FEMINIST APPROACH

Beginning with Virginia Woolf in A Roorn of One's Own ( 1 929), and including the
work of Kate Millet, Elaine Showalter, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, feminist
readings of Jane Austen cover a field as wide as the many strands and varied
concerns of feminist thought itself. Most of these have ,however dealt with her views
of maniage and treatment of gender. Problem-areas for feminist criticism of Jane
Austen have tended to be her ignoring of sexual activity (the stress is on the absence
of female sexuality) and the female body, as well as her apparent political
conservatism, read as an implicit acceptance of the dominant patriarchal ideology.

As a point of entry into this discussion, please stop for a minute and take another look
at the distinction between the terms 'female' and 'feminine' in 4.6. You will
remember that the two words were respectively used to refer to a set of biological
characteristics, and a set of culturally defined ones. Elaine Showalter, however, offers
a completely different usage for these terms in the area of women's writing, in the
process also providing a perspective on 'feminism'. She suggests in A Literature of
Their Own (1982) that the feminine stage of women's writing involves a period when
the prevalent, dominant standards and tradition are imitated and internalized. The
feminist stage of women's writing involves an emphasis on the rights and values of
the minority (women) as well as a valorization of their difference, and the female
stage is one of self-discovery and the establishment of a separate and distinct identity.
Do you see Jane Austen as falling into such a system of classification, and if so,
where? Her work has most often been seen as part of the first stage (that of the
'feminine stage') but there are quite a few problems involved in making her fit neatly
into such a category. The case made most often for doing so centres on her
privileging of the domestic - allied with the feminine -over the 'public' sphere of
politics. Jane Austen has been accused of restricting women to domesticity in her
fiction because she appears to leave out politics and religion almost completely, and
avoids making any direct reference to major historical events like the French
Revolution which took place in her lifetime. There is only a small direct reference
towards tre end of Pride and Prejudice to the Napoleonic wars between England and
France, even though she could not have been unaware of the importance of these
events or of the widespread effect they had in England. Among other things feminism
seeks to describe as well as to explain the history of the subordination and
marginalization of women and to show that values like 'reason' are not universal
ones but those of man at a certain point in history. Even the domesticlprivate divide is
a cultural one. Gender is seen as one strand in the construction of the social identity
and also recognized as a performative act. Can we see something of this in Jane
Austen's representation of women? Feminist criticism also looks at the ways in
which women are stereotyped and constrained by patriarchal society, and asks
whether the text is critical of, or complicit with such stereotypes.

Feminist criticism also questions the implicit male bias of historical theory in general
which leads to the idea that 'history' only deals with the 'public' area of political
conflict or of the market, the conception of the 'heroic' as an inevitably public
category, linked to empires and wars, and the notion of progress in history, when it is
seen only in such terms. They argue that if history is supposed to demonstrate eternal
truths about human nature and conduct, women's history cannot be ignored, since an
inclusion of the domestic helps to bring about a different conception of history,
widening the scope of the term itself. This kind of history writing offers a different
perspective of the aspects of life that are traditionally considered heroic, since war is
not always necessarily a noble subject to women, who have to cope with the loss and
pain it brings, without being allowed the glory that comes of participating actively on
 men's history also draws parallels between the domestic and the Critical Perspectives
ointing out how both involve violence, and complex
of a struggle for control - something clearly evident in Jane
of men and women, not only married couples like the Bennets,
like Elizabeth and Darcy, The area - whether of marriage or
n which they interact often begins to look like a battlefield.

being evasive or deliberately microcosmic in choosing to ignore

e larger political developments of her day? One answer might be available to us if
e remember that the polarization of sex roles and iaentities was actually much less
harp in the Augustan than in the Victorian period, partly because, (as mentioned
played a greater part in econorr:ic affairs in this period than
harge of evasion also doesn't take into account the significance
of daily social life acquire in her work, which sees them as an
des, standards and proprieties which the community has
lved for its collective life. A chosen emphasis on the microcosmic could also be
way of interpreting Jane Austen's famous description of her work as "two square

sten has been accused of ignoring sexuality especially in the portrayal of women.
e may be some truth in this as far as the depiction of sexual acts is concerned (to
it otherwise is to ignore the social and literary constraints under which these
ovels were written). But as far as the treatment of women's sexuality is concerned,
dia is a clear example to the contrary. Even the condemnation of sexuality in some
stances (Lydia again for instance) is not in terms of the vicetvirtue dichotomy of the
torian novel (in Dickens' novels for example, the women characters usually fall
o the catkgories of 'angel' or of 'fallen woman') but in terms of irrationality, of a
ilure of reason and good sense. Though pedantry is seen as the recourse of an
attractive woman (refer to the discussion of Mary's character in 4.4) on the whole a
und education and learning is advocated for women in Austen's novels, and the
roines are all well-read women, there does appear to be a parallel being drawn
tween education and the acquiring of 'reason'. I would see Jane Austen's
ement of marriage as a far from unqualified approval of a reality that she does
ize as best guaranteed to ensure security and happiness for women in her
hile the novels all end in companionate (and happy) mamages, basic
equalities remain unresolved beneath the ideal. Elizabeth for instance will have no
oney of her own and will be completely dependent on Darcy, and she knows this in
entioning his "beautiful grounds at Pemberley". Jane Austen was herself
on the income from her books to retain any .kind of self-sufficiency, so she
ew how difficult it could be for an intelligent and independent woman to accept
h a situation of dependence.

I,

6[3 POSTCOLONIAL READINGS

tcolonial criticism and theory deals with, broadly, the social, political, cultural and
ctices which arise in response or in resistance to colonialism and
t looks at the ways in which different cultures constitute themselves
ection of 'otherness' (in literature and otherwise), and at the process
formation as a denial of the value of the peripheral and the marginal.
nialism sees a connection between the growth of the English novel and that
e in that the two are simultaneous and hence inextricably bound up with
.How much of this applies to Austen ? Empire is certainly not as obvious a
her novels as it is in later fiction like that of Kipling and Conrad, but a
analogy can be drawn with Forster, in whose work (as in Austen's) empire
of the drawing room around which the novel of social comedy is
.Empire is here not nearly as peripheral a subject as it might appear, since
Pride and~re~udiiec it is shown to be one of the factors that constitutes the genteel society being
portrayed.

Susan Fraiman traces the picture of Jane Austen's "unworldliness" to scholars who
have tended to remove her from her social milieu, looking at her work in isolation as
if it had nothing to do with current events. Criticizing as "patronizing" the view that
Austeriwas oblivious to larger events and mass-movements because she chose to
concentrate on the local, Fraiman points out that scholars like Q.D Leavis and
Claudia Johnson have challenged standard critical editions of Jane Austen's work
which ignore her references to slaves and riots, preferring to dwell instead on her
descriptions of ballrooms. Edward Said in Culture and Imperialism (1993) does
move away from such readings in stressing the references to Caribbean slavery in
Mansjield Park, but does hold the view that Jane Austen sees Sir Thomas Bertram's
colonial property as necessary to the preservation of the wealth and lifestyle of
Mansfield Park. Fraiman locates Said's reading of Austen as "unthinking" in her
references to India and to Antigua, in "his overall contention that nineteenth-century
European culture, and especially the English novel, unwittingly but systematically
helped to gain consent for imperialist policies ... The novels was, Said asserts, one of
the primary discourses contributing to a 'consolidated vision', virtually uncontested,
of England's righteous imperial prerogative. Austen is no different from Thackeray
or Dickens, then, in her implicit loyalty to official Eurocentrism."
(on line essay at http://www2.uchivago.edu~jnl.crit.inq/v21/~2ln4.fraiman.h~1)

She goes on to point out the limitations of Said's argument in that he ignores the fact
that Mansjield Park is isolated fi-om the rest of Austen's work, and his "disembodied"
picture that allows him to ignore Austen's gender in clubbing her together with male
writers. For example, Said specifies that Conrad manages an ironic distance in his .
portrayal of empire because he is not a "wholly incorporated and fully acculturated
Englishman", but doesn't seem to see that Austen could hardly have come under this
category. While Said rightly points out that Austen's construction of the West as
"center, home, and norm" is one of the ways of making colonialism thinkable, he
fails to notice how her position as a woman, a spinster, and a writer marginalizes her,
and allows her to voice (with irony) the experience of exile from at least some
societal norms.

Fraiman's arguments provide an instance of the overlapping of feminist and

postcolonial critical concerns, and of the common area that they can jointly address.
A look at a critical debate like the one above also ought to give you some idea of the
ways in which postcolonial readings look at different aspects of Jane Austen's work
g naturalizing of constructed values such as 'civilization' and
by e x ~ i n i n the
$@anity9, and paying attention (as she does) to the themes of home, place,
belonging and displacement, as formative of individual identity. The individual is
seen to appropriate - and be appropriated by - the other in a relationship of power.

Another issue in the postcolonial enterprise is the decentring or the pluralizing of the
canon. It is interesting in this context to consider the importance and the perceived
relevance of studying Jane Austen in Indian universities, where "English literature"
still largely means a canon consisting of British authors. What is the place of Jane
Austen in the context of an independent India, or as the question is put in Upamanyu
Chatterjee's English, August, what is Jane Austen doing in Meerut? Does the very
fact of choosing Jane Austen for inclusion in syllabi reveal an internalized idea of
what the 'canon' ought to consist of? Many Indian students, when reading Austen's
novels, draw parallels between her society and theirs, citing as common factors the
the rigid class-strucve, the restrictions placed upon women, and the emphasis on
surface appearances. I'd like you to take a look at this passage from an article by
Pankaj Mishra, providing an assessment of contemporary Indian English writing. He
is speaking particularly of Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy:
 For a14 its self-consciously broad canvas-which includes low&e peasants, Critical perspectives
the beiieged feudal gentry, the flourishing colonial middle class-it sticks
close to a basic Jane Austenish dilemma. Who will Lata Mehra marry? .. .
The adaptation of Jane Austen to upper-caste Indian marriages doesn't work
here: Seth lacks her irony, and his characters lack the inner freedom her
characters so strikingly possess. In its celebration of Indian middle class life,
A Suitable Boy expresses the complacent faith in India that R.K.Narayan has
been criticized for in the past except that the, faith, in this instance, is not
Hindu, but an accessory of the nineteenth-century realist tradition: something
almost unconsciously inherited from Jane Austen and George Eliot. However
Austen and Eliot wrote out of the relative security of their imperial societies;
their works express some of the general optimism of the English novel that
Henry James rather cattily pointed out, in an essay on Maupassant, was the
"optimism of women and spinsters," "of ignorance as well as of delicacy."
When encountered in A Suitable Boy the same optimism cannot but appear
incongruous; and to enter it requires suppressing everything you know about
the dereliction of North India.
(The New York Review of Books Volume XLVI, Number 9, May 20, 1999,
p.50.) .
r

ough he is supposedly talking about Seth's novel, Mishra lets fall ,in the process,
umber of preconceptions, both about Jane Austen (notice that he doesn't contradict
ry James' statement) and about her relevance to Indian writing. He sees this
e as only technical or thematic, i.e. she provides a model (not even always
ful) of realist techniques for dealing with the themes of marriage and money, but
more than that. 1think both assumptions are questionable, especially the one that
s Jane Austen's complete adherence to the 'relative security' of her 'imperial
.One of the directions that our questioning takes is to look instead at how
e Austen deals with class-structures and identities, as well as at the contrast
een the town and the country in her fiction. These concerns therefore form part
scussion in the next section.

1
I

d4 THE MARXIST PERSPECTIVE

ist criticism focuses on the material conditions in and around the text, which
d include the conditions of its production, and the issues of class and labour both
pear in the text and in its production. Marx sees social being as determining
ess, and economic conditions as underlying social ones. To read these
o any given text, mean asking whether it deals with history and classes
ot ,whether or not it welcomes change or reveals a 'revolutionary'
s'. Such a reading also involves an analysis of the relations of
d domination which, according to Marxist thought, determine the
cieties, following from the belief that material interests dominate
. Power relatiens do not function unilaterally, since while an elite (in
nned by them, it also forms the other classes in turn. What makes
le is the fact that the norms of the dominant culture slowly become
e are of course within this broad framework many different
s', not always in agreement with each other. Traditional Marxist criticism
how novels get published, how they deal with different classes, and the
eanings that emerge in them as products of social, historical and
onornic conditions. Marxist criticism argues that despite the realist writer's attempt
erase contradictions, the textual process by its very hature
aps in this apparent 'unity'. This point needs some elaboration
riticism speaks of the "classic realist text" as an instrument of
he pretence that bourgeois culture is "natural", and using the
ance of the authorial voice in fiction as a device to limit meaning. Jane Austen
een criticized since she does appear to take for granted the existence of class-
Pride a i d Prejudice society (though she doesn't necessarily see it as fixed or static). In addition, her
fiction appears to subscribe to the Christian-humanist notion of the autonomy and
responsibility of the individual self, and certain values are clearly endorsed while
others are rejected.

The study of the ideology of gender provides a meeting point between Maistiand
Feminist criticism in studying how considerations of gender affect the way in which
men and women's writings are read. Marxist readings of fictional texts also require
that attention be paid to the role of money in the text, and how the characters' lives
are determined by their class and economic status (or the author's life by hers.) In
what ways are these concerns relevant to Pride and Prejudice? They appear to enter
the novel only marginally through the minor characters -servants like Mrs. Hall and
governesses like Mrs. Jenkins-who, like the tenant farmers, ostler and bailiff in
Emma, are present but who rarely (if ever) speak. However Raymond Williams
suggests a closer look at the different histories and situations in the novels of families
we tend to group together under the category of 'gentry':

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that Jane Austen chose to ignore the

decisive historical events of her time. Where, it is still asked, are the
Napoleonic wars: the real current of history? But history has many currents,
and the social history of the landed families, at that time in England, was
among the most important. As we sense its real processes, we find that they
are quite central and structural in Jane Austen's novels. All that prevents us
from realising this is that familiar kind of retrospect, taking in Penshurst and
Saxham and Buck's Head and Mansfield Park and Norland and even
Poynton, in which all country houses and their families are seen as
belonging, effectively, to a single tradition: that of the cultivated rural gentry.
The continual making and remaking of these houses and their families is
suppressed..., and Jane Austen's world can then be taken for granted, even
sometimes patronised as a rural backwater, as if it were a simple 'traditional'
setting.... Darcy, in Pride and Prejudice, is a landowner established for 'many
generations,' but his friend Bingley has inherited £100,00 and is looking for
an estate to purchase. Sir William Lucas has risen from trade to a knighthood;
Mr. Bennett has £2000 a year, but an entailed estate, and has married the
daughter of an attorney, whose brother is in trade .... The paradox of Jane
'

Austen is then the achievement of a unity of tone, of a settled and remarkably

confident way of seeing and judging, in the chronicle of confusion and
change. (The Country and the City (1 973) pp 1 13-5)

~ e i -ise an example of Marxist criticism which makes it clear that the realities ana
nuances of social change and movement are not being ignored at all by the text.
?other way in which these enter Jane Austen's work is in the highlighhng of the
trences between life in the town and that in the country, and the character's
. ing attitudes towards both. The country in these novels is not a pastoral idyll, but
very definitely has its share of hardship, which is often hinted at even if it is not
directly dwelt upon. Neither does Jane Austen adhere to the contemporary stereotype
(at least in literature) of country life as harmonious and contented in contrast to the
city as deceptive and inhospitable, though she comes close to such a portrayal in
Mansfield Park.

The word 'country' was also used at the time to refer to county or shire. Recent
historians have debated the existence and importance of distinct county communities.
Some argue for an awareness of the county as a focus of loyalty among the elite,
while others insist that the elite throughout the nation, looked instead to London as
the center of a common educational pattern and culture. Here are some examples
from Pride and Prejudice of instances where the townlcountry divide comes up in
conversation and description. Notice how each passage serves as a comment on the :
thoughts, values, and the varying degrees of social snobbery of the characters who are
speaking or being described:
Ll L
have a house in t6wn, I conclude?' Critical Perspectives

ughts of fixing in town myself -for I am fond of superior

ut I did not feel quite certain that the air of London would agree with

of Longbourn was only one mile from Meryton; a most convenient

e young ladies, who were usually tempted thither three or four times a
their duty to their aunt, and to a milliner's shop just over the way. The
t of the family, Catherine and Lydia, were particularly frequent in these
eir minds were more vacant than their sisters', and when nothing better
to Meryton was necessary to amuse their morning hours and furnish
for the evening; and however bare of news the country in general might
ys contrived to learn some from their aunt."

walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is, above her
in dirt, and alone, quite alone! what could she mean by it? It seems to me to
abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country town
to decorum.' "

t .
"M Bennet, who fancied she had gained a complete victory over him, continued
her 'umph.

Bin ley?'
t
'I c nnot see that London has any great advantage over the country for my part,
exc pt the shops and public places. The country is a vast deal pleasanter, is not it, Mr.

en I am in the country,' he replied, 'I never wish to leave it; and when I am in
it is pretty much the same. They have each their advantages, and I can be
happy in either.' "

t
" ' o you draw?"
' o, not at all.'
.. 'That is very strange. But I suppose you had no opportunity. Your mother
hould
ave taken you to town every spring for the benefit of masters."
y mother would have had no objection, but my father hates London.' "
Catherine ... condescended to wait on them at Pemberley, in spite of that
which its woods had received, not merely from the presence of such a
but the visits of her uncle and aunt from the city."
is mocking of social pretensions, and the fact that Jane Austen makes no
elation between material means or possessions and 'gentility' in the sense
behaviour or character, there does appear to be a tentative connection
between them. Elizabeth's visit to Pemberley, and her listening to
ekeeper praising him are important factors that go a long way in
opinion of him. The importance given to Darcy in the role of employer
mean that such a role (i.e. one of power) is seen as one which reveals true
Jane Austen might well be criticized for saying implicitly that the role of
is necessary to Darcy's identity, and above all to revealing his virtue.
ne can see how Marxist thought feeds into the area of 'cultural studies' by
to attention the controlling (and visualizing) of our experience by the media,
the creation of new ways of 'seeing' as well as new images. Cinema and
are of course the most powerful of such media. To digress for a moment
1946 movie version of Pride and Prejudice, with Lawrence Olivier and
son playing Darcy and Elizabeth. The film uses Victorian costume instead
y dress, and the shift is a significant one since it plays on the popular
Pride and Prejudice notions of 'Victorianism' in the viewer's minds, highlighting a certain stereotypical
'propriety' and 'prudery' which are actually not particularly relevant to Jane Austen's
period. All the same, the impact of the film is such as to leave the viewer (especially
the viewer who has not read Jane Austen) with inaccurate impressions of the period
in which the book is set. Now to return to an idea mentioned at the beginning of this
section, think again of the 'conditions' under which Pride and Prejudice was
published - its being refused by a publisher in 1797, to be accepted for publication
only fifteen years later in 1812- and try to think how far, and in what ways, do
realities such as this affect the text? -
,k

6.5 LET US SUM UP

Criticism of Jane Austen's work has recently moved from seeing her as an upholder
of the 'traditional', to a writer who uses irony to subvert it. Three major strands of
criticism are selected for an examination of how their concerns are relevant to a study
of Jane Austen. The first of these, feminist criticism, involves interrogating the
representation of women in the text, and asks whether that representation conforms to
the patriarchal norm or not, and if it subverts that norm, in what ways it does so.
Postcolonialism provides a perspective on the relevance of studying Jane Austen in a
context outside the British, as well as looks at the presence,(or rather the absence) of
imperialism and colonialism in her fiction, asking what are the implications of such
authorial choices as the restriction of subject matter. Marxist thought, analyses the
ideologies inherent in the portrayal of different social classes, and of the nature of
social change, in the text, also taking into account the conditions of production of the
text.

6.6 GLOSSARY

Patronizing Treatment that is condescending or superior in manner

Teutative Provisional or experimental

Unilaterally Directed towards one side only; not reciprocal

6.7 QUESTIONS

1. Do you agree with the idea that Jane Austen is dealing with a different,
'microscopic' vision of history?

2. Do you see the study of ~ a n Austen

e as relevant in the Indian context, and if
so, in what ways?

3. Do you think that Jane Austen unequivocally upholds th; division of society
into classes?

6.8 SUGGESTED READING

Butler, Marilyn Jane Austen and the War of Ideas. Gxford: Clarendon,
1975, rptd. 1976.

Harish Trivedi (Ed.) Jane Austen: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. Delhi:

Pegcraft International, 1996.
 11
NIT 1 BACKGROUND TO WUTHERING
HEIGHTS

I
S ructure

Objectives
Dates
Location of Wuthering Heights
Industrial Revolution
The Changing Society
Romanticism
Rebellion.
Let Us Sum Up
Glossary
Questions
Suggested Reading

OBJECTIVES

unit, we will position the text of Wuthering Heights within a historical and social
The socio-economic political and cultural environment of mid-nineteenth century
is of immense importance to our study of the novel. It provides us with a
for the critical study of the novel as the product of a culture in a particular time
is not to suggest that the novel is relevant only within its historical context.
the lines and discern how the author is able to question many of the
time and how many of these questions are still relevant to us as
also introduces us to many of the issues that come up for

I,

1 DATES

begins with a date. 1801. Dates are important, because they place events
historical context. In fiction, dates help in making the story seem real.
become more significant when events and people, fictional or otherwise, need to be
beyond their historical time. The fact that this novel is worth reading and
fter one hundred and fifty years since its publication cannot be overlookgd. In the
entieth century we in India are post-colonial readers, studying this novel
the English language and was published ten years before the Sepoy
57) and almost ten years after the abolition of Sati. Apparently there seems to be
on between these historical events in India and the publication of the novel. But
social, political and economic condition of England at the time when
iting ,it is evident that the novel reflects, however indirectly, the impact
ions of the major social changes that were taking place in the society at that time.
lish colonial and imperial interests in India could not have been not affected by those
for the Indian reader, the cultural productions (literature holds a primary
) of a colonial and imperial power becomes the stariing point of a critical analysis of
of domination and subservience. Though it is only one of the aspects of the novel
erest the Indian reader, yet it is an important one.

hical perspective, the istorical milieu forming the backdrop to Emily Bronte's
ot be ignored. Critics have pointed out that there is a contrast and contradiction
the images of Emily Bronte as the extraordinary woman, the Romantic genius, the
mily Bronte the self-contained and on the whole, dutiful daughter of an Anglo-
an. In many ways, Emily Bronte was a typical nineteenth century woman;
Wuthering eights private, domestic and hidden from history. It is the manifestation of her uniquely imaginative
mind and her keen and intuitive understanding of the historical significance of her times that
in the novel, Emily Bronte is able to look beyond the constraints of the 'typical' Victorian
and anticipate the new forms of family and social life that were emerging.

Let us make a list of some of the dates that are important for the study of Wuthering Heights.

Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas

ofrhe Sublrme and Beautrfil. Edmund Burke'.
I757 summer Hindley Earnshaw is born'.
I762 Edgar Linron is born
1764 Heathclrff is born.
I765 late Isabella is born
I765 summer Catherine is born
1767 James Hargreves invents the spinning Jenney
which marks the beginning of dramatic changes that take place in
the production, marketing and procurement of raw material in the
textile industry. Liverpool and Manchester being the two major
industrial cities and textile centres.
Heathcliff comes to Wuthering Heights as a child.
He is seven years old and Hindley is fourteen years old.
Death of Mrs. Earnshaw
Wealth ofNations. Adam Smith.
American War of Independence.
1777 Death of Mr. Earnshaw
1778 June Hareton is born
1780 autumn: Death of Mr. Linton
1784, Sep. Linton Heathclrff is born
1784, Sep. Death ofHindley
1784, Mar 20 Cathy is born
1784 20 March Death of Catherine
1784 Jan. Heathclrflmarries Isabella
1789 Songs of Innocence. William Blake.
1789 The French Revolution. The beginning of the
Republic and the rise of Napoleon.
1791 Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson published.
1792 Rights ofMan Tom Paine. Banned.
1797, June Death of Isabella
1798 Lyrical Ballads. William Wordsworth and Samuel
Taylor Coleridge. In 1800, the second edition was published
which contained the celebrated Preface that became the handbook
of Romantic poetry. Principle ofPopulation, Robert Malthus.
1801, Sept. Death of Edgar Linton
1801, Aug. Cathy marries Linton Heathclrfl
1802, May Death ofHeathclrfl
1803, Jan. Cathy marries Hareton
1805 Oct. The Battle of Trafalgar. Britain's naval superiority
established.
Mansjield Park. Jane Austen.
Emily Bronte was born at her father's parsonage at
Thornton, Bradford. She was the fifth child and Anne was her
younger sister, born on 17 Jan. 1820.
Frankenstein. Mary Shelley.
John Keats wrote the important Odes.
Don Juan. Lord Byron.
Prometheus Unbound. Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Steam Engine named Rocket built by Robert
Stevenson reaches a prize-winning speed of 29 kms. per hour.
The first Reform Bill..
Abolition of slavery in England. This was soon
followed by the Factory Act which prohibite the employment of
children under nine in spinning and weaving
King William IV was succeeded by his niece,
Victoria as the Queen of England
Oliver Twist. Cha~les Dickens.
 Background To
The beginning of the Chartis: Movement.
Wubering Heights
Famine in Ireland. Anti Corn Law agitation. Repeal

tt
of Corn Law by Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel in 1846.
1 5 , Aug. Branwell's (Emily's brother) visit to Liverpool and
Emily begins to yrite Wuthering Heights in the autumn and winter
of the year.
1 47 Dec. Wulhering Heights published along with Anne
Bronte's Agnes Grey by T.C. Newby, London. The sisters used
pseudonyms. Emily called herself Ellis Bell and Charlotte, Acton
Bell.
The Communist Man@sto. Karl Marx.
Death of Emily Bronte.
In Memorium. Lord Alfred Tennyson.
On Liberty. John Stuart Mill.
Origin of Species. Charles Darwin.

e dates and events listed above span a little over hundred years. You could make a more
iled list and include many other important events that occurred during this period. I have
d only some of the notable events which I feel are directly or indirectly related to the text.
dates specifically connected with the story of Wuthering Heights have been intentionally
rranged chronologically along with the dates of major events and happenings of the time to
licitate a meaningful juxtaposition, Though the novel was written in the year 1845, the
ry is placed in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. In 180 1, Lockwood becomes a
ant of Heathcliff and stays at Thrushcross Grange. Nelly Dean, the then house-keeper of
rushcross Grange, recapitulates to Lockwood the history of Wuthering Heights and
rushcross Grange and begins her tale from the arrival of Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights
trty years before (187 I). Nelly Dean's story hardly touches upon the social world outside
he periphery of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. She concentrates on the lives of
the people who live in these two houses in a tightly defined domestic system. But as our
rt will show, many important historical events were taking place at that time, and find no
ention in Nelly Dean's recapitulation. Maybe it is because Nelly herself had no experience
.the outer world as she spends her entire life within the confines of Wuthering Heights and
rushcross Grange. But is there no connection between these historical events and the story
Wuthering Heights ? How isolated are the inmates of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross
range from the social history of their times? Was the writer Emily Bronte unaware of
ents taking place in her time or during the time period of the novel's setting? These are
me questions we will have to answer as we go along.

THE LOCATION OF WUTHERING HEIGHTS

The story of Wuthering Heights is narrated by Lockwood. But Lockwood is not a detached
' narrator for he shares his opinion about what he sees with his readers. In his opinion, the
location of his new accommodation at Thrushcross Grange is 'certainly a beautiful country'
but it is also 'so completely removed from the stir of society'. A 'misanthropist's heaven' he
I calls it without realising the ironic significance of such an oxymoron. As one reads the story
I which is a flashback narration, one is tempted to believe along with Lockwood that such

I events could have only taken place in isolation.

reading and interpretations of Wuthering Heights reinforced the association of excessive

n and its disastrous consequences. This was helped by biographical material about
Emily Bronte that stressed her shy, lonely and introverted nature.3 In a review of Wuthering
ts that appeared in the Athenaeum on 25 December, 1847, the reviewer is quite clear

In spite of its truth to life in remote nooks and comers of England,

Wuthering Heights is a disagreeable story.... The brutal master of the lonely
house of 'Wuthering Heightsf- a prison which might be pictured from life
- has doubtless had his prototype in~hoseuncongenial and remote districts
where human beings, like trees, grow gnarled and dwarfed and distorted by
the inclement climate;...If the ~ells',singly or collectively, are
contemplating future or frequent utterances in Fiction, let us hope that they
Wuthering Heights will spare us further interiors so gloomy as the one here elaborated with
such dismalness....'

Charlotte Bronte in the Preface to the 1850 edition of 'Wuthering Heights' shares with us her
perception that her 'sister's disposition was not naturally gregarious; circumstances favoured
and fostered her tendency to seclusion....Though her feeling for the people around was
benevolent, intercourse with them she never sought; nor, with few exceptions, ever
experienced. And yet she knew them: knew their ways, their language, their family histories,
she could hear of them with interest, and talk of them with details, minute, graphic and
accurate; but with them she rarely exchanged a word.14 Charlotte traces the genesis of the
characters in Wuthering Heights by asserting that Emily Bronte's limited but detailed
observation of the people around her was 'too exclusively confined to those tragic and terrible
traits' which Emily's 'memory is sometimes compelled to receive the impress.' And that
Emily's imagination 'which was a spirit more somber than sunny, more powerful than
sportive, found in such traits material whence it wrought creations like Heathcliff, like
Earnshaw, like Catherine.' Finally in a most impressionistic and memorable manner,
Charlotte concludes:

Wuthering Heights was hewn in a wild workshop, with simple tools, out of
homely materials. The statuary3 found a granite block on a solitary moor;
gazing thereon, he saw how from the crag might be elicited a head, savage,
swart, sinister; form moulded with at least one element of grandeur-power.
He wrought with a rude chisel, and from no model but the vision of his
meditations. With time and labour, the crag took human shape; and there it
stands colossal, dark, and frowning, half statue, half rock: in the former
sense, terrible and goblin like; in the latter, almost beautiful, for its
colouring is of mellow grey, and moorland moss clothes it; and heath, with
its blooming bells and balmy fragrance, grows faithfully close to the giant's
foot."

Charlotte's view about the genesis of her sister's novel is apologetic and seeks to
monumentalise the work. Charlotte knew that the contemporary Victorian audience may be
unsympathetic and hostile towards her sister's novel, so she tried to soften the harsh, wild and
disturbing aspects of the novel by presenting the portrait of the author a$ afemale genius that
did not seriously disrupt the prevailing notions of.femininity. The Preface nevertheless
contains within it the basic tenor of most of the early criticism of the novel. There emerged
two distinct types of views about the novel. One was that it was a powerful, dark, intense,
sombre, tragic kind of 'fierce poetry' and the other that it was 'action laid in hell' ,brutal,
rude, repellent and generally a terrible experience. Many of the early critics found both these
qualities intertwined in the novel, one not necessarily canceling the other. At a time when the
novel as a literary genre was sought to be interpreted as something more than a form of
entertainment, critics began to distinguish the 'serious novel' from the plain entertaining ones.
The serious novels were generally thought to be more didactic and celebrated br exemplified
orthodox morality which was supposed to have a beneficial effect on the moral sensibility of
the reader. Wuthering Heights rudely challenged such neat categories and posed a challenge to
the early critics.

Both these early critical perspectives, nevertheless, did not question the seeming historical
remoteness of the novel. It was accepted that a novel of such kind, that deals primarily with
the basic and intuitive aspects of the human heart and soul, necessarily must remain outside
historical time. Issues that the novel is primarily concerned with, those of individual right,
ethics of love and marriage, inheritance and property, civilisation and nature, may be issues
that cut across time and space, but they are not removed from social history or the history of
ideas and culture. The novel may be studied against the late 18th century and early 19th ,
century historical background of England as well as the social and historicbl setting of the
time it is being read. There have been dramatic shifts in the readerlcritic response to the novel
since its publication. These shifts have not only been marked bv time aeriods but also by
society, culture and the gender of the reader.

1.3 THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

The last quarter of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century was a
nprlnA nf nraat errrinl arnnrrm;r -nrl rmlltl.rnl
-hnnna in Cn.rlonA %are, r-mrarh, G s r a .,so--
 Background To
the conso~idationof England as the most powerful imperial flation. The English
WUther'ng He'ghts
anded globally toan eaent that the British came to believe that the sun would never set on
is was also the period of rapid industrialism and the development of full s a l e
ism with its accompanying cycle of boom and s i ~ m pand of continuous and intens

on signaled the end of the 'domestic System' of manufacture and introduced the
which displaced the rural population to centres of urban growth which were
s was inevitably accompanied by the growth of shms 9

and disease. Cholera, typhoid and tuberculosis were rampant and many
oar workers died of these dread diseases. Medicine and health care Systems
t and post-natal deaths were quite frequent. Frances, Catherine and Isabella*
ed due to illness. Emily ~ r o n t ddied at the age of only

fhe end ofthe eighteenth century economic principles of las~ezfaireas advocated by

Adam Smith in his book Wealth of Nations, (1776) was being seriously questioned by
thinkers like Tom Paine (author of Rights of Man, 1798). Poor wages and dismal working
conditions characterised the early factory system. Men, women and even children worked in
hatardous conditions as part of a system of production in which the profits went to the
'captains of industry'. This unequal distribution of wealth added to the growing
dissatisfaction amongst the poor workers resulting in conflict between the 'haves' and the
'have nots'. This period of English history is marked by violent food riots, protest and
demonstrations by the working class. E.P. Thompsom in his book The Making Of the ~ n g l i s h
Working Class, (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd. 1963). traces the history of the working class
movements during this early phase of industrialisation. If you wish to go into this aspect, you
may like to read this book. It is a fairly long book but will provide very useful background
material. The Luddite Riots, the struggles and agitation around the First Reform Bill, the
growth of Trade Unionism and the fight for improved working conditions in the factories was
followed by the agitation against the Poor Law of 1834, and finally culminated in the Chartist
movement from 1838 to 1848. The year that Emily Bronte died, 1848, Karl Marx published
The Communist Manifesto, a seminal text in which the working class leadership and
intelligentsia found a sound theoretical basis for their struggle.

The introduction of machines and the cultivation of cash crops resulted in surplus labour in
the agrarian sector. People began to migrate from the villages to the cities. By the last quarter
of the eighteenth century many lrishrnen had left their peasant homes and immigrated to
England and sought work i? the mills and factories in cities like Manchester and Liverpool.
They formed the poorest section of the slum dwellers. Emily Bronte' s father, Patrick
O'Brunty or O'Prunty, was born in 1777 as the son of a poor peasant in County Down, a
picturesque area in Northern Ireland. He too migrated to England, but unlike the others, he
did not become a low paid worker but by 1802 was at Cambridge University from where he
received a degree. He joined the clergy and rose rapidly from a migrant Irish peasant to a
respectable Anglican clergyman. In 182Q,a few months after the birth of his youngest
d his residence to Howarth, a big village near Keighley, in
e. There was nothing 'so completely removed f ~ o mthe stir
of society' than Howarth. It was located near one of the most rapidly growing industrial areas
as the centre of many of working class movements and

Though connected with the church, Mr. Bronte was not apolitical. He had strong political
. views which he often discussed with his intellectually alive children. He got himself actually
involved in the riots and lock-outs by assisting the locked-out workers of his parish. Emily
and her sister Charlotte did not spend their entire lives in Haworth, They went to school at
Halifax, where the Chartist movement was very strong. In 1838, on Hartshed Moor, a few
miles away from Hallifax, one of the biggest Chartist torch light rallies took place. Queen
Victoria, by an official proclamation in 1938, declared all such torch light meetings as illegal,
participation in which meant punishment. Emily and Charlotte also went to Bradford,
KeiBhley and Leeds- It is m e that Emily did not write about the social and poljtjeal climate
Of her time
but it senainl~does not mean that she was not aware ofthe changes lhl
Were happening her Or &at these events were a pan
Wutllering Heights
1.4 THE CHANGING SOCIETY
In real terms, industrialism meant an economic shift fiom the feudal agrarian way of life to the
faster paced industrial world of factories and machines, mass production and quick profits.
Industrialism also meant the rise of individualism. While trade and production increased and
the nation became richer, the national prosperity concealed the wretched condition of the
poor. There emerged a class of neo rich enterpreneurs, who had made quick money through
industrial production and posed a serious political and economic challenge to the traditional
citadels of aristocratic power. Louis Cazamian identifies the polarisation of the old
aristocracy with the new bourgeoisie as :

A deep antagonism, indeed, divided this new ahd thriving class from the old
order. The vehement aggression of these sons who rejected their heritage
wounded the peaceful, patriarchal spirit of agricultural England, slumbering
in self-satisfied torpor. In the old society everyone knew his place. The
great families governed the country; the squires and justices of the peace
administered their own localities.... But the demands of the new bourgeoisie
and the pressure of the industrial revolution introduced the ideals of liberty
and enfranchisement to this society where, hitherto, material and moral ties
had chained the individual to his ancestor's station in his own locality....
Men would have to cut themselves off from their native society and become
fiee and independent, relying on the strength of their intelligence or wealth,
if they had any, and their muscular strength if they had not ....The fallen
were trodden underfoot: so much the worse for them. 'Each fpr himself and
.the law of England for all' was the motto of industrialism. These men were
filled with pride when they contemplated the great wealth they had amassed
from the products of their own energy. And they were enraged by the
ridiculous impediments which still hindered individual freedom.
Remainders of feudalism, relics of old institutions, Acts of Settlements,
Statutes of Apprentices, and protectionist corn laws were all so many
obstacles to be knocked down in the march of progress. Or the march to
wealth.-

The belief that the individual's success depended on his ability to struggle and survive in a
competitive world formed the core of the moral structure of this class of people who were
engaged in a ruthless competition for material prosperity. Thus with a shift in the balance of
power, a new set of social , moral and ethical values evolved to replace the old order. In
1814, Jane Austen, the daughter of a Tory parson, represented the conflict between the old
and the new emerging social order in Mansfield Park. Mansfield Park, located in the idyllic
pastoral landscape of rural England is the home of Sir Thomas Bertram who is a resident
native gentry, the upper class land owner. Fanny, fiom a lower middle class family, is at first
an outsider to Mansfield Park but slowly she not only becomgs an integral part of it but
represents intrinsically the real spiritual and moral values of Mansfield Park, those of
tradition, continuity and order. In the novel the older feudal value system triumphs and
survives symbolically in the union of Fanny and Edmund despite a serious threat to it by
outsiders. Propriety, regularity, harmony and above all, peace and tranquillity characterizes
Mansjield Park and in Austen's world there is no place for the kind of deviance indulged in
by the Crawfords and Mr. Yeats. The security and stability that is provided by the hierarchical
set up of a feudal order is threatened only when Sir Thomas Bertram goes to Antigua for
purposes of business. (This must be seen in the context of the colonial and imperial
expansionism of England at that time.) The political expression of economic and social
polarisation was, reflected in the agenda of the two main political parties in England, the
Whigs and the Tories. The Tories were the conservatives, supporting the landed class and the
feudal economy while the w i g s were the supporters of the industry and its modem methods
and masters.

1.5 ROMANTICISM

The American War of Independence (1776) and later the French Revolution (1789) fo? the
hackdroo to Wuthering Heights though both these important historical events .
. . ..seem
.r---+.." to have
G,
, no
.*he
I

~Pornanticism in many ways was a reaction to industrialism. It was a cry for the return to a Background To
~borldof innocent beauty that seemed to have been sacrificed to the dictates of the machine WufheringHeiglrts
d individual liberty was very much the central theme of much of these discourses. The
dividual's creative power was located in hisher assertion of imagination and intuition that
s to be freed from the limits of mechanical reason and despotic rationality. The 'heroic' was
defined by the revolutionary Romantics for they sought the heroic in the commonplace and
t le ordinary rather than in the extraordinary. With their radical stance they repositioned the
t ero in the society and his social responsibilities and relationships were scrutinised. The
i~dustrialrevolution and the accompanying French and American revolution can be seen as
the revolutions that freed the individual from the moral ,ethical, cultural structures and
clonstraints of the feudal order and left him to define for himself a ncw role. Now the
i4dividual was responsible only to himself and to the high standards he set for himself. This
\bas now not only true of the man but also of the woman, as we see them emerging with an
i dependent individuality in novels of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Mrs. Gaskell, and later,
tlardy and George Eliot.

4.6 REBELLION
I'

trast to Mansfield Park, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is located in the formidable
ape of barren heaths and moorlands. .There is the intensity of nature in its raw and
hostile manifestation. It forms the perfect backdrop for a drama to unfold; in which,
ty are seen as edges of a fragile world that is being threatened by
s of disruption beyond the comprehension of the people who live in
e summer morning' Mr. Earnshaw, kisses his children and
s.them gifts and steps out of that world and goes to Liverpool. The breach is made.
r three days he brings back with him a 'gift of God', a 'dirty, ragged, black-haired child.
of the society' from which Wuthering Heights seems to have been isolated makes its
lic entrance through Heathcliff. In Heathcliff and Catherine we identify defiance of
propriety and in Edgar we can see a valiant attempt at compliance with the

'l$e defiance of Heathcliff and Catherine to follow prevalent social norms must be seen in the
cdntext of individual assertiveness of the industrial-age in the twilight of the great feudal age
add its hierarchic power structures. Wuthering ~ e i ~ h and t s ~hrushcossCirange are in ma&

I ys symbols of authority and power of the old system which is challenged by Heathcliff and
C therine. Those who cannot adapt to the demands of the new age, perish, and only the
st ong survive. It is within Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange that the forces of
c allenge and subversion grow. According. to Terry Eagleton the Catherine-Heathcliff
r ationship is 'pre-social', in the sense that it by passes the society. This according to
E gletonXis both the novel's source of strength as well as its weakness. Its strength lies in its
for subversion and its 'revolutionary refbsal' to accept the contemporary society which
and unequal. Its weakness lies in the author's inability to locate the meaning of
in immediate social terms. Eagleton points out that Heathcliff and Catherine
in the actual world, they are united only when they leave the real world, that

1.,7 LET US SUM UP

gh the events in the novel seem to happen in a remote and isolated place and the
with their intense emotions, particularly the Byronic Heathcliff, seem out of the
vidently Wuthering Heights is very much situated within a historical context. Since
the only novel of the author, early biographical studies created an image of the author
use, a shy but intense and brooding personality. A closer look at her life makes it
that Emily Bronte was not really cut off from the society around her and was quite
of the changes happening around her. The changing character of industry, created new
classes with economic interests that came in conflict with each other and broke the
the traditional structure of society. The potential of the independent individual was
on. The historical background prepares us for analyzing the characters as
s caught in a changing society and their responses to it. It also allows us to evaluate
WufheringHeights Emily Bronte as a woman writer of the mid-nineteenth century who was asserting her own
intellectual position.

1.8 GLOSSARY

stereopype something that acquires a specific meaning

because of its routine and regular use.(the stereotype of
the ideal lover being 'tall dark and handsome')
psychopathic psychologically disturbed
intenlionalities a term that is often used in criticism when
one reads in between the lines and discovers meaning
which may not be otherwise apparent.For example What
are the 'intentionalities' behind the way Charlotte Bronte
read her sister's novel?
Polemics the discussion of something in terms of a
debate
culrural productions literature, painting ,music, films, theater,
in fact, any kind of art is seen as a product of a particular
culture and not just the creation of an individual.
typical like a stereotype, something that acquires
meaning because of its specific association
oxymoron figure of speech in which apparently
contradictory terms appear in conjunction
introverted person who is predominantly concerned with
his or her own thoughts and feelings rather than with
external things.
.didactic with the intention to teach or preach
class conflict a Marxist term, used to mean the conflict of
economic, social and political interests between the
working class and the owners of industries, the capitalists.
laissez-faire the independence of the individual to own
and run industry with out any state1 government
interference.
apolitical not having any intered in politics; but such
a stand could itself be seen as a kind of political position.
hierarchical a system of authority in which ranks are
placed one above the other; but within the hierarchy
women often have rank but not power.
ideology in Marxist terminology, ideology is the
way society conceals the contradictory character of the
essential pattern of social relationships. Ideology is
something false, and helps to hide the real nature of
things.
discourse Here, an academic discussion. Otherwise .
discourse can have other connotations as well.

Please attempt all the following questions. These will help you to consolidate all the
information and ideas that you have encountered in this Unit. Let me add &re that these are
not examipation questions. But if you are able to answer these, you can go for the exams with
full confidence!

1. What do you understand by the Industrial Revolution.? ln what way do you think it
changed the relationship between various social groups. Do you think such changes
are inevitable?

2. D6.you think that any text is independent of its historical context. What is the
difference between anewspaper story and a novel?
3. What do you understand by the term 'Romanticism'? In the modem world is the
term 'Romantic' used in a positive or pejorative sense? WuiheringHeights
,
4. How do you think Emily Bronte is able to highlight and challenge many of the
prevailing gender prejudices of her times?
I
5. Do you think it is the job of the novelist to focus our attention on the many problems
I that are there in society? Give reasons for your answer.

6. Study the table of dates in 1. I carefully. Collect 'information about the events, books
, and personalities mentioned. Do you think some of the contemporary events have
some indirect but significant relation with the novel?

j
1.40 SUGGESTED READING
I

1
l'ingiving you a fairy long and comprehensive reading list here. Of course I don't
exp ct you to go through all these books. But some of these books are easily
ava lable in libraries and you will find them very useful for understanding this
fas Fnating and complex novel.

i
All t. Miriam, ed. Emily Bronte : WutheriegHeights. London : Macmillan, 1970, 1992. Case
Boo Series. ed. A.E. Dyson.

Ben ey, Phyllis. The Brontes. London : Arthur Barker Ltd. 1947.

Charlotte & Emily. Complete Novels ofCharlotte and EmilyBronte. Glasgow: Harper
1993. Collins Classic. Introduction to Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Cory.

Emily. Wuthering Heights. ed. David Daiches. Hannondsworth : Penguin Books Ltd.

. ~ a n b i a nLouis.
, The Social Novel In EngIand 1830-1850 :Dickens, Disraeli.

Marantz. The Daughter's Dilemma: Family Process and the Nineteenth-

Novel. University of Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1991.

-
Stevie. Emily Bronte, Hertfordshire, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1988. Key Women
series ed. Sue Roe.

Emily Bronte: A Biogrqhy* Oxford :Oxford University Press, Oweill,

on Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Readings in Literary Criticism, London :
Unwin Ltd. 1968.

Linda H. ed. Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights, Boston: Bedford Books of St.

Lyn. Emily B r o w Women Writers ed Eva Figes & Adele King, Basingstoke:

E
Smith,lAnne. ed. The Art of Emily Bronte: London: Vision Press, 1976.

an, Patsy. Wuthering Heights: Emily Bronte. New CAsebooks. Basingstoke:

t
Tambl g, Jeremy. Narrative and IdeoIogy, Buckingham: Open University Press, 1991.

1
Toolan Michael J. Narrative: A Critical Lingubtic Introduction, Routledge: London and
New Y rk, 1988

Tom. The Bronm and their Background: Romance and Reality, iondon:
13
 References

Isanger, C.P. 'Remarkable Symmetry in a Tempestuous Book'. Casebook Series.

The dates of events in the novel have been meticulously worked out by Sanger who is of the
opinion that the novel is very precisely crafted with all the details having been worked out
accurately.

Wuthering Heights-published along with Anne Bronte's Agnes Grev by T.C. Newby.
Wuthering Heights London. The sisters used pseudonyms. Emily Called herself Ellis Bell and Charlotte, Acton
Bell.

'~ u t h e r i n gHeights. A Case Book. ed. Miriam Allott. Macrnillan. 970, 1992. p.39.
I
ibid., p.61
5.
the statuary': the sculptor.

Wuthering Heights. A Case Book. ed. ~ i r i a &

Allott. Macmillan. 1970, 1997. pp.63-64

Louis Cazamian The Social tovel In England 1830-1850: Dickens, Disrueli, Mrs. Gu.skc?ll.
Kingsley, trans. Martin Fido, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1973, p15- 16.

"eny Eagleton, ' Myths of Power in Wuthering Heights', in Wuthering,Heighb :Emily

Bronte.Patsy Stoneman, ed. New Casebooks. Basingstoke: Macmillan. 1993.
 I1
U&IT 2 THE PROBLEM OF NARRATIVE

'r
St cture

2.0 , Objectives
2.1 I Introduction
2.2 1 What is 'Narrative'?
2.3 . Narrative Scheme in the Novel
2.4 Who is the Narrator?
2.5 Narrative Techniques
2.6 1 Comparison with Cinema
2.7 Let Us Sum Up
2.8 Glossary
2.9 i Questions
2. l C Suggested Reading

1
2.d OBJECTIVES
I

udy of the narrative of a novel is a complex business these days! The way the novelist
islher story becomes important when we realize that there is no uniformity in the act of
ion and that certain things are told in a certain way whereas other things are narrated in a
t way. The narrative of Wuthering Heights has provoked wide-ranging responses and
ns from its readers and critics. It is quite obvious that Emily Bronte was experimenting
rking out different relationships with narrative techniques and the various issues that
ed her to enrich her text with multiple levels of meanings. The aim of this Unit then is
to f k u s on the narrative technique of ~ u t h e r i nHeights
~ in order to understand how far these
tec+iques contribute to the ov&all effect of the novel.

1
2.4 INTRODUCTION

rd problem' is a part of the title of this Unit. Why is the narrative aproblem? Is it a
only when a text like Wuthering Heights is in discussion, or has the narrative always
roblematic subject? There are two reasons as to why I think that there is aproblem
narrative. The first reason is related specifically to the novel, Wuthering Heights.
agree that there is a basic cpmplexity about the narrativein Wuthering Heights. It is
o grasp the sequences of events in the novel, as there are many narrators who speak
different time zones. It makes us wonder, why Emily Bronte needed to tells us her story
ch a complicated manner.

d reason is more general and addresses the significant amount of work that has been
he subject of the narrative. You may have come across terms like, nairation,
ative, narrator, narrativized, narratology, discourse, meta-narrative,
. The meaning of these words are varied. Critics use them in context. You
cross these words when you study critical material on literature in general and
n particular. All these terms and many more are today associated with the great
academic work that is being done in the field of literary criticism and cultural
t deal exclusively with the whole process of narration. Story telling today is
as a complex activity that involves much more than the storyteller and the
here are many kinds of direct and indirect influences that work on the production,
nd reception of stories. May I warn you that the modern critic uses terms like
blematic and problematise with caution as these terms have been distinctly
Wuthering Heights
2.2 WHAT IS 'NARRATIVE'?

The narrative is defined in the dictionary as 'a spoken or written account of connected events
in order of happening'. ~ e r a r dGenette defines narrative as 'the representation of an event or
a sequence of events, real or fictitious, by means of language, and more particularly by means
of written Vanguage4'. This means that narrative is sequential. It is a kind of story telling. We
are exposed to many types of story telling in everyday life. The television newsreader draws
our attention to the main 'story' ofthe day. 'The newspaper or television advertisement is a
story about a product. Novels, comics, poems, short stories, letters, articles in magazines,
plays are all in some ways a kind of story. They are all narratives. So are interviews,
ceremonies, a police diary, a patient's report to his doctor, certificates, sermons and jokes.
Even the message on a tombstone is a narrative because it tells a short story about a person,
hisher name, date of birth and the date of death. Ronald Barthes, the French critic who did
significant work on the subject of the narrative in the 1960's writes:

The narratives of the world are numberless. Able ta be carried by

articulated language, spoken or written, fixed or moving images, gestures
and the ordered mixture of all these substances; narrative is present in myth,
legend, fable, tale, novella, epic, history, tragedy, drama, comedy, mime,
painting (think of Carpaccio's Saint Ursula), stained glass windows, cinema,
comics, news items, conversation. Moreover... narrative is present in every
age, in every place, in every society; it beings with the very history of
mankind, and there nowhere is nor has been a people without narrative.'

Thus, it seems that from the time we open our eyes in the morning to the time we go to sleep
at night, we are constantly involved with many kinds of narratives that go on around us. If
we dream while in sleep that too is a narrative! It is as if many voices are constantly telling us
many stories. All these voices, narrations, emerge from within the society that we live in and
narrate whatever the society desires or cares to listen to. These narratives essentially are
representations of the way the society looks at things: its beliefs, assertions and
interpretations. In short, its ideology. For a detailed definition of ideology and its relation to
society and culture read Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford; Oxford
University Press, 1977).

When we talk about the narrative in a novel similar questbns arise. Who is narrating? What
beliefs, assertions and interpretation does the narrationlnarrator seek to influence the reader
with? Does the reader enjoy reading a novel if his own ideas, beliefs and thoughts are
complimented in the text? When we seek to answer these questions we will realize that the
narrative in the novel no more remains the simple act of storytelling by the storyteller but
becomes a complex presentation of many. voices. Some of these voices are louder than the
others, some in the forefront and others in the background. The reader may even find voices
that are not there, those that have been censored, sometimes deliberately and at other times
perhaps unconsciously.

The narrative technique employed by Emily Bronte in Wuthering Heights is not only very
complex but it is also a radical departure from the narrative styles that were being followed by
her contemporaries. Indeed, the narrative of Wuthering Heights has been recognized as an
experiment much ahead of its time.

Before we proceed to discuss the many interesting features and the various intentionalities that
are contained within the narrative of Wuthering Heights it would perhaps be appropriate to
broadly look at the narrative sequences in the novel.

2.3 THE NARRATIVESCHEME IN THE NOVEL

1 do hope you have read the novel by now. The text I have used is Wuthering Heights, ed.
David Daiches.Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1965. All references hereafter will be to this
edition.
 I
Titl Page of
WUTHERING HEIGHTS :A NOVEL, BY
The Problem of
Narrative

ELLIS BELL,
IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I
London :Thomas Cautley Newby,
Publisher, 72, Mortimer St.
Cavendish Sq. 1847.
f Lockwood begins the narrative.
Lockwood discovers Catherine's Diary. The
t reader, through Lockwood reads Catherine's diary entries.
This is followed by Lockwood's narration about his
dream.
Nelly Dean begins her tale.
Nelly interrupts her narration and then
decides to 'follow the story in true 'gossip's fashion'.
Nelly continues with her story.
The chapter ends with Lockwood observing
that Nelly glanced towards the time -piece over the
chimney; and was in amazement, on seeing the minute
hand measure half past one. The story telling is
suspended for the time being.
Lockwood is not feeling well enough to
read, he does want to 'enjoy something interesting' so why
not ask Mrs. Dean to 'finish her tale'. Lockwood urges
Nelly to continue with the narration from the point where
she left off. In Lockwood's words, from the point where
'the hero had run off and the heroine had got married.
Nelly reads out Isabella's letter to her.
'Relic of the dead is precious, if they were valued living'.
Most of this chapter is Isabella's narration of events after
her marriage to Heathcliff.
Nelly resumes her own narrative. The
Chapter ends with the coming of Dr. Kenneth to examine
Lockwood. Lockwood confides to his readers that he
better 'beware of the fascination that lurks in Catherine
HeathcliWs brilliant eyes'. And that he had surrendered
his heart to a young person who was the second edition of
her mother.
Lockwood is convinced that Nelly is a 'very
fair n m t o r ' and he could not possibly 'improve upon her
style'. Nelly resumes her narration.
lsabella runs away from Wuthering Heights
and arrives at Thrushcross Grange and narrates to Nelly
her odeal.
The opening sentence reminds the readers
that Nelly Dean still continues with her narration.
Nelly tells Lockwood that the last portion of
he^ narrative (end of Chapter twenty four) had happened
only a year back. She says that she did not think that in
twelve months time she would be amusing a stranger with
the story about the happenings at Wuthering Heights and
that perhaps Lockwood would not remain a stranger for
very long. Lockwood urges Nelly to tell him more about.
Cathy. Nelly narrates the events of the past one year.
Nelly ends her story. Lockwood decides to
spend the next six months in London.
Lockwood recounts his visit to Wutkring
Heights.
The chapter beings with a date. 1802.
About one year after tockwood had left Thrushcross
Grange. Now Lockwood makes another visit to
Wutkring Heights. Meets Nelly and she ' fhmished' him
with the 'sequel of Heathcliff's history'. Nelly's narration
of events following Lockw-god's departure for London.
Wuthering Heighb Chapter thirty-four Nelly en& her narration. Lockwood ends
his narration with his visit to Heathcliffs grave.

-
2.4 WHO IS THE NARRATOR?

The above table clearly shows that there are many people who narrate the story of Wuthering
Heights. It also shows that the narrative has many intentional breaks. Firstly, there is the
author who does not publish her novel in her own name but uses a pseudonym, Ellis Bell.
The problem of identifying the narrator begins here. The three Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Emily
and Anne all used pseudonyms, but with the same title. Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell
respectively. The contemporary readership erroneously thought that the works published
under these names was the work of one person. Many ~ictorianreaders of Emily Bronte
thought that Wuthering Heights was perhaps the work of a man. Three years after the
publication of Wuthering Heights, Charlotte explained that since 'the little mystery, which
formerly yielded some harmless pleasure, has lost its interest' and that since 'circumstances
are changed' it was her duty to reveal the origin and authorship of the books written by her
sisters and herself.

In the Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell September 19, 1850, by Currer Bell
(Charlotte Bronte), the strategies that the sisters had devised about the publication of their
works is explained. (You will find this in the Penguin edition of Wuthering Heights that I have
referred to,)

We had very early cherished the dream of one day becoming authors. This
dream, never relinquished even when distance divided and absorbing tasks
occupied us, now suddenly acquired strength and comistency : It took the
character of a resolve. We agreed to arrange a small selection of our poems,
and, if possible, get them printed. Averse to personal publicity, we veiled
our own names under those of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; the ambiguous
choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming
Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare
ourselves women, because -without at that time suspecting that our mode
of writing and thinking was not what is called 'feminine' - we had a vague
impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we
had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of
personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise.

The pseudonym is by definition fictitious. It is a literary masquerade. The uses of

pseudonyms in the case of the Bronte sisters was an attempt to deflect public interest from the
private life of the authors. Moreover, as Charlotte points out, the sisters were aware that the
contents of their writing may not appeal to Victorian sensibility, particularly, if it was
understood that the authors were women. Charlotte is also appealing to the critics and readers
for an impersonal and objective evaluation of their work. Implicit in the argument is the idea
that the content of their work is more important than the personality of the authors. Thus, it
was not so much due to 'harmless pleasure' that pseudonyms were used but rather to avoid
harmful repercus.sions that the subject and its treatment may have generated during the mid-
nineteenth century. The strategy that the sisters adopted to present their work to the world
was indeed carefully devised. They were aware of the fact that the contents of their work
contained ideas that would shock and challenge conventional moral and ethical cqdes. It is
worth noting that this feminist assertion is done by a negation of identity.

Emily Bronte's awareness of the fact that her novel was to open up many uncomfortable
questions and issues that Victorian society was not prepared for, is evident from the way she
narrates the story in her novel. After the fictitious Ellis Bell, the reader next encounters Mr.
Lockwood. He is the author's (Ellis Bell's) persona who will be responsible to narrate the
story to the readers. One of the important assumptions of successful storytelling is that the
storyteller and his audience must be in complete rapport with each other. But with Lockwood,
as narrator, the reader is not so sure. The pompous language he uses, the self importance he
projects and his impatience that leads to making wrong judgments and erroneous conclusipns
makes the reader quite skeptical about Lockwood being a reliable narrator. He seems to be an
ordinary kind of man affecting fashionabte manners. A dandy. His language is artificial and
f i l l of conventional clichts. Lockwood expects the inmates of Wuthering Heights to behave
. . . . .- .. . - .- . -.
.. - . .
 ed when he encounters 'genuine bad nature'. When real people behave in a real wa).. The Problenl Of
like Lockwood whose experiences in life have been structured by conventionality are Narrative
s and lost. Lockwood's predicament is a fair warning to readers who are expecting
tional literary experience in the reading of Wuthering Heights.

ader, Lockwood's story is engrossing though the storyteller's credibility is suspect .

m (for Lockwood it is more of a nightmare) is something that increases the reader's
. So does the diary notes of Catherine which Lockwood reads by trespassing
privacy. With Lockwood as narrator the reader experiences the same kind of
as one would if one was accompanying a trespasser. The reader also knows that
d has in the recent past failed to respond to the possibility of a 'real' relationship with
was happy flirting with. There is the danger of his seeing things the way he wants
an the way they really are. When the author provides another narrator in the form
an the reader is more comfortable. Now Lockwood becomes the audience and
ryteller. Nelly is an insider and her unraveling of the secrets of Wuthering
be taken as the unburdening of the heavy weight of terrible memory and not as
into privacy. This shift from Lockwood to Nelly Dean is deliberate. It is a technique
ch Emily Bronte is able to critique the conventionality of the male narrator and the
Victorian consciousness that he represents.

rative is extraordinary in its ability to capture every minute detail and its emphatic ,
uality. It is as if Nelly is telling of events that had happened very recently ,so
presentation. Nelly's narration takes her audience very close to where the action
e has spent her whole life in the Heights and the Grange, she is not only a first
s to its intimate affairs but also an involved participant. 'Though Charlotte Bronte
r as a 'specimen of true benevolence and homely fidelity', few readers today would be
accept her as that. Her conventional religious and moral sentiments combined with
s attitude towards those whom she had nursed as children (specially Catherine
cannot make her an objective narrator. Nor will the reader be entirely
unlike Lockwood, of the moral lessons and the seeming truths that Nelly
with self-appointed authority. The reader will always perceive more than what

b
2.d NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES

g the nansltive technique in Wuthering Heights is to see it as the

of a Chinese box. A story within a story that can be unravelled by removing one layer
ther. A room within a room that the reader keeps eritering, in which the rooms are
physical spaces but also spaces of the mind. Note how Lockwood enters Wuthering
and hostile environment. Then he enters the
m of Wuthering Heights where the environment is warm but his reception is not.
oes further into the house and finds himself in Catherine's bedroom where he
her diary. The diary is the key to our entry not only to the past but also into
s mind. This progress inside the house is complimented by Lockwood's entry into
Wuthering Heights which climaxes with his encounter with Catherine's apparition.
rushcross Grange, in more comfortable surroundings, Lockwood's passage into the
ues with Nelly's recapitulation. This technique adds a degree of suspense and
the narration and provides great scope for dramatic shifts in time and space. At the
past and present is woven together in the way Nelly and Lockwood interpret and
umstantial ironies of the tale can thus be
ed and dark world approximates the familiar
les of gothic tales in which the mind is turned on itself and the dark side of the
osed. But unlike their Gothic predecessors, the narrators of Wuthering Heights
ounter and experience because of the moral and official

iller in the essay ' Wuthering Heights : Repetition and the "uncanny"' points out
is a line of witnesseslnarrators, from Emily Bronte to the pseudonymous Ellis Bell
d to Nelly Dean to Heathcliff to Catherine who form this complex naprative.
e novel is like moving 'inside of the inside' or sometimes the other way round. Just
narrators in the novel, consequently there are many listeners. Nelly has
t of both Catherine and Heathcliff. Both of them have from time to time felt
Wuthering Heights the need to confide their thoughts to Nelly. A letter from lsabella informs Nelly of the story
of Isabella's disastrous married life. Lockwoodis Nelly's audience. Ellis Bell knows of
Lockwood's story. Finally the consciousness'of the reader (we) envelops the consciousness
of all the other characters including that of Ellis Bell. According to Miller, the reader is
condemned to resurrect the ghostly past of Wuthering Heights. Different voices speak to the
reader and no one seems to completely comprehend the meaning of the events. The reader is
aware of something familiar but is unable to grasp it or even to articulate it. This gives the
text its uncanny, baffling flavor.

It is not a very comfortable feeling to know that one does not understand what is happening
around oneself. Conventionally readers are used to stories that follow patterns of the unity, of
time and place and event in the classical Aristotelian sense. Unity helps in fixing the story
and helps the reader to 'read' moral and ethical meaning into the text. Are we not always
asking 'so what is the moral of the story'? The reader or even the narrators wish to find some
kind of unity of meaning. Nelly and Lockwood are continuously interpreting what they
witness. By doing so they attribute meanings which are coloured by their own understanding
and moral commitments.

Most early critical readings of WutheringHeights accepted the Nelly-Lockwood desire to

explain the central mystery and attribute specific meanings to the relationships in the novel.
Liberal humanist critics like F.R. Leavis, who positioned Wuthering Heights within 'the Great
Tradition' of English novels, seek to read into the novel self-evident aesthetic and moral
values. There are universal 'human truths ' that the novel upholds. From this position the
Nelly-Lockwood narration is seen as a bland and prosaic recapitulation of a relationship that
in essence is raw, pure, wild, intuitive and natural -something transcendental and beyond
the limits of reason. Universal paradigms were sought and imposed. The most common one
was that of polarity, or a binary, where the novel was explained as a creative response to the
universal opposition between nature and civilization, intuition and reason, day and night,
heaven and hell, real and unreal, order and chaos and so on. The narrative structure, as well as
the form of the novel, in this view was a design that heightened this sense of polarity. The
originality of the author was located in her being able to focus on those aspects of human
consciousness that were generally hidden from view. Very often the novel was compared to
drama and shades of Shakespearean tragedy were discerned. Nelly and Lookwood were seen
as spectators. One was a sophisticated urbanite while the other a simple pebant woman. 'The
intensity of the drama cut across class or intellectual.barriers in the way the novel moves from
the world of everyday reality to the world of 'spiritual reality'. The author's unconventionality
was in her ability to create characters like Heathcliff and Catherine who defied present day
moral and social demarcations in order to achieve higher, spiritual levels of meaning and
being. Wuthering Heights was a triumph of the Romantic imagination in its quest for an ideal
that sought an alternative to the mundane and base nature of everyday reality.

This Romantic idealization was questioned by later critics who offered a different
interpretation. Frank Kermode adopted the view that there were 'many truths' that could be
read into th2novel. The many truths are represented by the many voices of narration in the
novel. Priority was given to the text. Close reading of the text prompted a shift from a
singular perspective to multiple a perspective. The richness of the text lay in the way it
suggested multiple levels of meaning. The narrative pattern was seen as a technique which
helped to open the text to multiple levels of scrutiny and opened out space for varied
interpretations and responses. Nelly and Lockwood are not seen as narrators who take the
reader to the ceptre of the story but are now seen as voices amongst many voices in the story.
You could read Freudian or Marxist or biographical or symbolic or feminisi meaning into the
text depending on what position you took. The narrators' confinement to their own narrow
understanding of what they narrate only brings to sharp focus the intensely complex and
richly textured contents of the text.

Finally, the modem &constructionist critic would say that there are 'no truths' that can be
read into the text of Wuthering Heights. Deconstructionist approaches challenge any position
that seeks to make a judgment, its contention is that it is not possible, objectively or -
scientifically, to determine the 'truth' about anything. According to the deconstructionist, any
claim to 'truth' or any absolute value is an assertion of a construct which is generally a part of
social ideology. In this case, Nelly and Lockwood's assertions are seen as futile, because the
novel just doesn't conform to any value judgment. From this point it is argued that the
structure of the narrative is deliberate in the way it deflects the reader from arriving at any
secret truth about Wuthering Heights. Since there are no secret truths and ordering principles
by which the novel can be explained, any attempt to do so would be futile. This is not a flaw
 The Problem Of
e novel but the result of a very carefblly considered structure that Emily Bronte designed
novel to frustrate the mind's desire 'for logical order with a demonstrable base'. Narrative

constructive analysis suggest that the narrative is designed in the form of frames.
alogy is derived from pictureJpainting frames. A picture frame encloses within it a
. Though the focus is on what is pictured inside the frame, the viewer is aware of what
it and not pictured. The 'internal' suggests the 'external' and it is for the
reader to decipher it. There are various boundaries that define the limits of these
in Wuthering Heights. There is the outer boundary of a time and place in which Nelly
her convalescent master Lockwood. The inner boundaries consist of the Earnshaw-
ton interactions with the Heathcliff-Catherine relationship at its core. The narrators are
They encompass a story within a boundary and at the same time they leave certain
ut of the frame. Narrators, by the logic of this argument cannot be totally objective
always in the process of shifting, regulating and controllingtheir material. Nelly
Lockwood keep surfacing as narrators in the text to remind the readers that the tale is
1-5; which makes the reader constantly aware of the idea that there are things beyond the
ndaries of the Lockwood-Nelly tale. So the question th'at we must now face is : 'Whose
reading in the text: Heathcliff-Catherine's or Lockwood-Nelly's ? It seems that
never really know Heathcliff-Catherine's relationship because they are not the
k (except for Catherine's diary notes). The reader has no choice but to eavesdrop on
d-Nelly confabulations. John T. Matthews suggests:

that the narrative frame is required because the central characters are
incapable to utter their relation. Perpetually frustrated they cannot articulate
the relation that would bind them, and so they leave a gap to be framed and
filled by the loquacity of the narrator^.^

i
h.1 this sense the narrative is only an attempt, a feeble attempt at that, by Lockwood-Nelly to
11 us of past events as they understand them. Moreover there is also the point that Heathcliff
nd Catherine cannot define their relationship. Though Nelly-Lockwood never search for
ords to express themselves, they do not represent an authoritative voice. This defusion of
he authorial voice and the inability to articulate their own story by the central characters
rings the novel in line with modem texts, where the problem of language and expression is
xplored time and again. ,
I
n a close and deconstructivk (inspired by French philosopher Jacques Derrida ) reading of the
ext, John T. Matthews, argues in the essay 'Framing In Wuther!ngHeights', that Nelly-
Lockwood's 'frame story aspires to bring the remains of the enframed story [that of
Heathcliff-Catherine] within safe confines'. That 'Catherine and Heathcliffs love is the ghost
of the prohibitions that structure society : it has the air of unspeakably natural passion, even
incest, the spaciousness of escape from tyrannous convention, the heedlessness of self-
I
abandon, the dark allure of disease and deathliness.' But the narrators are incapable of
I I representing this relation, conventional and self contained as they are. They can only impose
a frame that is a product of their imagination and experience. Matthew points out that the
I subversive passion which is at the core of the story is reverted back to subservience, to
t 1 convention, representation, reason and health at the end of the novel by the narratw in the
way they seek to escape from defining the core relationship of their story. Nelly-Lockwood
can only impose meaning and sense, whereas Heathcliff-Catherine negate meaning and sense.
Matthews posits that it is impossible to determine if the core is more important than the frame,
I
but there is a constant connection between the two and that one dissolves into another.
I
1 2.6 COMPARISON WITH CINEMA

I Here I would like to suggest a co-relation with modem cinema. Imagine a scene in a film
I where a character is telling another character of something he has seen in the past. These two
characters are then framed by the camera which shoots the scene of this story telling. Then
this scene is projected on the screen in the cinema hall for the audience to see. To make the
story telling visually interesting, the director sometimes dramatizes the story and shows it as
flashback in between the story telling. You will realize that our characters have a position,
which is their story telling environment and their time and place. The camera has a position.
The camera position indicates the meaning that the director wants to give to *e scene in
question. A close up of the lips of the storyteller, a shot of both the storyteller and the listener
WuflreringHeights from medium range and a shot of the house in which this story telling in going on can be
significant in different ways and can be inteipreted as deliberate interventions of the director
in the way he wants to shoot the sequence of the story telling. Finally the audience too has a
position in a seat in cinema hall and must see what is being projected on the frame of a
screen. The audience is also subject to time and place, histow, society and culture. All these
are interrelated but at the same time quite independent. Wuthering Heights is designed in a
similar way. Ellis Bell is the director where as Emily Bronte is the invisible producer! The
storytellers are Nelly and Lockwood. The readers are the audience. The eye of the camera is
located in mid-Victorian social reality. It chooses to show some aspects of it and keeps the
rest out of its frame. The camera is sometimes very close to the narrators and sometimes
dissolves into flashbacks. Cinematically, Isabella's letter is a flashback within a flashback.
The role of the cinema audience in absorbing what helshe sees is important. One could have a
total willing suspension of disbelief and believe in what the directors shows us in which case
the thrill and the suspense of the unknown is what really matters, or one can be a very
perceptive viewer and constantly be aware of the changing position of the camera, from inside
the room, to the back garden, to the open spaces of the heath to a close-up of Catherine's diary
etc. to understand how the director is manipulating one's responses. You are left with two
options. 1. To accept that the direcfpr must manipulate response in order to get the right
reaction from his audience. 2. That dl narration is basically mwipulation of response and
that it is better to open up to many responses than to be coaxed into accepting any one. I
have used this analogy of the cinema to explain more graphically how the narrative technique
in Wuthering Heights creates multiple perspectives and how that deflects the perceptive
reader from arriving at any one explanation of the text.,

2.7 LET US SUM UP

We must remember, Wuthering Heights was being written in an age that lay great stress on
meaning, sense, order, civilization and progress. Perhaps that is the reason why early critics
of the novel arrived at single explanations of the novel. The realistic in the novel was seen a
veneer over what was essentially romantic and spiritual in nature. But in'reality it was
precisely all the virtues of the mid-Victorian society of meaning, sense, order, civilization and
progress that were being subverted by Catherine-Heathcliff. To my mind, Emily Bronte was
throwing a challenge, quite remarkable in that day and age, by creating a relationship that
would resist being defined by the codes of her society. To begin with, Nelly and Lockwood
fail miserably to define or codifj that relationship. The author's triumph is in her narrator's
failure.

Nelly's story to Lockwood is her version of the real thing. It is her understanding and her
representation. Narration is representation. But like all representations it is not the real thing
but an image of it, a copy. Nelly narrates her story both for her own benefit as well as for the
benefit of her audience (Lockwood). Both she and Lockwood, as we have observed, are
already positioned within certain.social structures of thought and belief, which we call
ideology. This ideology colours their narration by which they may not only misread and
misinterpret some of the conditions of their story but also occasionally misrepresent things.
What it means is that ideology is part of the narrative. One of the characteristics of ideology
is that it grabs people, mostly without their being aware of it. Nelly is the primary narrator,
and has already been grabbed by the ideology of her times. In turn, her narrative grabs
Lockwood. 'See, how Lockwood never questions any of Nelly's assumptions, assertions or
qualifications. Lockwood's narration is what the author is using to grab her readers. If one is
not careful, Lockwood waald seduce us all to accept his narrative without any questions,just
as he did of Nelly's account of the events. It is here that the pseudonymous Ellis Bell is of
vital importance. Nelly's impression of the events at Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross
Grange impresses Lockwood who in turn has impressed Ellis Bell who authors the story for
publication. This brings us to a series of interesting questions. Is Emily Bronte suggesting
that she has not been seduced by the story? Since this is not her story but Ellis Bell's? Has
Emily Bronte succeeded in resisting the ideology of her narrators? Does Emily Bronte neither
share Lockwood's ideas nor his kind of enthusiasm about the story?. For her the events have a
completely different meaning that she would rather not divulge.or finds it iinpossible to
explain?

The answers to these questions are not easy, but the point I am trying to make is that'there is a
distinction between the narratorlnarrators and thesauthor. Emily Bronte was aware of the
distinction and is using it to critique the ideology of her narrators which in turn is a critique of
 The Problem Of
deology of her own times. This is not a new technique. Chaucer used it in Thc Narrative
&l,ry Tules, and Swift in Gulliver's Travcls and later Conrad would use similar
niques in his novels. In all the cases a persona is used for the narrative whose intellectual
ion was often questionable and there was always the scope of arriving at meanings other
what the narrator was able to draw or suggest. Similarly, a sophisticated use of the same
ique is used in Wuthering Heights. The narrative pattem is potentially radical in the way
sts attempts of reading a singular meaning into it. To the modem reader, the narrative
ique in Wuthering Heights helps in the emergence of plural points of view and that is
tnakes the text a real experiment much ahead of its times.

218 GLOSSARY

1 etanarratives

ic(eology
a larger narrative. The society, its development and
culture can be seen as a meta narrative, within which a
particular narrative, like that of a novel can be seen.

in Marxist terminology, ideology is the way society

conceals the contradictory character of the essential
pattem of social relationships. Ideology is something
I
false, and helps to hide the real nature of things.

I jterpellation the way ideology influences or 'captures' the individual.

P onventionality

ristotelian
in a way that does not challenge the established order of
things

Aristotle's famous concept of the Unities of time place

and action defined in the Poetics.

A school of thought which stressed on the independent

nature of artistic activity,

Iinary

.9 QUESTIONS:
consisting of two things or parts; double.

1. Do you think Nelly is a reliable narrator? Can narrators be reliable? Discuss.

f .
'
Of the three critical positions that we have discussed about the narrative in the novel,
which do you think is the most acceptable. Why?

Do you think Wuthering Heights is a modem novel? Does the narrative technique
make the novel modem?

R. We have mentioned Swift, Chaucer and Conrad as authors who practiced the
technique of narration with the use of a persona. Can you think of other novelists
who use similar techniques. Can you point out differences?
I

k.10 SUGGESTED READING

I
I
I

Stevie. Emily Bronte, Hertfordshire, Harvester - Wheatsheaf, 1988. Key Women'

riters Series ed. Sue Roe.

'Neill, Judith. ed. Critics on Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Readings in Literary Criticism,
ondon : George Allen and Unwin Ltd. 1968.

ebster, Roger. StuQing Literary Theory :An Introduction, Edward Arnold: London, 1990.
Wuthering Heights
References

I
Gerard Genette, Figures of~iteratyDiscourse, trans. Alan Sheridan, Oxford: Blackwel I,
1982. p. 127

2
Ronald Batthes, 'Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives', Image-Music- Text,
trans Stephen Heath (Fontana, 1977) p.79

mil^ Bronte : Wuthering Heights ed. Miriam Allott, Macmillan, 1992.p.224

4
John T. Matthews. Framing in Wuthering Heights. New Casebooks.
 UNIT 3 'GIFT OF GOD' : HEATHCLIFF

Objectives
Introduction
The Hero : Byronic and Romantic
Heathcliff Judged : Secular Or Religious
Let Us Sum Up
Glossary
Questions
Suggested Reading

$.1 OBJECTIVES

tleathcliff is one of the most discussed characters in literature. Intensely passionate, wild and
bvengeful he nevertheless forces a sympathetic response from the readers. There has been a
debate on Heathcliffs status in the novel as villainous or heroic. Both these standard
:ategories.do not seem to fit Heathcliff. I have always been impressed by Heathcliff as a
tebel. He consciously resists acceptability on any other terms other than his own. He ,will
'leither be 'good' nor 'cultured' in the way the society of his time demands. He defineqhis
bwn moral universe and asserts it and sharply exposes the unnaturalness and hypocrisieb of
the social practices around him. He is potentially subversive and in that sense anti-hero+. In
!his unit we will also discuss the notion of sin and redemption as is understood in Christhn
Boctrines and evaluate how through the character of Heathcliff, Emily Bronte intellectua~ly
-engagesherself with the Christian moral universe. After reading this Unit, you will be able to
understand why despite Heathcliff s revengefulness, we never really condemn him and how
Emily Bronte, in this sense, is helping to extend our sympathies.

13.1 INTRODUCTION

1 "See here, wife ! I was never so beaten with anything in my life : but you must e'en take it as a
1 gift of God; though it's as dark almost as if it came from the devil"
One late summer evening on his return from Liverpool, this is the manner in which Mr.
Earnshaw introduces Heathcliff, a little boy he had found on the streets of the industrial city.
to his family at Wuthering Heights. As the story unfolds we realize the deep irony that is
replete in Mr. Earnshaw's introduction. Before his departure for Liverpool, Mr. Earnshaw had
asked his children what gifts he should get for them on his return. Hindley, his elder son, had
asked for a fiddle a d Catherine, his daughter, who was a good rider even at the age of six,
had asked for, significantly, a whip. For Nelly, the house keeper, he had promised a pocket
full of apples and pears which made Mr. Earnshaw not only a caring father but also a
compassionate master, an ideal patriarch.

, The 'gift' that Mr. Earnshaw actually get$ does not impress the family. 'Mrs. E a r n s h was
I ready to fling it out of doors', but Mr. Earnshaw's explanation that he had seen the little boy
'starving and h'ouseless, and as good as dumb,' probably strikes a chord of sympathy and
I Heathcliff is washed, given clean things to wear and allowed to sleep with the children. But
Heathcliff is ' it'. A thing. Hindley searches his father's pocket for the promised fiddle and on
1 seeing that it had been crushed to bits, he 'blubbered aloud' and when Catherine understands
that her father had lost the whip in 'attending to the stranger', showed 'her humour by grinning
I and spitting at the stupid little thing'. This notion is later pursued in the novel. For example, in
1 Chapter 13, lsabella writes to Nelly Dean alyut her disastrous marriage to Heathcliff, and
enquires, 'I beseech you to explain, if you can, what 1 have married...'suggesting that
Heathcliff to her is a creature, hardly human.
Wutl~erittgHeights Mr. Earnshaw's introduction equivocates both Ciod and the devil simultaneously. TOthe
'good' Christian, which Mr. Earnshaw surely wanted to be, any living creature is divine in
origin, but the circumstances and the condition in which he finds Heathcliff, something that
completely 'beats him', makes him associate Heathcliff with the Devil. A product as well as a
victim ofthe evil that is in society. 'The fact that this 'gift' will grow up to become a
. tormentor and usurper and generally a man consumed with hate and revenge. will make us
question if the notion that human life is 'God's gift' is really applicable to Heathcliff. Further,
if human life is at all 'God's gift'. If we keep in mind that in the mid-nineteenth century.
Darwinian assertions of the non-divine origins of the human species had ignited passioriate
debates between religious belief and scientific empiricism, then Heathcliff, is indeed a
symbolic character.

Generally, it is considered that at the heart of the novel Wuthering Heights. lies the
tumultuous Heathcliff-Catherine relationship. Most studies of the novel discuss these two
characters in unison. We have decided to study them separately. One of the reasons why we
wish to do this is to study the novel by consciously distancing ourselves from the idea that
there is one central relationship in the novel. Our impressions about these two important
characters are formed by the subjective responses of several characters. Different characters
view different things and what and how they perceive, tells us as much about themselves as
about what they see. To designate something as central is essentially to prioritize it and make
it more important than the others. This may prejudice and make our views biased and we
could miss out on another point of view. From Nelly's perspective all the events in her
narration seems to revolve around Heathcliff and Catherine. But from another perspective,
the events could be seen as the tragic story of Edgar Linton. We could have another
perspective which sees the story, from say, Hindley's perspective. Therefcue, perhaps we
should not look at Heathcliff-Catherine as the central relationship, or what is categorized as
the 'heart of the novel', because by doing so we may be unconsciously imposing a closed
circular structure of periphery and centrality in a novel that, consistently and consciously,
displaces and confronts any kind of structuring. Secondly, 1 think, Heathcliff and Catherine
have aspects to their characters that ought to be studied independen] of their relationship.
Particularly Catherine's rebellion against what was considered conventionally as the
'feminine' and Heathcliffs challenge not only to the standard definitions of the heroic and
villainous, but also to the religious as well as secular discourses on the divine and the non-
divine.

3.2 THE HERO :BYRONIC AND ROMANTIC

Significantly, Heathcliff is dark. This immediately evokes in the mind of most readers the
metaphysical idea of dark powers, both natural and supernatural. It provides the background
for Heathcliffs association with classic Christian principles of duality; God and Devil, light
and darkness, good and evil. For most part of the story, Heathcliff is associated with diabolic
forces, which Earnshaw hints in his initial introduction. He is christened Heathcliff and that is

i
al o his surname. Heathcliff was the name of a son, of Mr. Eamshaw, who had died in
c ildhood: But Heathcliff does not have Earnshaw as his surname and this makes him both a
part of as well as an outsider not only to the family but to society in general. An
outsiderlinsider who will be instrumental in creating disorder and chaos and subverting the
very principles and ideals on which society functions. Heathcliff evokes both the idea of the
'hdath', a barren desolate landscape and the 'heathen', the primitive, the pagan or the pre-
Christian. His name also evokes the ragged, tantalizingly edgy geographical feature of the
cliff. Comparisons with the Byronic hero, a melancholic mysterious man, beautiful but
danlned, perpetually brooding and generally on a path of self destruction, does put ~eathciiff
in t+ same tradition as that of the 'romantic rebel'. But unlike the typical Byronic hero, there
is na masochism, rather we can see shades of the sadist in Heathcliff. The Byronic hero

k
creat d a cult of 'separateness', but Heathcliff feels no need to set hKself apart from the rest.
The mantic hero suffers because he finds the society too crass and moribund to appreciate
or even understand his creative and emotional longings, but Heathcliffs suffering is a
manifestation of real loss, the death of his beloved Catherine, and he feels no urge to explain
himself to anyone, his acute consciousness of the injustices perpetuated on his self is enoug\h
for him to plot the destruction of others. As Hindley's dead body is being carried out of
Wuthering Heights for burial, Heathcliff lifts Hareton, Hindley's son, and places the child on
the table. Then he 'muttered with peculiar gusto', 'Now my bonny lad you are mine! And we'll
see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!' (Wuthering
 dark colour also calls into question his parentage. Is it possible that 6ne of his 'Gift Of God' :
non-European, may be of African or Asian origins? The nineteenth century Heathcliff
erial and colonial preoccupations with both these continents resulted in the formulation of
otypes and codes which were used to interpret and understand the different and
es and societies of these continents. While Africa was the 'dark continent', Asia
e east was the 'orient'. Europe and white races were contrasted with the African and
races. One of the classical polarity was that the white races represented the coldness of
intellect and reason whereas the dark races were predominantly the representatives
th of emotion and passion and the mystery of magic and mysticism. This
c structure represented the west as ice, the sky, and father, whereas the east was fire,
d mother. This kind of discourse provided the European intellectual of the late 18th
centuries, many of who were otherwise disturbed by the colonial expansion and
thods, with the rather comforting idea that there were things that the master races
be maste_rof. The darkness was impenetrable as Adela Quested was to learn in
bar caves. So from Rudyard Kipling to E.M. Forster and beyond we have a number
ovelists and writers who allude to this seemingly-incomprehensibleand mysterious power
he dark and the warm that is chiefly characteristic of the 'orient'. Is Heathcliff from the
Incidentally, there is another dark tragic hero, African in origin, whose grip on the
ropean consciousness for four centuries is no less,powerfulthan Heathcliffs: Othello.
ill find more on 'orientalism' in the Blocks on Heart of Darkness and A Passage to

antic hero who dominates much of popular romance fiction even today
ome. Portrayed as a character who is difficult to understand and even
control and contain, he is beyond the ambit of reason and reasonableness. It
scinating as well as dangerous to encounter such characters. Nelly - Lockwood's
onse towards Heathcliff in many ways is the standard and stereotyped understanding as
would expect in romance novels. But that Heathcliff is not the impetuous and
edictable hero of a standard romance novel is made apparent by the contrast that is
vided by Heathcliffs unnatural and intense bonding with Catherine and his cold, calculated
dubious relationship with the infatuated Isabella. Nelly's description of Heathcliff on his
rn shows his transformation from an unkempt and rude young boy to a handsome man,
formed'. He has an intelligent look and his manner is dignified. It is not
bella, a sixteen year old girl, leading a protected life within the social, moral
nes of the landed aristocracy should developed an 'irresistible attraction'
ards a mysterious outsider who was a 'friend' of her sister-in law. In fact the setting is
rfect for a 'romance' or an 'affair ' to take place. Only the affair ends in disastrous results.
If demolishes the hero of romance in his analysis of Isabella's infatuation.

...picturing in me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences

from chivalrous devotion. I can hardly regard her in the light of a rational
creature, so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion of my
character, and acting on the false impressions she cherished. (U'H, p. 187)
1

is is a very strong indictment of the cult of the romance hero and the unrealism of it. If
athcliff is not totally a Byronic hero he is certainly not aromance hero, though he seems to
ssess all the externally requisite qualities for it. What kind of a hero is Heathcliff? It is
us that it is not possible to define or estimate Heathcliff within the normal moral
work of the conventional society with its standard categories of the heroic and
alnous. Even the concept of the dissenting hero, as was provided by the ideology of mid-
ian society does not encompass Heathcliff fully. It seems Emily Bronte is trying to
a hero without any heroic qualities. The reader is told of the various damnable actions
athcliff initiates but at the same time the reader's sympathy is drawn towards
eathcliff who even while he is being treated shabbily as an outcast tells Nelly 'Nelly, Make
cent, I am going to be good'. The problem is that one cannot define Heathcliff as a hero
ain in moral terms. Concepts of good and bad, evil and virtue, the noble and the
mnable do not seem adequate to define Heathcliff. So Heathcliff is a character who is
d not only against social exploitation and injustice but also against the moral universe
society believes in and which the readers share.
I
~ Wuthering Heights
3.3 HEATHCLIFF JUDGED: SECULAR AND
RELIGIOUS
In the novel, Heathcliff is described in a variety o f ways by the other characters. Mostly they
are derogatory. 'They are 'the evil beast', the 'unclaimed creature', 'uncivilized', 'without
refinement', 'an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone', 'naughty swearing boy', 'sullen,
patient child, hardened to ill-treatment', 'Judas', 'traitor', 'deliberate deceiver', 'black villain',
'monster', 'ungrateful brute', 'low ruffian', 'blackguard', eyes that are 'clouded windows of
hell', 'incarnate goblin' and 'fiend'. If an analysis o f these descriptive terms is made, we will
recognize that most o f them are to do with Heathcliff being uncivilized and socially
unacceptable. The other terms (italicized) are moral censors, that emerge from Christian
beliefs.

Heathcliffs socially unacceptable behavior can be explained from a number o f perspectives.

Physiologically, we may see him as a traumatized child who grows up feeling neglected and
bullied. A deeply hurt psyche, which on adulthood seeks not only revenge but is obssessed in
an infantile way with the object o f his love. Frustrated in love, he unleashes hatred.
Heathcliff has a fractured psyche, and the strange circumstances o f his childhood, makes his
adult personality deformed and perverse. He is also the third angle to the love triangle o f
Catherine, Edgar and himself. He is deprived of his love, not because he is rejected by
Catherine, but because he lacks social status and sanction and this is something he rebels
against with vengeance. In spite o f the fact that Catherine chooses to many Edgar he knows
that it is he whom she loves, because the factors that prompted her choice, hqd nothing to do
with their love.

Heathcliffs behaviour can be explained sociologically if we consider the kind of injustices

that are,perpetuated on him. By birth he is a social outcast for no fault o f his. Catherine is
accepted at the Grange but Heathcliff is not. In the Earnshaw household he is repeatedly
demeaned and wronged. As a child no one except Mr. Earnshaw protected him against
Hindley's hatred which was often violent. It can be argued that such victimization would
beget violence o f the kind that Heathcliff uses as an adult. Social oppression was tolerated by
the 'sullen patient child' who was 'hardened perhaps due to ill treatment'. and could stand
Hindley's blows 'without winking or shedding a tear'. When Heathcliff wreaks his revenge, it
is the pent-up anger o f past injustices that makes him'do what he does. The society, does not
accept such individualized retribution and our narrator, Nelly does not approve o f it. The
artificiality o f the civilized world as represented in the well-nurtured potted plants and flowers
at the Grange is contrasted with the wild naturalness of the moors where Heathcliff and
Catherine can abandon themselves, liberated from the oppresiveness o f the same artificial and
structured civilized society.

The judgments against Heathcliff which emerge from Christian mythography of the beast and
the fiend, of the devil and Judas are Ithink more problematic. Heaven, hell, sin, purgatory.
redemption, death and after-life are important aspects in the novel. Time and again Heathcliff
is associated with Hell. He seems to have come from the depths o f Hell and his destination
also seems to be Hell. Fire and burning, are also associated with Heathcliff to suggest the
tortures o f Hell. As a newly married wife, Isabella's opinion about her husband, as expressed
in her letter to Nelly, makes him out more like an unworldly evil beast than just a cruel man.
What position does Heathcliff have in the Christian moral scheme? Is he a Judas? Whom has
be betrayed? What are Emily Bronte's view on the matter.

A detailed biographical study o f the religious influences on the Brontes is provided by Tom
Winnifrith in the book The Brontes and Their Background: Romance and Realify. In chapters
titled 'Heaven and Hell' and 'The Brontes' Religion,' Winnifrith traces the inquences o f
Calvinisni, Methodism and Evangelical ideas on the Brontes and also how they consciously
challenged apd dissented from these influences. The Victorian society, fractured by the
increasing economic disparity between various economic classes was plagued by poverty,
disease and death. The urban slums were regularly visited with cholera and tuberculosis and
many people died. With poverty, there was a rise in crime, alcoholism and prostitution.
These essentially political and social concerns were given religious significance. Suffering,
damnation, salvation were ideas that became both relevant and urgent from the point of view
o f a theological debate. The main issue seemed to be to explain the lot o f the human being on
earth. Was suffering a kind o f pre-ordained punishment for sin committed. Did suffering
ensure salvation? Who was worthy o f heaven and who was to be condemned to he1I?
 ority of books that the Brontes possessed were theological in nature. Mr. Bronte was 'Gift Of God' :
ho had strong faith in the Church of England, and the Brontes derived their religious Heathcliff
s from many sermons, conversations and arguments that must have been a part of
rs. Branwell, the aunt, was a Methodist. When Branwell, the Bronte
d from service by the Reverend Mr. Robinson in 1845, it came as a blow
ily. Branwell had shown great academic and literary promise and his going first to
d then his employment as a tutor at Throp Green was seen as the beginning of a
t all ended in disaster, partly because of Branwell's alcoholism and
, ell was unable to face up to the reality of his life. The next three years
ep moral and physical decline of the young man. Branwell's 'fall' had a deep effect
rs, who were sympathetic to him. They watched with horror and helplessness as
brother wallowed in self-pity and degradation. What kind of a punishment was this?
I
t was Branwell's sin? Could he be saved? It was not easy to make a moral judgment and
of the Christian doctrines, of Methodism which concerned itself with salvation through
or the Evangelicals who believed in salvation through work, provided any answers to
nd personal problem.

as daughters of a clergyman, the Bronte sisters were certainly exposed to a lot of

as. Human actions in life, its moral judgment and the resulting punishment or
were thoughts that must have been deeply thought about by the intellectually aiert
view on these matters can be guessed from this statement she makes in

God is the God of justice and m&cy; then, assuredly, each pain that he
inflicts on his creatures, be they human or animal, rational or irrational, each
suffering of our unhappy nature is only a seed for that divine harvest which
will be gathered when sin having spent its last drop of poison, death having

t
thrown its last dart, both will expire on the funeral pyre of a universe in
flame, and will leave their former victims to an eternal realm of happiness
and glory.'
1
innifrith suggests that Emily's religious beliefs may be seen as the following sets of
xioms':
I
(1) Hell exists only on Earth, and no souls suffer torment after death.
I

I / (2) A soul that has Pffered sufficiently on earth attains its heaven.

(3) A soul that has not suffered is in limbo for a time, but is redeemed by
others' sufferings if not by its own.'

t mily Bronte was able to move away from the conventional theological beliefs of heaven and
ell; salvation and damnation, to the human condition as it was in life on earth. She
nderstood human suffering with greater understanding and sympathy. The struggles and
ains of this life were not to be carried on after death or into the next life. Sin and evil must
r itself completely here on earth and in life, for after death there is no sin and no evil,
is only happiness and glory. Heathcliffs hell in on Earth and he suffers sufficiently.
I
1 er his death, it seems all hatred has spent itself, a quiet peace descends on ~ u t h k r i n g
hrs. When Lockwood visits his grave, there is the 'benign sky', fluttering of moths
the heath, and the soft wind breathing through the grass. The storm and the soul's
t is over and Lockwood ponders how 'one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for the
leepers in that quiet earth.' One can safely guess that the sleepers in the quiet earth do not

I
I
ave unquiet slumbers, for Wuthering Heights has now been overwhelmed by the 'fragrance
f stocks and wall flowers" while Hareton and Cathy kiss each other before they go out for a
walk on the moors. The moors are no longer inhospitable.
I

I I Just before his death, Heathcliff has a rather interesting conversation with Nelly about
repentance, happiness and salvation. Let us mark some pieces of the conversation :

Heathcliff But you might as well bid a man struggling

in water, rest within arm's length of the shore ! I must
reach it first, and then 1'11 resa ...as to repenting of my
injustices, 1 have done no injustice, and I repent of
nothing- I am too happy, and yet 1 am not happy enough.
My soul's bliss kills my body, bu, joes not satisfy itself.
Wurlrerirrg Heiglra
Nelly You are aware, Mr. Heathcliff, that from the
time you were thirteen years old, you have lived a selfish,
unchristian life; and probably hardly had a Bible in your
hands, during all that period .... how far you have erred
from its [the Bible's] precepts, and how unfit you will be
for its heaven, unless a change takes place before you
die?.

Heathcliff I tell you, I have already attained my

heaven; and that of others is altogether unvalued and
uncoveted by me! (WH, pp.362-363)

Nelly views about death are conventional and emerge from Christian beliefs of repentance
leading to salvation. But for Heathcliff, there is no need of repentance as he feels he has
already attained heaven. One may interpret that as death uniting Heathcliff finally and
eternally to his beloved Catherine, but it could also mean that Heathcliff has been purged of
all the evil and sin and that beyond death he will suffer no more nor will he inflict any
suffering. We may argue that Emily Bronte's theological belief of suffering leading to
salvation, is essentially Calvinistic and masochistic. But often this suffering is not for one's
own self but for others. Also with the rejection of Christian notions of the promised Heaven
and the threat of Hell, Emily was, through her characters, defining a sympathetic
understanding about human suffering and its relation to class prejudice, greed, property and
money. Before the arrival of Heathcliff, Wuthering Heights is a place where everyone seems
to be happy and quite unaware of the world outside. With Heathcliffs introduction, it would
seem as if the suffering and torment of the outside world has been introduced into the hitherto
secluded world. It seems to me that Emily's consciousness of the injustices of the social
world, make her view life with a certain sadness. All suffer. There is no escape.
Significantly, Catherine complains about Edgar, 'What in the name of all he feels, has he to
do with books, when I am dying'. The dying here is both literal as well as symbolic of
suffering. There can be no 'philosophical resigsation'. The books do come back, at the end of
the novel, when Cathy is teaching Hareton how to read, but by then everybody has suffered
enough.

3.4 LET US SUM UP

Early critical evaluation of Wuthering Heights, in general, explained Heathcliffs character in

metaphysical terms highlighting the Gothic fascination with evil and the romantic urge
towards isolation and self-destruction. Uncomfortable questions about social and economic
injustices perpetuated on Heathcliff, his origin and parentage, as well as the powerful contrast
he presented to the rather structured and oppressive patriarchy as represented by Thrushcross
Grange were sidelined to the view that Wuthering Heights was in tune with Shakespearean
tragedies and that Emily Bronte 'might have been Shakespeare's younger sister'!' in the poetic
way she fascinates the imagination with the 'fresh dark air of tragic passion'.' In this sense
Heathcliff was not seen as a disrupter, or even a dissenter or rebel, only as a primitive,
uncontrolled and pure form of energy that had been unleashed with tragic consequences.
Some critics admired him for this energy and vitality and some agreed with Catherine's
0bse~ationthat Heathcliff is 'a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man', a bird of bad omen and
concentrates on the injustices he perpetuates on his victims.

Later critics, contextualised the text within historical and biographical frameworks and
worked out a rationale for Heathcliffs behavior. A more sympathetic and realistic appraisal
of Heathcliff was made from social and cultural analysis as well as from psychological
insights. Studies from the theological angle were also made. Heathcliff can be seen from a
purely realistic position but he can also be seen as unreal, and non-human. That is not to
dismiss him as the Devil's agent but to state that such a character is not possible as a normal
part of everyday reality but rather as the symbol of the elemental.

Nevertheless, it may be prudent not to strive towards a unified and singular understanding of
Heathcliff or for that matter any character in the novel. That was precisely the author's
intention. The fact that all explanations to explain Heathcliff remain inadequate need notbe
seen as a sign of weakness but on the contrary, that is the novel's strength; that it provides
 for many interpretations and perspectives. By not conforming to any set pattern of Gift Of Cod :
or structures of belief, by not seeking the one ultimate truth about Heathcliff, it is Heathcliff
to be closer to many truths.

3.4 GLOSSARY

Su versive to work against a system of government or authority or

,&as
p Da inism '-3s that emerged from the anthropological and
s~ciological work of Charles Darwin, particularly the

i Ca inism
notion of natural selection and adaptation.
evolved out of the powerful preaching of John Calvin
(1 509- 1564). As a part of the Reformation movement
Calvinism opposed the practices of the Catholic Church
and stressed that only the Grace of God could save an
individual and that Christianity was intended to reform all
I of society.
M thodism This Christian religious movement was founded by John
Wesley in the late 1720's. The Methodists worked for a
Christian life-style in the world. In the nineteenth century
Methodism influenced the trade union movement in
England and the abolition of slavery in the USA.
E ngelicalism The fastest growing wing of the Anglican Church, also
known as the Low Church. It emphasized the personal
and Biblical basis of faith.

I
316 QUESTIONS

I .( What is the significance of Heathcliffs dark complexion? What similarities can you
I draw between Heathcliff and Othello? Can you think of any other character with similar
( features? Do you know of any popular romance writing where the hero is often depicted
1 as 'tall dark and handsome'?
I
I
I
2. Heathcliff is often associated with Christian symbols of evil. What are Emily Bronte's
views on religion and what do you make of Heathcliff from that perspective?
1

Heathcliff brutalizes Hareton the same way that he was brutalized by Hindley. But
L Hareton does not go the Heathcliff way. Why? Give reasons for your answer.

What do you understand by suffering? Does Heathcliff suffer or does he inflict

suffering? Discuss.

51 Do you think Heathcliff is real? Does the novel present him as a realistic character or is
he only symbolic?

4.7 SUGGESTED READING

I

'Vinnifrith, Tom. The Brontes and their Background : Romance and Reality, London:
dacmillan, 1973.

I
I
References

omWinnifrith. The Bronfes and their Background : Romance and Reeliry.London:

MAcmillan, 1973. p 63. From 'Five Essay Written in French' by Emily Jane Bronte, trans.
Lorine White Nagel (Austin, 1948.), pp 18-19.

'l bid. pg.64

3
Angus M. Mackay, Westrninister Review, 1898. in Emily Bronte : Wuthering Heights, ed.
Miriam Allott. CaseBook, Macmillan, 1970. 1992, p.94
4
A.C. Swinburne 'The Fresh Dark Air of Tragic of Tragic Passion' 1883.in Emily Bronte :
Wufhering Heights, ed. Miriam Allott, CaseBook, Macmillan, 1970, 1992, p.88
 NIT 4 'YOU LOOK LIKE A LADY NOW' :
SIGNIFICANCE OF CATHERINE

I
S ructure

Obejectives
lntroduction
Wild and Domestic
Marriage
Prisons
Let Us Sum Up
Glossary
Questions
Suggested Reading

40 OBJECTIVES

the title of the unit indicatb, we will discuss the character of Catherine in relation to some
and stereotypical images of the woman that are particularly relevant in the
ctorian age. Like Heathcliff, Catherine too is potentially subversive and revolts against
ideologies and structures of her time. We will also discuss the
nineteenth century England and how the author draws our attention
marriage and imprisonment; particularly for the woman.

I,

dll INTRODUCTION

a the beginning of Chapter 7, in Wuthering Heights we read:

Cathy stayed at Thrushcross Grange five weeks: till Christmas. By the time
her ankle was thoroughly cured, and her manners much improved. The
mistress visited her often in the interval, and commenced her plan of reform
by trying to raise her self-respect with fine clothes and flattery, which she
took readily; so that, instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the
house, and rushing to squeeze us all breathless, there 'lighted from a
handsome black pony a very dignified person, with brown ringlets falling
from the cover of a feathered beaver, and a long cloth habit, which she was
obliged to hold up with both hands that she might sail in. Hindley lifted her
from her horse, exclaiming delightedly, " Why, Cathy, you are quite a
beauty! 1 should scarcely have known you : you look like a lady now.
Isabella Linton is not to be compared with her, is she Fra~ces?""lsabella
has not her natural advantages," replied his wife : "but she must mind and
not grow wild again here. Ellen, help Miss Catherine off with her things -
stay, dear, you will disarrange your curls - let me untie your hat." (WH,
p.93)

e first part of the title of this unit is taken from the above passage. Five weeks at
ushcross Grange transforms Catherine from a 'wild, wicked slip' of a girl to a 'lady'.
dley is taken by surprise to see his sister, Catherine, dressed in a way which makes her
ok quite grown up and he thinks she looks like a 'lady' . This often happens when one sees
ng people in adult or formal clothes for the first time. But there are other dimensions to
issue, which arises with Hindley's use of the culturally coded term - 'lady'. As defined in
e Concise Oxford Dictionary, a 'Lady' is a woman who is a 'being of superior social status
as having the refined manners associated with this'. One would expect a certain kind of
viour from a 'lady' in terms of manners of speech, dress, habits and social etiquette that
d make her distinguished and distinguishable from the $st of society so that she is
entified as a 'being of superior social status'. The definition suggests that one may acquire
Wutlrering Heiglrts the manners of a lady even if one does not have superior social status. Being a 'lady' can be '
thus an external semblance that can be acquired. In this passage most of the signifiers that
make Catherine a 'lady' are external. 'Brown ringlets' (her hair must have been combed in
that way and Catherine has to be careful that it does not get disarranged), 'feathered beaver',
'long cloth habit' and the 'handsome black pony' all add up to make a lady out of Catherine.
In the paragraph that follows the one quoted above we are informed that she is also wearing a
'grand plaid silk frock', 'white trousers', and 'burnished shoei'. Though the dogs come
rushing to welcome her, she has to be careful that they do not spoil her clothes. As Nelly is
making the Christmas cake, she is covered with flour so she too has to restrain herself from
hugging Catherine. When Catherine pulls off her gloves it reveals fingers that are
'wonderfully whitened with doing nothing and staying indoors'. By implication it would
mean ladies generally stay indoor and in terms of work, do precious little. This also refers to
the fact that prior to her visit to Thrushcross Grange, Catherine spent a lot of her time
'ou;doors' in the moors roaming with Heathcliff and 'growing wild'. Finally and ironically,
comes Hindley's comment that, Catherine 'has her natural advantages' of having the looks of
someone belonging to the 'superior social status', and cannot be compared with Isabella in this
regard.

Nelly's narration indicates that she, like other members of the Earnshaw household, approves
of Catherine's transformation. It seems that the stay at the Grange had 'cured' Catherine
physically as well as culturally. After all, at the Granch, Mrs. Linton had proceeded to
'improve' Catherine methodically and began by 'trying to raise her self respect with fine
clothes and flattery', For Hindley and his wife, this transformation gives hope that it would
'succeed in separating the two friends', that is Catherine and Heathcliff, forrhere is always the
danger that Catherine could lose her new found status in the 'wild' company of Heathcliff.
Though everybody is impressed with Catherine's new demeanour, Catherine's first inquiry is
about Heathcliff, who in stark contrast to her is wearing clothes 'which had seen three months'
service in mire and dust' and his hair was uncombed. Only Nelly had showed the 'kindness
of calling him a dirty boy' which means that categories of clean and dirty are definitions that
work in civilized society but do not apply to Heathcliff. His position on the opposite side of
the social scale makes him a savage who had been abandoned by all except Catherine.

In spite of her dress and her new found decorum, Catherine gives up being lady-like the
minute she sees Heathcliff and 'flew to embrace him' and bestows 'seven or eight kisses on
his cheek within a second'. With that, for a moment it seems that all hopes of Catherine's
becoming a 'lady' collapse for her fondness for the uncivilized brute is something that is
beyond the understanding of the members of the supposedly civilized world. So, it seems that
Catherine's present standing of being a 'laciy' is fragile and will break at the slightest
provocation. .

In the novel there is a deliberate blurring of what is acquired and superficial with what is
inherited or natural; with what is desirable and what one actually desires. This is one of the
major strategies that Emily Bronte adopts to explore and expose the structures and symbols
that create and represent hierarchy in social organization. We will see right through the
novel, that being a 'lady' is a kind of artificial imposition that Catherine will time and again
resist. Later in the novel, Heathcliff will return to ~ u t i r k r i ~
n ~e i ~ h tlooking
s, dignified, like
a gentleman, divested of roughness. Just as Catherine's outward poise and self-control are
unable to contain her natural impetuosity, behind Heathcliffs external dignity lies the 'half
civilized ferocity'.'~hou~h much refined and polished in his m a n n e r s ,
He a t h c I iff's a c t i o n s a r e 'savage' in the most violent and destructive sense of the word.
Emily Bronte shows in the novel how the categories of the cultured and the 'savage' are
interchangeable, Heathcliff is a savage who civilizes himself bat plots to turn Hareton intd a
savuge. Isabella loses her social position by running away from her tyrannical husband, she
loses social standing and economic power and is driven to destitution, and her infant son too
could have been, like Heathcliff, found in the streets of some industrial city for a kind
patriarch to take care of, had she not asked her brother to take care of the infant. But it is
Heathcliff who provides his son, Linton, with all the external trappings of a person belonging
to high society, and Linton, actually 'lords' over everyone, though in spirit he remains mean
and selfish. Hareton's degeneration through wine and gambling hardly does any credit to his
position as one belonging to the genteel landowning class of the society. While Catherine
moves from the Hsights to the Grange, Cathy has to move from the Grange to the Heights and
has to unlearn the assumptions of superiority that were once a part of her upbringing at the '
Grange. In fact both Cathy and Hareton go through a process of unlearning, and discarding
what they had acquired before they can discover their real selves and their real affection for
each other. That this unlearning has to be done through the study of books completes the
 y. It is to Emily Bronte's credit that in mid-Victorian England, when to oecome a 'lord' 'You Look Like A Lady
a 'lady' was perhaps the ultimate goal in upward social mobility of the aspiring middle Now' :Siginificance Of
es flush with money acquired from new industry and the colonial-imperial adventures, Catherine
is able to systematically challenge and expose the values that create social hierarchy. She
llectually explores and interrogates the notion and system of 'civilizing' by which
iduals enter an artificial world of class, organized religion, social intercourse and
ritarian family life.

4.k WILD AND DOMESTIC

Age. Education was a necessary prerequisite for upward social mobility in a society

malecentric Victorian society tried to balance the new roles of women with the
ly defined role of her being essentially domestic, playing faithfilly the part of the
and mother. There was also a well-defined role of the woman as a
d a wide spectnun; one end of which was the d6mure, shy, evasive
ned by handsome men and on the other was the vivacious, seductive,
d aggressive beauty who stunned men. The literature of the time provides us with
ese well recognizable stereotypes. As a compromise and ideally, the eligible,
ictorian bachelor would have been happy to look for a spouse who was educated,
n the manners of high society ('being a lady') but was subservient enough to look
kitchen and children as a dutifil and excellent wife. One is not surprised to note that
re many schools for women where specialized training was imparted to young
rides in the manners and etiquette of high society. That this education was
d often just an imposition forced upon by the patriarchal society are issues that
most women writers of the age. You may have noted that while the socio-
lems form the core of many Dickens's novels, the issues ielated to the woman
in the society are worked out artistically in the complex novels of Jane
and Emily Bronte and later, George Eliot.

ovel Wuthering Heights, it is evident that the controlling power rests with the patriarch
ome. Whether it is the Earnshaw's or the Linton's, social power is in the hands of the
the family which he imposes on the rest of the family. Such a one-way exercise of
accepted as a legal and moral right of the patriarch to discipline the members of the
d. Catherine's wildness, her refisal at being domesticated, is a rebellion against this
system. She does not rebel against her father or her husband openly, but her
to accept the codes of discipline that are to be obeyed without question. Since
an outsider and no humanistic effort is made to 'domesticate' him, his wildness
quated with Catherine's. Catherine's 'wildness' has its genesis in the unbalanced
ion of society. The girl child is not objected to for being a 'tomboy' but as she
reasingly, her life is determined and controlled with greater authority as
ned by patriarchal society. The cause of Catherine's nmitigated affection for
liff, even while she plays the role of a res~onsiblewoman and the wife of a gentlemen,
Wuthering Heights can be attributed to the childhood sympathies and memories o f the many escapades that slie
and Heathcliff planned and executed together. When Catherine says ' I all1 Heathcliff', it is
not as if she has un-sexed herself and become a man. nor should it be understood only in
spiritual terms as the soul's unification. Rather 1 would think that by that declaration Catherine
displaces the power equation that puts the man in a superior position and asserts her equality.

The fact that being a 'lady' is clearly an economic status is recog~iisedby Catherine, because
by marrying Edgar she does become the 'lady' o f Thrushcross Granch. She explains to Nelly:

Nelly, I see now that you tliink me a selfish wretch; but did it never strike
you that if Heathcliff and I married. we should be beggars, whereas, if I
marry Linton I can aid Heathcliffto rise, and place him out o f my brother's
power. ( WH, p. 122)

Nelly is used as a sounding board. as ifslie was Catherine's conscience. Catherine has realized
that her 'love' for Heathcliff cannot survive in a bourgeois society. Which means that 'love'
ought to be realistic and marriage succeeds only when the parameters o f econoniics have been
considered. Catherine's love for Heathcliff is totally utopian or even fantastic and it
transgresses the conventionality o f its times. Though Catherine is co~isciousthat she and
Edgar are as different to each other as 'moon-beam from lightening or frost from fire' she
decides to marry Edgar because it is a realistic position to take. Such tragic but pragmatic
choices must have been common in the age where marriage was oflen seen as an economic
stepping-stone for the man's advancement in life and the wife as a presentable social
acquisition. Catherine is the representative o f the many women who were domesticated and
played the role o f a lady by the sheer force o f realistic considerations in a bourgeois society.
I n contrast, Catherine's 'wildness" is the rejection bf her gender identity as defined in a
bourgeois society. If giving birth to children is an important aspect o f this gender definition it
is highly significant that Catherine dies at childbirth, Catherine is destroyed; she cannot be
accommodated in the patriarchal society because o f her refusal to adhere to the codes
femininity o f which familial loyalty was paramount.

4.3 MARRIAGE

In most Victorian romance novels the plot centred around the issue o f marriage. It became a
convention that the hero and the heroine o f the novel around whom the plot was structured,
ended up getting married to each other. To many women authors, i t was this convention, and
the institution o f marriage that gained their attention. Most o f Jane Austen's, Charlotte
Bronte's, and George Eliot's novels has marriage as an important issue if not the central issue.
Marriage provides an ideal backdrop for the study o f a society's ideology regarding economics
and money, class and culture and social power in relation to gender equations. In W~rthering
Heights it is debatable if marriage is central to the plot but there is no doubt that the issue o f
marriage poses disturbing questions. Consider the following :

1. Catherine does not marry Heathcliff. She marries Edgar.

2. Heathcliff marries lsabella whom he does not love but who is infatuated by
him.
3. Heathcliff forces Cathy to marry Linton whom she does not love but who is
loved by Linton in a selfish way.
4. Cathy marries a reformed Hareton.
5. Lockwood dreams o f marrying Cathy but discovers first that she is a widow
and then later that she is in love with Hareton.
6. Heathcliff marries Catherine symbolically; in death.

Most o f the marriages in the novel end in separations. 'There are separations due to death, but
more importantly there are separations because o f mental incompatibility.

1. Francis dies early leaving a motherless child to Hindley.

2. lsabella separates from Heathcliff and then dies leaving a motherless child.
3. Catherine dies young, leaving a motherless child.
4. Linton dies leaving a beautiful young widow -Cathy.
5. Lockwood comes to Thrushcross Grange after an unfruitful affair with a
young woman.
 ind that the two marriages that of Heathcliff and Isabella and Linton and Cathy 'You Look Like A Lady
marily as part of Heathcliffs strategy to acquire the entire wealth and property of Now' : Significance Of
's and the Linton's. It is only Cathy and Hareton who seem to follow the Catherine
ttern of romance and wedlock but it is questionable if their relationship is of
I' kind. Cathy's romance with Hareton is unorthodox. Cathy and Hareton in
their relationship are placed as polarities. One is educated and 'civilized' and
and uncivilized. But both are destitute and at the complete mercy of
ly on the basis of their instincts that they come close to each other. While
as to educate himself, Cathy has to 'condescend' to accept Hareton as he is. Within
s of her stay at Wuthering Heights, Nelly notes that ' the frost had set in, and, in
he was forced to condescend to our company, more and more.' (WH, p.328)
inced that Cathy can only free herself from the clutches of Heathcliff if she
again. That marriage does not necessarilyfree the woman is something that
derstand. Since Nelly's views are conditioned by patriarchal ideology she
e suffering of each of the women in the novel as reflection of their social
loss of identity. Cathy is able to retain her identity. Ironically she is able to free
her past by manying Hareton who is created by Heathcliffs hateful mind but
y Cathy's sympathy and love.

became a subject of discussion and concern in the Victorian age mainly because :he
istics of what was defined as 'family' was undergoing a great change due to rapid
ization. There emerg6dPwhatwas to be known as the 'nuclear family'. The nuclear
be defined as the unit of parents and children living under one roof, bound
strong emotional ties and relatively detached from the surrounding community
er blood relations. Sociologists differ in their view as to the role that
ion played in the evolution of the nuclear family, but it is certain that the middle
nineteenth century England -the bourgeoisie - were a great supporter and
uclear families. Reigned by, for most part of the nineteenth century, by a female
erself an embodimerlt of domestic values, the key ideas of the age were stability
ce. Victorian society looked to the nuclear family as an immutable institution
e essential stability and continuance. Tracing the origins of the modem
sociologists like Paula-Marantz Cohen argue that the family which has its
romantic love of a couple is stabilized and completed by the third aspect of
le, which is the child. In her essay on Wuthering Heights she explains:

Wuthering Heights is a novel about [such] chronic triangulation. The

triangulation process occurs first within the family system of Wuthering
I Heights and then within the family system at Wuthering Heights and
Thrushcross Grange. The-triangled element is the daughter of two
successive generations. The first daughter is destroyed; the second daughter
escapes destruction and is rehabilitated. Yet despite the novel's effort to
regularize character and relationships in the end, Bronte's elaboration of the
dynamics of the daughter's role reveals basic structural problems in the
nuclear family as it attempts to maintain its stability as a relatively closed
relational system.'

ntz Cohen argues that within the norms of a nuclear family, Catherine plays a'
le between her father/brother/husband (domesticity) and Heathcliff (wildness).
rnshaw's death and Hindley's marriage, Catherine and Heathcliff are left to grow
s daily' without the stabilizing influence of the either the brother or the father.
ess is suddenly'arrested with Catherine's visit to the Grange. Instead of Catlly
lessly on the moors, she is fixed on the sofa with the Linton family showering
r. Significantly she is being watched by Edgar, who is inside the room and also
ho is 'spying' from the outside: So, Edgar does not actually replace Heathcliff,
himself in the triangle that Hindley had vacated'.' Making a psychological
ohen feels that Catherine's illness and occasional hysteria after her marriage
to the escalation of the conflict between Heathcliff and her husband which
into invalidism. So the two sides of Catherine, one her reckless self and
self due to illness are the two ways in which she tries to bridge the two
gle and mediate between the Heathcliff and Edgar.

female position has become the locus of great tension, with the
claims of that position made manifest thr, ~ghthe strossli~l
effects on the heroine's mind and bodv. But Catliv's ICalhcrinc'sl case also
 involves the valorization of the female position in a way unimaginable in
Wtrtlrering Heights
the traditional open lineage family. For .instead of being anon-
individualised object of exchange, Cathy [Catherine] is valuable in herself;
she has acquired an unique subjectivity through her mediating role that
makes her irreplaceable?

So Catherine must endure a series of stressful relationships in which she is principally at the
centre. Though she is the controlling authority in these relationships yet because she is at the
centre of the stress she is destroyed. She tells Heathcliff 'You and Edgar have broken my
heart, Heathcliff! And you both come to bewail the deed to me, as if you were the people to
-
be pitied ! I shall not pity you, not 1. You have killed me and thriven on it, I think.' (WH,
p.195) The heliographic that Lockwood discerns on the walls of the bedchamber at
Wuthering Heights is the symbolic remnants of that struggle and tension that Catherine had
endured. Lockwood sees 'names repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small-
Catherine Earmhaw; here and there varied to Catherine Heathcl~fiand then again to
Catherine Linton'. ( WH, p.6 1)

4.4 PRISONS

Theprison is an oft repeated motif in Wuthering Heights. During his first visit, Lockwood is
in danger of being imprisoned in Wuthering Heights not only because the weather outside
does not permit him to travel back to Thrushcross Grange but also because the ghosts of the
past will trap him with their terrible memories. The writings on the wall become 'a glare of
white letters' that are 'as vivid as spectres'. Then as Lockwood spends a restless night, he has
a nightmare. The noise of a fir tree branch that 'rattled its dry bones' against the window pane
is annoying and Lockwood puts his hand through the window in an attempt to catch the
branch, but instead he is grasped by 'the fingers of a ice cold hand'. The voice of Catherine
Earnshaw implores Lockwood to let her in but Lockwood refuses to do so and tries to
violently release his hand from the ghostly clasp. The trauma of being trapped in a nightmare
is not exclusively Lockwood's experience. Each of the characters experience it in different
.Nays. Isabella has a harrowing time at Wuthering Heights, imprisoned by Heathcliff. Linton
is forced to leave the comfortable environs of Thrushcross Grange and stay a miserable life
full of complaints at Wuthering Heights. Cathy feels imprisoned by Heathcliff as his
daughter-in-law. On a visit to Wuthering Heights even Nelly feels trapped by Heathcliff.
Heathcliffs visit to Thrushcross Grange to meet Catherine are fraught with tension and
secrecy. But it is Catherine who is able to comprehend her lack of freedom as something
more than just physical confinement. She says:

the thing that irks me most is this shattered prison, after all. I'm tired, tired
of being enclosed here. I'm wearying to escape into that glorious world, and
to be always there; not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it
through the walls of an aching heart; but really with it and in it. (WH, p. 196)

This I think is the most eloquent expression of a woman's sense of being imprisoned in a
society that is determined by forces of economics and denies the woman her individual
identity. Catherine who at this point wishes to be with the world and in it, represents the
writer herself, who was like many other women writers of her age seeking an escape from the
traditional world wide culture of female subordination effected first through paternal
domination and later through married life and child bearing and thereby denying her the share
of the world. That writing, as an occupation was itself a transgression, a breaking out of the
prison, into the so called man's world was well-recognized by most Victorian women writeis.

4.5 LET US SUM UP

What makes Catherine an unforgettable character is her ability to be on the side of the
underdog and assert her voice for justice. She is always on the side of the victim. She warns
lsabella of what was in store for her if she married Heathcliff, because she was genuinely
concerned about her sister-in-law's well-being in a world where men were ruthless when it
came to money and property. Her sense of the 'glorious world', a world perhaps free of
discrimination and iniustices, is what aligns her to Heakhcliff. She and Heathcliff, as they
 across the moors and the wind-swept cliffs, are indeed the children of nature. If . 'You Look Like .-\Lady
y makes an outcast of them, then civilization must necessarily mean a denial of nature Now' : Cntherine
e natural. It is against her instinct that Catherine chooses Edgar who represents society
and fulture symbolized by the neat potted plants and the library full of books at the Grange.

Catt erine may not be the heroine who is in search of her identity and destiny, like other
herclines in novels written by Charlotte Bronte, and George Eliot. But Catherine's is a
wor'lan's anguished voice, a voice that asserts it independence as well as revolts against male
cod fication and control. Hers is a haunting presence, always to remind of that which has
bee !I denied to her. Her right to be 'let in' and to be a part of the world.
I
l
4.t GLOSSARY
I

the industrialists
the new economically dominant social class
that emerged with industrialisation and capitalism
where as the term 'sex' is used to mark
biological distinction between man and woman, gender is
used to specify the socially constructed difference
between man and woman which leads to forms of
inequality, exploitation and oppression.

I,

dL7 OUESTIONS

1
I I What is the significance of Hindley's remark that his sister looks like a 'lady"? Is 'lady'
the same as memsaab'?
I .

i . What importance does money have in Catherine's choice of marrying Edgar. Are you
convinced with her arguments? Do you have any alternative explanation?

. Do you agree with the view that Catherine is in the centre of a stressful relationship first
between Heathcliff and Hindley and later Heathcliff and Linton. Do you think she is the
controlling authority? Discuss.

Make a list of the things that Catherine does or says which you think is her protest against
the society in which she lives. Make another list which you think is her conformity of
social norms and patterns. Which list impresses you most and why?

Is there a contradiction between the Catherine that loves Heathcliff and the Catherine that
marries Edgar? Give reasons for your answer.

I
6 . Do you think Nelly evaluates Catherine in the right perspective. Is that the way one
wornan should understand another woman?

14.8 SUGGESTED READING

,
I Chithan. Edward; Winnifrith, Tom. Bronte Facts and Bronte Problems, London: Macmillan.

I1
Cranny-Francis,
1983. Anne. Feminist Fiction: Feminist Uses of Generic Fiction. Polity
Press,Cambridge, 1990.
( Miles. Rosalind. The Female Form: Women Writers and the Conquest of the Novel,
I Routledge, London, 1987.
, Smith, Anne. ed. The Art ofEmily Bronte, London: Vision Press, 1976.
1 Spark, Muriel. The Essence ofthe Brontes, Peter Owen: London, 1993.

I
Wutliering Heights References

'Paula Marantz, Cohen. The Daughterh~Dilemma:Family Process and the Nineteenth-

Century Domestic Novel, University ofMichigan: University o f Michigan Press, 199 1 . p. 90

Ibid, p.95

'lbid, p.98
 I

uVIT 5 WUTHERING HEIGHTS:ONE

HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS
LATER

Objectives
Introduction
Criticism of Wuthering Heights : An Assessment
The Disruption
Let Us Sum Up
Glossiry
Questions
Suggested Reading.

5.0 OBJECTIVES
I

nit we wish to make an appraisal of the many ways in which critics and readers have
analyze and interpret the novel since its publication almost one hundred and fifty
. As an Indian reader, at the end of the twentieth century, our understanding of the
be influenced by social and intellectual concerns that are of immediate importance
e previous units we have discussed the various important issues that the novel
with and we have seen how it is possible to read between the lines and discover
ningls. Why does the novel stimulate the modem reader emotionally and
y? In this chapter, I would like to pose certain questions about the novel's
us specifically as Indian readers. I would also draw your attention to some major
oaches that are comparatively recent .

5.1 INTRODUCTION

mber, 1854, in a letter to William Allingham, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, wrote of

ts as a story in which 'the action is laid in Hell'. If Rossetti's 'Hell' is the
onic concept of Hell -a place where evil reigns supreme then intrinsic to
s the notion of 'the fall'. As punishment for disobeying God, Adam and Evefall
and become susceptible to the forces that may take them towards Hell. The fall
/disregard of the divine with the possibility of a collaboration with evil. In
gs, Heathcliff is surely the central figure - for he is the one who emerges
reated by some dark powers and for the most part, the novel is seen as the
o f the devil seeking to wreak havoc on the seemingly pre-lapsarian world
eights and the Thrushcross Grange.

Sandra Gilbert wrote an essay on Wuthering Heights entitled 'Looking Oppositely:

onte's Bible of ell". Gilbert accepts that the 'fall' is central to the novel's scheme,
ically alters the Miltonic parable by invoking the Blakeanparallel, 'This fall,.. is
t a hell. It is a fall from Hell into heaven, not a fall from grace (in the religious
fall into grace (in the cultural sense).' Pursuing a feminist line of argument
er essay shifts the focus from Heathcliff to Catherine and locates the problematic
nd the 'fall' in Catherine's passage fiom innocence to experience. From 'nature to
will discuss Gilbert's famous essay in detail, but at this point we ought to note
ssetti to Gilbert is a long journey in the criticism of the novel. This critical
ill goes on and the fact that we are studying the novel is proof that the novel still
ant and meaningful for us (in India) even after one hundred and fifty years since
in the middle of the Victorian Age.
Wutlrering Heiglrts
5.2 CRITICISM OF WUTHERING HEIGHTS : AN

At this point, it would be pertinent to make an assessment of the history of criticism that
concerns Wuthering Heights. Patsy Stoneman's Introduction in Wuthering Heights :Emily
Bronte. Ncw Casebooks, Basingstoke: Macmillan. 1993; and Linda H. Peterson's essay 'A
Critical History of Wuthering Heights' in Case Studies in Contemporary Literature, Boston :
Bedford Books of St. Martin's press, 1992, are useful for this purpose in the sense that they
trace the history of the novel's criticism and direct us to important critical material.

The available critical material on Wuthering Heights can be chronologically divided into
three phases. Criticism that emerged following the publication of the novel to the early years
of the twentieth century may be called the early phase. Critics who claim the novel as an
important work of art and scrutinize it without the constrictions of having to seek moral
meanings or social messages in the text dominate the middle phase. The last phase, marked by
the critical views of modem critics in the last twenty years, has been particularly exciting.
Many of the questions asked by earlier critics and readers and many of the issues that had
generated interesting debates are given fresh insights by these modernist critics equipped with
sophisticated critical tools that they acquire from Marxist, Structuralist, Feminist and
Deconstructionist theories.

Early criticism (pre 1930's) which is available in the Case Book Series edited by Miriam
Allott acknowledges the work as powerful and views the novel as an extraordinary piece of
writing by an extraordinary writer. The critics discussed at length the author's presentation of
the 'evil incarnate' and the 'tragic and terrible consequences' of physical and mental violence
in a social world where moral schemes are deliberately flouted. The mystery and the haunting
quality of the novel and its powerful dramatic language were also commented upon. It was as
if the author wished to communicate something intensely personal. Early criticism was thus
preoccupied with biographical, historical and literary details that could be fitted into the novel.
It was this form of criticism that linked Wuthering Heights to Byron, the French and German
Gothic tales and of course to Emily Bronte's Gondal poems. In the Gondal Poems, Emily
Bronte had created a fictional world of a fair-haired heroine who loves intensely but is fickle
in her lover with several dark-haired heroes. This heroine and the heroes were seen by critics
as the forerunners of Catherine and Heathcliff. Much of this criticism was moralistic. The
coarseness of language, particularly in the profane dialogues, outraged many critics. .Critics
also pointed out that there was confusion and 'wildness' not only in the way the story was
narrated but even in the moral positions of the characters. The critics struggled to find
meaning of the text, specially the moral meanings they were looking for, which could
conveniently coincide with their sense of social morality and justice.

This initial probing into the text, helped in the formulation of the many issues that concern
the modern critic. By the first quarter of the twentieth century we encounter a new form of
critical outlook. These critics were less bothered with the moral questions in the novel and
were more concerned with the artistic achievement. For them the text was crucial and central,
which they regarded as a work of art and valued it for the literary skills that went into its
construction. These critics from the schools of New Criticism and Formalism felt that the
incomprehensible and elusive quality of WutheringHeights, its complex symbolism and
imagery, strange characterizations and suggestiveness, were actually its strength, because the
meanings, which were perhaps universal and timeless were skillfully hidden within the texture
of t h w a n d the artistic ingenuity was the way the text teased the readers to discover for
themselves these hidden meanings. Nevertheless, F.R. Leavis did not include Wuthering
Heights in the Great Tradition of the English novelists. For Leavis, the novel was an
'astonishing work' but it was only a kind of 'sport', meaning that it was only a kind of
. personal indulgence and not profound enough to find company with novelists like Jane
Austen, Dickens and George Eliot.

Ironically, it was during this phase of criticism that the novel was actually rehabilitated as a
serious work of fiction. Critics worked out in detail how the novel was perfectly schematized
in terms of time and chronology and how the narrative shifts give the reader a false but
carefully devised impi-ession of confusion. They pointed out Emily Bronte's impressive
knowledge in legal matters relating to property and inheritance laws.' Lord David Cecil
argued that the novel was artistically worked out within the cosmic principles of 'storm' and
 i
cal '. The conflict in the novel was not between 'right' and 'wrong' but rather 'between like : One
Il'utlreri~rg-Meigj~s
and nlike'.' Dorothy Van Ghent's famous study4 draws our attention to the recurring motif Hundred And Fifty years
of e window in the text. The windows demarcate space in terms of 'inside ' and 'outside', Later
and Iso separate the 'human' from the alien or the 'other'. The tension in the novel arises out
oft e friction between two kinds of realities, one that is raw and natural and the other that is
refi ed and cultured but restrictive and often unnatural.

began to look into the text more carefully, particularly the way the narrative was
, it became evident that the novel had more to communicate than just a haunting tale
vers. In an analysis of the narrative, the reader's relationship with the two narrators,
d to distance oneself from both was pointed out.' The patterns of imagery
e critics and they discerned how these patterns helped in the monumentalisation
otions."et another view point was inspired by Freudian psychoanalysis that
e novel in Freudian terms of male and female sexual symbolism,,the play of
'psychic energy' in the relationship of Catherine and Heathcliff.

characterized by the abundance and multiplicity of interpretations that emerged

xtual reading. lnstead of concentrating on a single important message from the
rticulated and demonstrated the richness and value of the text that lay in its
levels of meaning and suggestion. In this climate of plurality, Emily Bronte's life and
s viewed dispassionately and objectively. lnstead of simply establishing biographical
ily Bronte's life, Marxist critics like Arnold Kettle and
how the text directly registers the disturbed and changing
context of the mid-nineteenth century England and a certain
d in the way the social conditions of the time are represented.
le ways of life' and the social order in which men and women were treated as
presentation of an unjust social order with Heathcliff as a symbol of the
fthe working class were issues that the early Marxist and

em theoretical studies in philosophy, anthropology, linguistics and culture having

impact on literary'criticism, the last twenty years have generated a completely new
icism of the novel. It becomes more difficult to label these critical interpretations
be seen as a part of intellectual debates that the critics are engaged in from
theoretical positions. These critics are chiefly influenced by what is
. Patsy Stoneman defines structuralism as a movement that combined
pology and showed 'that cultural behaviors of all kinds have a pattern
language and that the meanings we find in these patterns are socially
red.'" Structuralism made a deep impact on the way one read a text. Since
was related to culture, the text signified more than just the literal meaning and
igh quality and invariably engaged'the reader in 'pluralities' or multiple levels of
. What distinguishes structural reading from the earlier critics was that the
list was not treating the text as a puzzle or a code that needed to be solved or
t was not as if the text contained some central meaning which once discovered
ething that everybody would accept and agree upon. Structuralists like Frank
ould prefer the text to be suggestive of many meanings and many possibilities

posite scale, are the critics who practice Deconstruction which challenge the
ist approach. Inspired by the theoretical works of Jacques Derrida, the
ctionist would posit that though the structuralist analyzes language and culture
Ily and objectively and examines how meanings are produced, there is always the
y of making some sort of subjective value judgments by which one meaning is
over another. These preferences may make one go back to a central or core meaning
d thereby defeat the very purpose of opening the text to plural meanings. The
ionist denies any core, centrality or truth. By undoing the construction of meaning
cultural terms, the deconstructionist critics have been able to open up the
o wish to analyze the text in order to determine how various cultural
udices, and preferences work into the text and how the dominant value system
the text. In the present day context, the reading of Wuthering Heights is not
ing of a novel by Emily Bronte, but also goes into the reading is the reader's
sition as well as hisher knowledgelignorance of the history of the way the text
d interpreted since its publication. The structuralists and the
s have definitely enlarged the scdpe of literary criticism.
Wuthering Heights Deconstruction is a post-structuralist approach. There are other post-structuralist approaches.
Michael Foucault, the French historian theorizes on 'discourse'. Discourse is the accepted
way of describing and evaluating experience. ~oucaultargues that power; social political and
economic is maintained through 'discourse'. We can see how many 'discourses' are present in
the text of Wuthering Heights. There is a religious discourse that draws upon the subjects of
heaven, hell, sin, redemption and salvation. There is also a discourse on romanticism with its
priority on ideal love and heroic isolation; and also the discourse on magic, myth and folklore.
The purpose of discourse is to prioritize and centralize certain issues and marginalise some
others. Discourse may run simultaneously but at crosspurposes with each other. The text of
Wuthering Heights is used by post-structuralist critics to identify the many discourses ,or
voices" of the mid-Victorian society and to expose the contradictions and conflicts that arise
as these voices are engaged in a dialogue. We have used some of these methods in our
previous discussion on the narrative, and the characters of Heathcliff and Catherine in the
earlier Units.

You will realize that present day critical practices use the text as an opening for an exploration
and engagement with the society and culture that produced it and also with the one in which it
is being read. Literary criticism does not stop at identification of social history, literary
nuances and cultural patterns, but goes further ahead to probe into the nature of these patterns
and nuances. For the feminist critic this probe is of great importance because it gives us the
background to the ways and methods by which patriarchal society has been able to dominate
and marginalise the woman's voice. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar in their suggestively
titled book The Madwoman in the Attic draw our attention to how the woman writer struggles
to resist the influence of the earlier writers and also suffers because she has primarily to prove
that she too can write. Women writers in the late eighteenth century and the nineteenth
century were actually breaking into a very male territory of authorship. As we mentioned
earlier, in this book, there is Sandra Gilbert's famous essay on Wuthering Heights. Gilbert-
reads Wuthering Heights as Emily Bronte's myih about creation as opposed to the Christian
myth of creation that Milton justified in his epic Paradise Lost. Emily Bronte's myth
challenges the notion of the 'woman's secondness' that is central to the Miltonic myth. Gilbert
argues that what the nineteenth century believed to be culture and decency was actually a Hell
of male domination, authoritativeness and violence. It is into this Hell that Catherine falls.
Gilbert draws our attention to the symbolic nature of Catherine's desire to possess a whip or a
source of power and strength. In essence it is Heathcliff who actually becomes her strength
against an authoritative father and later a brutish brother. The togetherness of their childhood,
the sense of wholeness is broken with the visit to Thrushcross Grange. This is the moment of
Catherine's progress from innocence to experience ,from childhood to adulthood and also the
moment when she loses her power. At 'Thrushcross Grange, is Gilbert's words, Catherine is
'castrated' not only by the way she is treated (made into a lady) but also by the way her alter
ego (Heathcliff) is separated from her. 'This is the beginning of the woman's fall according to
Gilbert. The denial of freedom and the binding of the 'hierarchical chain'. Since Thrushcross
Grange represents civilized society and culture, ideologically something that is desirable and
needs to be cultivated and nurtured, Gilbert's assertion that the change from Catherine
Earnshaw to Catherine is a 'Fall'. This is a very strong feminist argument that exposes society
and its values as essentially androcentric. What is interesting is that 'power ' has been a word
that has traditonally been associated with this novel. But with feminist criticism, 'power'
shifts, and instead of locating it in Heathcliff and the wildness that is associated with him, it is
now seen in terms of Catherine's desire for it and how it eludes her.

Gilbert's position is not the only feminist perspective about Wuthering Heights. Feminists
have analyzed the novel from the perspectives of language and psychology. They have
specially looked into the process of growing up, from childhood to adulthood and how during
this process the woman is subordinated by the dominant culture and how some women like
Catherine resist this subordination and how some like Cathy become a part of it. Some critics
have also pointed out that the childhood innocence and joy that was 'lost' byCatherine and
Heathcliff is to a large extent regained by Cathy and Hareton in the way that reverses their
'education"and the process of growing up.

Feminist positions and Marxist positions are often in the same line. Both discuss the society
in terms of unequal distribution of 'power'. In the essay 'Myths of Power in Wuthering
~ e i ~ h t s ' "Marxist
, critic Teny Eagleton sees Catherine's choice of Edgar Linton as a
compromise that drives both Heathcliff and herself to death. Catherine hopes to 'square
authenticity with social convention' and that is not possible. Eagleton asserts that 'one of
Wuthering Heights's more notable achievements is to demystify the Victorian notion of the
family as pious, pacific space within social conflict'. Eagleton argues that because society is
 ictive and imprisoning, there is a need to escape from it. Thus escape to nature' is a part *"thering Heights One
e ideology that restrictive society produces. For Eagleton, Heathcliff is a representation I-I~ndredAnd Fifty Years
italist ideology. Through him the capitalist equation of the oppressed and the oppressor Later
cted. 'His rise to power symbolizes at once the triumph of the oppressed over
sm and the triumph of capitalism over the oppressed'. For Eagleton, Heathcliff is a
flictive unity of the spiritual rejection of an inhuman society and a social integration with
same society. This is what leads to his personal tragedy.

43 THE DISRUPTION

entitled 'My Favourite Villain: ~eathcliff" Muriel Spark in a richly personal

out that whatever Heathcliff does 'is on a scale larger than life; if he lies it is not a
lie, it'is the sort of lie that brings ruin on some one's head; if he steals, it is the whole
y heritage he steals -you couldn't imagine Heathcliff as a shoplifter.' Muriel Spark
that it is Heathcliff who gives the novel its 'fiendish magnitude'. She also makes the
rtant assertion that Heathcliffs influence is not merely at the physical level, in the sense
hough he physically imprisons some of the characters, (Isabella, Cathy and even Nelly) it
is very presence that mesmerizes his victims. It is as if he is a 'moral hypnotist'
e power of drawing 'strange, uncharacteristic passions out of people of his
nt; whenever he appears there is not only trouble, but wild agitation, frantic
aviour and violence.' In short Heathcliff is a disruptionist. For people who are
able in a conventional way of living and thinking, full of artificial poses and gestures
ckwood) his presence is particularly disturbing. For a society that is conditioned by
own cultural, economic and ethical equations, Heathcliff s presence is seriously
stabillsing. There are political implications of this idea. When we consider that a society is
mposed of a set of relationships which is based on a certain distribution of political,
onomic and social power, then a disruptionist would, in a consequential way disturb the
ay power was distributed. In fact, the way the society reacts to the disruptions is as much a
flection of itself as it is the society's way of containing the disturbing influences of the
ptures that the dismptionist creates. The apologetic tone of Charlotte Bronte in her
troduction to the novel, specially about Heathcliffs moral character, clearly shows that she
seen the serious implications of the disturbances that Heathcliff was likely to create in
-Victorian England. As a disruptionist, Heathcliff, who is in Spark's useful phrase is a
moral hypnotist', would expose the hypocrisies, falsehoods and superficialit~esthat exist
'beneath the veneer of moral authority. What Charlotte and many of her contemporary readers
were not able to discern was that Catherine too disrupts many widely accepted Victorian
codes and structures particularly those which created the logic of the woman's subordinate
position in society. It is one thing to mythify and mystify Catherine as an individual who
suffers because she responds to the prompting of her head rather t h a ~her heart, and it is quite
1 another thing to see her as a woman whose life is a profound questioning of what the
Victorian was proud to define as culture. Heathclifflcatherine are in this sense, agents who
I demythrfi the Victorian age. To the modern reader, it is this 'disruptionist' and

demythification aspect of the novel that makes an urgent and compelling appeal.

1 5.4 LET US SUM UP

To an Indian reader, Emily Bronte's novel opens up the contradictions of a society that sought
to colonise the entire world in the nineteenth century. Its search for markets and cheap labour,
its attempts at civilising the 'native' , its introduction of industry and education in its colonies,
its spread of institutions like the church and the judiciary, its morally superior tone is ironic.
The Indian reader is also aware that the novel exposes an authoritative structure of society,
much of which is malecentric and patriarchal. Such strctures are not strictly British and these
forms of patriarchal domination and social oppression also exist in our society. As students of
literature we should be able to look into our own cultural context and our responses to it more
critically. Finally, our reading of the novel, and our exbsure to the multiple levels of
meaning in the text may help us to question any wsertion of singularity. We can develop a
modern perspective to issues that concern us. Since we live in a society, which is culturally
and lingustically plural, it is of importance that any assertion that seeks to negate plurality
Wuthering ?Yeigk must be seen with suspicion because it can be an assertion of authority and a denial of
freedom.

5.5 . GLOSSARY

Blakean p&allel William Blake (1757-1827), Romantic poet.

Blake saw traditional Christianity as practised by the
Church as oppressive in which God seemed to be
disinterested in human affairs. So many of the
conventional symbols associated with divinity and purity,
like dew, stars etc. become negative symbols suggesting
authority and supression and rationality. The authoritative
Godhead that Blake rebels against is for the feminists also
a symbol of male authority.

socially constructed meaning of a word is constructed by the

culture that uses it. For example the meaning of the word
night is not only culturaly defined but that words by
themselves do not contain the essence of what they
signify. The structuralist sees meaning being produ~ed
when one word is placed against its opposite. We know
what 'night ' is by knowing 'day' or what 'night' is not.

Essentialist the'belief in core or centrality. opposed by

the deconstructionists.

Demythify break the myth. Myth here is to be understood as a story

which Is basically a 'lie'. The society often produces such
'lies' in order to perpetuate power relations so that one
section of the society may keep control of the other. For
example, one of the 'myths' about people living in villages
is that they are given to a more healthy living than the city
dweller. Is this true? Are our villagers healthy?

5.6 QUESTIONS

1. Why do you think nineteenth century critics were engaged in locating a central moral
or message in the novel?

2. What do you understand by the term New Criticism? What was its impact on the
critical perspective to Wuthering Heights?

3. Do you diink modem critical approaches make our understanding of the text'fnore
profound or do they simply confuse? Discuss.

4. Do you think there is a 'central truth' in the novel ? Is there a'need to arrive at a
central 'truth'?

5. Do you think Wuthering Heights is a classic? Give reasom for your answer.

6. One of the major preoccupation of most early critics was to engage themselves in the
search for a resolution or synthesis to the many contradictions that they encountered
in the text. What do modem critics think about it?
 I Wuthering Heights :One
Hundred And Fifty Yean
-
$7 SUGGESTED READING kter

ndra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Maheman in the Attic :the Woman Writer and the
ineteenth Cennvy Litercuy Imagination. New Haven, 1979.

/'~andraGilbert and Susan Gubar. The M a v o M in the Attic: the Woman Writer and the
Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination. New Haven, 1979.

'c.P. Sangeh The Slructure of Wuthering Heights, London: Hogarth, 1926.

I 'David Cecil, Victorian Novelists: Essays in Revaluation, rev. ed. Chaicago: Univ. of Chicago :

Press, 1958.

'Dorothy Van Ghent, The English yovd :.Form and Function, New York: Holt, (1953)

Qohn K. Mathison, 'Nelly,Dean and'the Power of Wuthering Heights', Nineteenth Century

Fiction 1 1 (1 956).

"ark Schorer, 'Fictian and the Matrix of Analogy', Kenyon Review I 1 (1949)

'~homasMoser, ' What Is the Matter with Emily Jane?: Conflicting Impulses in Wuthering
Hcighls', Nirzeteenth Century Fiction 17 1962.

'Arnold Kettle. An Introduction to the English Novel: D e e to rhe Present, rev. ed. New
York : Harper, 1968
Raymond Williams,
. .~ The English Novelfrom ~ i c k c n sto awrence,Frogrnore: Paladin, 1974

vArnoldKettle, An Introduction to the English Novel :Defoe to the Presmt, rev. ed. New
York: Harper, 1968.

'iPage 4 Patsy Stoneman. Wuthering Hri$hrs :&mily Bronte. New Casebooks. Basingstoke:
~acmillan.1993.

I
'' Frank Kermode, ' Wurhering Heights a'
as Classic' in Stoneman, Patsy. Wuthering Heights :
Enlily Bronte. New Casebooks. Basingstoke: Macmillan. 1993. page 39-53

'"~oices' used in the Bakhtinian sense. Mikhail Bakhtin, Russian Critic who argued that
literay texts are constructed out of many voices or discourses that are in d-mlogue with one
another. Text could have one controll@gvoia, which would be mono logic but in texts
which are not controlled by one voice, the dialogic text. thm is hetroglossia, or polyphony or
a multiplicity of voices.

IJ
Teny Eagleton, 'The Myth of Power in Wuthering Heights' Stoneman, Patsy.

IJ
Muriel Spark. The Essence of the B r o w , Peter Owen: London, 1993.p.317-3 19.
Structure
1.0 Objectives

1.1 Introduction :Why Background?

1.2 Upward Social Mobility and mid-Victorian'Society

1.3 From Social History to the History of Form

1.4 Great Expectations and the Fairytale

1.5 Let Us Sum Up

1.6 Glossary

1.7 Questions

1.0 OBJECTIVES
The aim of this Unit is to provide backgrowd information which will, I hope, be
useful for a better understanding of the novel. After reading this Unit carefully you
kill be able to

r appreciate why background i n f m t i o n is relevant to the study of a text;

r outline the social and historical background of nineteenth century England;
r . relate certain shared assumptions of English society in the nineteenth century
to the text;
r see how Great Expectations emerged out of prevalent papular cultural fonns,
especially the fairytale.

1. INTRODUCTION :WHY BACKGROUND?

As a teacher at Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi, I lcnow that the background classes
tend to be the most directionless part of any set of lectures. I've often heard students
complain that they can't see the point of being loaded with details about the Victorian
Age or "the rise of the novel" when they find it difficult enough to get through
massive nineteenth century novels like Dombey and Son or Middlemarch. I think,
therefore, that the least a teacher can do before shehe proceeds to overwhelm
students with the mass of details that will make up the "background", is to try to
explain to h e r s e l h s e l f , as well as to herrhis students the ways in which
background infonnation is likely to be !xlpful.

I think that one inclusive way in which we might think of the background to any
text is to see it as the whole complex web of factors, indeed as the element in which
a text gains its existence just as water is the element in which a fish lives. I think that
while you'd probably agree that there would be no fish without water, and no tcxt
without the conditions that produced it, you'd still insist that the complicated
conditions in which a text is produced are as difficult to grasp as water. And that
really is the problem with the background, not its vagueness, but the sheer mass of
Great Expectations available data a11 of which is connected in some way or the other with the production
of the text. Put another way, the challenge for the teacher is to select from the
"background"those details, or combination of details that have the ability to make
the text spring to life. I can promise you that background information does have this
ability to animate a text -make it more relevant than it might otherwise have been.

Let me give you an example from my own experience which I hope will not be
without relevance to our study of Great Expectations. When I was doing my M.Phil.,\
I chose to write my term paper on a novel of Dickens called Dombey and Son. I did
this because I was struck by what seemed to me to be dramatic differences between
society as it was described in Dombey and Son and the world of an early novel
(Oliver Twist), which I had read some time ago. The central problem in Oliver Twist
was, it seemed to me, poverty, not only because the novel contained vivid
descriptions of urban poverty and an angry denunciation of the New Poor Law of
1834 but also because Oliver's own story dramatised the sense of social insecurity
that an unstable economy always breeds in the poor. On the other hand, Dombey and
Son had seemed to describe a technologically advanced, economically flourishing
society where most people seemed to be doing very well for themselves. Naturally I
wanted to find out whether this change had something to do with changes that were
taking place in England between 1837 (when Dickens began Oliver Twist) and 1848
when Dickens published Dombey and Son.

1had the good fortune to stumSle on a great book by E.J.Hobsbawn called Industry
and Enlpire which described the economic history of England during the nineteenth
century. I still remember the excitement with which I read Hobsbawm's account of
the transformation of Britain's industrial economy from the instability of the first
phase of the Industrial Revolution which was based on the manufacture of a single
item -textiles -to the consolidated heavy industry phase when Britain's monopoly '

over iron, steel and industrial technology energised its economy as never before.
Moreover, Hobsbawm had argued that the most dramatic and popular symbol of the
levels of speed, efficiency and organisation that Britain's new industrial economy was
attaining was the railway. You will be able to appreciate how important this piece of
information was to me when I tell you that the railway appears in Dombey and Son as
a central symbol for progress, but also for some of the human problems tlia~ltcaused.
In fact Hobsbawm's book provided the basis for an essay that I wrote on Daibey and
Son, where I argued that this novel marked the transition from the socially and
economically unstable thirties to the prosperous and technologically advanced society
of the late forties, and that while Dickens responded positively to the rising standards
of living and efficiency brought about by the second or heavy industry phase of the
Industrial Revolution, he also exposed the humm dangers attendant on a society
where the impersonal structures of gigantic industries begin to dominate the human
being. So you see, background information can light up a text from within, as it were.

But I must pause at this point to say to you that I went into this rather long account of
Dombey and Son, progress and its problems, not only because I had wanted to
illustrate the ways'in which background material can be used in relation to the text
but also because one important aspect of an economically buoyant society -- its
prospensity to promote upward social mobility among those who inhabit it -- will
turn out to be the starting point of what I have to say on Great Expectations.

1.2 UPWARD SOCIAL MOBILITY AND MID-VICTORIAN

SOCIETY
I hope that you will agree that one of the most obvious effects of any sustained
economic boom is that it promotes upward social mobility. ~he'hugeprofits made by
mid-Victorian industrialists implied at least some increase in the wages of the
 lasses, and gigantically complex organisations like the railways opened up Background' '
t only for unskilled workers but also for professionally
untants and managers. Put another way, mid-Victorian Britain,
exports to the rest of Europe and by the ruthless exploitation of colonial
s internally a land full of opportunities. This was the point that a self-
atedly made. It was Queen Victoria's Prime Minister Lord
o declared in a speech that has become one of the classic

We have shown the example of a nation in yhich every class of

society accepts with cheerfulness the lot which providence has
assigned to it, while at the same time each individual of each class is
constantly trying to raise himself in the social scale, not by violence
and illegality but by the steady and energetic exertion of moral and
intellectual faculties with which his creator has endowed him.

merston was not, ofcourse the only person who spoke of the prospect of
advancement by the steady application of one's "intellectual and moral
. Bagehot's idea of "removable inequalities", the more well-known
ideal of "self culture", the huge volume of "improving literature", that
earing after the late forties, the phenomenal success of works like Smiles's
e Engineers (1862) and Diana Mulock's John Hal* Gentleman (1 856),
tify to the fact that in the booming fifties and sixties, the ideology of self-
vernent had begun to enjoy widespread acceptance.

esting thing when you are

",if you like, is to prise open its
discussing Great Expectations, I shall
show that Dickens too was critically concerned with the internal contradictions
course of self-improvement as it was officially articulated. I want at this
ake you aware of how classic self-improvement texts, such as the
ifax Gentleman, seek to reconcile what were, in fact, conflicting
s John Halifax projects virtues like work, thrift, enterprise as the
provement, but the reward that it offers to its self-improving hero is
ratic lifestyle. Put another way, John Ha1ifb.x (like many other
promise by which the makers of the
to the great entrepreneurial values
. Thus as its very title suggests,
of "gentlemanliness" -an ideal
iveness, on a liberal outlook rather
universal object of desire. Perhaps
tations (and by this time you really
it) that in this novel too gentlemanliness is a goal towards which
ve. For example, Pip himself realises soon that the only way he
e is by transforming himself into a gentleman, and if the criminal
self hope to acquire a gentlemanly status, he seeks, at least, to
e a gentleman. But in the units that follow I will try to show that Dickens's
ke "self-improvement"or "gentlemanliness" is far more
instance, of Diana Mulock's in John Halifax. My limited aim
iliarise you with the common connotations of terms like
ilesian", (after the most popular proponent of the self-
1 Smiles), and "gentlemanliness" (in its nineteenth century
will encounter all the time in our subsequent discussions.
see the connections between a booming economy and
ment plots", or between the social compromise that the
th the aristocracy and the emergence of gentlemanliness
Great lhpcta&ns
1.3 FROM SOCIAL HISTORY TO THE HISTORY OF
FORM
In response to a question from the newspaper Noyv Mir, the great Soviet critic
Mikhail Bakhtin wrote: "Literature is an inseparable part of culture.. ..It must not be
severed from the rest of culture nor, as is frequently done, can it be correlated to
socio-economic factors, as it were behind culture's back". Bakhtin's words are
important because they make a distinction between the social and political factors
*
that may get reflected in a novel, and the whole mass of other novels, poems,
fairytales, forms of visual enterbinrnent that determine how a novelist constructs
hisher plots, scenes or characters. That is why I propose, in this section, to follow
Bakhtin and shift my focus in this section from the social history which Great
Expectations may be said to negotiate to the cultural field crisscrossed with many ,
forms and fragments of forms within which Dickens found his feet as writer. (Of-
course here, as in the earlier section, I will be selective, and pick only on those
strands from the relevant cultural field that have a direct bearing on Great
Expectations).
\
Before I get into the problem of the relationship between Dickens's writing and ffie
cultural field out of which it grew, let me ask you a question. Youll have to read a
novel (any novel) of Jane Austen in order to answer my question. (In case you
haven't and let me confess to you in strict confidence that I hadn't either until quite
late in my life) no problem: spend five or six days reading Mansfield Park or Pride
and Prejudice. Then ask yourself whether these novels differ in some fundamental
sense fiom Great Expectations? Perhaps you can begin to answer this question by
taking into account one of the most noticeable things about a Jane Austen novel: that
it works almost entirely within the network of the upper and middle class homes
which provides it with both its subject as well as its readership. In fact, a novel like
Mansfield Park may be seen as an almost classical product of what the German critic
and philosopher Haberrnas called the "bourgeoispublic sphere". Haberrnas argued
that the eighteenth century English novel embodied the need of the emerging middle
class to discuss its domestic life in public as you can see in the novels of Jane
Austen. This meant that1a novel like Mansfield Park would have a certain internal
integrity in relation not only to its content but also to its method. You'd never find
Jane Austen drawing on the expressiveresources of "lower" forms such as the
fairytales to make her effects. For example wouldn't a character like Miss Havisham
seem terribly out-of-place in Mansfield Park?

By contrast the Dickensian novel came out of the far more chaotic popular print
market of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: a cultural domain that
encourages not the autonomous development of forms, but their constant
intermixing. If I were to pick one event that may be said to have brought into
existence the print market in which Dickens's writing developed it would surely be
the painter Hogarth's momentous decision to break free fiom the compulsion of
producing single, wepeatable paintings commissioned and consumed by a single
aristocratic patron. Instead Hogarth decided to employ the technique of engraving to
produce multiple copies of a series of six prints that he-entitled "The Harlot's
Progress" and to sell each set to the general public for six guineas. By undertaking to
produce multiple copies of a picture series that would not so much be h a t e d as
"Invented, Painted, Engraved, and Published" by him, Hogarth initiated what the
German critic Walter Benjamin was to call many years later "the age of mechanical
reproduction" in the arts. Benjamin's landmark essay makes many brilliant points,
and it is impossible for me to go into all of them, but one idea of Benjamin's that is
directly relevant to us is that of "reactivation". Benjamin argues that the mechanical
reproduction of any work of art smashes its "aura", its fixed unique existence in an
art gallery or the art owner's house and enables the consumer (of the reproduced
print) to meet it in his or her environment. This transference across social space,
 in argues, results in the "reactivation" of the work of art. In its adaptation to Background
environment and in its interaction with the forms of expression prevalent in
nt it gep reactivated. You could, if you looked around you, find many
s of the sort of "reactivation" that Benjamin was tallang about. For example,
how melodies from forgotten Bombay films get "reactivated" in the jingles
ertisements. In Hogarth's case, the implications of this
on" were far in excess of what he might have anticipated when he
ed the Harlot series. The transformation of the Hogarthian art work from a
to a cultural commodity resulted not only in the proliferation of
heaper reprints, but also of the adaptation of Hogarth's ideas, themes
ters in melodramas, pantomimes and, through the first decades of the

robably wondering by now what this long discussion about Hogarth,

and "mechanical reproduction" has to do with the question about the
ces between Jane Austen and Dickens that I asked you. I would like to say in
the history of reproductions and adaptations across a very wide
at Hogarth's prints themselves experienced, tells us a great deal not
the print market in which Dickens found his feet as a writer, but also,
about the forms of the Dickensian novel itself More specifically, unlike
omous, middle-class public sphere within which Jane Austen's
d, Dickens's novels came out of a cultural field that encouraged
t traffic of representational methods, plot patterns, themes, modes of
wide range of genres and media. Dickens's own emergence into
as the script writer of a book of city sketches by Cruickshank,
tion that went on all the time in the popular print market of
enth century, and although by Pickwick Papers the Dickensian novel
itself as a cultural commodity in its own right, the conditions of its
kensian novel a certain formal open-endedness. This meant
ickens's novels could never achieve the sustained focus on the internal
e middle and upper classes that gave to Austenk novels their formal
ere capable of constantly absorbing expressive modes, techniques of
,principles of plot construction that had orig~natedin various extra-
Cruickshank's sketches of London or the radical political
pages of Punch.

li
1.4 GREATEXPECTATIONS AND THE FAIRYTALE

great deal from his interaction with a very wide range of popular
section I will focus only on Dickens's relationship w~ththe, fairytale
11 see later, expressive resources that had germinated in the fairy
vated" in very interesting ways in Great Expectations. D~ckens's
fairytale was complex as well as reason interesting. This was
ountered this form at that critical point of its evolution when it
the harsh preliterate peasant culture, being drawn into the
entertainment. In this process, it was becoming reconstituted, on the
e pleasant children's stories familiar to us today, and on the other
1 tales of terror that appeared among other gory stories in the
was of course very familiar with the pleasant fairytales,
in England by translated versions of the Grimms's
by Cruickshank's illustrations. In fact, fragments of this kind of
ckens's early fiction- in the fairy godmothers and the
and the gloomy castles, but above all in a plot pattern
as Oliver Twist, and which depends on magcal
Great Expectations interventions of a fairy godmother or father to sort out real difficulties. (I will try to
show later how this plot pattern is replicated in Great Expectations only to be
"deformed"). On the other hand, if you read a semi-autob~ographicalpiece called the
"Nurse's Story", you will see how Mary, who worked in the Dickens household
regaled the young Charles with tales of supernatural terror, very different from the
kind of children's stories thatawehave been talking about. 1 think that Mary typified
the plebian consciousness that sustained and disseminated the nightmarish, macabre
elements inherent in the original "folk" form of fairytale. Put another way, Mary's
I stories, despite their sensationalism, may be seen as the conduit which camed to the
young Dickens certain key elements of the older forin of the fairytale: the
sombreness of their atmosphere, their d~scontinuousprose, their occasionally brutal
language, but above all, their use of magical elements as the means not of providing
simplified moral resolutions, but of confronting their characters and readers with
disconcerting paradoxes and desperate choices. We shall see later just how important
the reactivation of this latter verslon of the fairytale was to the Satis House scenes in
Great Expectations.

1.5 LET US SUM UP

Let me pause here, for awhile and summarise the m a n points I have made so far. I
hope, first of all, I have managed to convince you that it IS worth your while getting
to know t%ehistorical background of any text. You always have the chance of finding
something here that will illuminate the text. For example, I found in E.J.
Hobsbawm's Industry and Empire the key to many of the problems that I wanted to
deal with in my term paper on Dombey and Son.
I

Hobsbawm's book may in fact be said to provide the backdrop for Dickens's later
novels as a whole - and I have tried to show how the economic boom that I
1
Hobsbawm delineates generated a sort of upward social mobility with wh~chGreat
Expectations is concerned. I've suggested however that inherent in official assertions
*
of progress was the contradiction in Smilesian vlrtues that were the means of self-
improvement and the leisured class existence that was very often its goal. I've also
suggested that this contradicbon was to have great significance for Great
Expectations. In this unit I've also been concerned with a second kind of history -
the history of the print market where Dickens found his feet as a writer. Here I've
argued that the print market that the late eighteenth century painter Hogarth, above
all, may be said to have brought to maturity encouraged not formal autonomy but the
constant interact~onbetween the expressive modes of disparate genres. This meant
that the Dickensian novel was always capable of absorbing within its relatively loose
structure the expressive modes of various extraliterary genres. I've concluded this
unit by suggesting that one such extra-novelistic mode that was important at many
levels to the making of Great Expectations was the fairytale.

1.6 GLOSSARY
Middemarch One of great novels in the English language.
It was written by George Eliot. I mentioned it only because
llke most 1 9 century
~ English novels it was nearly
900 pages long.

New Poor Law 1834 a law enacted in 1834 to deal with the pro~lemof
paupers. It became unpopular with the poor and writer
like Dickens because it stipulated that the poor could
get relief only in prison-like work houses.
 ustrial Revdution a series of technical developments through the late 18"' and Background
19Ihcenturies which industrialised the British economy.

Queen Victoria's prime minister

Political scientist, literary critic and a prolific contributor

to the highbrow Victorian periodicals.

Samuel Smiles's most popular book. It provides a simple

scheme for self improvement. ...
A Soviet Paper

*ail Bakhtin Problems of Dostoyevsky 's Poetics (1984)

The Structural Transformation of The Bourgeois Public

Sphere ( 1 980)

ogarth One of England's greatest painters. He revolutionised

painting by moving away fiom mythological subjects
and depicting contemporary street scenes, or the social
life of both the rich and poor.

uinea former British gold coin, worth one pound one shilling.

/Walter Benjamin The essay refered to, i.e., 'The Work of Art in the Age
Of Mechanical Reproduction' appears in his book
I Illuminations ( I 969)
1
a satirical and during its initial years, a radical periodical.
Many nineteenth century writers like Dickens and
Thackeray were closely associated with it. . '

( 'Penny dreadfuls' a piece of cheap, sensational fiction, especially a novel or

novelette in magazine form or paperback, characterised
by violent episodes and maudlin sentiment.
I

I Plebian belonging to the common people; common, vulgar, coarse.

I
1.7 QUESTIONS

I think that I need to preface this section on questions with some explanation about
what my intentions are. Please don't make the mistake of assuming that any of these
questions are likely to appear in the examinations. Rather they are meant to help you
to revise what we do in each unit, and also to draw your attention to certain points in
the units which are important, but which you might have missed. I do hope, however,
that as you gain mastery over each unit you will gradually grow in confidence and be
able to handle the sort of questions that you are likely encounter in the examinations.
Keeping the intentions behind these questions in mind. Please try to answer the
following, looking up the relevant portions in this unit whenever you are in doubt.
1) In what way did the "second" or "heavy industry" phase of the Industrial
Revolution change the "condition of England"? If you had to find out more about
this subject, what book would you read?

2) What would you say was the most important point of difference between the
world of Oliver Twist and that of Great Expectations?

3) Write a few lines about "gentlemanliness" as it was understood in the nineteenth

century.

4) Explain the following terns ; "middle class public sphere", "reactivation",

"mechanical reproduction". Can you think of some examples of reactivation from
the cultural field around you apart from what I have already given?

5) Would you say that the relationship between Great Expectations and the fairy
tale was a complex rather than a simple one? Think over this question carefully,
and in your answer, bring as much of the material that you have covered so far to
bear on it as you can.

6) While writing this unit I have refered to the works of three great writers on
history and culture: E.J. Hobsbawrn, Walter Benjamin and Mikhail Bakhtin. Can
you recapitulate the arguments that I have cited from their works? If any of these
arguments interest you move to the last Unit and locate the book from which
these arguments have been taken. Also try to carry in your mind some idea of the
kinds of problems that would be likely to interest these writers so that if you
come across some related problem you can go the library and look at the
catalogue for a book by Benjamin or Bakhtin which might deal with that
problem. I can promise you that if you can overcome the initial difficulty of
reading these writers they are likely to offer the most incisive insights that you
are going to get on the relevant problem. Make a habit of remembering the
names of writers whose citings seem interesting to you. I think that this is one
basic way that you can find your way through the vast, often uncharted. univers.
of e la .
 Jj
U~IT2 GREAT EXPECTATIONS AND
1, SELF-IMPROVEMENT

2.1 Introduction

2.2 The Self-Improving Hero and The Problem of Gentlemanliness

2.3 The Self-Improving Hero and the Problem of his Past

2.4 Gentlemanllness and Love

1
2.5 Let Us Sum Up

2.6 Glossary

2.7 Questions

1
I

2.0 1 OBJECTIVES

ading this Unit carefully you will, I hope, be able to understand how the two
valent in Victorian society - that of self-improvement and gentlemanliness
cately worked into the fabric of Great Expectations. This will help us to
how the social and cultural contexts provide a more complex perspective
. Our aim is not just to "read" the novel and follow the plot but to "study"
pth. And as we had discussed in the previous unit, a working
f the background helps us see the complex relationship between
the society from which it emerges.

1
2.1 1 INTRODUCTION .

nit, I will deal with the relationship between Great Expectations and two
t ideas about which I hope by this time you have a working knowledge. The
ese, to recapitulate very quickly, is the idea of self-improvement which, a s I
, enjoyed enormous prestige in the booming fifties and sixties, and which
iated with the classic middle class values such as thrift, diligence and hard
rt name for this complex of values is "Smilesian" after Samuel Smiles
SelfHelp was probably the most popular articulation of the ideology of

dea that will crop up repeatedly in this unit is that of "gentlemanliness"

in many improvement stories the paradoxical reward promised to the
hero -paradoxical, because "gentlemanliness" was essentially the
t of a "cultured", "liberal", "leisured", in short, of an essentially
Great Ekpectations
2.2 THE SELF-IMPROVING HERO AND THE
PROBLEM OF GENTLEMANLINESS

Great Expectations has, as one of its starting points, a classic motif of improvement
literature -the hero's determination to better his lot. Although Pip is exposed all the
time to his dissatisfaction with his life in a backward provincial town, his desire to
improve himself is projected in the novel as both understandable and admirable.
Exposed always to the bullying of the likes of Purnblechook, struggling through the
alphabets "as if it had been a bramble bush" (p.75) under the tutelage of a ridiculous
old woman of "limited means, and unlimited infirmity" (p.74). [All the quotations
that I have used here are from the Penguin edition of Great Expectations. The page
numbers that you see in parenthesis will tell you where to find the passage , if you
wish to see.] Without friends like Joe and Biddy, who cannot, in any case, help him
in his quest for a better life, the young Pip's prospects are anything but inspiring. Pip
himself describes his situation in the following manner:

I used to stand about the churchyard on Sunday evenings when night

was falling, comparing my own perspective with the windy marsh
view, and making out some likeness between them by thinking how
flat and low both wete, and how on both there came in an unknown
way a dark mist and then the sea. (p.135).

A glimpse of the 'gentlemanly" life style

 Great Expectations and
sses his instinct for self-improvementmore positively in his determined
Self-Improvement
ducation as a means of improving his lot. Pip grasps every opportunity to
-he enlarges to Miss Havisham "upon my knowing nothing
erything, in the hope that she might offer some help towards
I .123), invests all his extra money on books, and is always
improve myself' @. 152). Pip's pursuit of knowledge under
as led at least one critic (Robin Gilmour) to see in this "essentially moral
sentative pathos which justifies the use of Smiles's favourite term
relationship between Great Expectations and the ideology of
ver reiterative, however, and one way in which we can gauge the
h Dickens treats the self-improvement theme is by comparing
"progress" with that of David Copperjeld.

,Dickens wrote David Coppei$eld some ten years before he

se try to read this novel. I know that David
nineteenth century novels so often are, but I do
le going through it because comparisons between
t Expectations will enter into our discussions at many .
g, I am assuming that you have not yet read David
e to draw your attention to some details in the novel which
ond to the comparison that I am about to make
ng all of Dickens's novels, David Coppe$eld probably
c depiction of the middle class work ethic and of'the idea
David's progress through the novel is predicated above all
attitude to his work and the beneficial effect that this
the growth of his imer life. Crucial therefore to David's
is the existence of a milieu that will encourage and sustain the middle
self culture. In David Coppefield this milieu is provided
begins as an eccentric, then plays the role of the
g down to her role as the novel's most articulate
ss values), by Traddles, David's friend, and of course by
finally madies. As you might guess the great danger that
David faces (but overcomes) is the possibility that he might be led astray by the
influence of the stylish, leisured, but utterly unproductive "gentlemanly" lifestyle
embodied in his other friend, Steerforth.

Pip's quest for self-improvement is far more complicated than David's and of course
part of Pip's difficulties can be understood in terms of his individual shortcomings.
But what seems to me to be interesting is not so much Pip's subjective fagures as the
absence, in the world of Great Expectations, of situations and milieus where the
Smilesian parable can work itself out. I hope that you can see that there is room here
for an interesting comparison with David Coppefield. In the earlier novel as I have
already suggested, the stable middle class world of Betsy Trotwood, Traddles and
Agnes had provided a context conducive to the full development of David's
productive faculties; and if the leisured, upper class lifestyle of Steerforth had
exercised a dangerous influence on David, the whole business of the novel had been
to rnarginalise and overcome that danger. What was marginal in David Coppefield
moves to the very centre in Great Expectations. The world of Great Expectations has
no place for Betsy Trotwood or Tommy Traddles and improvement implies
emulating the arrogant genteel behaviour embodied in Miss Havisham and Estella.
(Can you see here an example of the complexity of the relationship between the text
and the social background? What you had learned in the earlier unit about the
cultural domination of the aristocracy over the soclal life of the nation now appears
in Great Expectations not as a passing detail but as a determining elenient in the
making ofthe plot of the novel.)
- .
 .-
Great Erpecratlons , To go on, the a o s c ~ ~ cinc lrreat Expectatiom of an enabling milieu for the
,development of middle class virtues has major implicat~onsfor the whole problem of
self improvement, because in a world hegemonised by predominantly upper class
notions about what constitutes the good life, the urge for improvement is constantly
mediated by the language of class. Accordingly if Pip's exposure to Satis House
arouses in him the desire for a better life it also exposes him to the h l l blast of upper
class anogance.

"He calls the knaves jacks, this boy!", said Estella with disdain
before our first game was out. "And what coarse hands he has! and
what thick boots!"

I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I

began to consider them a very indifferent pair. Her contempt for me
was so strong, that it became infectious and I caught it. (p.90)

Hopelessly, and given the hegemonic influence of gentility, inevitably implicated in

genteel aspirations, incapable of attaining a distinctive Smilesian identity, Pip cannot
confront upper class arrogance with the confident (and idealised) dignity of say John
Halifar (Remember, the novel I referred to earlier?). On the contrary, the realities of
class relations constantly expose the self-improving hero to the "smart without a
name" (p.92). And the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, far from imparting
moral and logical coherence to Pip's development, leads only to a total loss of
direction.
'
What I wanted who can say? How can I say when I never knew?
(pp. 135-6).

2.3 THE SELF-IMPROVINGHERO AND THE

PROBLEM OF HIS PAST
Humiliation is not the only danger that confronts the self-improving hero in Great
Expectations. After the sensational reversal in his fortunes, Pip does succeed in
I
repressing the most humiliating experiences of his childhood, but his elevation to the
status of a gentleman raises problems of another kind.

"Since your change of fortune and prospects, you have have changed
your companions," said Estella. "Naturally," said I.
"And necessarily," she added, in a haughty tone; "what was fit
company for you once, would be quite unfit for you now." (p.258).

In its haughty exclusiveness, Estella's tone belongs specifically to the genteel ethos.
At the same time Estella's insistence about the incompatibility between the upwardly
mobile hero's past and his improved situation in fact makes explicit what seems to
me to be one of the central repressed presuppositions even in the most overtly
Smilesian versions of improvement literature. There is no disjunction between the
point of view of John Halifax and that of his creator when at the end of the novel the
former responds to the world of the poor (in which his past is deeply implicated) wth
a mixture of apprehension and moral self-righteousness. Again in ~ a v i h ~ o ~ ~ e $ e l d
Dickens is able to sustain the smooth trajectory of David's progress only by depriving
the socially a'wkward aspects of his past of any claim that they might have on him, by
protecting him from the embarrassment of an encounter with say, Mealy Potatoes.
(You would know if you've even begun to read David Copperfield that Mealy
Potatoes is an uncared for street urchin who works with David when, during a
nightmarish but brief period, David is taken off school and made to work in a
blackening factory. David runs away from the blackening factory to his aunt Betsy
Trotw%d where he is rehabilitated into the respectable world. Once this happens
 past is completely erased, it is never allowed to resurface again.) In other Great Expectations and
one way in which David Copperfield dand indeed the conventional Self-Improvement
vernent" novel as a whole) is able to preserve inviolate the hero's progress is
ing the world of his past by denylng it the right to interact with and to
qualify his final success. In Great Expectations, on the hand, at least one
r refuses to play by the rules of the conventional improvement novel. When
ntlemanly" Pip comes face to face with the tailor's boy in his home town and
"a serene and unconscious" attitude towards him, the result i- disaster

Suddenly the knees of Trabb's boy smote together, his hair uprose
his cap fell off, he trembled violently in every limb, staggered out3
into the road, and crying to the populace, "Hold me I'm so
hghtened!" feigned io be in a paroxylsm of terror and contrition,
occasioned by the dignity of my appearance ....

I had not gone much further down the street as the post office, when
I again beheld Trabb's boy shooting round by a back way. This time
he was entirely changed. He wore his blue bag in the manner of v y
greatcoat, and was strutting along the pavement towards me in the
opposite side of the street, attended by a company of delighted
young friends to whom he from time to time exclaimed, with a wave
of his hand, "Don't kno~~r yah!" Words cannot state the amount of
aggravation and injury wreaked upon me by Trabb's boy, when,
passing abreast of me, he pulled up his shirt collar, twined up his
side hair, stuck an arm akimbo, and smirked extravagantly by
wriggling his elbows and his body, and saying to his attendants
"Don't know yah, don't know yah, upon m soul don't know
yah! "(p.267).

arodic reenactment of Estella's pronouncement, the codes of gentility are

as it were, to the streets. From the point of view of the excluded majority
who inhabit the streets -these codes appear to be a system of ridiculous
s, and Pip's attempt to wipe out the memory of his old acquaintances from
consciousness, far from being natural and necessary as Pip and Estella would
e it, is shown to involve the crassest kind of snobbery.

ot, however, with Trabb's boy but with Joe that Pip's early life is most deeply
~catedand a measure of the complexity with which Dickens treats the
ent theme in Great Expectations is that, unlike his delineation of the David
lationshjp (Pegotty is David's nurse whose plebian identity is conveniently
thln the bonhomie which always envelops her relationship with David),
akes it impossible for Pip to bring his relationship with Joe in consonance with
equirements of gentility. Joe's respoke to the young Pip we know has always
affectionate as well as egalitarian. Thus, unlike Mrs. Joe, Purnblechook, Wop le\,
indeed everybody who inhabits the world of Pip's childhood, it does not even
ur to Joe to use the authority of his age to bully Pip. On the contrary, Joe and Pip:
ords, "ever the best of friends" and in Pip's "equals" (pp. 78-80). The
lity with his interlocutor is, in fact, a basic precondition for the free
's conversation. Confronted yith the rigidly hierarchised social world of
lasses, Joe's conversation dries up: he is literally struck dumb.

"Oh!" she said to Joe, "You are the husband of the sister of this
boy?"
I could hardly have imagined dear old Joe looking so unlike-himself
or so like some extraordinary bird; standing as he did, speechless
with his tuft of feathers ruffled, and his mouth open as if he wanted a
worm.
Great Expectations "You are the husband," repeated Miss Havisharn,"of the sister of this
boy?"
It was very aggravating, but throughout the intervie*. Joe persisted in
addressing Me instead of Miss Havisham. (p. 128):

Joe's utter incapacity to relate to the conventions of gentility raises major problems
for Pip after he becomes a gentleman. It is not only that Joe is a reminder of Pip's
lowly past, or that Pip often feels guilty for having to avoid Joe. What is more
important is that each of Joe's encounters with Pip, are, in their unobtrusive way,
critical and disconcerting. By his very uncomprehending presence -his inability to
understand the hierarchising conventions of genteel society -Joe disrupts the
smooth flow of genteel discourse, introduces confusions within its conventions of
social interaction, breaks up the hierarchies without which the gentleman would lose
his distinct identity.

So, I presented Joe to Herbert, who held out his hand; but Joe backed
tiom it, and held on to the bird's nest.
"Your servant sir," said Joe, "which I hope as you and Pip" - here his
eyes fell on the Avenger, who was putting some toast on the table,
and so plainly denoted an intention to make that young gentleman
one of the family, that I fiowned it down and confused him even
more - "I meantersay, you two gentlemen -which I hope you get
your elths in this close spot? For the present may be a werry good
inn, according to London opinion," said Joe confidentially ". ..but I
wouldn't keep a pig in it myself - not in case I wish him to fatten
wholesome and to eat with a meller flavour on him" (p.243)

The confusion into which Joe throws the conventions of gentility suggests the limits
of those conventions, and more specificallytheir incapacity to accommodate the
easy, affectionate, egalitarianism with which Joe relates to people. Significantly it is
the unlettered Joe rather than Pip who recognises this:

"Us two being now alone, sir," began Joe.

"Joe", I interrupted pettishly, "how can you call me, sir?"
Joe looked at me for a single instant with something faintly like
reproach. Utterly preposterous as his cravat was, and as his collars
were, I was conscious of a sort of dignity in that look. (pp244-5)

A past characterised by shared suffering, solidarity, easy spontaneous

communication, makes Joe's mode of addressing Pip jarring, unfamiliar, unthinkable.
But it is precisely at this jarring moment, which exposes itself as a raw nerve within
Pip's comfortably adjusted relationship with gentlemanly society, that the world of
Pip's past is made to enter into a critical contextualising relationship with his
improving career -revealing it not simply as "progress" but also as something that
is capable of destroying the deepest and most undemanding of personal relationships.

2.4 GENTLEMANLINESS AND LOVE

I tried to show in the earlier section how the conventions of gentility tend to be
antagonistic to the informal, affectionate egalitarianism that underlies Joe's
relationship with Pip. I want now to focus on the Pip-Estella relationships and to look
at the genteel world fiom the inside, to judge whether or not it can, on its own terms,
provide a context for the free development of the qualities that Pip associates with it
before he embarks on his quest for gentlemanliness.
 I hc that by this time you have read the text and will therefcre agree that Pip's Great Expectatiorrs and
asp ion for the gentlemanly world expresses not simply his snobbishness, but also Self-Improvement
his ;ire for a world of fine feelings and rich emotions. As a provincial boy Pip has
no c ~btabout the imaginative richness of the world of gentlefolk.

Whenever I watched the vessels standing out to the sea with their
white sails spread, I somehow thought of Miss Havisham and
ste el la; and whenever the light struck aslant, far off, upon a cloud or
sail or green hillside or water line it was just the same - Miss
Havisham, Estella, and the strange house and the strange life
appeared to have something to do with everything that was
picturesque. (p. 137).

Pip ver really loses faith in this romantic vision. Late in the novel Pip reacts to
Estc 's impending maniage with the stupid and brutish Drunimle, with an anguish
that not only alien to the measured formality of gentlemanly behaviour but also
exp ses the intensity with which Pip had hoped that an emotionally rich
rela nship with Estella would constitute the culminating point of his quest for -
imp rement.

You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every
line I have read, since I first came here, the rough common boy
whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every
I prospect I have ever seen since -on the river, on the sails of the
I
ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in
I
I
the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment
I
of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted
with. (p.378).
I

i' The
und
Mis
ldness with which Estella responds to Pip's impassioned outburst can be
tood at one level, in terms of her personal upbringing. Brought up to wreak
[avisham's revenge on the male sex, Estella has been trained from childhood to
stee [earof any deep emotional involvement. At the same time, however, it is
imp ;ible not to see the coincidence between Estella's personal predilections and the
attit :s generated by the world that she inhabits. Estella's position as a lady, the
deft Ice that she constantly receives, envelops her in ari atmosphere of
"COI leteness and superiority" (p.58). ~ccordinglyEstella's discourse is
"unl :ussable" (p.85), "authoritative" in Bakhtin's (I hope that you remember him),
sen! ,f the term. It is hard edged, complete in itself, incapable of registering
an0 r's voice, or of allowing other voices to enter into it. It does not allow other
voic to create contradictions within it, animate it, and is incapable, in other words,
of e ring into the fertilising processes of interaction. Estella does not herself
hesi te to confess as much:

It seems," said Estella very calmly, "that there are sentiments,

fancies - I don't know what you call them -which I am not able to
comprehend. When you say that you love me I know what you mean
as a form of words; but nothing more. You address nothing in my
breast, you touch nothing there. I don't care for what you say at all".
(p.376).

Wh s important here is not Estella's shortcomings or even that they are

SYrr )matic.ofthe genteel world as a whole but that Estella's immunity t o
"ser nents, fancies" is an indispensable precondition of the beauty, the poise, the
, eleg ce that had first attracted Pip to her, and to the gentlemanly world. Estella's
vey ime brings together the idea of glittering brilliance with that of cold aloofness
in a lterdependent relationship, and Pip is always aware of the "air of
Great Expectations inaccessibility.that her beauty gave her" (p.260). We might, in fact, go further and
argue that in his depiction of the Pip-Estella relationship, Dickens seems to be hitting
at the very roots of the genteel mystique. One important reason for the mid-Victorian
English person's continuing fascination with the aristocracy was the air of romance
that seemed to surround the aristocrats. "The aristocracy" says the social historian
Geoffery Best, "was irresistably fascinating to a historically and hierarchically
minded society, because its members seemed to be heroic. They were supposed to be .
handsome, love more passionately, and behave more impressively than lesser bred
mortals." And in a first hand account of Count D'Orcy's manners and demeanour, a
contemporary lists some of the qualities that made the refined gentleman seem
romantic and superior.

Count D'Orcy was a brilliant leader of the dandy class - strikingly

handsome, of a splendid physique, a commanding appearance, an
admirable horseman of the Haute Ecole school. When he appeared in
the perfection of dress . . . with the expression of self confidence and
self complacency which the sense of superiority gives,.he was
observed by all .... What sentiment such an appearance might excite
I cannot pretend to say, but at the same time the effect produced was
unmistakable, they stared at him, as at a superior being.

But I hope that you will agree, keeping in mind the arguments that I have been
offering, that in Dickens the "perfection of dress" and the capacity to love more
passionately are revealed not as complementary but as contradictory categories, so
that in G/reatExpectations the very qualities that go into the making of the genteel
mystique become the means of their own demystification.

Note the portrait in the background and see the connection made between the
notion of gentlemanliness and love
I d
Great kxpectatzons and '
'
2.5 1 LET US SUM UP
- -
self-~mprovement

follow the argument in this unit? Let me quickly recapitulate the main points
ou can check out whether you've missed anything or not. I would suggest
n case you come up against something in this summing up that you are not
o back to the unit and check the relevant.port~on.

in this unit was that Great Expectations makes the whole process of
ent problematic because unlike David Copperfield it does not provide
xt or milieu where the improving process might work itself out.
ip's genuine desire to improve his lot comes up inevitably against the
r class arrogance. I had argued also that the conventional
plot is further problematised in Great Expectations because this novel
tral (if repressed convention) essential for the smooth unfolding of the
t: the repression of the hero's humble past after he-becomesa
ntrast Dickens makes it impossible for Pip to reconcile the demands
s with the clalms of his past. I hope that you followed the ways in
implications of this problem are worked out through the delineation
tionship. Finally in this unit we looked at the world of gentlefolk
generate the fine feelings and rich emotlons that Pip associates
1, we focussed on a particular relationship. Can you tell me what

Betsy

Tomm Traddles
t1
~twood David's aunt in David Copperfield

David's friend

The person David marries after the death of his first wife.

A street urchin whom David got to know while working

in the bottling factory.

Parody ( humourous imitation of serious writing.

organization of persons o r things arranged into higher

or lower ranks, classes, grades.

. like a dialogue

A certain sophisticated style of horsemanship.

a system of ideas that influences the views of the

-. believer at every level.

~redieattd based on

From the word hegemony which means the ability

to ensure large scale confirmity to certain ideas without
the application of force.
 6na E ~ ~ c c ~ ( I ~ ~ o ~ s
e \ Mediated Refracted-
.*
Inviolate in its pure state.

Bonhomie Good cheer, fellow feeling.

Subsumed absorbed

Egalitarian An attitude that is based on the belief that all men and
\ women are equal

Interlocutor The person spoken to.

Contextualising To bring a problem in relation to the 1irger surrounding

Problems.

Predilections Special likingslpreferences.

Demystification To expose the methods by which certain people or

institutions seek to disguise their real intentions by
clothing these in appealing qualities.
4.
-
s4
I
I

2.7 OUESTIONS I

1 I
i) Have you finished reading David Copperfield? If you have, try and compare I

David's progress with that of Pip. Do please add ideas of your own which you
I
,

have not encountered in these units. May I also take this opportunity to add a few
lines about the kind of answers that I would appreciate from someone who has
been working with these units? I would probably feel happy and flattered to read
an answer that uses the infomation given here accurately and appropriately. But
the answer that I would respect would have to be one where the reader has taken
into account what is given here, thought about it, used parts of it, %utmade
whatever he or she has found useful here as part of his or her distinctive way of
thinking. In other words what I am asking you to do is to use these units to
generate your own thinking.
\
2) You will have gathered some ideas about Joe in the course.of going through Unit
e 2. Supplement these with a close reading of the text and then attempt a three page
answer on the significance of Joe in Great Expectations. By the yay, by "close
reading" I don't mean that you have to reread the whole text ever>rtinte you sit
down to write an answer. What I'm asking you to do is to focus only on the parts
related to Joe, mark these out in your text, and have the text before you when get
. to work on your answer. '

3) How do you respond to the Pip-Estella relationship? Again make use of your text
while you write your answer.

.4) In what way does Dickens complicate the conventional improvement plot? Think
about this carefully and write a detailed five page answer.
a I
 /
t._,.. - -

UNIT 3 IMPROVEMENT O R
r DISINTEGRATION?

:I, Structure
p.0 Objectives

.1 Introduction
i

i
I
t

1
t .2

.3

.4
'The Progressive Educative Plot' and Self Integration

Great Expectations and the Integrative Method

.
Improvemimt or Disintegration? A Closer Loek at Book 3

9
.7 Questions

b 1
$0
1
OBJECTIVES

i
e aim of this Unit is to acquaint you with the ethos of "improvement" and to help
y u understand how Great Expectations highlights the contradictions within the ideal

'
o "improvement" and gentility. After reading this Unit carefully; you will be able to
1 plain how Great Expectations can be seen as a bildungsroman.

311
1
I

INTRODUCTION
.

concerned so far with the sociological problems to which Dickens

self improvement paradigm in Great Expectations, and how the self-
g individual is incorporated within the genteel ethos and with the ways in
this throws into doubt the desirability of "improvemeqJ" itself. But I feel that
tations is more than a middle class indictment of (the predominantly ,
ratic) notion of gentility. In fact it loosens the basic coordinates -the
istemology -of what Peter Brooks calls "the progressive educative
cifically I am going to try to show that if the traditional improvement
t e in its orientation -aiming at the final integration of the hero's
s, Great Expectations projects the hero above all in terms of his "self-
I ousness" his increasing awareness of the violent, often irreconcilable
erent to his situation.

U
"THE PROGRESSIVE EDUCATIVE PLOT" AND
SELF INTEGRATION

"progressive educative plot" is oriented above all towards the completion of the
's education, so that in improvement literature the hero's final assimilation within
~&at~jqwctutiolls "good society" coincides with his acquisition of an integrated sense of self. At the
simplest level this proGess is represented as linear, infallible, something that can be
made to work itself out with the inevitability of objective science. Thus in Smiles's
SelfHelp the practice of a few time tested virtues is shown to lead step by step to
both success and what Betsy Trotwood calls "character". "What some men are,"
Samuel Smiles declared with the na'ive confidence characteristic of many nineteenth
century theories of progress, "all may without difficulty be. Employ the same means
and the same results will follow".
I

The integrative orientation of self-improvement takes a more complex form in John

Stuart Mill's Autobiography. Unlike Smiles's representation of Watt's career, for
instance, the story of Mill's inner growth is based on a rupture - a psychological
crisis in mid-life which forces him to review the values to which he had so far
adhered. Nevertheless Mill's crisis never forces him to question the validity of self
culture itself. On the contrary, from the vantage point of confident maturity (which
point of view, incidentally determines the entire tone of the autobiography),Mill is
able t.6 perceive his crisis as "one of the successive phases" in the development of a
mind "that was always pressing forward". In this sense Miy's crisis emerges as
something that provides "complements and correctives" to the one-sided absorption
in the life of the intellect, and enables him to join the cultivation of feelings .with
" i n t e l k l culture". Joining and balance are, in fact, as Martin Warner points out,
watchwords in an autobiography which conceptualises self-development as
something where certain qualities can be added and complemented by others. Put
another way, the cause and efffect method of SelfHelp is replaced in Mill's
Autobiography by what Warner calls the method of the "desiderated balance." This
means that whereas in &!f-Help "improvement" is a simple chain of related qualities,
Mill's Autobiography brings together different and even opposite qualities in its
projection of the fully rounded "balanced" consciousness. But in both cases, self
culture is conceptualised as something that is successive, categorisable in additive
t q m s , and leading to an integrated sense of self.

I went into this comparative analysis of SelfHelp and Mill's Autobiography because
these two classic examples of nineteenth century improvement literature may be said
to exemplify the two strands of progress - "outer" and "inner" -that came together ,
in the English bildungsroman of the nineteenth century. More specifically, in the .
mainstream English bildungsroman, the hero is exposed to the kind of inner turmoil
and subsequent emotional growth that is characteristic of Mill's Autobiography, but
this process is also shown to be simul*eous with, &d closely related to the kind of
social advancement plotted in Smiles's parables. In David coppe@eld,'for example,
David is made to conhnt a whole series of dangers and traumas but these are all
. along conceived of as aspects of his education -events whose underlying bction
is to contribute to David's all round development: to his acquisition on the one hand,
of a chpleted, integrated sense of self, and on the other, of a comfortable, adjusted
and productive relationship with society.

'
I will now try to show you how different Dickens's method had become as he moved .
fim David Coppefleld to Great Expectations.

3.3 GREAT EXPECTATIONS AND THE INTEGRATIVE '

METHOD

How does Great Expectations relate to the integrative method of the traditional .
bildungsroman? One good entry point into this problem is to tum our attention to
Dickens's treatment of Miss Havisham -that crucial agent in the story of Pip's :
"progre~~". Like Betsy Trotwood, Miss Havisham'sfirnction is that of a
 ther figures who ensure, (in the latter case supposedly ensures), the Improvement 01
into the world of culture and education, constitutes a violation of the Disintegration?
Smilesean paradigm, which, as I am sure you will agree, is predicated on a
a1 and material relationship between the hero's merit and his ultimate
could logically argue, couldn't we, that David Coppe4eld seems to
le class idea of improvement at the level of a wish-fulfilment
sy, not only because the change that Betsy Trotwood brings about in David's life
agical reward for David's real desire to improve his lot; but also because
s the novel's major spokesperson for the bourgeois virtues. Moreover,
Trotwood's relationship with the fairytale is limited to her function as a
a1 donor. As an individual she is, despite her eccentricities, naturalised
r she ensures David's entry into the enlightened world of the middle
s does, I think, is to blunt the potentially disjunctive and traumatic
the sudden and absolute change that she brings about in David's
Instead the aura of homely familiarity that surrounds her makes David's
I
o the respectable middle class world a smooth, easily negotiable process.

ectations, on the other hand, the fantastic is much more than a function
the contrary, as in the grim folk tales we talked about in the first unit,
c mode becomes a key element in what we might call a strategy of
sation: it distorts the figure of Miss Havisham herself, it creates around
ird atmosphere, and in the process makes Pip's first experience of
ife strange and disconcerting. Thus Miss Havisham and the
ounds her, far from offering Pip an unambiguously desirable
ciety", in fact provoke him, force on his consciousness the
f the world of Satis House; arouse in him the first stirrings of
the cultured, refined, "fine" lifestyle, but at the same time
him, leaving him not with a clear sense of purpose, but in a
kful state" (p. 101).

ad the long last sentence carefilly again, because it leads up to the point
out to be the crucial one in this unit. The point is this : situations in
ctations are organised not with the intention of affirming the hero's
of testing it. Incidents far from being milestones that chart the "seemly"
of the here's progress, are intentionally rendered extraordinary,
interact with people under unusual and unexpected conditions,
ng him. This method of composition impinges on a second major problem -
characterisation. More specifically,I think that if in the conventional
, the hero's character emerges out of a basically integrative process,
ce to which he is exposed, even when painfil, imparts solidity
nal image) Pip is made to perceive the relationships into which
social worlds through which he traverses as fundamentally, pdnfully
is means that Pip's experiences in general, far from adding up to an
f self, become in fact subjects of his introspection or in Bakhtin's
f his "self consciousness". We might thus say that it is Pip's painfil grappling
tions to which he is so relentlessly exposed, rather than any steady
f the self, that constitutes what Pip calls "the innermost life of

Expectations Dickens uses a whole range of techniques to expose Pip to the

f his introspection, his "self consciousness" -his sense of the
f his situation. But it is above all how Dickens uses the
" on which the whole plot of Great Expectations depends, that he is able
conditions that can sustain the most ruthless dismantling of Pip's sense I
do I mean by "disclosure"? In fact I've borrowed the term from the
and Barthes. According to Barthes the disclosure in the "realistic"
i
s out the- unaccounted for problems within the story, but by doing
Great Exp~ectations this it also enables the novel to naturalise its projection of an ktegrated, "completed"
Y sense of reality.

The disclosure, then, is the revelation in the light of which everything falls into place.
It is something that gives xqoral and logical coherence to the whole story. From a
perspective that is concerned with the hero, the discovery is constituted as the point
when the "wandering" hero finally "arrives". So what would you say is the disclosure
in Great Expectations? Surely Pip's discovery at the end of Book 2 tlpt his
gentlemanly status has all along been sustained by a criminal's money. But what does
this disclosure do? Far fiom closing the story of Pip's growth, it exposes him to a
great crisis -makes it imposs~blefor him to either belong to gentlemanly society or
to go back to the provincial world of his past. It assaults his very sense of selfhood.
What is more, by locating the disclosure at the end of the second part of the novel, ,
Dickens can leave for himself the entire third part in which to carry out a sustained
analysis of the "improving" consciousness. Especially at the point of its maximum
1I
vulnerability. I

3.4 IMPROVEMENT OR DISINTEGRATION?: A

CLOSER LOOK AT BOOK 3 OF GREAT
EXPECTA TIONS
If you've rea'd Book 3 of Great Expectations carellly, you've probably been struck
by the feverish atmosphere in which it is enveloped: by the sheer number of
sensational incidents that seem to clutter it. Yet aH this probably seemed to you
particularly meaningless if you were reading from the point of view of plot, because
of course the secret on which the whole plot turns is, as we saw earlier, disclosed at
the end of Book 2. Yet if we turn our attention fiom plot to the problem of
characterisation, Book 3 begins to make a lot of sense because more than any other
portion of the novel, Book 3 provides the ground where the integrative method of the
conventional bildungsroman can be systematically dismantled. .

Everything in the third part of the novel -the long, exhausting and seemingly
purposeless journeys that Pip is so relentlessly made to undertake, the whirlwind
pace at which he is hurtled h m one traumatic experience to another, all aim at
depriving rather than offering Pip the "comfort of civilization" -the sense of
belonging to a wider community that critic Franco Moretti identifies as the
underlying essence of the English bildungsroman. Instead of arriving at a
comfortable relationship with society, Pip's situation is characterised by an
overwhelming sense of homelessness; instead of integrating his powers'9ip finds
himself pushed to the very brink of extinction.

It is the evocation of Pip's homelessness that gives a ~ underlying

1 significance to the
long and seemingly unconnected sequence of events that begins with Estella's
, announcement of her impending marriage to the stupid and brutish Drummle and
ends with Pip's restless night at the Hummums. Deeply distressed by Estella's
decision, Pip decides to walk back all the way from Kent to London, on the
assumption that "I could do nothing half so good to myself as tire myself out"(p.379).
He reaches home long after midnight, physically and mentally exhausted only to
receive a mysterious note at the gate. The note is from Wemmick and it instructs Pip:
"PLEASE READ THIS HERE' and 'DON'T GO HOME (p.379). As an element in a
suspense plot, Wemmick's note is totally unnecessary: the danger against which
Wemmick warns Pip turns out to be a contrived one, and Wemmick's intervention
makes no difference at all to either Magwitch's or Pip's fate. But by preventing the
exhausted Pip fiom entering his own home, Wemmick's injunction becomes an
integral aspect of Pip's self-consci~usness.As he lies awake in the oppressive inn
where he is forced to spend the night, Wemmick's note "plaits" itself around P u s '
C -1
I
%

consciousness as "a bodily pain would have" (p.380) until it is transformed from a Improvement or
simple fact to a "vast shadowy verb"(p.380) which expresses the central reality about Disintegration?
Pip's present existence.

Even when 1thought of Estella, and how we parted that day for ever, and
when I recalled all the circumstances of our parting, and all her looks and
tones, and the action of her fingers while she knitted -even then I was
pursuing here, there and everywhere the caution 'Don't go home'. When at
last I dozed, in sheer exhaustion of mind and body, it became a vast shadowy
verb which I had to conjugate. Imperative mood present tense: Do not thou
go home, -potentially : I may not, cannot go home, and I might not, could
not, would not and should not go home; until I felt I was going distracted,
and rolled over on the pillow. (p.381)

In Pip's nightmarish encounter with Orlick, which follows soon after, Dickens's
destabilising project implicates Pip's sense of self itself. (If you don't have this
particular episode in your head go back to the text and read it before you proceed
further.) In one of the earliest reviews of Great Expectations, Mrs. Oliphant a
contemporary writer angrily complained that the Orlick affair constituted "the most
arbitrary and causeless stoppage in,the story", and at one level she was perfectly
nght. Like Wernmick's warning, the Orlick episode adds nothing to the plot, and it
may be read simply as a sensational diversion. As an aspect of Dickens's oyerall
strategy of destabilisation,however, the Pip-Orlick encounter is an almost perfect
piece of artistic construction. Every detail leading up to Pip's entrapment, every
element in the atmosphere that envelops the sluice house where Pip is imprisoned,
pushes Pip's quest for improvement to the point of complete collapse. The
circumstances leading up to Pip's capture expose him to the appalling possibility of
dying without the benefit of a last explanation, of leaving behind for posterity, an
image of himself bereft of the last vestiges of integrity. In these circumstances, Pip
perceives his impending death not just as physical dissolution, but as the culminating
point of a whole process of disintegration, expressive of the essential reality that
underlies "a blind and thankless life" (p.410). If you have gone through the OrEick
portion carelidly you will remember that a recurring motif throughout the Pip-Orlick
encounter is "the sluggish, stifling" (p.433) smoke that emanates fiom the lime kiln
in the neighbourhood of the sluicehouse where Pip is trapped. Orlick intends to
dispose off Pip's corpse in the lime kiln : "I won't have a rag of you, I won't have a
bone of you left on earth. I'll put your body in the kiln - and let people suppose
what the3 may of you, they shall never know nothing" (p.436). The prospect of
disappearing without a trace, of being "changed" (p.438) into the utterly insubstantial
lime kiln smoke brings the story of Pip's maturation to the edge of nothingness.

If there is anything that gives a semblance of purpose to Pip's "lost" life it is

ironically his transgressive resolution to help his criminal benefactor evade the law.
Moreover in Herbert, Pip has a Wend capable of responding not only to his deepest
problems but also to the inner integrity of his decision to help Magwitch. However
when Herbert leaves for the West Indies Pip feels "that my last anchor was
loosening" (p.470). Bereft of everything that might have imparted stability to his
sense of self, it is impossible for Pip to think in the balancing additive terms
characteristic of the improving mind. Instead Pip's mental condition is best expressed
in the delirium that overtakes him:

Whether I was really down in Garden-Court in the dead of night, groping

about for the boat that was supposed to be there; whether I had two or three
times come to myself on the staircase with great terror, not knowing how I
had got out of bed; whether I had found myself lighting the lamp, possessed
by the idea that he was coming up the stairs, and the lights were blown out;
whethdr I had been inexpressibly harrassed by the distracted talking,
Great Expedazions laughing and groaning, of someone ... whether there had been a closed iron
furnace in a dark comer of the room, and a voice had called out over and
over again that Miss Havisham was consuming within it; these things I tried
to settle with myself and get into some order, as I lay that morning in bed.
But the vapour of lime kiln would come betwecri me and them, disordering
them all .... (pp. 470-71). I
I
Of course Pip's delirious state is abnormal and tempom, the consequence of serious
illness. But at a dieper level, Pip's illness not only suggests his profoundly disturbed--
mental state but also approximates a compositional method that underlies the entire
third part of Great Expectations. Within this composi~onalmethod (as in Pip's
delirium), time does not move in its ordinary, everyday, "realistic" pace: instead it is
organised as "crisis time", hurtling Pip, at a feverish pace, from one extreme situation
to another. Again Pip's imagined journeys at "the head of stairs, running down
stairs", approximate the breakdown of the habitable, confortable interiors that had
enveloped Pip in the second part of the novel. It also gives way in the third part, to .
the restless journeys, one night gtopovers at oppressive inns, murderous
appointments. In this sense, ~ i c k h s ' delineation
s of Pip's delirium may be read as
paradigmatic of a compositional method that aims not at integration but at
"disordering".

It is true of course that in the concluding pages of Great Expectations, Dickens

makes a last-minute attempt to rehabilitate Pip and to integrate his life to the
unostentatious, productive middle class world. Indeed in Pip's resurrection we might
see one more instance of the process by which official ideologies are both criticised
and incorporated in the Dickensian text, but for one, obviously disturbing fact. The
money that buys Herbert's partnership at Clarriker's firm, and secures for Pip his
stable Smilesian identity -"I work pretty hard for a sufficient living, and therefore
-yes I do well." (p.492) and indeed, enables Dickens to set into motion the whole
process by which the values of the traditional bildungsroman can be partially
retrieved, is, in fact, the same tainted money that had precipitated the crisis in Pip's
life in the first place.

.3.5 LET US SUM UP

In this Unit, I have been concerned a b o ~ all

e with Dickens's use in Great
Expectations of a compositional method which aims at loosening the coordinates that
sustained the integrative orientation of the improvement plot. I have tried to show
you fist of all how the classic nineteenth century bildungsroman may be said to
synthesise the process of inner and outer growth as it is articulated in extra novelistic
texts like SelfHelp and Mill's Autobiography. We have then seen how Dickens uses
various devices such as expressive modes of the fairytale that make Pip's first
experience of gentility a disconcerting experience, or a disclosure that precipitates
rather than resolves the crisis. Finally we focussed on the third part of the novel w i W
its restless journey, one night stop overs at inhospitable inns and delirious illnesses -
all of which embody a compositional method that aims not at integration but at
disordering.

3.6 GLOSSARY
Ethos the characteristic spirit of a people or an institution -
or distinctive features of a particular culture or group.

Bildungsroman a novel whose theme is the growth and development

of the hero - literally, education novel.
 Improvement or
pattern, example Disintegration?
Barthes author of S/Z

1
enouement the solution of a plot in a story.

rrasin A novella by the French writer Balzac.

W d e fullness, completeness

author of The Way of the World. The Bildungsroman

In European Culture ( 1987)

solution Disintegration

nsgressive brealang a law, command or duty.

Tinates the elements whose interrelationshipmakes up the

system of thought

the internal method by which any system of thought

Works.

Utterly contradictory.

something that never fails.

+Active Disruptive -oriented towards breaking up.

IIl
317
ditive

OUESTIONS-
A method that is based on arriving at the whole by
simply adding up the different parts.

I think that if you've read these units as well as the text carefully you should be in
a position to attempt a full length answer on Great Expectations as a
Gildungsroman. May I take this opportunity to suggest how you can use this
material provided here in order to build your answer? Of course you need not
abide by the plan I provide below. In fact as I said in the previous unit $e answer
that I would most value would be one that takes into account what I say but also
shows evidence that you have been thinking on your own about the problem.

I would begin any answer on Great Expectations as a bildungsroman by

discussing why the improvement plot that underlies the bildungsroman would
have particular relevance to the 1850s and 60s, but also how there were certain
internal contradictions within the popular improvement plots. Within the
introduction itself I would also try to delineate the integrative method of the
classic nineteenth century bildungsroman by referring not only to David
Copperfield but also to SelfHefp and Mill's Autobiography.

Having laid out the basic framework within which the English bildungsroman
articulated itself, I would go on to use material from Unit 2 to show how Great
Expectations exposes deep rooted human problems within a pattern of
Great Expectations "improvement" that has gentlemanliness as its ultimate aim. Similarly I would
draw on material fiom unit 3 to show how'by precipitating the disclosure at the
end of the second part of the book, Dickens lays the ground for the working out
of a compositional method that is aimed not at integration but at disordering.

I would conclude my answer by suggesting that this destabilisation of the

improvement plot symptomises a bigger.problem: the unsustainability of self
improvement in a society where progress is, in fact, inseparable fiom everything
that is its opposite. (I will take up this problem in greater detail in Unit 5).

2) "Part 3 of Great Expectations is the least relevant section of Great Expectations."

.Would you agree? Give a reasoned answer.

3) A great deal of what I have said in Unit 3 is adapted from the second and fourth
chapters ofa book that Bakhtin (remember him?) wrote called The Problems of
Dostoyevsky's Poetics. Dostoyevsky's Poetics is one of the great books of literary
criticism and its applicability goes way beyond what I have done with it. Can you
read at least the two chapters I mentioned of Bakhtin's book (it is easily
available) and make a summary of its main points?
 UNIT 4 GREAT EXPECTATIONS AND T H E

Objectives
4b

4l' Introduction

1
12

3
The Fairytale as a Historically Complex Mode

"Realism" and the Fairytale

"Deforming" the Conventional Fairytale

Let US S& up

f!
,
.7

i.0
Questions

OBJECTIVES
1 ;

e nineteenth century has often been called the "age of realism". Yet wlthin the so
alled realistic novel elements of the gothic, the romantic, the fairytale etc. could be
d. Especially in Dickens, who drew upon several popular modes. After reading
is Unit, you will be able to outline how the conventions of the fairytale have been
orked into Great Expectations.

Y
k.1 INTRODUCTION

I hope that you remember the point 1had made (in Unit 1) about the formal open
,endedness of the Dickensian novel and about its ability to absorb a whole range of
(popular modes. I'd suggested also that one popular mode that had a great deal of
I relevance for Great Expectations was the fairytale. In this unit, I will try to show you
)I various
the complex (and therefore interesting) ways in which elements from the fairytale (at
points of its evolution) get "reactivated" in Great Expectations.
I

( 4.2 THE FAIRYTALE AS A HISTORJCALLY COMPLEX

1 MODE

Beforc I go into what I have to say about the relationship between Great
Expectations and the fairytale, I would like you to be aware of a fairly influential
body of opinion that sees the fairytale like - quality of Dickens's fiction as
symptomatic of its moral simplicity. For instance, Franco Moretti has argued (in his
influential book on the European bildungsroman) that Great Expectations is, like
many other novels that Dickens wrote, deep down a fairytale. Moretti compares this
Great Expectations feature of the Dickensian y v e l unfavourably, against the mature realism of
nineteenth century European fiction, and argues that Dickens's novels are basically
infantile because they are predicated on a fairytale - like division of their world into
good and evil. But the only evidence that Moretti offers for arguing that fairytales
are necessarily infantile is a quotation fiom Bruno Bettleheim:

Ambiguities must wait until a relatively firm personality has been established
... The figures in b fairytale are not ambivalent -not good and bad at the
same time, as we are in reality. But since polarisation dominates the child's
mind, it also dominates the fairytales .... One brother is stupid the-other is
clever. One sister is virtuous and industrious the other is vileand lazy ... .
One parent is good, the other evil.

It must be remembered, however, that Bettleheim was focusing on fairytales in their

contemporary form, and on their ability to illustrate how a child's mind works.
Understandably, therefore, Bettleheim's concern was not primarily historical : he did
not take into account, for instance, that fairytales were not always part of what is now
called "children's literature". Nor does he say that it was precisely during the early
nineteenth century, that is, during Dickens's formative years, that fairytales were
moving away from their roots.in popular oral culture to children's books. Rooted in a
"preliterate peoples way of thinking", fairytales in the eighteenth and even the early
nineteenth century, often represented, as Robert Darntan and more recently Herman
Rebel have shown, the ways in which "the poor and not so poor continue to speak to
each other and to subvert official efforts at replacing popular speech with the rote
learning of catechisms and approved texts." Such stories derived their power from
the sombreness of their atmosphere, their discontinuous prose, their occasionally
brutal language, and above all, from the way that they use the magical elements
inherent within fairytales as the means not of providing simplified moral resoluti~:is,
but of confronting their readers with disconcerting paradoxes and desperate choices.
Rebel shows that when the Grimrns began to prepare the vast body of fairytales for
publication, they systematically edited out material unsuitable for children on the
assumption that it was not "the tales' authenticity but the pleasure that they brought
that would allow them to function as works of instruction." Incorporated within the
moral economy of respectability, the printed fairytale began increasingly to acquire
the pleasant atmosphere and the simplified morality that we associate with it today.

I hope that you can see how the historical complexity that Rebel's essay brings to
bear on the fairytale shows up the reductiveness of analyses (such as Moretti's) that
treat the fairytale-like quality of the ~ickensiannovel as expressive of an infantile
imagination that can work only by dividing the world into good and bad. On the
contrary, poised at a critical point of its evolution when Dickens first encountered it,
the fairytale mode opened for England's greatest popular writer the novelistic
possibilities inherent in its past and in its future. It enabled him to appropriate the
disjunctive force of its original form, and at the same time to replicate perhaps, but
also to "deform" -a term that I will explain in greater detail soon -the simple
bipolar (good-bad) structure that it was beginning to acquire. I will try to show later
that the story of Pip's expectations replicates in order to subvert the conventional
novelisations of the fairytale plots, and that the binary worldview that the fairytale
plot sustains is, in Great Expectations, shown to epitoniise not just a childish mode
of cognition, but also the way that official society seeks to preserve its own sanctity.

4.3 "REALISM" AND THE FAIRYTALE

Let me begin by exploring the ways in which elements from the older, darker, "folk"
form of the fairytale enter into and affect Great Expectations, and espec~allythe
pivotal scenes involving Satis House and their weird owner.
 read the Satis House scenes carefully you will agree that these scenes retain Great Expectations
atmosphere and all the disconcerting force that Rebel associates with the Atld Tbe Fairytale
le m its original form. What is more the Satis House scenes are described
ly fiom the point of view of Pip who is at this stage a poor labouring
might thus say that Dickens brings into the domain of the novel a mode of
ting the elite that is inextricably implicated in a plebian point of view. If you
d you will perhaps agree that the truly interesting problem is not the
otherwise of the fairytale mode that Dickens uses of the Satis House
lationship to a mode of novel that was through the 1860sbeing
educated classes of what one contemporary described as a
ewhat sceptical age". For the lack of a more precise term we
describe this method as "realism" and one of its tenets was that it self-
what the Westmimter Review (one of the most important organs
described as "the marvels which had delighted our cruder

by now you have reached a stage in your development as a

here you can deal with the following proposition: that realism
pression of the "real" or an extension of "truth" or "natureH,
f artistic ordering (or artist~cconstruction of you like). As
n his well known analysis of Balzac's description of the
,the "effect" of reality is an illusion created by the
of "connotations" (or the additional bits of meaning that
over and above what it literally states). Now let me
Barthes. It is a difficult passage and I will try to help
you read it by interpolating explanations within square brackets. Don't
this passage has wide-ranging applicability:

The fleeting citation, this surreptitious and discontinuous way of stating

themes, ... create together the allure of connotation; the seems [roughly, the
system, of additional meanings concealed beneath the regular meaning of
words] seem to appear to float fieely, to farm a galaxy of trifling data in
which we read no order of importance: the narrative technique is
impressionistic: it breaks up the signifier [that is it breaks up the word fiom .
mething that signifies a single simple meaning] into particles of verbal
attcr [connotations) which makes sense by only coalescing .... The touch
be light as though it were not worth remembering, and yet appearing
another guise, it must already be a memory; the readerly [or the
istic] is an effect based on operations of solidarity [the readerly sticks];
the more that this solidarity is renewed, the more intelligible (it) becomes
.. The (ideological) goal of this technique is naturalising meaning [that is to
aclrnowledge that the novel's reality is an effect based on the
f words and their comotations, this technique pretends,that
sparency that reveal an preexisting reality] .... This
possible only because the significant data released -or
a homeopathic rhythm are borne along by a purportedly
" medium language: connotation is conceale'd beneath the regular
sentences, "wealth" [Barthes is referring to Balzac's description of
did de h n t y mansion] beneath the utterly natural syntax [subject
object] which says that a party is given in a mansion which is
cular neighbourhood.

stence on the constructedness of novelistic "truth" has been the subject

critical commentary. What interests me, however, is not whether or
novel is purely an Weffect"but the suggestion that realism is
in what it seeks to describe. Let me elaborate a bit on this by
Great Expectations turning to the following passage from Mansfiehi Park which like most of Jane
Austen's writing exemplifies perfectly the methods of domestic realism.

To the education of her daughters Lady Bertram paid not the smallest
attention. She had not time for such cares. She was a woman who spent her
days in sitting nicely dressed on a sofa, doing some long piece of
needlework, of little use and no beauty, thinking more of her pug than of her
children, but very indulgent to the latter when it did not put her to
inconvenience, guided in everything important by Sir Thomas, and in smaller
concerns by her sister.

Now, it is clear, of course, that Jane Austen's attitude to the person she is describing
is extremely critical. But I hope that you will agree that Jane Austen wouldn't dream
of disrupting the system of connotations which produces this internally integrated,
directly experienced "authentic" picture of the domestic world of the gentry in the
late eighteenth century, in order to articulate her criticism. For example, Austen
would never have an angel descend from heaven, walk into Mansfzeld Park and point
out to Lady Bertram that she leads a lazy, parasitic life, because by doing this she
would destroy forever the effect of the natural that she has built word by word.

Moreover you'd agree, wouldn't you, that the signs - for example Lady Bertram's
lazy posture, the quality of the embroidery that she is working at and her attitude
towards her children, the dresses she might wear or the way she speaks - that go into
the making of Lady Bertram's image -have to preserve a certain degree of
consistency. For as Barthes insists, the sense of reality is created when connotations
concealed beneath the simple meaning of words, supplement each other and, come
together in "operations of solidarity".

It is the consensus of signs - for example, a certain internal consistency between the
social class to which a character belongs, the kind of dress that she wears, and the
way that she speaks- that the fairytale mode seeks to disrupt. It frees the signifier
from the need to replicate "life as it is"; and by disregarding the requirements of
"lifelikeness" which give to realistic representations of upper class homes both their
authenticity and their internal homogeneity, it creates in Satis House a site where the
attributes of an elegant lifestyle can be tensely jwtaposed,against death, decay and
madness. "The rich materials" -"satins, lace and silk" - in which Miss Havisham
is dressed; the bridal flowers in her dress, the jewels that lie sparkling on her table
suggest the resplendent celebrations of the rich and the cultured. But adds Pip,
"everything that ought to have been white was white long ago, and had lost its lustre
and was faded and yellow and the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the
dress, and like the flowers, had no brightness but the brightness of her sunken eyes"
(p.87).

In Dickens's novelisation of the fairytile then signs lose their stability: far from
"fixing" reality in black and white terms, signifiers in the Satis House scenes carry
within themselves the possibility of their own reversal (for example, as we just saw a
signifier such a s ' ~ i s Havisham's
s wedding dress suggests both celebration and
decay). The effect of this is that it becomes impossible for Pip (and for the reader) to
take the superiority of the gentlefolk for granted. Miss Havisharn's bridal clothes are
also like her "grave clothes" (p.90), and Miss Havisham's birthday, wedding day, 'Ad
dying day all come together when, during the course of a grotesque birthday ritual,
Miss Havisham imagines her corpse laid out where her wedding feast should have
taken place:

"When the ruin is complete", she said with a ghastly look, "and when they
lay me dead, in my bride's dress in my bride's table -which shall be done,
and will be the finished curse upon him -so much the better if it is done on
this day." @. 117).
 Great Expectations the fairytale mode breaks "the homeopathic rhythm" by which Great Expectations
stem of secondary (connotative) meanings are brought together to constitute the And The Fairytale
. It renders as strange and alien what domestic realism would seek to represent
and internally integrated. Retaining the subversive charge and the painful
s inherent in its original form, the fairytale mode in Great Expectations
les us to see the world of the elite fiom a new plebiah point of view, and it does
nly because it breaks fiee from the hegemony of the ways in which those with
ess to power and education represent that world.

1.4 "DEFORMING" THE CONVENTIONAL FAIRYTALE

makes Dickens's relationship with the fairytale mode truly interesting is his
to both the "folk" form of the falrytale, as well as to the morally simpler, more
aic plot pattern that it was acquiring through the nineteenth century. Unlike a
Oliver Twist which uses devices fiom the conventional falrytale to provide
lified moral solutions to the problems raised by other aspects of the novel, Great
ectations absorbs the conventional fairytale plot, not in order to replicate its
oppositional paradigm but in order to "deform" it. The Russian Formalists
oup of critics who first developed the idea of "deformation")thought of
ation as variations that individual authors brought about in certain well-known
tterns in order to achieve their distinctive efffect. But I think that it was
n who gave the term its larger resonance when he argued that the most
forins of deformation were "based on certain displacements and
ations of semantic values [such that] a transfer of ideological values
Great Expectations the process of deformation -when we understand it
akhtin's extended sense -involves a head-on assault on the very structure of
ectations formalised in the conventional falrytale plot.

ay in which we can respond to the complexity that underlies the relationship

en the conventional fairytale plot and Great Expectations is by turning once
to the figure of Miss Havisham -this time to herfinction as the supposed
e-like plot of Pip's expectations. As the benign agent
elevation to "good" society, Miss Havisham is .
omected to the @numerable fairy godmotherlfather
s early novels. At the same time it is equally obvious
irdness, is not a simple reincarnation of Betsy

is ambiguity lies at the heart of Dickens's conceptualisation of Miss Havisham,

tdering her in Pip's eyes, as both fairy godmother and witch. When Pip visits Satis
luse for the first time after the great change in his fortunes, Miss Havisham's crutch
a symbol of her deformity -becomes at the same time a signifier of her benign
.gical powers, and Miss Havisham in her role as fairygodmother is juxtaposed
kinst her rotting wedding cake in a configuration pregnant with the tension of its
n contradictions:

"This is a gay figure, Pip", said she, making her crutch stick play around me,
as if she the fairy godmother who had changed me, were bestowing the
finishing gift -and so I left my fairy godmother, with both her hands on her
crutch stick, standing in the midst of the dimly lighted room beside the
rotting bridecake that was hidden in cobwebs. (pp.183-84).

I
ambiguity with which Dickens represents the figure of Miss Havisham
I uences our anticipation of Pip's future. At one level Pip's assumption that Miss ?I
Great E x p e d o n s Havisham is his faj. godmother prompts Pip (and us) to read his future with the
"eyes of the genre" (that is, from the point of view of the conventional fairytale) that
Miss Havisham apparently sets into motion. Assuming that Miss Havisham is his
secret benefactor, Pip speculates:

She had adopted Estella and she had as good as adopted me, and it could not
fail to be her intention to bring us together. She reserved it for me to restore
the desolate house, admit the sunshine Into the dark rooms, set the clocks a
going and the cold hearths ablazing, tear down the cobwebs, destroy the
vermin - in short do all the shining deeds of the young Knight of romance
and marry the Princess. (p.253).

Designed and etched by George Cruikshank

The important thing here is not Pip's mistake, but that it recreates the fairytale plots
of Dickens's early novels arousing in us expectations of a "solution" that will, on the
one hand, manage, resolve or repress the problematic nature of Pip's relationship with
Miss Havisham, and, on the other, create in Great Expectations the simple bipolar
world of Oliver %kt where an idealised realm inhabited by Miss Havishikn and
Estella can be ,split off structurally from the sordidness of the real world. It is this
binary world view that serves as the shared ground, "the common knowledge"
against which the story of Pip's actual career is made to "sound". In this sense the
series of revelations that link Miss Havisham to the criminal Compeyson, and bind
both Pip and Estella inextricably to the sordid almost sub-human figure of Magwitch,
make the act of defonning the conventional fairytale plot simultaneous with the
smashing of the basic moral boundary by which Pip (and indeed the larger
gentlemanly society of which he is a part) preserves hislits sanctity.
40
 - -

Great ~x&&ns
And The Fairytale

onomy of children's literature. This meant that Great Expectations could .

't, look up the relevant portion.

I
4.6 GLOSSARY

Two brothers from Gemany who were among the fust to

collect folk tales, leave out from these the harsh elements,
and then print them as pleasant stories for children.

to put in

based on impressions rather than on knowledge

growing together or writing so as to f o m one group

or mass

fhac One of the greatest French novelists of the 19" century.

the study of signs in general especially as they are related

To language

+n~er A sign (for example the word in a language).

The meaning that is conventionally attached to a sign.

meaning in language.
'r
to form a general idea or understanding of something

4bolm having two I;oles.

eliterate People who have not yet had the chance to gain education.

Fhisms
ednctiveness
moral lessons (usually lessons from the Bible).

The inability to take into account the 111 significance of a

situation.
Great Expectations Juxtaposed set up against.

Domestic reaJism A form of novel writing that offers closely observed

accounts of what goes on inside families.

Subvert undermine

Genealogically related by genes

4.7 QUESTIONS

1) Write a note on Herman Rebel's historical analysis of the fairytale.

2) Summarise in your own words Barthes's analysis of realism. Look up the

relevant section if necessary.

3) Define "the reality effect", "deformation".

4) Write a full length answer on the importance ,of the fairytale mode in Great
Expectations.
 WIT5 CRIME AND RESPECTABILITY

Dickens and Crime

le and the Criminal in Great Expectations

and Respectability

Suggested Readings

U
510 OBJECTIVES

Aer reading this Unit carefully ybu will be able to:

l

• explain the shift that occws in Dicken's attitude to crime; and

a outline the relationship between respectability and criminality.

, 4.1 INTRODUCTION

the earlier unit, we saw that the "deformation" of the fairytaleplot in Great
ectatiom consisted of belying the reader's assumptions that Miss Havisham is
ecret benefactress. At the same time we saw that the sensational revelation that
1 's gentlemanly status is based on a criminal's wealth implicates Pip and his
I

gress no longer seems innocent. The problem of crime was a lifelong

cupation with Dickens, and in this unit I plan to explore the complex
I nship that Dickens charts in Great Expectations between that highly moralised
ory -"respectability"- and its criminalised "other".

8.2 DICKENS ANDCRIME

I

, e problem of crime was a lifelong preoccupation with Dickens's and some of the
ost fascinating of his early writing has to do with criminality. I cannot here enter
to anything like a comprehensive analysis of the ways in which the young Dickens
ated the problem of crime, but I need to make two points because these help to
into relief certain transformations that take place in Dicken's attitude to crime
Great k b p ~ n s as he moves fiom his early to his late phase. The first is that criminality in Dickens's
early fiction is often embodied in figures who are individually fascinating - figures
like Quilp -who testify to the young Dickens's interest in the dark repressed world
of violence, crime and guilt but who are nevertheless projected as aberrations. Thus
Quilp, who may be said in a very real sense to dominate the world of The Old
Curiosity Shop, is a dwarf who has very strange habits. Second, when criminality is
related to a social milieu, this milieu is often demarcated structurally from the sphere
of respectability. Thus Fagn's criminality in Oliver Twist is inseparable !?om his
existence in the sordid world of slums, and while the threat that he poses to
respectable society is very real, it is impossible to conceive of Fagin as part of this
society. We might therefore say that in Dickens's early fiction, crime, whether it is
located in the psychotic individual or in the poverty ridden landscape of the "other"
London, is never allowed to infiltrate the processes of respectability.

In Dickens's later fiction, however, the relationship between criminality and

respectability undergoes a major change. Far fiom being located in the margins of
respectable society, criminality becomes integral to it. In Little Dorrit, for example,
crime is located in the heart of official England, in the most advanced forms of its
economic activity and in the behavior of its ruling elite. In Great Expectations this
theme of criminality in respectability is taken even further.

5.3 TIIE RESPECTABLE AND THE CRIMINAL IN

GREAT EXPECTA TIONS

At fvst glance respectability in Great Expectations does seem to emerge as an

internally consistent social sphere whose inner sanctity is preserved by the arbitration
of a legal machinery always capable of isolating criminality, and by a whole system,
of signs and representations dissociating it from the everyday processes of society.
The two convicts who travel with Pip during his journey to Kent compel and receive
attention not because they have committed heinous offences, but because they are an
"Exhibition" - "their ironed legs", their "coarse, mangy, ungainly outer surfaces",
marking them off socially, culturally and even biologically fiom the respectable
members of society. In Great Expectations, the effects of such penal branding are of
course most visible in the figure of Magwitch. "The very grain of the man," as Pip
puts it, prqclaims "a Prisoner, Bondman, plain as plain could be" (pp.352-53).
Moreover, Magwitch is closely associated with Australia - that "thief colony"
whose dystopian cultural connotations have been detailed in Robert Hughes's The
Fatal Shore. Let me explain here that "dystopian" is the opposite of utopian. So
dystopian would mean hellish Separated from England by a wall " 14,000 miles
thick", inhabited by her "excrementitious mass", "spinning forever at the ouier rim of
the world, in ever worsening moral darkness", Australia was, in the Victorian
imagination, "a cloaca, invisible, its contents filthy and unnameable". In this sense,
Magwitch is the inscrutable "other" of Victorian respectability. The 'other' then is
the criminal who inhabits the dark, incomprehensible domain outside "respectability"
-somebody in whose being every fantasy about crime can be contained. To Pip,
Magwitch might be guilty of "I knew not of what crimes" (p.34).

Yet Magwitch's public status as a hardened criminal, capable of committing every

offence is nbt, in fact, borne by the details of his career. These details are supplied by
Magwitch himself in his long account of his early life to Pip:

"I was took up;took up, took up, to that extent I reg'larly growed up took up.
This was the way it was when I was a ragged little creetur as much to be
pitied as I ever see ... I got the nameof being hardened. Tramping, begging,
thieving, working sometimes, when I could -though that warn't as often as
 -I - - - -__ -
- - - -
r- -

you might think, till you put the que*tion would you habeen overready to 1 Crime and
give me work yourselves -a bit of a poacher, a bit of a labourer, a bit of a Respectability
waggoner, a bit of a haymaker, a bit of.a.hawker, a bit of most things that
don't pay and lead to trouble, I got to be a man. (p.361). .

hat is important here is not the seriousness of Magwitch's offences -Magwitch's

t'ences, before he falls into the clutches of the gentlemanly Cmpeyson do not in
:t extend beyond the occasional theft -but that Magwitch is the inevitable target
punishment. Born in the lowest stratum of society, under the constant surveillance
the law, exposed constantly to prison terms, and consequently forced intofhe
wits of delinquency -"Trampling, begging, thieving, working sometimes" -
agwitch's career illustrates how penal techniques in Great Expectations aim not at
minating crime but in encouraging recidivism -a term that'Magwitch himself
h s to explainin "a mouthful of English": "In jail and out of jail, in jail and out of
1, in jail and out of jail" (p.369).

e can then read in Dickens's account of Mdgyitch's early life an indictment of a

nal system h i t is unenlightened and unimaginative; but as .Michel Foucault has
wed, the officialencouragement 0.f large scale recividism has in fact, at least two -
es. By isolating the delinquent, holding himher up as an "Exhibition",
mbolically s h i n g up in hidher pathologised figure all forms of illegalities,
ticial society can claim to have displaced criminality as a whde to the realm of the
graded "other", and a t the same time leave in'the shade those illegalities that it
shes to tolerate. (For example, Pip tilerates, and indeed participates in the shady
tivities of Jaggers and Wemmick, but the legally sanctioned system of'
itinguishing signs enables him to separate himself "genetically" from the convicts
the coach and indeed fiom the criminal underworld as a whole). Again by
rpetuating "a closed milieu of delinquency", official society can pressurise it, place
,111dersurveillance, penetrate i t c o n a t l y use it for its own purposes.

Great Expectations the process by which criminality is legally identified and

pgated, itself involves the use and the exploitation of the criminal milieu. To be
re the law is publically cohtituted as a strictly objective system of prbitration the
cused is given certain rights, he/she is convicted only by trial in court, and
ghnents are evaluated in court according to whether or not they adhere, in
ggers's phrase, "to the striit line of fact" (p.35 1). Yet in practice Jaggers's own
ectacular successes in court depend not only on his ability to manipulate, repress,
nfbe facts, but even more crucially on his access to Newgate that is, to the biggest
Ison in London. Newgate is, in Wemrnick's phrase, the "next thing" (p.249) to
ggers's office and Jaggers himself, as Pip tells Estella, "has the reputation of being
>rein secrets of that dismal place than any man in London" (p.289). It is not
rely that Jaggers can make enonn0j.1~A d effective use of "Newgate intelligence"
court. More crucially, it is precisely by penetrating the criminal milieu, by'
ploiting the precarious situation of the individual delinquent, alternatively bribing
d threatening himher, that Jaggers can use a whole range of illegalities to fight a
se while keeping himself on the right side of the law.
L

"Well Mas'r Jaggers", returned Mike, in the voice of a sufferer, ''arter

a great deal deal o'trauble I've found one, sir, asmight do."
"What is he prepared to swear?"
"Well Mask Jaggers", said Mike-wiping his nose on his fur cap this
time, "in a general way anythmk."
Mister Jaggers suddenly k a m e most'irate. "NOW,I warned you
befoq", throwing his forefinger at his terrified-client,"that if you
* ever presumed to talk in that way here, kd make d x a m p l e of you.
You infernal scoGdrel, how dare you tell me that ... Now be
careful. In what station of life is this man?"
Great Expectations Mike looked at his cap, and looked at the floor, and looked at fhe
ceiling, and looked at the clerk, and even looked at me, before
beginning to reply in a nervous manner, "We've dressed him like -"
when my guardian blustered out:
"What? You WILL will you ..." I

After some helpless casting about, Mike brightened up and be&n

again: I
' "He's dressed like a spectable pieman, A sort of pastry cook.. .".

"Take him past that window and let me see him.n

The window indicated, was the office window. We all three went to
it, behind the wire blind, and presently saw the client go by iq an
accidental manner, with a murderous looking individual.

~ a ~ ~ e rmethods
s'; of fighting a case; his actual success in court suggest that
criminality, far fiom being a solid, easily indentifiable mass of activities that exists
outside respectable society iq in fact, something that is far more ambiguous -
something that constantly circulates through the fine underground channels that
connect Newgate to the High Court. In Great Expectations the most palpable symbol
of this constant traffic between criminality and respectability is the wealth that is
generated in the criminal milieu but recycled back into respectable society.

5.4 CRIMINAL WEALTH AND'RESPECTABILITY

Jaggers himself does not even attempt to conceal the criminal origins of his wealth.
The starting point of Jaggers's career as a lawyer is his successful defence of a
murderer, and the most noticeable objects in Jaggers's office are the villianous
looking casts, made to the likeness of two hardened offenders who have been in
Wemmick's words, "Famous clients of ours that got us a world of credit" (p.223). In
fact Jaggers's criminal clients fetch him not only credit but also money. Wemmick
stops at the individual cells at Newgate not only to gather intelligence or locate .
appropriate witnesses, but also to negotiate "fees".

With Wemmick the acquisition of criminal property -especially the property of

prisoners condemned to death -has become so routine that it is made to appear as
part of his cheery practicality.

While he was putting up the other cast and coming down fiom the
chair, the thought cr.ossed my mind that all his personal jewellery
was derived fiom like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the
subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking-himthe question when he
stood before me, dusting his hands.
"Oh yes", he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings
another you see, that's the way of it.1 always take 'em. They're
curiosities. And they 're property. They may not be worth much, but,
after all, they're property and portable - my guiding star always is,
"Get hold of portable propertyn.

What is important about Dickens's representation of Wemmick's transactions is not

their extraordinariness but their ordinariness. The very fowl that Wemmick serves to
Pip for dinner may have been acquired fiom a convict, but the signs of Wemmick's
links with the criminal world coexist with -indeed are a constituent part of -the f
I
happy, almost idyllic ambience that envelops Wemmick's Walworth home:
t
The intend between that time and supper, Wcmmick devoted to
showing me his collection of curiosities. Thcy were mostly of a
felonious character; ckprising the'pcn with which a celebrated
 forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two - and Crime and
stveral manuscript confessions -They were agreeably dispersed Respectability
among small specimens of China and glass, various neat trifles made
by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved
by the Aged.tpp.23 1-32.).

Jaggers represents a legal system which is overtly dedicated to the business of

and the criminal world. Can you remember how this is shown in the novel?

5.6 GLOSSARY

Recidivism . The tendency of tho& released from prison to get back to

delinquency and thus be imprisoned again.

Micbel Foucault Author of Discipline and Punish.

Disease ridden

The life of a vagabond.

Great Expectadons Microcosmic - Ashation w k e the latrgest social or cultural tendencies
are reflected in a mimaturised symbol or scene.
-A.

Psychotic- CW

Aberrations Deviations from the "normal" I

Dystopian The opposite of Utopian.

' Surveillance To subject to constant monitoring ,

5.7 QUESTIONS

1) What would you say were the major changes that occur in Dickens's attitude to
crime as he moves from his early to his later phase?

2) Write a note on the significance of Jaggers and Wemmick in Great Expectations

taking into account material not just from this unit but also from the text.

3) "One of the achievementsof Great Expectations is that refuses to demarcate the

processes of respectability from those of criminality". Do you agree? Give a
reasoned answer.

4) What in your opinion is the significance of Wemmick's museum?

" ,

5.8 SUGGESTED READINGS

. I want to make it clear at the outset that thisreading list is not meant in any sense to
intimidate you. It is not mandatory that you read every book or article included in
$ this list. But at some stage of your development you may want to get back to Great
Expectations, Dickens, and novel theory. If you do, perhaps this reading list will
serve you as a basic guide. Also you might look at some of the titles here if you want
to supplement your reading of Great\ Expectations
. and of the units included here.

WORKS ON GREAT EXPECTATIONS

t

Peter Brooks, Readingfor Plot :Design and Intention in Narrative, 1970.

R. Glamour, "Dickens and the Self-Help Idea" in The Victorian and Social Protest: A
symposium, 1973.
F.R. and Q.D.Leavis, Dickens the Novdist, 1970.
J.Lucas, Tlte Melancholy Man, 1970
G.Smith, Dickens, Money and Society, 1967.
G.Thurley, The Dickens Myth, 1976.
'k S.Conor, Charles Dickens 1985.
J.Brown, Novelist in The Market Place, 1982.
D.Van Ghent, The English Novel, 1953.
John Carey, The Violent E m , 1973.
, . K.Flint, Dickenr, 1986.
Franco Moretti, The Way 'of the World: The Buildungsroman in European Culture
1987.
 -

f
-
Rer ings for the historical backgr0~6d- '
Crime and
Respectability
miles and SelfHelp" Victorian Studies 12 1968.
ictorian Gospel of SuccessNVictorianStudies, 1 1957
h Political Elite", The New tep Review No. 60 1970.
fthe Present Crisis". The New Let Review No. 24 1964.
dern English dciety, 1968.
in I815-1875,1970.
wm,Indusfryand Empire 1968.
wm,The Age of Capital, 1 975.

ENERAL WORKS THAT I FOUND USEFUL IN THE

TING OF THESE UNITS
.M.Bakhtin, Problems of Dmtoyevsky's Poetics, 1984.
The Formal Mefhod in Literary Scholarship, 1984.
alter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction",

Id Maria -Or Someone Very like Her?"

obcrt Darnton, The1Great Cat Massacre 1984.

k Jameson, "The Ideology of Theory" in Ideologies of Theory 1988.

e and Punish 1979.

1 Tranrformation of the Bourgeois Public Sphere 1980.
 ,

e purpose of this unit is to introduce you to a) major critical approaches to

itli the methods adopted by Eliot throughout the book.

"And what are you reading, Miss -?

"Oh ! it is only a novel"
Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Ch.5. I'

Austen's ironic dismissal of "only a novel" should alert us to tlie serious

tion behind the statement. Speaking for a generation of readers, Austen, with

e world in the best chosen language" (Northanger Abbey, Ch.5). Whether a novel
easures up to such demanding criteria or not is often a matter of individual response
nd ideological subject positions. George Eliot's Middlemarch from the time it was
ublished in 1871 has attracted strong and controversial opinions from leading critics
f English literature.

ute theoretician of the novel, published a review grounded on mea\sured

"Middlemarch is at once one of the strongest and one of tlie weakest of

English novels.. ..We can well remember how keenly we wondered, while its
earlier chapters unfolded themselves,.what turn in the way of form the story
may take-that of an organised, moulded, balanced composition, gratiQing
tlie reader with a sense of design and construction, or a mere chain of ,
episodes, broken illto accidental lengths and u~iconsciousof the influence of a
plan. We expected tlie actual r ~ a b ufort tlie sake of English imaginative
 literature ... we hoped for the other.. .. But that pleasure has still to hover
between prospect and retrospect..;M iddleniarch is a treasure liouse of detail,
but it is an indifferent whole".

However, while moving his focus from fornl to content, James was enchanted with
the social realism, of "people, solid and vivid in their varying degrees ...a deeply
human little world." He was equally impressed by George Eliot's "broad reach of
vision," the "brain, in a word, behind her observation." But in a~ialysingthe totality
bf the novel, Henry James, like many others after him, could not reconcile the
diversities contained in the plenitude of Middlemarch. He concluded his review with
a perplexed query, "If we write novels so, how shall we write History?" ( Henry
James, Galaxy, March 1873)

A similar "doubleness" has marked the opillions of other famous critics, and you may
have to decide upon you; own preferences as you discover the ways in which the
novel can be addressed by various methodological tools of analysis. There is no
"right" or "wrong" assessment of a book such as Middlemarch but it lnust be based on
informed and thoughtful understanding. Virginia Woolf, for instance, claimed for
Middlemarch the status of "the magnificent book which with all its imperfections is
one: of the few English novels written for grown-up people" (The Times Literary
Supplement, 20 Nov. 1919) but left it to others to work out the implications of her
claim. We notice, however, that the emphasis on form and content has shifted to the
subject of ethics in adult relationships.

Later critics tended to see form, content; ethics and morality as inextricably linked in
George Eliot's art. Consequently, competing views about the novel debated how the
"moral pattern" is to be worked out in a novel where the author keeps firm control not
only indirectly as an omniscient narrator but directly through interventions addressing
the readers. You will find Eliot telling the reader how to interpret a character, how to
link an individual story to a "universal" design, in fact, she offers reasons for
apportioning praise and blame. Several readers resent such controlling authority
while otliers are quite comfortable with accepting George Eliot's professed views. Of
the books which favour the "clgssic-realism" of the novel are W.J. Harvey's The Art
of George Eliot ( 1961) and Barbara Hardy's The Novels of George Eliot (1959). Both
speak of the exquisite interrelatedness of characters and episodes, which creates a
level of verisi~nilitudeand grants access to t!ie fictional time of the novel. In
Barbara Hardy's words, "In Middlemarch.. . we feel the pressure of an enormous
number of human beings, similar and dissimilar, modifying the doctrines of the
novelist as well as contributing to them." 'p.143)

While a majority of the critics in the 195, s and 60's condoned the traditions of a
third person narrative wherein the many didactic, speculative and summarizing
passages found appropriate place, new critical theory of the last two decades has
tended to dismantle the authorial "authority" of George Eliot and other nineteenth
century novelists. Influential essays by Terry Eagleton and J. Hillis Miller have
argued that Middlemarch is fraught with discontinuities and disjunctions which
George Eliot is strenuously forcing into an artificial balance. Some of these tensions
can be attributed to Eliot's problematic relation with the Church and the consequent
debates in her mind about secular values versus religious values and the conflict of
social obligation with individual fulfillment. Furthermore arose the question of
"humanism" deriving from the intellectual influence of Feuerbach and other
"positivist" thinkers who gave enormous significance to tlie play of destiny and
scientific rationalism. More details about these philosophical movements will come
to you later in the lessons. Meanwhile it is important to note that new interpretations
of Middlemarch deconstruct the text by challenging its obvious surface meanings by
keeping in view that the author too is constructed by a series of personal and
intellectual experiences.
 agleton's sophisticated reading finds George Eliot attempting to recast Approaching the
a1 contradictions into ideologically resolvable form." Co~nmenti~ig on the Novel
tion, he says that " The Religion of Humanity protects Romantic values
sive rationalism; but by rooting those values in the human collective, it
em equally against an unbridled individualism." Eagleton further alleges
ncy between what tlie novel claims and what it shows." J. Hillis Miller's
onstructive arguments would also have us believe that there is an
le gap in the novel's language and thinking, an example of which is that
rs of connectedness-the web and the stream-re undermined by a
ical images of refraction and illusion.

g as these arguments are in their sharpness of enquiry, they too can be

by an equal exercise of deconstructive reasoning. This is demonstrated in
odge's recent essay on Middlemarch which sees strength, not weakness, in
guities: "It is precisely because the narrator's discourse is never entirely
uous, predictable, and in total interpretive control of the other discourses in
arch that the novel survives, to be read and re-read, without ever being

nt direction for approaching the novel is suggested by feminists who offer

ange of interpretations. Chronologically, the earlier critics were likely to
ism as a "muted" presence in Middlemarch wherein patriarchal structures
the choices available to women. According to this view, George Eliot was
ic to the plight of aspiring women who could fulfill tlieir ambitions only
e agency of men but she prepared no ground for radical shifts in gender or
lations. Also a troubling contrast was noted between the acceptances
her heroines and George Eliot's own defiance of traditional, restrictive
Ida Austen's essay "Why Feminist Critics are Angry with George Eliot"
s up the arguments upto a point. Thereafter feminist readings of
arch have often investigated the text from a socio-psycliological base to
Eliot's questioning of dominant structures wliere women are denied active
ctive roles in society. Such a text, while apparently presenting the ideals
cord, draws attention to the underpinnings of gender inequity. Showing
s a precariously balanced condition resting up011a woman's deference to
he text subverts institutions such as marriage and family on wliich
grounded. Seen in such a way, the author, far from being complicit
,is a troubled being assigning her own signature to a cunning tale of

h is, undoubtedly, a richly textured novel which has also gathered a

ariety of critical opinions over time. Fortunately, it is an eminently
novel, as you will discover, filled as it is with lively characters, events and
s. While the author directs the novel through a careful and immaculate .
he also leaves sufficient room for the readers to exercise their
hoices. Perhaps the following broad questions need to be addressed.
s the novel attract so much admiration as well as criticism? Second, to
s Middlemarch belong to history and still escape the constraints of
effectively is the woman's question delineated in the exploration
relations presented in the novel? And finally, how does the structure
to the complexity of the issues, themes and ideologies debated in the

9
1.2 THE CREATION OF MIDDLEMARCH
ary 1869, George Eliot set herself numerous tasks, among them was the
"a novel called Middlemarch" ( Eliot's JoumaT). The composition
slowly, painstakingly, as a cluster of events formed around Lydgate, a
provincial town. Eliot may have been attempting to recapitulate her own
in such a community as she "meditated cHaracters and conditions" (Eliot's
Middlemarch Journal, 1 September,.1869). A Urief account of her life will help to understand the
context in which Eliot was writing.

Born Mary Ann Evans in 1819, George Eliot asserted her intellectual acumen in her
translations, her journalistic writing and her extraordinary novels composed during
her long and unusual life. Mary Ann began her scholar's life as a pious young
woman in boarding school but she soon had to return home upon her mother's death
to keep house for her father in Coventry. In the years of sudden responsibility and
consequent maturing, she read extensively into the relationship between the Bible and
Science and learned to question traditional piety. She broke with her father because
she refused to attend Church. Among the people who influenced Mary Ann's
rebellion against orthodoxy were the freethinker Charles Bray, the writer Charles
~ e n n e l land the publisher John Chapman. However their friendship with the
unusually gifted young woman was often misinterpreted by society.

Later, Mary Evans met the famous journalist George Henry Lewes who guided her
readings in philosophy, religion and history and invited her to express her views on
several controversial subjects. By 1854, Evans decided to defy convention and live
openly with Lewes, himself caught in a difficult marriage which he could not annul.
There was a good deal of gossip by which Evans was isolated from her family in
Warwickshire. That she was convinced about her decision is evident in her letter to a
friend, " Women who are content with light and easily broken ties do not act as I have
..
done." In all but the legal sense it was a "marriage" and the partnership continued
happily until the death of Lewes in 1 878. They shared learning and scholarship, read
each others works and gained by their intellectual and emotional bond. Using the
philosophic debates of the time to transform the aesthetics of narrative fiction, Mary
Evans, calling herself "George Eliot," launched her new professional and personal
identity as the author of Scenesfrom Clerical Life ( 1858). Eliot's major novels
appeared with industrious regularity, Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss
(1860), Felix Holt, the Radical (1 866), Middlemarch ( 1871-72) and Daniel Deronda
( 1876). Tragedy struck in the sudden death of Lewes in 1878. George Eliot devoted
herself to completing his manuscripts but it was obvious that she was dispirited and
lonely. Two years later, rather surprisingly, she married John Walter Cross, a financial
adviser who was twenty one years younger than her. George Eliot passed away in the
same year in December.

Eliot's novels, though holding to a common theme of exploring the limits of

provincial society, are wonderfully diverse in the treatment of the subject. Each book
was a challenge on how to depict the interplay between environment and moral
choice. As the Journals show, the writing of Middlemarch was not easy. On New
Year's Day in 1869, the fledgling novel stood still; George Eliot was paralysed by a
writer's block that she could hardly comprehend. On 1 1 September, in the same
year, she noted in her Journal, "I do not feel very confident that I can make anything
satisfactory of Middlemarch". Another year went by. She began a story tentatively
titled "Miss Brooke" and wrote a hundred "good printed pages" in about two months.
Working deeply into the psychological compulsions of an idealistic young woman,
George Eliotjsjxeative e n e ~ i e seem
s to have found liberation and a rallying point.
Much later, the astute critic F.R. Leavis was to say, "George Eliot tends to identify
herself with Dorothea, though Dorothea is far from being the whole of George Eliot."
( The Great Tradition, 1948)

By the spring of 1871, George Eliot had worked out a sketch for combining the two ,

stories. The ardent woman in whom Eliot saw the likeness of St. Theresa had this in
common with Lydgate of Middlemarch -they were both visionaries, gifted with a
sense of vocation and service. She had realism enough to perceive that society did
not always grant such people the opportunity to exercise their chosen roles. In her
art, however, George Eliot found the commonality of purpose a useful linking device
in the stories of Lydgate and Dorothea Brooke. The manner in which she dovetailed ,,
the narratives in Chapter 10 is sheer genius. Miss Brooke's dreams of social
ioration are articulated within an "old provincial society" that is passing through Approaching the
change add people discuss the achievements of ctalented doctor, an outsider to Novel
march, who is seen as a harbinger of modem science. The action isset for the
of Lydgate, the new young surgeon who is "wonderfully clever," (Ch. 10,
nd "the fine girl -but a little too earnest" (Ch. 10, p. 119).

ive possibilities were substantively enhanced by this linkage. No longer

upon just individuals, the novel envisaged the small town itself as the subject
ry. The complex dynamics of class and gender entailed a fullness of treatment
e Eliot and Mr. Lewes decided could best be expressed in bi-monthly
spread over approximately two years. George Eliot began writing with
confidence, holding firmly to her "design" as she called it, " to show the H

action of ordinary causes rather than exceptional, and to show this in some
ich have not been from time immemorial the beaten path.. .. But the best
good for nothing until execution has justified them". ( George Eliot's
to John Blackwood, 24 July, 1871). Though occasionally beset by a nervous
of unspecified " illness," Eliot met her remarkable schedule of
installments in time.

ws of Middemmh were largely favourable though Mr. Lewes is said to have

much the author was to see. He kept away all but the "occasional
on" from George Eliot. She, nonetheless, expressed her curiosity in rather
terms, saying, "Though Middlemarch seems to have made a deep impression
n country, and though the critics were as polite and benevolent as possible
re has not, I believe, been one really able review of the book in our
s and periodicals." ( George Eliot's letter to Charles Ritter, I I February
truth is that extensive, and perceptive reviews had appeared in leading
as the Spectator,Athenaeum, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine and The
enry James's famous double-edged review in Galuq was to appear a
George Eliot's observation.

" (25) a circumstance that presages tragedy. At the same time she avows
of such "passionate ideal nature." The pmblematics of Eliot's authorial
-.

in a discussion, we first need an explanation of the reference. St.Theresa,

original name was Teresa De Cepeda Y Ahumada, was born in 1515 in Avila
her life in Spain practicing and preaching a doctrine of austere,
ive life. She is remembered as one of the great mystics of the Roman
urch, a woman leader and also the author of several spiritual classics. As
the initiator of the Carmelite Order, she sought to restore and emphasise the original
observances of poverty and abstinence as the nuns dedicated themselves to the
service of the community. She staunchly insisted upon subsistence only through
public alms thus ensuring active contact between the workers and society.

You will notice that the Prelude to Middlemarch picturises a scene of a "little girl
walking forth one morning hand in hand with her still smaller brother.....wide-eyed
and helpless-looking as two fawns, but with human hearts, alreadybeating to a
national ideaW(25).Historical sources do not endorse this completely. Teresa was
fourteen years old when she lost her mother, and despite her father's opposition, she
entered a convent when she was probably twenty. Recent books such as Alison
Weber's Teresa of Avila and the Rhetoric of Femininity ( 1 990) present her as actively
protesting the familial and religious controls rather than yielding passively to
domestic sanctions. (

George Eliot was, of course, using aspects of the St. Theresa legend as it suited her
purpose, and here, in the Prelude, she wished to foreground the circumscribed
conditions within which exceptional women must function. She is therefore
modifying historical details which, in the case of religious leaders, are often
mystified by tradition.

Examine, for example, the details in the following off-quoted passage:

I

Here and there a cygnet is reared uneasily among the ducklings in the brown
pond; and never finds the living stream in fellowship with its own oary-
footed kind; Here and there is born a Saint Theresa, a foundress of nothing,
whose loving he*-beats and sobs after an unattained goodness tremble off
and are dispersed ainong hindrances, instead of centering in some long-
recognizable deed. ( 26)

"Foundress of nothing" is not quite correct. St.Theresa established and nurtured Inore
than sixteen convents in Spain and inspired St. John of the Cross to initiate Carmelite
-Reform for men. Though she had her detractors, some powerful enough to curtail her
reformist activities for a time, she had influential supporters too in King Philip I1 of
Spain and Pope Gregory XIII. George Eliot could not see into the future, but it is
interesting for us to note that in 1970, Pope Paul VI honoured St.Theresa as the first
woman to be elevated as a doctor of the Church. St. 'Theresa did not pass into the
kind of oblivion suggested in the Prelude. George Eliot's point however remains
acceptable that such women struggle against external circumstances.

We can further consider if there is a biographical reason for Eliot's attraction to

women who exemplify a "soul hunger." F.R.Leavis in The Great Tradition offers a
categorical statement:

The weakness of the book, as already intimated, is in Dorothea. We

have the danger signal in the very outset, in the brief 'Prelude' ....In
the description of the 'soul-hunger' that leads Dorothea to see
Casaubon so fantastically as a 'winged messenger' we miss the poise
that had characterized the presentment of her at her introduction ....
Aren!t we here, we wonder, in sight of an unqualified self-
identification? Isn't there something dangerous in the way the irony
seems to be reserved for the provincial background and
circumstanc~s,leaving the heroine immune? Dorothea, to put it
another way, is a product of George Eliot's own 'soul-
hunger'--another day-dream ideal self. This persistence, in the midst
of so much that is so other, of an unreduced enclave of the old .
immaturity is disconcerting in the extreme.
 avis is placing emphasis upon his own preferences in fiction insofar that he ' Apprbaching the
Y ovel -
"maturity" as a transcendence of an adolescent day-dreaming condition. The
nt is a familiar one in nineteenth century fiction where themes are often
by means of a chronological trajectory denoting a transition from innocence
ience, ignorance to knowledge, or even romance to realism.

e Lerner in The Truthtellers challenges assumptions about what constitutes

al maturity. (You will remember that Virginia Woolf called Middlemarch a
r "grown-up people"). According to Lerner:

The disagreement bety$c$n Leavis and George Eliot is in fact an

ethical one. The-heartof Leavis's criticism does not concern falsity in
the authdr's vision, but in the value of the Theresa-complex ....J want '
to shift the emphasis not towards stressing the irony with which
Dorothea is portrayed, but defending Saint Theresa against the
concept (a central one in Leavis's criticism) of maturity. The presence
of a noble nature, generous in its wishes, ardent in its charity, does.
change the lights for us; loving heart-beats and sobs after an
unattained goodness ought to have a more complex fate, as the
adolescent matures, than simply to be outgrown; and maturity is a
virtue within the range of some very dreary people, and beyond the
range of some very fine ones. Leavis, in short, has made not an
artistic criticism but an ethical criticism.

one notices is the application of everyday ethics to the novel. In such a

e novel is .seen more as a reflection of the real world than as an art form.
Id remember, however, that the "verisimilitude" or adherence to "realism"
an imaginatively created realm of fiction. While there are aesthetic
ions and an internal' logic of form, the world of tlie novel cannot be
o absolutist statements on morality and ethics that belong to the discourse
teraction in a given historical time.

Ar~i Id Kettle is yet another critic drawn into the discussions of the St.Theresa
met ~horfor Dorothea. The author's biography creeps into this analysis too:

The day dream aspect of Dorothea which Dr. Leavis has emphasised
is a very basic limitation. But this quality, this sense we have of .
idealization, of something completely realised, is due, I suggest, not
so much to any subjective cause, some emotional immaturity in
George Eliot herself...as to the limitations of her philosophy, her
social understanding. Dorothea represents that element in human
experience for which in the deterministic universe of mechanist
materialism there is no place -the need of man to change the world
he inherits.

you see, has a tendency to universalize the subject. Therefore, Dorothea's

instance becomes expanded to a vast dimension that encompasses a
a1 fundamental need, "the need of man to change the world." I am
ble with such a broad-basing of a literary argument. The subject position
er is best reviewed in the context afthe immediate story. While the text is
ading of the contents will undergo change as readers impose their own
s born of their own experience of a changing world. This, to some extent
diversity of opinion that is advanced towards all major novels. However,
critical, tlieoretical tools available to us now, we should grant autonomy
d work our way through the interplay of historical and trans-historical
ations. While paying attention to obvious.linkages between text and author,
Id also leave room for challenging or subverting the obvious surface
Middlemarch For instance, a feminist approach to the initial paragraphs of Middlemarch will make
us notice how far we are expected to move from George Eliot's professed focus on

2
the woman question of which Dorothea is an illustrative example. T le Prelude, by
speaking of "the history of man." sees this as a frame for the unre orded heroism of
women. Delving further into 'psychological terrain Eliot astutely remarks that the
"common yearning of womanhood" is often a vague ideal. The subtext that we read
through feminism helps us comprehend that the vagueness, or lack of formulation, is
caused by woman's subservient position in the hierarchical structures, be they secular
or religious. In conjoining the tales of the historically positioned St. Theresa and the
imaginatively co~istructedDorothea on a comma1 plane of gendered oppression,
Eliot makes the story not "universal1'but pertinent to a key aspect of the woman
question. Sally Shuttleworth plays with the title Middlemarch to say:

The Prelude poses the question of how originality can survive within
an environment whose essence, as the title suggests, is its
middlingness. The question is not, however, an innocent one. The
form in which the problem is expressed also defines the terms of its
ideal resolution ....The passage is not simply a lament for a departed
era; it simultaneously defines the values that will s6ucture the
narrative and the model of social and individual development to -
which George Eliot adheres.

From the above discussion, you would notice that the brief Prelude is dense in
structure, its many echoes of history preparing us for the lengthy narrative ahead. A
fascinating complex of relationships is worked out against an intellectual
understanding of forces determining individual and social form. Middlemarch
rewards the reader at every page by involvi~igand respecting an engagement with the
flow of the story.

1.4 LET US SUM UP ,

Middlemarch has fascinated several generations of readers, both men and women. In
the earliest interpretations, it was read as a classic-realist text, as a consequence of
which critics judged the plot and the characters by their adherence to the "truth" of
life. Sometimes the life experiences of George Eliot were used to understand the
main theme of the novel as it speaks about idealistic, impassioned women like St.
Theresa wlio hoped to bring about social change. Later critics have drawn attention to
the internal conflicts in Middlemarch and suggested that George Eliot was using the
artifice of the novel to raise an important question about the limitations placed upon
women by customary and institutional controls. The story of St. Theresa links
Dorothea to a particular instance in history.

1.5 QUESTIONS
1. What are the arguments justifLing the criticism of Middlemarch made by
Henry James, F.R.Leavis and Arnold Kettle? Discuss.

2. 'What were the artistic problems facing George Eliot as she began composing
Middlemarch?

3. Give a briefsketch about the life of St. Theresa. What is her connection with
Dorothea?
 Approaching the
1.6 ~UGGESTEDREADING Novel
I
,Review of Middlemarch.
, The Great Tradition 1948,1962.
,An Introduction to the English Novel, 2 vol., 195 1 , 1967.

ed., Critical Essays on George Eliot, 1970.

,ed., George Eliot, 1990.
UNIT 2 . THEMES, CHARACTERS, TECHNIQUES
-

Structure

2.0 Objectives

2.1 Themes in M i d d l e m d

2.2 The Prime of Miss Brooke

2.3 . The Unsuitable Suitor .

2.4 The World Beyond

2.4.1 The Outsider

2.4.2 The Angel of Light

2.4.3 A Matter of Money

2.5 The Author in the ~ e x t

2.5.1 Many Voices ,

. 2.5.2 A Nod at the Literary Tradition

2.5.3 Recalling Plato

2.6 Let Us Sum Up

.2.7 ' Questioris

2.8 Suggested Reading

2.0 OBJECTIVES
This section leads you through Books One and Two of Middlemarch with a view to .

establishing the themes which are worked out in the details of characters. George
Eliot's own place in English literary tradition is also examined in the context of her
statements on the art of the noiel.

2.1 THEMES IN MIDDLEMARCH

In reading Middlemarch, one can be quite overwhelmed by its size, complexity and
dense texture.,My suggestion is that we simplify the problem by making notes about
different themes in the novel although we must keep in mind the overlaps that are
bound to occur between one concern and another. We must also be aware of the
manner in which various characters are deployed to explore the themes but must
guard against seeing the people as perso~lificationsof ideas. In other words, an initial
spreadsheet of George Eliot's scheme here is an aid to learning, not a statement of a
rigid order. We may quote Barbara Hardy in this context:

In Middlemarch....we feel the pressure of an enormous number of human

beings, similar and dissimilar, modifying the doctrines of the novelist as well
as contributing to them. George Eliot has a simple and not very varied moral
 e but her novels are never schematic or rigid in their generalizations Themes,
uman beings. The human examples are always variations of the theme Characters,
in examples which fit perfectly. Yechniees

g list is offered as a suggestion to help you to recognise the main

. Harvey's fine "Introduction" to the Penguin edition of Middlemarch .
explication of several of these.categories.

I!
T e theme of vocation. This is mainly illustrated by Dorothea Brooke and
T ius Lydgate but has vital connections to Casaubon's failed intellectualism,
B Istrode's fraudulent success, Farebrother's precarious ministry and Mary
G rth's caregiving.

patibility or the lack of it complicates the ideals of vocation for

characters. The author, however, critically reviews the
which the matrimonial alliances emerge. The complicity of
in their arrangements of interdependence is as much
nsible for personal tragedy as the illusion of individual choice. Apart
nd Lydgate, Rosamond Vincy, Casaubon, Will ad is law are
the gap between dreams and the realm of possibilities.

and pecuniary interests are further determining factors. Unlike

ames (and more akin to the French novelist Gustave Flaubert),
iot gives cold facts about the way in which wealth moderates
Featherstone's avarice parallels Bulstrode's feigned generosity.
idealism flounders on Rosarnond's enchantment with beautiful
hat the American writer Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby called
f "meritricious beauty." That indifference to wealth is a vague ideal
I in Dorothea's disregard.for Casaubon's money which, nonetheless,
oral conscience.

h, rank wd class are according to W.J. Harvey, "strongly divisive" as

mall a society as Middlemarch." The DorotheGLadislaw
is forbidden by the violation of a code of propriety. Other subtle forms
seen in instances relating to'the Garth and Vincy
ble but irresponsible young man, has troubles enough
ive habits for which he has no money. A tragic
lmost forced into a religious vocation entirely unsuited

a,in the obvious way of a resounding and disrupting "pistol shot in a

re" in Stendhal's famous metaphor, features nowhere in Middlemarch.
er, constant references to the Reform ~ i ibring
l the politics of social
directly into the novel. Briefly3he reference is to the British
lamentary Bills that became Acts in 1832,1867 and 1884-85, and which
cted the electorate for the House of Commons and rationalised the
ntation of that body. Voting privileges were first transferred from
boroughs to thickly populated industrial areas. The later bills widened
ting base substantially by enfranchising less wealthy segments of
ety. In all, the upper levels of property holders, the nobility and gentry
their hegemony to democratic forces. Middlemarch refers only to the
phase. Mr. Brooke, Sir James Chetham, Mrs. Cadwallader and several
ebate the issues pertaining to imminent reforms.

ce. Systems of knowledge, both old and new, are contested, speoially, in '

alm of scientific discoveries in medicine. Lydgate, who is the outsider

the cosmopolitan, is welcomed into the town for his skill acquired in
ope but he is later suspected of moral turpitude. Dr. Minchin and Dr.
rague, physicians of the old school, feel threatened by the apparent success
.-
Middlemarch of new knowledge. The contentions are worked out through political
affiliations.In the end, Lydgate's dubious fall is caused by several factors,
one of which is the conservative resistance of provincial people to new
medical discoveries.

9 Religion. ,George Eliot rebelled,against orthodoxy in all institutions

especially the Church. You w'ill recall that as a young woman of twenty three
she had declared to her father that she would no longer attend Church. Father
and daughter came to an uneasy compromise but the rift in values was
irrevocable. Four years after this episode, Mary Ann Evans published,
anonymously, The Life of Jesus Christ Critically Examined. Given this
background, it comes as a surprise that theology is not openly debated in
Middemarch although several characters ire fun~tion~ies of the Church. A
range of Anglicanism is presented from the "High and Dry" Tory leanings of
Cadwallader to the Evangelicanism of Tyke. Religion and politics merge in
the small world of Middlemarch as personal affiliations gain precedence and
evoke fierce loyalties. While George Eliot posits her own intel tectual
enquiries in the novel, she does not insist on privileging one position over
, another. Irony and subversion serve better to show the limitations of
provincial society.

Egotism is an uncomfortable word because tradition has linked it to an

excess of pride and vanity. You would know this from your reading of the
Bible and Milton's Paradise Lost. However, in terms of psychological
vocabulary, the term "ego," as Freud and Jung have used itbecomes an
attribute of normal human behavior, it is the particularized "I" which
distinguishes an individual. In modern psychology, therefore, the ego is a
self-determining component in the individual will to succeed. Such a
context allows us to place'Rosamond, Lydgate and Dorothea to a test of
honest enquiry into the factors motivating their actions. The characters are
not conscious egotists, unlike Gilbert Osmond of Henry James' The Portrait
of a Lady, for example. However, their clinging to a vision entirely their,own
to a point ~f obsessive dedication is a form of self-centredness which fails to
see, at times; a dialectical relation between the individual and society.

2.2 . THE PRIME OF "MISS BROOKE"

The story of Miss Brooke began, we remember, as an independent tale. In itself it
remains remarkable as an insight into the tenuous, visionary speculations of a young
woman on the threshold of marriage and/ or the choice of a vocation. Furthermore,
with the integratisn of this tale into the larger span of Book One of Middlemarch
George Eliot made sure that all the important themes in the novel were invoked in
one way or another.

Take for instance the question about societal conditions acting upon the lives of the
St. Theresa figures; inteHigent, farsighted women impelled by the desire to serve the
poor and the needy. Book One of Middlemarch begins with an epigraph from a
play by Beaumont and Fletcher called The Maid's Page&. The sentences seem to
devalue women's lives:

Since 1 'can do no good because a woman,

Reach constantly at something that is near it.

As you read the chapter, please review such statements and check if you have any
- interventions to make in this appaient positioning of Dorothea on a low scale of
expectation even as she is admired for an elevated sense of service to the community.
What you are asked'to perfirm is an act of "reader response" in the way that the .
American critic Stanley Fish suggests: "Meanings are not extracted but made and.
madenot by encoded forms but by interpretive strategies that call forms into being.",
 Fish is inviting the reader to challenge the code made obvious in the Themes,
ext. The reader will bring a subjectivity born of herhis own Characters,
e and cultural belief and such a subjectivity will interact with the Techniques
rnative readings emerge from transactions of this nature. Stanley
says that we belong to an "interpretive community" of shared "values"
ed by its parameters, therefore one is not entirely free and cannot be
ring textual meaning.

of such engaged reading can be explained through an example.

ind was theoretic, and yearned by its nature after some lofty conception
world which might frankly include the parish of Tipton and her own
ule of conduct there; she was enamoured of intensity and greatness, and rash
embracing whatever seemed to her to have those aspects; likely to seek
artyrdom, to make retractions, and then to incur martyrdom after all in a
uarter where she had not sought it. ( 30)

like other nineteenth century novelists, Jane ~ u h e nWilliam

, Thackeray,
ns and Henry James tends to direct the reader's imagination by
id descriptions of a character's outward demeanour and inner
is a manner of establishing a contract between the author and the
text as a factor of exchange. The modern day reader is not willing to
e recipient of authorial control. In fact new critical theory privileges
hority of the reader. Furthering the remarks of Stanley Fish,
h as Umberto Eco point out that between the intention of the author
of the interpreter, there is a third possibility "there is an intention of
r words, the material in print may generate a complex of meanings
beyond the interaction between the writer and the reader. By
ubtext, or, to use another metaphor, by excavating the hidden wealth
s reader will enjoy the process of making the text your own.

the cited passage. George Eliot seems to prophesy tragedy for a

lofty ideas must collide with the limitations of a provincial town. She
turn self indulgent, a victim in a lost cause, a saint without a
some extent, the opening pages of Middlemarch prognosticate the
ing the tale of its mystery. If you accept Eliot's description of
ally, the progress of the story is coloured by the image of a defeat in

when you challenge the proposition and place the blame on society,
? The limitations, then, are not in her idealistic constructions of a
t in a faulty world out there which is neglectful of kind acts of social
hen the idealising and theorising is done by a young woman, there is
cal consideration about her class and her marital stat&. Geo~ge
following passage in ironical, though not without a tinge of

nd how should Dorothea not many?-a girl so handsome and with such
ospects? Nothing could hinder her but her love of extremes, and her
tence of regulating life according to notions which might cause a wary
to hesitate before he made her an offer, or even might lead her at last to ,
se all offers.. ..Dorothea with all her eagerness to know the truths of life,
ined very childlike ideas about marri,age....The really delightful marriage
st be that where your husband was a sort of father, and could teach you
n Hebrew, if you wished it ( 3 1-32).
 -

2.3 THE UNSUITABLE SUITOR

Almost on cue, Casauboii, an aged scholar almost twenty seven years older than
Dorothea, appears on the scene. Surely the driest courtship in literary history is
recorded for us in his attentions to Dorothea. Chapter 5 gives us Casaubon's letter of
marriage proposal in which he declares in cold, controlled and measured language
his attraction for her "elevation of thought and capability of devotedness" (66).
Dorothea's theories about marriage as "a state of higher duties" (64) leave her
vulnerable to a man such as Casaubon, and she gladly dreams of a life of usefulness
as his amanuensis, his intellectual companion and devoted wife.

' Notice, in the above context, that Casaubon and Dorothea consider themselves well
suited to each other's needs. However, the language of the text has raised doubts in
the mind of the reader about the success of this partnership. For one, we bring to bear
our own critique about what constitutes compatibility in marriage and can see the
potential for disaster if a woman imagines that the husband-wife relationship is
pitched only on an intellectual plane. George Eliot had warned us about Dorothea's
"childlike" notions and here we have an example in how Dorothea shies away from
contemplating any "adult" aspects of marriage which must necessarily deal with
sexuality, mothering, domestic arrangements, social commitments and so on. As
another form of critique, we raise questions about the efficacy of Casaubon's
intellectual project. His enthusiasm for writing the Key to all Mythologies is shared
by no one else in the family or community. There is no external evidence of past
success to build up an assurance of his so-called brilliance, diligence and dedication.
In fact, Casaubon's inadequacies are dressed out as honours in the mind of Dorothea.
But as readers we can see the dangers in the theoretic constructions of an ideal
married life:

Into this soul hunger as yet all her youthful passion was poured; the union
which attracted her was one that would deliver her from her girlish subjection
to her own ignorance, and give her the freedom of voluntary submission to a
guide who would take her along the grandest path ( 5 I).

Dorothea's "soul hunger" is contrasted by the vibrant materiality of her sister Celia
who enjoys fine clothes, jewels, a good horseride in bracing weather, a gracious day
of friendly visits. She takes pleasure in being young and attractive and fun-loving.
George Eliot is not critical of such a woman and it would appear that she places
Celia's trivial concerns as a useful contrast to Dorothea's sobriety. In a remarkable
.
passage the contrast is enacted in telling detail. Celia brings their mother's jewels so
they can be divided between the sisters. Dorothea has, so far, always dismissed with
indifference all such requests for a settlement. Once again the casket is opened.
Notice Dorothea's vocabulary in the following passage:

'How very beautiful the gems are!' said Dorothea, under a new current of
feeling, as sudden as the gleam. 'It is strange how deeply colours seem to
penetrate one, like scent. I suppose that is the reason why gems are used as
spiritual emblems in the Revelation of St. John. They look like fragments of
heaven. I think that emerald is more beautiful than any of them.'

It is evident that Dorothea is drawn to the jewels but finding such covetousness
inappropriate in herself, she quickly justifies her attraction by "merging them in her
mystic reiigious joy" (36). In a passage such as the above, George Eliot is
underdutting the image of Dorothea as an 'ardent, theoretic, and intellectually
consequent' person (5 1).

At this point we should raise a further issue in the text. To what extent is Dorothea
aware of the contradictions in herself? In Book One, I suggest that she is nalve about
herself and the world of relationships though she honestly projects.herselfas a
woman with a vast store of idealism. Both in the context of her sister a+ndher
-
 d-to-be, she remains deluded about the gap betweGin her intentions and her ~hemes,
s. This is a tragic situation as experience will show. The women of a more Characters,
n nature are able to see through Dorothea's moral blindness. In a colourful Technique?
rs Cadwallader desyribes Casaubon as a "a great bladder for dried peas to
ately muses about the jewels and thinks " Dorothea is not

214 ' THE WORCD BEYOND

idual stories are a component of larger happenings in Middlemarch.
hich Mr. Brooke throws a dinner party is a brilliant device used by
to integrate the two disparate tales of Dorothea and Lydgate. The section
utiny. Notice how the occasion brings an eclectic collection of
era1 walks of life, Mr. Bulstrode, Mr. Chichely, Lady Chettam, the
tandish among others. The imminent marriage of Dorothea and
ussed with civilized candour. Ladislaw and Lydgate, who will play a
he story, are carefully introduced in the context but held away from the
Using a range of Middlemarch residents to set the tone of the novel, Eliot
s a polyphony of voices representing local concerns and predilections in a small
ged in social gossip, politics and current news. 'The author tells us this is
when debates about the Reform Bills were arousing political
. Mr. Brooke is an emerging leadership figure who is also the guardian
rothea iind Celia. Therefore he functions appropriately as a
r both the private and public domains. The free flowing convekation at
lped considerably by fine wine and victuals, provides wonderful insights
unity and alerts us to the individuals located within it. In some measure,
may be reminded here of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales where the fictional
t entertaining pilgrims gives us a wealth of information about various
ieval English society.

as the omniscient narrator holds similar control over the figures

uced into Mr. Brooke's dinner party. You could pay attention to the opinions
some of the guests about qualities desirable in women and see the
which Middlemarch wishes to organize domestic priorities. Dorothea is
ed as an "uncommonly fine woman" but another person says "there should be
ligree about a woman" and yet another person would like to see " a little
womanm(115). It is obvious that Dorothea is admired and respected at a
but people are a trifle wary of her grave demeanour. The author endorses
r in the words: "Sometimes when Dorothea was in company, there seemed
mplete an air of repose about her as if she had been a picture of Santa
king out from her tower into the clear air" (1 14). This is the point at
ich Eliot interlocks the two stories: the saintly figure gazes beyond the horizon
iEe the mundane concerns of life are discussed at a party.

+'
2 .1 The Outsider

ople delineated in Middlemarch, the man of modern medicine,

is a remarkable creation. The metaphor of the novel's structure -
n and interwoven," a "web" (Chapter 15, opening paragraph), is brilliantly
to Lydgate's involvement with the constituents of the human body. As a
he has learned that "human bodies, fundamentally considered, are not
ions of organs which can be understood by studying ihem first apart, and then
federally; but must be regarded as consisting of certain primary webs and
t of which the various organs-brain, heart, lungs, and so on -are
" (177). In the metaphoric "web," of George Eliot, the physiological body

the sociologir I body politic are fused, individuals and social organisms are
Middlemarch Lydgate has the trappings of the attractive unknown. As an orphan he has no
immediate family by which he can be defined. Aged twenty seven upon bis arrival ih
Middlemarch, he has had the benefits of education in the glamorous and fashionable
world of Paris which fires the imagination of the people who meet him in a provincial
town. The emerging scientific and rational basis of new medicine has given him a
sense of challenge and he is eager to practice what he has learned. Lydgate's vision
of the betterment of health and his desire to see "reform" in medical systems give him
the necessary resolve; a small town offers him an opportunity. That his idealism in
thought may not be matched by an idealism in conduct is a caution sounded in the
chapter in a famous passage:
*
Lydgate's spots of commonness lay in the complexion of his prejudices,
which in spite of noble intentions and syml>gthy,were half of them such as
are found in ordinary men of the world: that distinction of mind which
belonged to his intellectual ardour, did not penetrate his feeling and
judgement about furniture, or women, or the desirability of its being k n o w
(without his telling) that he was better born than other country surgeons
(179).

"Spots of commonness" is a difficult phrase to interpret. Perhaps Eliot is mentioning

the fact that Lydgate is vulnerable to emotional claims even if he thinks he is devoted
to scientific quest. The material conditions of living are not his everyday occupation
but he may fall prey to their attractions. Such a well intentioned person, who also
suffers a spot of blindness about himself, can be exploited by manipulative tactics.
How this happens to Lydgate is illustrated in a later part of the story.

2.4.2 The Angel of Light

Another of the young figures is Will Ladislaw, painter aesthete, a much disliked ,
cousin of Casaubon, whom Dorothea innocently befriends during her wedding
journey in Rome. Chapters 19-21 makes us privy to the growing and dangerous
intimacy as Dorothea innocently builds comparisons between her old, scholarly
husband and the charming young bohemian: "The first impression on seeing Will was
one of sunny brightness, which added to the uncertainty of his changing
expression.....Mr. Casaubon, on the contrary, stood rayless" (241). These views are
an articulation of Darothea's incoherent thoughts. Nevertheless they presage a
bonding between a young, neglected wife on her wedding journey and an animated
companion who educates her in European art. Justified in Dofothea's mind as a
sanctioned friendship with a "cousin," it shows her reliance on intellectual reasoning
and her sad neglect of a living.knowledgeofjealousy, sexuality and such other vital
.-
emotions.

Ladislaw has generally been considered by critics as an insubstantial, unconvincing

figure, a flaw in a novel of social realism. Contrived situations keep him in the plot,
In Book 11, he happens to be in Rome when Dorothea and Casaubon are taking their
wedding journey. He chances upon Dorothea, musing over her loneliness while
wandering in an art gallery. Later in the novel, he is tenuously connected to Mr.
Brooke's political ambitions, Rosamond's flirtations, and Bulstrode's secret past. He
hangs in there, so to speak, till the time is appropriate for Dorothea's
acknowledgement of his love. F.R. Leavis sees Ladislaw as an aspect of Dorothea's
immature tendencies, Arnold Kettle calls him "a romantic dream figure -a failure".
An endearing man of many nebulous talents, he paints, writes, sings, reads, travels
though he lacks any intellectual or moral depths that can match Dorothka's ardour
- for the upliftment of the poor community. Ladislaw's seductive charm &lies
substantially on his ability to play with hords as is illustrated in this didogue in
Chapter 22:

"I'wonder what your vocation will turn out to be: perhaps you w111beaa poet?
[ Dorothea] "That depends. To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern,
 that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel, that discernment is Themes,
but a hand playing with finely ordered variety on the chords of emotion-a Characters,
soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling, and feeling Techniques
flashes back as a new organ of knowledge. One may have that condition in
fits only." [Ladislaw] (255-256).

is nebulous philosophy of a high plane of consciousness may have little ground

th but becomes immensely exciting for a young, idealistic woman waiting to
scuss her own ideas constructed upon a fine vision. Denied conversation at home,
11s into an easy companionship with a relative stranger who along with word-
mg has a gift for laughter at the absurd dimensions of human behaviour.

owever, Dorothea's early friendship with Ladislaw in Rome has another aspect too.
wedding journey is a confusing experience for the young bride who struggles
her feelings of passion, desire, devotion, anger, repulsion, weariness while the
erly groom immerses himself in composing research notes on an abstruse subject.
Barbara Hardy has argued, a woman's sexual disappointment could only be
ded to indirectly in Victorian fiction. Chaste, well-bred, heroines could hardly
selves to an articulation of their troubles. They could barely understand the
of marital incompatibility. In a spirit of incomprehension, Dorothea sobs
ntrollably (Chapter 21), experiences alternating moods of self-accusation and
laint against Casaubon and occasionally seeks distraction in the aesthetic
art galleries. Her incipient attraction for Will, an obvious contrast to
ubon, are justifiable in the circumstances. Critics have b'een unusually harsh
Ladislaw marking him a "failure" in the scheme of the book, but to Dorothea
in a halo of light. Consider the possibility that George Eliot deliberately
the gap between the reader's expectations from a high-minded D~rothea~and
ea's own choices in men and diminished action.

ple, the banker Mr. Bulstrode, is introduced in some detail in Chapter

Mr. Bulstrode's power was not due simply to his being a country banker, who
knew the financial secrets of most traders in the town and could touch the
springs of their credit; it was fortified by a beneficence that was at once ready
and s e v e ~ a d to y confer obligations, and severe in watching the result
....It was a principle with Mr. Bulstrode to gain as much power as possible,
that he might use it for the glory of God. He went through a great deal of
spiritual conflict and inward argument in order to adjust his motives, and to
make clear to himself what God's glory required (184-185).

such a summary description of a character,' it is time to consider the

of how a character in fiction is presented through at least three kinds of
what the person says about the self, what others, individually or
vance as their assessment, and how the author intervenes from a
These are not mutually exclusive categories, as they often slide into
they are useful analytic tools. About Bulstrode, in the quoted
,the apparent summary is by George Eliot because no one within the purview
at this early stage, know of" a principle" of conduct decided upon
owever, the phrase "make clear to himself' reveals Bulstrode self-
and hints at his dubiousness in the words "adjust his motives."
ds (consult your text book) the Middlemarchview of Bulstrode
that the banker's abstemious habits and worried demeanour are
concern for the economic well-being of the community. You
Eliot's writing has a wonderful compressed quality in being
i Middlemarch guilt and power hunger. Such attributes are in contrast to Dorothea's openness and
"soul hunger." See if you can work out contrasts with other characters too.

2.5 THE AUTHOR IN THE TEXT

I'he image of a dichotomous world, which is nevertheless linked in unforeseen ways,
is strengthened by the next two chapters of Book One. See the long passage which
elaborates upon the idea of indeterminacy :

Old provincial society had its share of this subtle movement: had not only
.its striking downfalls, its brilliant young professional dandies who ended by
living up an entry with a drab and six children for their establishment, but
also those less marked vicissitudes which are constantly shifting the
boundaries of social intercourse, and begetting new consciousness of
interdependence (. 122).

According to the critic V.S. Pritchett, " Middemarch is one of the many novels about
groups of people in provincial towns. They are differentiated from each other not by
class or fortune only, but by their moral history, and this moral differentiation is not
casual, it is planned and has its own inner hierarchy."

The first time reader of Midmemarch may in fact be distressed by such a shift from
a tale of love to a sociological track. Upto Chapter 10, this novel had much in
common with Jane Austen's Emma and Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady in
being a woman-centred tale on the subject of matrimony. Now instead of developing
the romantic elements, the author leaves the heroine to contemplate her wedding
journey. (We are never to be shown the wedding, and might feel "cheated" by the
author.) Meanwhile, we are transported to a location where we overhear opinion on
local trade and politics from Brooke's guests. Arnold Kettle in fact called it a
"clumsy passage" awkwardly bridging two segments of a narrative. Personally I do
not agree with this adverse criticism. The transition is smooth and worked out in the
context of preliminaries to Dorothea's wedding. Appropriately, Dorothea meets the
guests and leaves. The others fall into social small talk which refers to Lydgate, new
medicine, new politics and sundry other matters. While the stories are brought into
conjunction, the characters are not. Rut Eliot's philosophical speculation alerts us to
the possibility that Dorothea and Lydgate though now socially segregated ,may, in
the future become inadvertently connected.

Yet another passage of authorial co~trolis closely debated by readers of

Middlemarch. Examine the followi~gline fr2m Chapter 1 1 and judge for yourself
whether the author's intervention disrupfs'the text usefully or not: " Destiny stands
sarcastic with our drumatis personae folded in her hand" (122).According to Arnold
Kettle, "it is a pretentious, unl~elpfulsentence, calling up a significance it does not
satisfy. Who, one is tempted to ask, is this Destiny, a character previously
unmentioned by the author? And. as a matter of fact, the figure of a sarcastic fate
does not preside over Middlemarch To W. J. Harvey, on the other hand, the sentence
is a key to understanding the philosophic base of George Eliot. Says he, "She is not
invoking a crudely deterministic notion of Fate or Nemesis. Rather she is simply
summirig up what the novel as a whale evokes: the infinitely complicated shape and
motion of the world as we know it to be."

Your own reading could lean towards either of these critical opinions on this
important matter of artistic control but you should formulate your individual response
and justify it ill terms of the text. Notice that each critic here appropriates the mind
of the reader by drawing herlhim into the assessment. You might be a "resistant
reader" and riot wish to collude in either opinion.
 Themes,
Characters,
e end of Book One, the polyphony of voices is resumed as a mode of Techniques
of provincial life. We are introduced to the Vincy family, the Garths,
Lydgate and Peter Featherstone. The class barrier would interfere with
to the gentry unless the circumsta~~ces are special. In developing the
rest of Rosamond and Lydgate, Eliot creates a social pattern that is an
to the life of the elite. Money and status are recurrent themes in
century British fiction. Here too George Eliot uses the same tools of
wealth is an advantage granted to Dorothea whereby she is left free to
ams, the shortage of money severely restricts Rosamond's longing for
ts and refined pleasures. She can change the conditions of her birth
planned, strategic search for a potentially wealthy partner. Speaking
s, Eliot says, " A stranger was absolutely necessary for Rosamond's
,which had always turned on a lover and bridegroom who was not a
and who had no connections at all like her own" ( 145). The net is
g Lydgate, the brilliant outsider who is reputed to have aristocratic
e best that Rosamond can find in the vicinity.

t The Literary Tradition

o is called "Old and Young," the title drawing attention away from
Is to focus anew on a contrasted group. Constituted of many episodes
major and minor characters, the chapters offer fine examples of the careful

paragraph of Chapter 15 should be carefully examined to demonstrate

derstands her role as a novelist in the literary traditions of English. She
"a great historian," Henry Fielding, whose Preface to Tom Jones
eory of "comic epic in prose." As you have studied that novel, you
the picaresque form is adopted for telling Tom's story and his
he road is a paradigm for freedom. George Eliot is astute enough to
I freewheeling, whether real or narratorial, is available primarily to
ters and male authors. Her own position, among "belated historians" must
"unravelling certain human lots," a "particular web," and not aim at

tic Elaine Showalter recovers and comments upon a series of British

n her book, A Literature of Their Own, where the argument is that a
in writing passes from one woman writer to another as a parallel to
n that constitutes the canonical texts in English literature. You may
usten had described her art as a fine painting on "two inches of
at she works details into the limited world she depicts in her
age in Chapter 15 George Eliot does not mention gender,
tinguishing factor but she mentions time. I think gender is
eaks of" the light I can command," for it is a relevant reference
her experience. In another of George Eliot's novels, Adam
ion is drawn to a chapter in which "The story pauses a
ss the nature of her craft wherein she invites a
th the Flemish school of painters. She too aims at fidelity to the
he too hopes to draw with sensitivity every fold on the
on the face as did Rembrandt and others.

ember that Jane Austen and George Eliot have remained

f British writing. Critics ask us to review the standards by
on in the canon. Here we discover that the token acceptance
n the realist tradition condoned by nineteenth century commentators
scate the fact that several other women writers were relegated to the
sentimental or sensational fiction. While privilege was
granted to realism, excess emotion or romanticism were seen as faults in writing.
Hence the works of the Bronte sisters and the novelists of the gothic did not get the
status they deserved until another kind of literary interpretation saw credibility in the
psychological portraits drawn by these writers..

George Eliot's adopting a male pseudonym is to be linked to the expectations of the

critics of the time. When Middlemarch was published her identity was well known.
But she strove to achieve the range considered appropriate in a realist novel in giving
details of scientific development, political processes and industrial progress since
these were subjects women were not supposed to know about. To that extent, the
opening paragraph referring to the origins of the British novel in Fielding's work is
a gesture of subversion. She wants us to note that with the passage of time the subject
matter of novels has undergone change. Also, I believe she wants us to note that
women writers can overcome the limits on "knowledge" that society has placed upon
them.

2.5.3 Recalling PIato

S.o far in our analysis of Middlemarch we have placed an emphasis upon co-relations
of plot, character, authorial control, which are aspects of traditional literary criticism.
Modifying tradition to an extent, David Lodge adapts Plato's terms mimesis and
diegesis to the novel. In Lodge's summary, " Mimesis, then, is narrating by
imitating another's speech. Diegesis is narrating in one's own voice." Strictly
speaking only drama would be diegetic. A novel which combines direct speech and
also reportage or authorial commentary, uses mimesis as well as diegesis. About
issues relating to Middlemarch, Lodge says:

m here is no necessary connection between mimesis and realism: some novels

that consist largely of dialogue ... are highly artificial; and some of the most
realistic (i.e.convincing, liklike, compelling), passages in Middlemarch are
diegetic ( for example the account of Lydgate's unpremeditated declaration
to Rosamond in Chapter 3 1). But it is true that mimesis is inherently better
adapted to realistic effect than diegesis, simply because it uses words to
imitate words. The classic realist novel of the nineteenth century maintained
a fairly even balance between mimesis and diegesis, showing and telling,
scene and summary, and it did so at the expense of some degree of realistic
illusion, in the interests of ethical control of the story and the reader's
response.

Middlemarch uses dialogue and description in order to build up the story. Sometimes
there is the author's account of an interior monologue revealing thoughts unknown to
the drarnatis personae. Likewise, modes of description can further the content of
dramatic dialogue or contradict it.. Lodge makes a good point about the intersection
of two important methods of explication. But there are other intermediate ones too, as
you might discover.

2.6 LET US SUM UP

In this Unit you have been introduced to the main characters in the novel and gained
a close look at the literary devices used by George Eliot to bring coherence and
connectedness to her plot. You will also have realised that Eliot is working with a
larger canvas of reference than any woman writer before her in England. She is
acutely conscious of her responsibility as a historian of society, a society in which
women play a significant role, and she tries, often enough, to draw the reader's
attention to the verisimilitude with which life in a provincial town has been
presented.
 Themes,
2.1 QUESTIONS Characters,
Techniques
Describe the reasons for Dorothea's attraction to Casaubon.

How does George Eliot perceive her role as a historian of society?

What are the main issues being discussed in the town of Middlemarch?
I
24 SUGGESTED READING
Allott, Novelists on the Novel, 1959.
arvey, "introduction" to Middlemarch, 1966
nce Lerner, The Truthtellers: Jane Austen, George Eliot and D.H. Lawrence,

d Lodge, "Middlema~chand the Idea of the Classic Realist Text," in Arnold

d., The Nineteenth Century Novel: Critical Essays and Documents, 198 1.
UNIT 3 PBILOSOPHICAL UNDERPINNINGS
Structure

3.0 Objectives

3.1 In the Lengthening Shadow

3.1.1 Waiting and Watching

3.1.2 A Hidden Subject

3.1.3 A Rattle in the Throat

3.2. The Springs of Love

3.2.1 Youth and Maid

3.2.2 A Sudden Proposal

3.2.3 A Love that has no Name

3.4 The Author and the Reader

3.5 Philosophical Influences

3.5.1 Three Gentlemen Thinkers and a Lady

3.6 Let Us Sum Up

3.7 Questions

3.8 Suggested Reading

3.0 OBJECTIVES
This section helps you to critically examine the transitions made in the novel from
the subject of youthful+idealismto the disillusionment induced by experience. As
personal relationships get mired in societal expectations, freedom seems an illusory,
impossible dream. Controlling apparatus curbs the flights of the imagination. The
philosophical base of George Eliot's novel is explained with reference to the thinkers
who influenced her writing.

3.1 IN THE LENGTHENING SHADOW

"Waiting for Deatli" is a rather morbid pastime but in the important section with that
title, several changes are recorded in the dynamics of social and personal attachments
among the "old and young" people previously considered. Specifically, the concern
is wit11 Casaubon, Dorothea and Peter Featherstone. Tlie subject of grave illness,
poignant in itself, is enhanced by the motif of watching and waiting; a strenuous
poise recording a variety of feelings. In the words of Barbara Hardy, " We observe
frustration, fear, anxiety, understanding, insensitivity, love, sympathy, and
professional detachment blended with that good humane curiosity informed by
imagination."
 take a closer look at Casaubon who had been dismissed as "a great Philosophical.
dried peas to rattle in " (82) in the early chapters of Middlemarch. An Underpinnings
ated scholar, determined to write his magnum opus, a Key to All
ies, he spent a lifetime of labour in researching the material to be shaped
form. In a way, this is yet another metaphor for control by which the
attempts to give direction to life's inchoate forms. Dorothea was to be an
is self-expression but Casaubon had misjudged his compatibility with
as she had. Even during their early association in Rome, he had
uncomfortable feeling of being spied upon and being suspected of
itless endeavour. He was irritated by her proximity yet jealous of her

eir home in Middlemarch, tensions surface yet again over the arrival of
aw. So far in the novel, the reader's sympathy had been directed to
d her sweet, innocent dependence upon Will. Now, changing track, Eliot,
springs the question whether a man such as Casaubon is not deserving

or my part I am very sorry for him. It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we

highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of
and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self-never to be
lly possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our cmsciousness
pturously transformed into the vividness of thought, the ardour of passion,
e energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious
d timid, scrupulous and dim-sighted (3 14).

logical realism of such a passage goes a long way in our appreciation of

's integrity as a writer who is fairly impartial to her characters and who
ader to enter the emerging dynamics of altering relations in her story.
pidation about the efficacy of his "Key" fits well with the theme of
rtant in Middlemaxh. Like Lydgate and Dorothea dreaming of a
red by their act of community service, Casaubon too dreams of the
ocument which will stream brilliantly into the academic firmament.
notice one critical difference. The doctor and the social worker
in the lives of others, the egotistical scholar covets fame for

3.1.1 and Waiting

s section of Mddlemarch, our symbathy is directed to Casaubon's

and a heart attack which occurs soon after an agitated scene with
dgate is called in to attend to the patient, the stories of Dorothea and
seamlessly attached. Chapter 30, which Barbara Hardy examines in
oncentrated enquiry into the thoughts of Casaubon, Dorothea and
ould have satisfied the fastidious Henry James's demands for
ntration in a novel. Lydgate watches ~ o r z h e watching
a her own
and. "Tell me what I can do ?"(323) she pleads
e soul," a "sob in voice" (324). Casaubon is to be
;she must try "to moderate and vary his

llows another remarkable passage of self-reflection for Dorothea-

,fear, repressed hostility, helplessness, resolve, and a multitude of
ons battle for primacy in her review of her marriage with Casaubon.
who had elevated "duty" above all feelings the choice is self-evident.

does not consciously weigh and choose, as on some occasions

after, but hGe spontaneously chooses love. She has stopped
-
 resenting, wanting, and criticising, and she thinks of herself in relation to
Casaubon only as a possible and frail source of help. She has broken with the
past Dorothea who has usually spoken and acted from a sense of her own
trials, has stopped listening to her own heartbeats and thinks only of the
feeble ones of her husband.

Valuable as this insight is from Hardy, consider for yourself whether this reading is
the only possible one. For instance, where Hardy claims that ~6rotheachooses love, I
would say she chooses duty. Also, Dorothea may quell her criticism of Casaubon's
wasteful intellectual effort but she cannot be blin-l to the futility of his work. The
difference is in the expressiveness of her attitudes about which Hardy is correct. But I
would add the corollary that Dorothea represses her negative sentiments about
Casaubon so that she may attend to his illness but her agitation is ample evidence that
the resentments may surface later.

Casaubon too must wait and watch, his frail body now an alibi for the failure of his
literary production. "To Casaubon now, it was as if he suddenly found himself on the
dark river-brink and heard the plash of the oncoming oar, not discerning the forms,
but expecting the summons" ( 462 ). At this point, George Eliot withdraws our
sympathy from Casaubon by showing him unyielding and mean towards his devoted
wife. Psychologists today would call the behaviour a "withdrawal" for it rejects all
offers of help. Dorothea's desire to give primacy to her husband's needs is met with
a cold, mean reticence on Casaubon's part. Her timid advances are returned by his
chill, her solicitations negated by his silence. The deterioration in the relationship is
given in Chapter 42. The anxious query that Dorothea had made to Lydgate earlier
about what she could do, has now turned to a helpless bewilderment spoken to
herself, "What have I done - what am I - that he should treat me so?" (463)

Her innocence which does not permit her to see Ladislaw's attentions is a strong
cause of Casaubon's rudeness. The contrast is highlighted once again. The men are
so different - old and young, gloomy and cheerful, wealthy and genteel poor,
scholar and dilettante, reserved and effervescent, static and itinerant, staid and
bohemian. As egotism is another important theme in the novel, we see Casaubon
living by it whereas Will has no sense of it. Most irksome to Casaubon is his own
suspicion of his intellectual prowess, a dreadful secret which he can hardly admit
even to himself. Its a haunting possibility of failure which he would not want
anyone to pry into. Dorothea's proximity to him and his work make her the one likely
betrayer of his dreams, the destroyer of the foundation of his posture as serious
scholar. He seems to guess at the extent of her knowledge of such a secret and to
wonder about her loyalty to him.

3.1.2 A Hidden Subject

A further subject is hinted at but not mentioned explicitly. The Victorian taboo on
discussing sexuality keeps the subject in abeyance. But astute readers would be alert
to the nuances of the unhappy wedding journey and the ensuing irritability between
husband and wife. Also the attraction between Will and Dorothea has a sexual aspect
though not admitted in the surface text of the novel. The dry intellection of Casaubon
and his distaste for any kind of bodily touch is mentioned in the'book. Will, on the
other hand speaks of body, colour, taste, sound, albeit in the context of art, but such
depersonalisation of implicit sexuality is within the permissible sphere of Victorian
writing. Feminist critics such as Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar in the ground-
breaking study, Madwoman in the Attic, demonstrated that women writers had to
resort to indirection to speak of unmentionable subjects such as female sexuality, and
that madness, for instance, was a meta-language for unfulfilled desire in women.
Dorothea's dismay at Casaubon's coldness does not result in madness of course. She
is one of the sanest heroines in British fiction. Yet, when you recall that Virginia
Woolf said MiddIemamh was a novel for "growyup people," you will understand that
-- .
 lluding to a latent sexuality playing upon the contentious positions given to Philosophical
,Dorothea and Ladislaw. Uhderpinnings

I
3.1.3 A Rattle in the Throat

figure of death is Peter Featherstone, whose avariciousness is a form of

parallels Casaubon's invocations of "duty." The deathbed scene in Chapter
has Mary Garth attending upon the dying and imperious Featherstone, is
e as a study in contrasted character. The angry, helpless, immobilised
rattles his keys and tries to bribe Mary into altering his will. Mary
ill not sell her conscience for money even though she is poor and her
ce would have helped Fred Vincy whom she loves.
U

3.2 1 THE SPRINGS OF LOVE

Three Love Problems, is created by the deaths of Casaubon and
both controlling men who reach beyond death through the legal
laid down in their wills. Eliot shows, on one hand, the importance of
,on the other, the capability of some noble minds to transcend the lure of
. Also, Eliot's metaphor for the novel's structure - web, node, tissue
nce to a belief in organicism. Individuals are said to be inextricably
heir community based transactions and further linked to a larger
ure and its incomprehensible "grand design." In the particular
section in Middlemarch there may be no apparent contact between
eter Featherstone, but the terms of their will link them thematically.
me of "love," variously interpreted and enacted, links three disparate
our of Middlemarch.

3.2.1 (Youth and Maid

Henry James liked the episodes concerning Fred Vincy and Mary Garth the

he love problem as the author calls it, of Mary Garth, is placed on a higher
vel than the reader willingly grants it. To the end we care Iess about Fred
ncy than appears to be expected of us. In so far as the author's design has
en to reproduce the total sum of life in an English village forty years ago,
s commonplace young gentleman, with his somewhat meagre tribulations
eutral egotism, has his proper place in the picture; but the
his fortunes with a fullness of detail which the reader often

erse to such an opinion though it may seem prudish to casti$te a rakish

for his excesses in clothing and riding. Mary Garth deserved better but
say, is blind. Finally she accepts the truth about Fred and responds to the
a far better, more sober man, Mr. Farebrother.
suggests a kind of referential "moral centre" (David Daiches's
bout transitions. Domestic scenes such as the one in which Mrs.
while testing her children in grammar and history speaks of a family
n shared values of interdependence. Self-centredness has no room
e in the details about Mary's integrity at the cost of her personal
uld have used tools of manipulation to win Fred through playing
ts of Peter Featherstone but she remains honest to her high ideals of .
belongs to the lower rungs of society George Eliot is telling us that
ism can be personal attributes separate from class. This is an
f the novel because it challenges hierarchies of a stratified social
r '*,' . 29
* .
 Middlemarch , structure in which the elite are often given the privilege of moral authority. Mary and
\
Dorothea have much in common as you might notice.

3.2.2 A sudden proposal

Lydgate's romantic attachment is initiated and controlled by Rosamond who haci set
her sights upon him fairly early in the narrative. A close look at Chapter 3 1 reveals a
sample of the brilliant visual and dramatic details that are so much a part of George
Eliot's art. In reading the passage for the fine nuances of emotion, recall that Lydgate
has hurried into the room and hopes to leave a message with Rosamond for her
father. Rosaniond, engrossed in the womanly pastime of fine embroidery, is deeply
hurt by his abrupt manner. Either by accident or design, we are never sure which,
she drops her needlework and both Lydgate and Rosamond stoop to pick it up.

When he rose, he was very near to a lovely little face set on a fair long neck
which he had been used to see turning about under the most perfect
management of self-contented grace. But as he raised his eyebrows now he
saw a certain helplessness quivering which touched him quite newly, and
made him look at Rosamond with a questioning flash. At this moment she
was as natural as she had ever been when she was five years old: she felt that
her tears had risen, and it was no use to try to do anything else than let them
stay like water on a blue flower or let them fall over her cheeks, even as they
would. That moment of naturalness was the crystallizing feather-touch: it
shook flirtation into love (335).

George Eliot leaves in doubt the meaning of "naturalness" in this episode for
Rosamond may well be, paradoxically, practicing being "natural" with the intuitive
sense that such behaviour will appeal to a candid man such as Lydgate. Whether
deliberate or as an aspect of Rosamond's usual posturing, this appearance of innocent
helplessness wins the doctor's heart. The tears and agitation foreshorten a friendship
into a betrothal.

Feminist criticism might see this as an example of male gaze upon the female subject.
The proposal scene is a recurrent trope in nineteenth century fiction and it is enacted
in various forms. Remember Lord Warburton in The Portrait of a Lady gazing upon
Isabel in the picture gallery, "herself a portrait.," before he ardently expresses his
matrimonial intention. The woman in such a framework picturises a vulnerability
which evokes strong desires in the male to protect the weak. The origins of such a
relation are in the chivalric code which, in English literature, Chaucer set out in The
Knight's Tale. Considering that social relations are best examined in their historical
context, the ideal of man as the protector of a woman "victim" is transposed through
time. In the nineteenth century novel there are examples of how this formula is
turned around by guileful women who will play-act to suit the patriarchal "model."
You could think of Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair or Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the
Wind as examples. Feminist critics would say that the male gaze is an act of
appropriation. Undoubtedly, the beautiful Rosamond is closely observed by Lydgate.
But this is to Rosamond's advantage as by a coy pretence of helplessness, she
precipitates a situation favourable to herself.

In contrast to the moral stability of the Garth family, the Vincys are shown to be
people who will ride upon opportunities to improve their material and social standing.
The appearance of wealth and class is more important than intrinsic worth. George
Eliot's criticism of such social climbers is implicit but we notice that the satire is
gentle. She takes into account the historical processes wherein h e w money" has
been generated by the policies of reform. Ambitious women and men from this class
have to negotiate social prejudice in order to carve a respectable place for
themselves. For the women, the "right" marriage was the only way to an acquisition
-.of status.
I
 F
3 .3 A Love That Has No Name

ird love problem condrns Ladislaw, who is described by Middlemarchers in

Philosophical
.Underpinnings I
I epithets: "loose fish" (392)."a kind of Shelley" (394) "a Byronic hero -
us conspirator " (4 15). Chapter 37 lets us overhear an intimate conversation
een Dorothea and Will in which tie reveals his complicated parentage - Polish
sh - and the "rebellious blood" that he has inherited. Casaubon's financial
ment for Will is said to be no more than the mandate of family obligation. Will's
language and behaviour ( an expression of his rebellious blood) is
ered by Dorothea's sobriety as she explains the reasons for Casaubon's dislike
rs to use the euphemism, "painful feelings9'- of Ladislaw.

attachment is forbidden explicitly by Casaubon and implicitly by society

rothea is a married woman. However, her status in social hierarchy and
ual ability to participate in the emerging political debates provide space
entertain Ladislaw at a quasi-personal level. He is, for instance, being
idered for an editorial job to monitor Mr. Brooke's political pamphlets. That
law's acceptance of the offer depends upon Dorothea's encouragement is
nt in their conversatiod The pair in this scene offer a contrast to Lydgate and
nond for here the articulation of their mutual interest can only be denoted in
t a few words hint at a depth of feelings. A pact is made, the strength of
known to both the signatories. See this passage:

"I should like you to stay very much," said Dorothea, at once, as simply and
readily as she had spoken in Rome. There was not the shadow of a reason in
her mind at the moment why she should not say so.

"Then I will stay," said Ladislaw, shaking his head backward, rising and
going towards the window, as if to see whether the rain had ceased.(403)

Dorothea's blossoming relationship thrives upon the soil of reformist

provided by Mr. Brooke. The forbidden dimensions are never expressed but
s an electric shock, "a tingling at his finger ends," on Dorothea's arrival. She
in him her greatest desires and dreams "for the improvement of the people"

reformist zeal, ~orothea's idealism is stiil strong but we witness her

she lacks the means to effect change directly and must depend upon
f the men in her life, so far Mr. Brooke, Mr. Chattam and Mr.
on, and now Mr. Ladislaw. Will has little political agency-he stays for the
Dorothea -but he has eloquent rhetoric which has a seductive appeal for
retic mind. In a famous passage, she speaks of her "belief ":

"That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite know
what it .is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power
against evil-widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with
darkness narrower." (427)

to Dorothea's query about his own "religion," Will says, "To love what is
beautiful when I see it.. .." (427) Consider for yourself whether "reform"
It upon such nebulous principles? Is George Eliot indulging the
s of her heroine or asking us to critique such notions?

's awareness of his wife's attachment for Ladislaw causes more than just
His summary of her tendency is fairly accurate: "She is ready prey to any
knows how to play adroitly either on her affectionate ardour or her Quixotic
"(458). Are women subjected to dependency under the terms of
Row are we to distinguish between Casaubon's gestures of protection ,
Middlemarch and his gestures of control? Is Will Ladislaw an opportunist seeking Dorothea's
affection for a more dubious purpose? You are urged to contemplate these issues.

3.4 THE AUTHOR AND HER READERS

We are now beyond the middle of George Eliot's text and should be aware that she
strives to present balances, do "justice" to her characters by entering the motivations
that energize their actions. But she has her partialities too, and often, the story pauses
a little while Eliot places solemn philosophical propositions for our consideration.
The individual author implicates the reader in a common assumption that the "we" in
the text constitutes,ashared viewpoint. Thereby strands of belief that are contrary to
the authors get negated, or at least, obs'cured.

Note the following examples:

Perhaps that was a more cheerful time for,observers and theorizers than the
present: we are apt to think it the finest era of the world when America was
beginning to be discovered.. .. ( 1 76).

We are all imaginative in some form or other, for images are the brood of desire:
and poor old Featherstone, who laughed much at the way in which others cajoled
themselves, did not escape the fellowship of illusion ( 358).

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like
hearing grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar
which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well
wadded with stupidity ( 226).

George Eliot has often enough been called a "moralist," which to my mind, is an
extreme statement. In the passages cited above, and in several that are
interspersed in the narrative, she wishes to engage the reader in a discussion on the
general condition of humankind based upon the vicissitudes of her particular,
imaginary people. The pronouncements are often philosophical projections.

3.5 PHILOSOPHICAL INFLUENCES

One must note here that George Eliot was deeply influenced by intellectual theories
of her time, specially those connected with "determinism." Briefly explained here
are the basic assumptions:

m' The affairs of the worid are "determined" therefore not much scope exists for
human responsibility

Despite the overall determinism, equations.of cause and effect operate in matters
of human choice. To some extent, therefore an individual is "free" and
responsible for action.

Determinism, though a philosophic theory, is manifest in the daily routines and

"destinies" of people.

Human will is a potent force that informs conduct. While it cannot alter a
deterministic universe, it directs moral behaviour relating to duty, obligation,
responsibility.

Since individual will is related to the "determined" path of mankind, a complex

"web" reacts to exercises of powerlaction at any point. The structure of society is
organic where every part is necessary for the action of the whole.
 Philosophical

I
Egotism isolates individuals, while relatedness to society brings spiritual
uplifhent.

The universe is governed by principles of fundamental equality. Differences are

Underpinnings

culturally or locally precipitated. Ordinary and heroic lives are a matter of

"perception" not a "given" condition of a deterministic universe. Therefore,
changes in status are very likely.

Flux and fluidity compose ordinary lives within a rigid, fixed universe.
Historical processes are dynamic.

n tenets of determination are given above to help you understand why George
en "explains" her text to the hypothetical reader. She prophecies, warns,
, rationalises the thoughts and actions of several people as though taking the

Three Gentlemen Thinkers And A Lady

e Eliot's ideas derived from three major thinkers about whom you should

ste Comte (1798-1857) was a French philosopher and moralist who, in

,first used the term "sociology." Known as the founder of Positivism, he
onceived a method of study based on observation and restricted to the
ervable. Comte's main contribution was the idea that a time had come when it
s possible to live fully in the world of science. He claimed that the goal of
ience is prediction, to be accomplished using laws of succession. Explanation
~nsofaras attainable has the same structure as prediction. Historical processes
dynamic and progressive. Society was to be visualised scientifically as
ic where every part is necessary to the healthy action of the wholg.

rles Darwin ( 1809-1882) is the author of the controversial book, The Origin
ecies (1 859) which challenged many suppositions of the Bible. It argued that
change and adapt according to the environment. Entire species may
extinct if the environment alters enough to make them ill equipped for
rvival. A species constantly evolves in favour of the fittest members. The
olutionary world was predatory and potentially violent in its struggle for
urvival. Along with environment, heredity was an important factor in the theory
f evolution. The organisms that happen to possess the characteristics necessary
o survive and reproduce, proliferate. Darwin's theories, based on scientific
bservation, indirectly questioned the notion of a benevolent and arbitrary God.

ig Andreas Feuerbach (1804-1872) was a German materialist philosopher

critic of religion. His seminal work, The Essence of Christianity (1854) was
anslated by George Eliot and she was deeply influenced by its questioning of
ogma. Feuerbach sought to demystify both faith and reason in favour of the
Crete and situated existence of human consciousness..He stated that religion
human construction and there was need to take back what had been
ed to be divine directives. Since religion itself proves to be merely a
an mind," metaphysics, theology, and religion can be reduced
the study of concrete embodied human consciousness and its

of the application of these theories to Middlemarch, you will notice that l

the ideas permeate the text. The driving emphasis is on verifiability of

perience grounded on cognitive, scientifically observed data. For George
religion of humanity mattered more that any other form of devoutness.
r partiality towards Dorothea. At the same time she understands the world as
d ~redatorvin Darwinian terms. Hence her understanding of Rosamond
 who must adapt to her environment in order to survive. Will Ladislaw is conditioned,
in many ways, by his inherited "blood'? and Bulstrode must work out his fate as the
onsequence of his earlier misdeeds. There is a causality to be emphasised even as
& estiny" stands sarcastically aside.

See if you find other examples in the text.

3.6 LET US SUM UP

In reading this Unit you should have paid attention to the philosophical premises on
which George Eliot based her story of a provincial town. Determinism gave
significanceto human endeavour even as it believed that people were conditioned by
the circumstances particular to them. The argument is worked into major
. developments in the story pertaining to the love motif, which now ha3 acquired a
sombre tone.

3.7 QUESTIONS -

1. In reviewing Casaubon's behaviour towards Dorothea, do you regard him

with sympathy or anger? Give reasons for your answer.

2. Write a r i m on the main tenets of Determinism and show how the

philosophy explains the person-ality of Lydgate or Rosamond.

3. How do you account for the contradiction in Mary Garth, that she should be
so mature in her dealings with Peter Featherstone yet so impetuous in her
love for Fred who least deserves her?

3.8 SUGGESTED READING

David Daiches, "Middlemarch." An Introduction to the novel in the "Studies in
English Literature" series, 1963
Mary Jacobus, Women Writing and Writing about Women, 1979
Jerome H. Buckley ed., The World of Victorian Fiction, 1975
T.R. Wright, Middlemarch, 1990
IUNIT 4 ELIOT'S PERSPECTIVES

4.1 Conflicts in Ideology

4.1 The Community as Moral Voice

4.1
4.1
George Eliot and the "Woman Question"

Using the Gothic

4.4 A Critical Change

4.81 Suggested Reading

4.d OBJECTIVES
n begins with a discussion of "ideology" in Middlemarch based on an
ritical statement made by Teny Eagleton. .The author's position within
icting social structures of her time can inform several details of the text.
t encourages you to examine the debates on "corporate" and "individualist
ogies", George Eliot's own ambiguous relation to the "Woman Question", and
's creative play with older literary forms such as the "gothic" even as she
'social-realist" narrative. Although the main textual references are to
6, you will notice the numerous thematic connections with much that

4.1 CONFLICTS IN IDEOLOGY

Eliot's preference for "determinism" as an active philosophy for
ding developments in the cognitive world creates several difficulties in our
Mdlemarch. One of them is with "ideology" which is a term liable to
itions but which is best interpreted in the words of the French philosopher,
'Ideology represents the imaginary relationships of individuals to their
ns of existence." Terry Eagleton, in a famous essay, " George Eliot:
Fonn" draws attention to the contradictions inherent in the

The ideological matrix of George Eliot's fiction is set in the increasingly

corporate character of Victorian capitalism and its political apparatus. Eliot's
work attempts to resolve a structural conflict between two forms of mid-
Victorian ideology: between progressively muted Romantic individualism,
concerned with the untrarnelled evolution of the 'free spirit,' and certain
'higher,' corporate ideological modes. These higher modes (essentially
Feuerbachian humanism and scientific rationalism ) seek to identify the
immutable social laws to which Romantic individualism, if it is to avoid both
ethical anarchy and social disruption, must conform.
 The conflict between co orate law and individual impetus can be illustrated with
reference to thptconTct Dorothea has with Casaubon. Please refer to Book Five.
The title, "The ~ e a h a n d , has
" ominous suggestions of eerie, disembodied
guidance from aiw rld beyond. Something powerful is determining earthly existence.
4
Casaubon's death i s ~ b o r t e din Chapter 48, the details are held out of sight, as Eliot
had kept away from the reader other scenes of potential sentimentalisation, for
instance, Dorothea's marriage and early days with her husband, Lydgate's words of
proposal to Rosamond. But Eliot is marvelous, once again, in probing the
psychological depths within a character.

Dorothea is struggling to resolve two questions just before she learns of Casaubon's
, death. One posed by her husband is asking for her unconditional, blind surrender to
his will, whatever that may be. The other is a self questioning whether she can any
longer, believe and trust in "The Key" and its author that she had considered her duty
in marriage. (519) "She simply felt that she was going to say "Yes" to her own doom
(522) but she never says it. Casaubon is found dead in the garden.

In principle, the romantic individualism of Dorothea tries to exercise a choice in

preserving some independent space for herself, knowing as she does the harsh
appropriating nature of Casaubon. The romantic is in conflictual relation with "the
immutable social laws" (Eagteton's phrase) of mid-Victorian ideology. An over
expression of free spirit will cause ethical imbalance and social disharmony -tear
the fabric of society upon which the 'laws' of institutions such as marriage a r ~
grounded. I '
' '-
. c

The institution gives authority to the husband. Casaubon's will contaiy ii"deadful,
codicil that casts an ugly shadow upon Dorothea's friendship with Ladislaw. A
personal matter is subjected to open scrutiny, an individual joy and innocence turns
into public humiliation. The conflict between 'duty' and freedom finds expression in
one of the finest passages in Middlemarch in Chapter 50, beginning, "Her world was
in a state of convulsive change.. .."

Terry Eagleton's criticism of George Eliot is that "a potentially tragic collision
between 'corporate' and 'individualist' ideologies is consistently diffused and
'
repressed by the forms of Eliot's fiction." By form, he means the classic realist and
the historical, for which traditional critics had praised Middlemarch. Eagleton, in fact
finds "an historical vacuum". What is offered instead, he says, is "an ambivalent,
indeterminate era leading eventually to the 'growing good of the world'."

Examine for yourself if Eagleton's views are tenable by reading critically into the
problematics of the text. Undoubtedly, there is a discrepancy between the professed
ideology and the manifest expression of romantic individualism in several, key
characters. Take Dorothea and Lydgate for examples. But is this gap to be seen as a
'fault' of the text? My own feeling is that Eliot has a firm intellectual grasp of the
contradictions inherent in a society in transition. The realism of Middlemarch is not
because it is a slice of history but because psychological realism, as depicted in. the
fictional world of Middlemarch, exists within and beyond time.

As to resolutions that are artificially juxtaposed to the so called "real" base, a case has
often been made against Will Ladislaw. When the codicil is made public, there is a
general embarrassment. Neither Celia nor Sir James, not even Dorothea herself
imagines that the forbidden marriage will take place. But it does. And Ladislaw, we
may recall,'is a romantic individualist who does not subscribe to the "higher
corporate ideological modes" of Victorian society. Can we not grant that George
Eliot is critiquing society by bringing a highly refined analysis to the obvious
of self and society? She is not trapped in any ideological confusion
several anomalies of the time are presented in the text.
 Such an argument is developed further in D.A. Miller's essay, "George Eliot's Perspectives
Eliot: The Wisdom of Balancing Claims." His thesis is given below:

The main force of the. pluralism in Middlemarch, however, is to make

us aware of perspective itself. What traditional form shows us is no
longer exhibited in a spirit of nayve realism, as simply what is there
to be seen. Instead it must now be taken as a function of a perceiving
system with its own desire, disguises, deletions, and disinterests,
which might have been organised otherwise.

itical perspectives can read the same text differently as you notice. For Miller, the
s that George Eliot strives for are a mark of her authorial maturity and
, Attitudes demonstrated by main characters in the novel are subjected to an
al review through other, community-based observations. One may even be
ded of Bakhtin's theory of polyphony wherein a multiplicity of voices is said to
ut any dominant discourse. There is much in a novel which is beyond the
iew of direct narration. Through obliquity, that which is left unsaid or unseen,
sects the events of the dramatic plot. According to Miller, the voice of the
munity constructs its own narrative balancing the excesses of individual
ation. However, according to Terry Eagleton, there is no such balancing of
ing viewpoints, only unresolved ideological tensions.
U

412 THE COMMUNITY AS MORAL VOICE

re is considerable credit in listening to the many voices in Middlemarch although
author's remains dominant and her continuous emphasis is Dorothea. Miller
s of a "narrative" of the community. Indeed there is a chorus of characters
ating the scene around the central events -all interrelated by fine ramifications
plot. Even an early critic, V.S. Pritchett, had described the complex chart:.

Middlemurch is the first of many novels about groups of people in provincial

towns. They are differentiated from each other not by class or fortune only,
but by their moral history, and this moral history is not casual, it is planned
and has its own inner hierarchy. Look at the groups. Dorothea, Casaubon and
Ladislaw seek to enter the highest spiritual fields.. . .The pharisaical
Bulstrode, the banker, expects to rise both spiritually and financially at
once.. ..The Garths, being country people and outside this urban world,
believe simply in the virtue of work as a natural law.. .We may not accept
George Eliot's standards, but we can see that they are not conventional, and
that they do not make her one-sided. She is most intimately sympathetic to
human beings and is never sloppy about them.

mparisons and contrasts are numerous but let us here reflect upon the Fred-
Garth- Farebrother triangle as a parallel to Casaubon-Dorothea-Ladislaw. True
red prefers "irresponsible style" to responsible decision making; and to an
he blame is placed on the new wealth and social aspirations of the trading
unity. But Eliot in the persons of Farebrother, Mary's silent suitor, and Caleb
,her father, gives marvellous portraits of work ethics honoured at the time as a
sobriety. Caleb Garth tells Fred most lucidly: " You must be sure of two
ou must love your work, and not always look over the edge of it, wanting
play to begin. And the other is that you must not be ashamed of your work, and
it would be more honourable to do something else" (606). Mary has been
ht up on these principles and seeing her affection for Fred, Caleb tries to
ertain attitudes in the profligate young man.

is attracted to Fred whereas Farebrother is far better suited to her temperament.

I-intentioned, well-bred man, Farebrother tends to be rather conventional but
37
has a lucky chance in his vocation when he gets an appointment at Lowick after the
death of ~ a k u b o n .Duty is foremost in his mind. We are told:

The gladness in his fa& was that of an active kind which seems to have
energy enough not only to flash outwardly, but.to light up busy vision within.
one seemed to see thoughts, as well as delight, in the glances(553).

Decency and uprightness is the hallmark of this gentleman. Suppressing his own
attraction for Mary, he promises to advocate Fred's case with her (539). The
conversation with Mary at $e end of Chapter 52 is modulated to show that restraint,
decorum; and ethics are not exclusive to people defined by their class, education or
material condition. Honesty marks the words of both with reference to.their feelings
towards Fred ( 560-561).

Examine ihe following statement by Farebrother noting the balances in thought and
sentiment.

I understand that you resist any attempt to fetter you, but either your feeling
for Fred Vincy excludes your entertaining another attachment, or it does not:
either he may count on you remaining single until he shall have earned your
hand, or he may in any case be disappointed." (561)

Mr. Farebrother is the product of a simple code in education, yet, gifted with insight
into difficult human emotions of possessiveness, insecurity, jealousy. In the above
passage, Farebrother speaks for Fred but, indirectly, presents his own feelings
towards Mary. In a way his is a prohibited love because Mary seems betrothed to
Fred. How does Farebrother's language compare with that of Dorothea's public
speeches where, if you remember, she always presents a balance of ideas. Even in
private she withholds any excessive display of emotion. Also, you may note that
Dorothea's affection for Ladislaw is forbidden any expression, yet she conveys her
need for his presence without upsetting the decorum of society-that is, until the
codicil puts an evil complexion upon their innocent attachment.

The point of the exercise is to show you parallel structures in the groups who are
socially separated. While George Eliot is realistic enough to accept the hierarchies in
society, her subversive authorship makes mortil standards more important than social
placement.'

4.3 .GEORGE ELIOT AND THE "WOMAN QUESTION"

-
'e

Dorothea's inner growth, from innocence to experience, is reflected in several

chapters of the section called "The Widow and The Wife." In a poignant review of
her high idealism which has met with severe impediments, she says:

I used to despise women a little for not shaping their lives more, and doing
better things. I was very fond of doing as I liked, but I have almost given up
(589).

Dorothea's many disappointments have left her feeling powerless, ineffectual. Does
this condition relate Middlemarch to the "woman question" and its early history in
the nineteenth century?

KatC Millett, the author of Sexual Politics (1 970) came up with the charge that
aeorge Eliot had lived the feminist revolution but had not written about it. In 1976,
- an article by Zelda Austen, "Why feminist critics are angry with George Eliot, "
traced the hostility of critics such as Millett to the novelist's "failure to allow her
heroines any happy fulfillment other than marriage." The freedom and fame that
Eliot had qehieved in life was not, apparently, transmitted to the fictiopal world.
Examine such criticism with care by paying attention to the historical setting .in the Eliot's Perepectives
novel. Remember that there are "the unwhtten years in M i d d l e m d "as Gillian
Beer calls them, "the years between the setting and the composition." which we can
date as 1830 to 1870. Two interesting processes were happening at the time (i) the
feminist awareness (ii) The passage of the Reform Bill. It is true that Eliot lived
through the feminist revolution but the episodes in the novel predate many of the
significant events. So one should grant that she was writi~gwith the confident
knowledge of the positive directions that the women's movement was to\take but,
she could not, in fairness, attribute the "ach.ievementsnto a prior time-frame. It is
also true that she had taken the bold and "irregular" step in her own life to live openly
with Mr. George Lewes but one should concede that she saw this as an individual
no part of the potential agenda to be addressed by the "Woman
-
The negotiation with history that we have here may remind jlou of Nathaniel
Hawthorne's artistry in framing the novel , The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prynne's story
g the Puritans in Boston in the mid-seventeenth century. Hawthorne as an
ic of the Puritans, writes the novel two hundred years later when several
successfully challenged the traditions of society. The Scarlet Letter
ays with time. On one hand, it is the portrayal of Hester's "submission"
e law of the land, on the other hand, is her vision.of a better future for women.
novelist is aware that Hester's vision will be substantially endorsed but in the
ovel, Hester functions within the constraints of immediate history.

ime in Middlemarch is collapsed to a much lesser degree. But the years were
I in the development of the .women's movement. The general sequence is given

According to Gillian Beer, "In the 1840s the emphasis in England was on
realising fully the special moral influence of woman." The home is given
considerable importance as the value systems of society are expected to be
introduced, nurtured and strengthened by the wife, the mother, the "lady of the
house." The dichotomy between the home and the world, private and public,
breaks down since the prevalence of individual virtue or vice effects both

The main event in the 1850s was The Married Women's Property Bill. George
Eliot signed a petition in favour of it. The point emphasised was "that in entering
the state of marriage, they no longer pass from freedom into the 'condition of a .
slave". The English Women's Journal discussed issues relating to the Bill by
looking further into the problems of divorce, child custody, inheritance and other
aspects of family law.

The 1860s saw an emphasis on the education of women. Though theoretically

educational programmes for women were designed to introduce them to "the
world of ideas," in practice women received "superficial instruction."(The
Alexander Magazine, March, 1865. Quoted by Gillian Beer). In the early pages
of Middlemarch, reference is made to the unsatisfactory "girlish instruction"
given to the serious and purposeful Dorothea. Rosamond's years of instruction in
the womanly pursuits of singing, embroidery, dressing well, social deportment,
lead to another'kind of inadequacy. A contemporary tract by Maria Grey alleged
that the curriculum was such that women "are not educated to be.wives, but to get
husbands" (The Education of Women, 1871).

orge Eliot's connection with the "woman question" remained equivocal. Though
e showed support for The Married Women's Property Bill and was a good friend to
veral activists of the time, she never joined the women's movement directly. At one

p
1 vel,~E~liot's
4-.-
preferences were academic. Louis Martin's book The Civilisation of
Middlemarch The Human Race by Woman (1842) met with lavish praise from Eliot. She was never
a mother and does not seem to have regretted such a fate, yet she wrote
enthusiastically to the American author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, saying, "You have
had longer experience than I as a writer, and fuller experience as a woman, since you
have borne children and know the mother's historq' from the beginning." Eliot's
sympathy for women, limited by their circumstances, is evident in much of her
personal correspondence and her Journals. At the same time she will not compromise
professional standards by making concessions for women writers. The ironic piece
oalled "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists" debunks the myth of a happy marriage being
the "desirable consummation" of all ambition (Westminister Review, 66,1856).

The frame of the women's question can be placed around the novel Middlemarch to
bring focus to an understanding of freedom and "choice." At least three issues were
found to be determining factors: education, inheritance, attitude to domesticity.

However, there is a further aspect. As you review Books Three and Four of
Middlemarch, you,will find men characters revealing their thoughts in relation to
their activities and ambitions. By focusing on the following passages, review the
attitudinal difference caused by the difference in gender.

Caleb Garth speakingto Fred Vincy says, "A good deal of what I know can only
come from experience: you can't learn it off as you learn things out of a
book"(606).

Lydgate wonders about "sacrificing" time given to his scientific experiments in

attending to Rosamond's "little claims": "To Lydgate it seemed that he had been
spending month after month in sacrificing more than half of his best i n t e a n d
best power to his tenderness to Rosamond" (632).

Bulstrode recalls his early years of cleverness and cunning. "The terror of being
judged sharpens the memory: it sends an inevitable glare over that long unvisited
past which has been habitually recalled only in general phrases" (663).

Will Ladislaw, a man without a vocation or profession, can freely indulge in

poetic notions. He tells Dorothea, " I shall go on living as a man might do who
had seen heaven in a tra11ce"(681).

Contrast the separate, designated roles by which men and women arrange their lives.
You will participate in the debates on the "woman question" in George Eliot's time if
you see how priorities are decided by societal expectations. Can women be agents of
reform in such a context?

4.4 USING THE GOTHIC

Middlemarch, is firmly grounded in contemporary debates between 'individual' and
'corporate' ideals as Terry Eagleton points out. The "woman question" was an aspect
of this debate since change in the position of women would have visible and
immediate effect on family structures which formed the core of society. However the
classic realism of the principal plot of Middlemarch is offset by Eliot's use of Gothic
elements in the story of Bulstrode and Raffles. Will Ladislaw is to gain prominence
as the story proceeds to its denouement. By means of a far-fetched connection with
Will's ancestry and Bulstrode's criminal past, the sinister Raffles enters the scene.
The gothic is traditionally associated with heightened emotions expressed through
exaggerated characters set in a place where the supernatural elements have a free
play. The extraordinary happenings are later explained by natural causes. One can
expect a fair amount of drama, mystery, violence, coincidences. Mary Shelley's
Bankenstein (1 8 18) and Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) are good
examples of the genre.
 ection describing the meeting of Ladislaw and Raffles in Chapter 59. Eliot's Perspectives
is suddenly accosted by a scruffy looking man who speaks in crude
e and occasionally winks to make a point. He hints at knowledge about
us events in the past relating to Will's unknown origins. He says just enough
sh credibility but not enough to satisfy curiosity. He would also like to cadge
, perhaps try blackmailing. The person being mentioned is Will's mother,
the young man is understandably perturbed. Raffles came from nowhere,
s suddenly, he moves out of the plot. But he has been a useful device for
ating a sufficient disturbance in the plot. Raffles turns out to be the link between
lstrode and Will Ladislaw and the major plot moves towards a resolution.

he use of a gothic figure, George ~ l i otriggers

t off further developments in the
ic-realist plot. Bulstrode's psychological reactions to the threat of his past being
led are presented in fine language:

Night and Day, while the resurgent threatening past was making a conscience
within him, he was thinking by what means-hecould recover peace and
trust-by what sacrifice he could stay the rod. His belief in these moments
was, that if he spontaneously did something right, God would save him from
the consequence of wrong-doing. For religion can only change when the
emotions that fill it are changed; and the religion of personal fear remains
nearly at the level of the savage (668-669).

ng to enact his thoughts which are verging on good intentions, he seeks an

rview with Will Ladislaw. The dramatic confrontation between the old banker and
oung, freewheeling artist has a taut quality of tension. Refer to Chapter 61. The
uzzle of the past gradually becomes a clear picture. Here one looks for a
ition of the real and the gothic.

4 A CRITICAL CHANGE
in that past? As a young man, Bulstrode had married an older woman,
the wealthy widow of a man with whom he had worked in an
ous, pawnbroker's business. Before marrying him Mrs. Dunkirk had
find her runaway daughter and her son. With an eye on the Dunkirk
de had bribed Raffles -the only other person to know Sarah's
to keep silent. When Mrs. Dunkirk died, Bulstrode as her husband
I1 her money. Moving to the provincial town of Middlemarch he had
iet Vincy and become a wealthy and apparently respectable banker.

ode tells much of this story to Will Ladislaw. Raffles' whispered query,
se me, Mr. Ladislaw-was your mother's name Sarah Dunkirk?" (657)
as a new and disconcerting meaning for Ladislaw. The confrontation
e old and the young Will remind you of other such contrasted pairs earlier
1. Here the hierarchy does not determine power relations though Bulstrode
at his age and his wealth will grant superiority. Will angrily rejects his
r of money to amend the wrongdoings of the past: "My unblemished honour is
to me. It is important to me to have no stain on my birth and
ns.. .. You shall keep your ill-begotten money."(672).

legitimizing of Will Ladislaw marks an important transition in the plot. For one,
ecomes woithy of "respect" in a society which insists upon a knowledge of
connections and distrusts strangers. Moreover, his suit to Dorothea now
es a possibility in his own eyes. But let us examine a larger issue of ideology in
novel emerging from a conflict between the individual and society. Ladislaw
ergoes a more critical change, circumstantially and personally, than any other
ter in the novel. He embodies the change visible in Eliot's time caused by the
clash of many interests. The legitimizingcurbs Will's bohemian tendency but he does
not become a conservative. His radicalism finds a useful political meaning in the
Reform era. Also, in-rejectingthe old banker's offer of money, Ladislaw strikes a
blow at hierarchical structures, both personal and institutional. George Eliot, one can
surmise, was progressive in her ideology but in favour of ameliorative processes that
were gentle, not abrupt.

4.6 LET US SUM UP

Terry Eagleton's important essay, "George Eliot : Ideology and Literary form",
alleges that the author diffises and represses the "potential tragic collision between
'corporate' and 'individualist' ideologies". You have examined the criticism in terms
of the text. It has been suggested to you that Eliot is aware of the conflict and
therefore in control of the narrative. The unresolved confusion of "ualues" adds to
the richness of the novel. Further, you have been given information on contemporary
debates relating to the "Woman Question". Engaged though she was with the live
issues of her time, George Eliot weighed her responses very carefully. Through the
destiny of Dorothea, key concepts about education and inheritance enter the novel,
Middlemarch. In addition, a clever juxtaposition of polyphonous voices in the
community create an alternative set of arguments. As the novel moves towards a
donouement--not a "resolutiony'- George Eliot uses some structuml devices such as
the 'gothic' to bring about a connectedness in the details of the plot.

1. Sum up the main argument in Terry Eagleton's criticism of George Eliot and
give your own assessment of his views.

Critically examine George Eliot's response to the issues raised by the

"Woman Question". How does this reflect in the text of Middlemarch with
reference to Dorothea's widowed condition?

2. Write a short note on Raffles, mentioning the gothic elements in this part of
the story.

4.8 SUGGESTED READING

John Peck, ed., George Eliot, Middlemarch (New Casebooks). Macmillan 1992.
Contains the extract by Terry Eagleton, "George Eliot : Ideology and Literary Form",
from Eagleton's book, Criticism and Ideology. Verso, 1976.
Dorothea Barrett, Vocation and Desire : George Eliot's Heroines. London :
Routledge, 1989.
Christina Crosby, The Ends of History : Victorians and "The Woman Question".
London :Routledge, 1990
USIT5 THE FINALE

5.4 . 1 The Finale

5.6 1 Questions

Suggested Reading

5.0 1 OBJECTIVES

end of the novel, several disparate strains are brought into conjunction.
.link is the idea of ''Reform."let us see how this is effected'.

the political governance of England was hotly debated in George

e first Reform Bill is the immediate reference in several s e e t h s
march pertaining to Mr. Brooke and Will Ladislaw.

Bill was necessitated chiefly by glaring inequalities in representation

nally enfranchised rural areas and the rapidly growing cities of newly
d. For example, such large industrial centres as Birmingham and
unrepresented, while Parliamentary members continued to be
emus so-called "rotten boroughs," which were virtually
istricts, and from " pocket boroughs," where a single powerful
ould almost completely control the voting. The first Reform Bill
the House of Commons in March 1831. The Bill became law in
!march 1832. The First Reform ~ creformed
t the antiquated electoral system in Britain by
redistributing seats and changing the conditions of franchise.. ..Although the bill left
the working class and a large section of the lower middle .class without a vote ,it gave
the new middle classes a share in responsible government and thus quieted the
political agitation that might have led to revolution. @he New Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 15thedition, 4997).

Reform in medicine was an important development in Europe. In the novd,

George Eliot localises the issues by showing debates about the proposed Fever
~ o s ~ iint dMiddlemarch. Lydgate has brought in ideas for systematising medical
practice but he is opposed by the traditional doctors and their patients who have
become accustomed to a simple, direct relationship. In Chapter 45 we are told:

The Hospital was to be reserved for fever in all its forms; Lydgate was to be the
chief medical superintendent, that he might have free authority to pursue all
comparative investigations which his studies, particularly in Paris ,had s h o h
him the importance of, the other medical visitors having a consultative influence,
but having no 'pwer to contravene Lydgate's ultimate decisions; and the general
management to be lodged exclusively in the hands of five directors associated
with Mr. Bulstrode (493).

Reform for Dorothea is linked to the betterment of the lives of the poor. It was a
vision of social welfare more associated with religious fervour that secular planning.
Initially, the St. Theresa image had been invoked, at the end of the novel, Dorothea is
compared to Virgin Mary (826). However, Dorothea's plans for executing reform
(refer to the last section of Middlemarch) are formulated with strict adherence to the
realm of possibility. She relies on the solidity of the drawing board and a bank
account:

I wished to raise money and pay it off gradually out of my income which I don't
want, to buy land with and found a village which should be a school of industry;
but Sir James and my uncle have convinced me that the risk would be too great.
So you see that what I should most rejoice at would be to have something good to
do with my money: I should like to make other people's lives better to them. It
makes me very uneasy--coming all to me who don't want it. (822)

Another linking device is the motif of Money.

Lydgate and Bulstrode have a common cause in working towards the new Hospital.
However the unpopularity of the idea of streamlined medical services that will
establish professionalism beyond personal contacts puts Lydgate's career in jeopardy.
The old doctors in Middlemarch get their usual, rich, patients; Lydgate's clients are
the poor and the needy. Meanwhile Rosamond's refined education and her
consequent expectations of an elaborate household have placed Lydgate in debt. As
these details of expenditure mount and Lydgate succumbs to his wife's whims over
and over again, we are reminded of the early description of Lydgate's "spots of
commonness." Hoping to retrieve his economic condition, however partially, he
approaches Bulstrode for a loan but is brusquely turned down. Lydgate speaks openly,
as to a benefactor. " I have slipped into money difficulties which 1 cm, see no way out
of, unless someone who trusts 6 e and my future will advance me a sum without
- securityn(736).

Soon, matters take another turn because Raffles appears on the scene. The past of
Bulstrode gets connected with the Lydgate-Rosamand story because Lydgate finds his
medical career fatally linked to the deception of Bulstrode. Unable to persuade
Ladislaw to be bribed into silence, Bulstrode turns his attention to Raffles. In rapid,
dramatic developments, Raffles sinks into a coma. Bulstrode summons Lydgate to
- \ ,
I attend to the patient. As Bulstrode is apparently supervising the care of the patient,
the ministration of the drugs is under his instruction. Raffles dies and with him the
 I
gory details of Bulstrode's past are stifled . But the doctor is surprised about the
une ected end of Raffles.

He was uneasy about this case. He had not expected itto terminate as it had
done. Yet he hardly knew how to put a question on the subject to Bulstrode
without appearing to insult him; or if he examined the housekeeper-why the
man was dead. There seemed no use in implying that somebody's ignorance
The Finale

or imprudence had killed him. And after all he himself might be wrong(765).

Raffle's death, Bulstrode's past keeps raising its ugly head. The scandal
ing the banker and the doctor is fed by gossip ,fanned by rumours. George
the details, shows the conservative preferences of small town people who
st aspersions on the strangers who came to settle in Middlemarch. The
dictment of Bulstrode is a marvellous scene of rhetoric and drama. Please
hapter 71. Says Mr. Hawley representing the voice of the community, " It is
sentiment that Mr. Bulstrode should be called upon-and I do now call
o resign public positions which he holds not simply as a tax-payer, but as
among gentlemen. There are practices and there are acts which, owing to .
s, the law cannot visit, though they may be worse than many things that
nishable" ( 780).

ulstrode, Lydgate loses his reputation and social standing. Dorothea,

gnises the professional excellence and the basic goodness of Lydgate sets
e task of clearing his damaged reputation. Thereby another link is
samond plot and Dorothea's story. Will Ladislaw
r because of his flirtations with Rosamond. From
with the plot of Middlemarch, you would have learnt of the several
e doctor and Dorothea get into sporadic connections. He is as
entiatpart of her story as she is of his. He is often an agent in those parts
e novel that concern her ideals of "duty." Initially, the reason is
ance during Casaubon's illness and his sympathetic understanding
lessness and dismay at her husband's poor state of health. At the
er courageous faith in Lydgate when almost everybody

rective to the overriding emphasis placed on money in many of

es. Dorothea becomes an agent of moral transformation in
ost a conscious act as she
he tried to master herself with the thought that this might be
lives.. .which were touching hers with the solemn
r and distress" ( 854). She acts out her thoughts

rsue his scientific goals even as she places

s. To some extent, she cures him of his spots
ersed and she had turned healer

ion of showing her the worth of her husband,

ng her to understand the vicissitudes.of marriage, and making her realise the
responsibility that devolves upon a couple to protect their relationship. In a
nd's posturing is abandoned and she
establish a bond that breaks through the

ected consequence of the visit to Rosamond is the clearing of Dorothea's

ensions about Will Ladislaw. The proprieties that he seemed to have
now said to be no more than accidents of circumstance. Far from
ing suit to Rosamond, he had come to tell Ros&mondof his deep 45
Middlemarch affection and admiration for Dorothea. 'The intensity of the scene had caused
Dorothea to misunderstand the relationship. Dorothea came to declare Lydgate's
integrity, but she finds to her own joy that Rosamond clears Will of any guilty
association.

Money is discussed in poignant terms when Will and Dorothea take courage to
declare their love for one another. They may be socially ostracised, she will loose
her inheritance from Casaubon, but they have discovered the mutuality of their
. affection. "I don't mind about poverty-I hate my wealth," she says with "young
passion" (870). As in her meticulous planning for the rural poor, she quickly
works her way through the reality of her resources. She said in a sobbing
childlike way, "We could live quite well on my fortune-it is too much-seven
hundred a year-I want so little-no new clothes-and I will learn what
everything costs." (870)

It would be wrong to imagine that George Eliot was endorsing Dorothea's nayve
disregard for the material basis of life. This shows in the selectivity of her words
"young" and " childlike." On the other hand, Dorothea's moral standards are upheld
whereby money should not become the dominant argument of life.

5.2 FIGURALITY
The linguistic texture of Middlemarch is permeated with figurality. It is present both
as poetic, metaphoric imagery as also through the vocabulary and technicality of
science. Let us consider some of the prominent examples:

The web as metaphor for social organisation has been seen by critics to be a dominant
image. The web is a network and allows us to relate its structure to a spider's web or
to woven cloth or to a labyrinth. A web, as you can imagine, consists of fragile nodal
points delicately connected to one another. A tug or disturbance at one place will
certainly cause reciprocal disturbances elsewhere. Excessive violence would destroy
the structure of the web but a gentle pull will cause a temporary shift which will,
later, return to the original position. These details must be kept in mind to reflect on
the operative aspects of the metaphor.

The groups of characters presented separately and in unison are like the node of a
web. Yet one cannot be sure where the node extends into the thread. Similarly, one
story flows into the other through plot connectedness. But there are thematic
connections too. As J. Hillis Miller points out in an excellent essay on Middlernarch,
called "Optic and Semiotic in Middlernarch" says, " Another important use of the
metaphor of a web is made in the description of Lydgate's scientific researches.
Lydgate's attempt to find the 'primitive tissue' is based on the assumption that the
metaphor of the woven cloth applies in the organic as well as the social realm. His
use of the figure brings into open the parallelism between Eliot's aim as a sociologist
of provincial life and the aims of contemporary biologists."

For textual reference you could locate the web-imagery when we are told that
8 Lydgate gets caught in the hampering thread-like pressure of Middlemarch life.
Rosamond is shown spinning a web of romance, weaving 'a little future' with Lydgate
at its centre (Chapter 12). In Dorothea's case the web comes to have associations with
the labyrinth. As a young girl she finds herself "hemmed in by a social labyrinth
which seemed nothing but a labyrinth of petty courses -- a walled-in maze of small
paths that led no wither" (129).

J. HiHis Miller astutely points out that the dominant metaphors are often contradicted
by suggestions of an opposite kind. The web or the labyrinth, images of entrapment
or imprisonment are used often regarding Dorothea's plight. At the same time optical
imagery as of light in windows (a means of looking out from one's prison) is given
 jgnificance. The reconciliation with Will happens near a light from a The Finale
nd the last book of Middlemarch has the title, "Sunset and Sunrise."
as another "prison" too, her special kind of blindness which leads to
judgement. Because imprisonment and blindness both have to do with the
ght, the "metaphor of vision" ( J. Hillis Miller) in the novel denotes
htenment and also the crumbling of prison walls. 9ne of Ladislaw's functions in
ovel is to replace with light the darkness which Dorothea experienced with

scientific vocabulary and imagery applies also to the changing

between Lydgate and Rosamond as their incompatibility and
eements make them Eke creatures from different species. Rosamond's predatory
r, her eventual survival as the 'faer' of the two, is described in a novel by way
from biology and zoology. Thus Lydgate's circumstances at a late stage in
are said to be as noxious as an inlet of mud to a creature used to breathing
surviving in the clearest of waters. At another place we are told that Lydgate lay
d and unconcerned as a "jelly-fish which gets melted without knowing it." (271).
contrast, Rosamond is seen as a "torpedo" whose benumbing contact paralyses

should also note the use of water imagery, often given as a stream flowing
ingly, or alternatively, as a swift current. Water gives a suggestion of
nectedness similar to a web but it is an element traditionally associated with the
w" of human destiny. In his essay "Fiction and the Matrix of Analogy" Mark
orer finds in Middlemarch many metaphors of unification, representing yearnings,
nd quite a few metaphors of anti-thesis, representing a recognition of fact. Schorer's
iew is that everyone and everything in the novel is in a state of flux, moving along a
I
"way".

l ~ eus
t look at a prominent example of metaphor in Chapter 36:

Young love-making-that gossamer web! Even the points it clings t o - t h e

;
things whence its subtle interlacings are swung--are scarely perceptible;
- - aomentary touches of fingertips, meetings of mys from blue and dark orbs,
unfinished phrases, lightest changes of cheek and lip, faintest tremors. The
web itself is made of spontaneous beliefs.. ..

In the above passage, the web, the woven cloth, the light, become linked analogies.
The sense of banding has the illusion of permanence. The author's imagery calls up a
host of cultural and literary associations by which the reader understands the nature
of the illusion even if the characters within the book do not.

J. Hillis Miller makes another vital point about the imagery which, he says, helps
George Eliot to create a totalising image of society: "The special mode of totalisation
in Middlemarch is this combination of specificity, on the one hand, and on the other
I hand, generalising interpretation on the basis of specificity." .
i1
1 5.3 MINOR CHARACTERS
The generalising can be seen in the quick pen portraits of the minor characters. Mrs.
Cadwallader, Mr. Brooke, Sir James Chettarn, Celia Brooke, Caleb Garth and Mrs.
Bulstrode can be taken as representing character traits &at constitute the diverse
forces in a society. They do not unfold an inner life in a complex and sustained way
but are given dramatic moments that capture ah essence of thought or feeling. We
shall take a quick look at some of their distinctive qualities.

Mrs. adwallader is shrewd and talEative and is full of'worldly' wisdom. Her
remarks spare onlv a few Chn in .
------.-A
' Middlemarch Mrs. Fitchett, the lodge-keeper at Tipton. Mr. Brooke is well-meaning in a sweeping
sort of way but mostly ineffective. His is a "too rambling habit of mind." A man of
acquiescent temper and miscellaneous opinions, the local political issues rendered
though his interpretation are happily caught in a profusion of ideas. Celia Brooke is a
conventional young woman seeking the time-honoured comforts of a husband and the
domestic hearth. She finds the right match in the traditionally minded Sir James
Chettam whose "amiable vanity" make him "a blooming Englishman of the red -
whiskered type." Caleb Garth, whose simplicity and goodness offers a foil to a
number of others, remains emblematic of the positive value of work. Mrs. Bulstrode
receives little attention until very late in the novel but in Chapter 74, she suddenly
comes to be the centre of attention. In her husband's disgrace she is'sllown as
behaving bravely and admirably and this gives her story threads of associative
connection with the suffering of other women as wives controlled by the decisions of
their men.

The minor characters help to reinforce the organicist dimension of the novel. As Sally
Shuttleworth says in an essay "Middlemarch : An Experiment in Time", George Eliot
was influenced not only by Darwin but also, more immediately, by Lewes's studies
on the subject. "The purpose behind her labour glso corresponds to that of scientific
practice for the aim of science, Lewes suggests is to link together, through
imaginative construction, the fragments of the phenomenal world so as to reveal an
underlying order".

The same principle of organic interdependence applies to physiological life,

language, social relations, and historical developments The structure of Middlemarch
reflects this principle.

5.4 THE FINALE

The ending of Middlemarch takes the story into projections of the future. Dorothea is
"absorbed into the life of another." The author rhetorically asks what else was it in
her power to do.

The Finale in complemenhy to the Prelude about St. Theresa, the "foundress of
nothing." A- A e ~ d i n Middlemarch
g with care, would you subscribe to this view?

One should be aware by now of the dynamic quality of George Eliot's writing. Critics
of the older viewpoint have mentioned her universalising tendencies, her
transcendence of history, her humanism and moral priorities. Recent critics have
preferred to see energetic conflict of ideas, contrapuntal forces, divergences, tensions
and subversions in the text.

However one factor remains indisputable, that Eliot was a self-conscious artist
carefully crafting her text and that she wished to engage active participation from her
readers in the full understanding of her story set in the Reform era in England.
Though readers today are removed from her in time and history, and social forces
have other directions, the reader is still intrigued by the openness that Middlemarch
has as it invites mediation. As David Lodge says, "Middlemarchhas achieved a
unique status as both paradigm and paragon in discussion of the novel as a literary
form.".

5.5 LET US SUM UP

The historical timeframe of the novel determines several aspects of the story. You
may wish to recapitulate the particulars relating to the passage of the first Reform Bill
which changed the voting patterns and power structures in England. The echoes of
-1&..--1 ,,l:c:,,l ,
.
L
, ..,, C-lc :
, ,&La+ ornnaf nf onmmllniw exiqten~e.
 itics, family, domesticity, community, business enterprise, scientific The Finale
ations. By a brilliant use of metaphor of the web, George Eliot is able to
st that civic society is based on organic, yet tenuous and shifting principles. J.
Miller not only reiterates the traditional praise granted to Eliot for the super
ing of this novel, but also'builds a further argument for metaphors of light that'
alance the "web".

though there is a "finale" to Dorothea's story in her marriage to Will

link is established with Lydgate's research on "primitive tissue"
to escape the pet.
U

5.61 QUESTIONS
how the subject of ''reform" is related to various segments of society in

attitudes to money determine the relationship of Lydgate and

osamund?

iscuss the metaphor of the web in the context of events and people relating to

5.7 1 SUGGESTED READING

t, Gordon S. George Eliot: A Biography, Oxford : At the Clarendon Press,

Eliot :A Stua) in Form. London : University

t. London : Chatto & Windus, 196 1 .

Early Novels :The Limits of Realism.
niversity of California Press, 1969.
R. The Great Tradition :George Eliot, Henry James, Joseph Conrad.
University Press, 1948.
1. Nineteenth Century Studies :Coleridge to Matthew Arnold. London :
NOTES
 HIS STORY AND HISTORY

It
St cture
Objectives
Lntroduction
Joseph Conrad
1.2.1 Home and Homo Duplex
1.2.2 From Konrad to Conrad
King Leopold and the Congo
The White Man in the Heart of Darkness
The Title of the Text
Let Us Sum Up
Questions
Suggested Reading
U
1.0 1 : OBJECTIVES

efinition, a work of fiction is. if you permit me the tautology, fictional, there
give examples from the blocks you have been doing--such as Joyce's A
ung Man, which draw upon autobiography, and yet others-
to India-which are born out of historical situations. Hence
ce of biography and the socio-political context of an author can hardly be
especially in the case of Conrad and his Heart of Darkness. This is
y the title of a book: Joseph Conrad: The Fiction of Autobiography by a
ive as Edward Said.

the following passages carefully:

1.What biographical event (if any) occasioned the work? What research (if any)
went into its creation? What psychological or social factors determined its
meaning? Yet, however impressive its eventual results, the question with which
it began-the nature of the relationship between art and life-would remain
unresolved. We would have learnt a good deal about Conrad's biography; we
would have acquired a number of facts about his work. But as to the relationship
between the two, we would remain as ignorant as when we started. (Berthoud,
Joseph Conrad: The Major Phase, p. I ).

2. Now when I was a little ;hap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours
at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of
exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I
saw onenthatlooked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I
would put my finger on it and say, when I grow up I will go there. The north
pole was one of these places, I remember. Well, I haven't been there yet, and
shall not try now. The glamour's off. Other places were scattered about the
Equator, and in every sort of latitude all over the two hemispheres. I have been
on some of them,.and ... well, we wont talk about that. But there was one yet-
the biggest. the most blank, so to speak-that L had a hankering after. '(Marlow
in Heart of Darkness).
Heart of Darkness 3. Regions unknown! My imagination could depict to itself their worthy,
adventurous and devoted men, nibbling at the edges attacking from north
and south and east and west, conquering a bit of truth here and a bit of truth
there, and sometimes swallowed up by the mystery their hearts were so
.
persistently set on unveiling ...

Once only did that enthusiasm (for geography) expose me to the derision of
my schoolboy chums. One day, putting my finger on a spot of the then
white heart of Africa, I declared that some day I would go there ...about
eighteen years afterwards, a wretched little sternwheel steamboat I
commanded lay moored to the bank of an African river. I was glad to be
.
alone on deck, smoking the pipe of peace after an anxious day.. . Away in
the middle of the stream, on a little island nestling all black in the foam of
the broken water, a solitary little light glimmered feebly, and I said to
myself in awe, "This is the very spot of my boyhood boast'.
(Conrad, "Geography and Some Explorers", 1924)

Do you not think that the second and third passages echo each other? And that the fact in
one is not vastly different from the fiction in the other? Together do they not undermine
the importance of the first? Though I do not want to suggest that the author's biography is
the sole guide to his fictional world, I shall be loath to avoid biography and history in my
approach to the novella. Yet critics have noted Conrad's "evasive lucidity". Edward Said,
in the book 1 mentioned a little while earlier, addresses this issue. He speaks of the
novelist "hiding himself within rhetoric" in his fiction. Whether you agree with him or
not, Said's view is well worth keeping in mind. If we know some of his views, and the
context in which they were held or expressed, and their fictional rendering, we might
arrive at a better understanding of the significance of his fiction and its relation with the
historical context.

1.2 JOSEPH CONRAD

Map 1: Europe in Conrad's Time
 1 Home And Homo Duplex His Story and History
1
take a look at the map of Europe of the nineteenth century and
ill notice that these look strange. Note the differences between
arts in the present times in your own atlas. If you do not already
eenth century Polish history try to gather some information.
et your immediate needs, I provide below a few relevant details
a more adequate picture of mid- ninteenth century Poland, and

I Map 2: Conrad's Poland

ing you the trouble by digressing from the main task of reading the text with you
ly, because so much depends on your understanding of what once Conrad told
Polish exile: "Both at sea and on land my point of view is English, from which
lusion should not be drawn that I have become an Englishman. That is not the
mo duplex has in my case more than one meaning. You will understand me. I
I not dwell upon that subject" (Conrad, quoted in Watt, Conrad in the Nineteenth
This admission has several implications for our understanding of the Conrad
despite Conrad's confidence that the reader will understand him, generations of
ve made contradictory claims about the intentions of the author here. Even so,
of the implications of Conrad's statement for our reading of the text at hand would be
y Marlow, the Englishman, is his favourite raconteur. And, both this latter
about his point of view, literally taken, and his dual status need to be pursued
I
@NIT2 LITERARY ANALYSIS-I

i-
S cture

Objectives
Introduction
Time and Distance
2.2.1 Point of View : A Point of View
2.2.2 Point of View :A New Point of View : Marlow
2.2.3 Marlow Outside the Heart of Darkness
2.2.4 Marlow in the Heart of Darkness
2.2.5 Marlow Framed
No Boys' Adventure
2.3.1 Action in Adventure
2.3.2 Action with A Difference
Let Us Sum Up
Questions
Suggested Reading

d two recollections: one by Marlow, the other by Conrad himself;each

If-regretfully, halCwistfUlly his childhood fascination with maps. I wanted you
bvious parallels between them. In the meantime, you may have discovered
similarities between the two of them. Does it mean that there is no essential
een the two; and that there was no need for Conrad to invent Marlow?
need to hvent Mtlow in any way tied up with deeper questions related to race
,were there hrther ramifications in terms of style and narrative
it 2, we shall explore these questions within the broader context of

I
2.11 INTRODUCTION
ism was largely a reaction against romantic subjectivity. How effective the
was, has been a subject of many a debate between literary historians; but the
four immediate concern here. Rather,'we am concerned with the role that
as to play in this reaction or revolution. The chief protagonists of the revolution
occupy centre-stage when Conrad's writing career got under way; and he was
into active modernist circles later. However, early on, he had started
literary friendship with the English editor-novelist-collaborator-friend, Ford
(1873-1939), an instigator of modernism who was to cast a decisive
nce on younger contemporaries.

liot (1888-1965) who gave the formulation of

soon acquired. This was to result in various distancing
atic monologue, for example. Prior to this, however, Conrad had
iously felt the need for distancing the nmtorial voice from the
or. This is where his fictional technique of impersonality connects
sts, and looks forward to similar thrusts among the younger
could be effected, he realised, multi-dimensionally: spatially,
the use of multiple points of view. But Conrad's need was not
not as if he wanted to make stylistic experiments for their
se of what has been called, in Nietzchean terms, the artist's %ill
900), as you know was a German philosopher who
ought to survive and his doctrine of the superman is
rathuslra, The WiN to P o w etc.).
Hear1 of Darkness You will have to think of Conrad's situation at the time he began writing. He was a
displaced Pole, with the experience of two great E m p i r e d e Russian and the British---
behind him. Having repudiated a past of the first he embraced the present of the seconci
just as he had turned his back upon his successful sailing career in favour of an uncertai
writing career in England.

Does the telling of a story have anything to do with these personal minutiae of the author,
his life and times, and the larger social and political issues? As we have seen in the last
unit, his ideological orientation is certainly governed by these. Questions of technique
too, 1 shall insist, are inseparable from questions of ideological issues concerning the
author. Consider the following observation of Frederick Jameson, the well-known
Marxist critic:

In such a situation [Jameson has been talking about the sociological history
of the novel, the alienation of the printed book from the Flaubertian
moment], it is abundantly clear that the Jarnesian invention of point of view
(or better still, Henry James's codification of this already e;isting
technique, his transformation of it into the most fundamental of narrative
categories, and the development arougd it of a whole aesthetic) is a
genuinely historical act. The subject having been by the logic of social
development stripped from its textual object, the latter must now be
constructed in such a way as to bear the place of the former within itielf.. ..
What is perhaps less understood, even today, about the Jamesian aesthetic is
the degree to which point of view is also part and parcel of a whole
ideology.

Jameson's context is different even though he is discussing Conrad. But his thesis is no
less relevant in the case of Conrad. We shall see this by and by.

2.2 TIME AND DISTANCE

2.2.1 Point Of View : A Point Of View

In your reading of the theory or technique of the English novel (espeqally in the early
theorisation of the novel in say Henry James or Percy Lubbock) you may have already
become acquainted with the concept of "point of view". In a realistic novel, generally
speaking, the narrative voice is omniscient. The identification between the omniscient
narrator or the implied author and the historical author is almost complete. He is the
reliable narrator whose point of view is God's eye view, which decides what is right or
wrong. Very little is left in terms of open-endedness and ambiguity. Some novelists
departed from this and innovations are not unknown: a narrator introducing another who
tells a tale. Even before, innovations can be noticed in such pre-novelistic works as the
narrative poetry of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The epistolary novels, such as Clarrisa,
also shift points of view. But even in those exceptions there seems to be an organising
consciousness. By the time we get to such modernist texts as Joyce's or Woolf s, the
stability of such a narratorial / all-embracing consciousness has disappeared. Appearing
in its place is a fractured consciousness and the techniques now employed would be
variously called "stream of consciousness" or "monologue inferieur". The shiwchange
was, however, not abrupt. There were transitions and mediations. Two key figures in this
regard are Henry James and Conrad. You may already be familiar with James's technique
of allowing his characters to "speak their minds" as it were; allowing the reader to delve
deep into the mind of each character. So I shall not dwell upon James's aesthetic
principles here. I shall, much ratherydeal with the subject of how Conrad innovatbs and
moves the novel form closer to its modernist crvafar.

His early tales follow the conventional point of view technique, though he experiments
with symbolist and impressionist devices. It is here that I recommend to you the sections
in Frederic Jameson's chapter "Romance and Reification" (The Political Uncomcious).
Jameson's remarks about the multiple shifts in a Conrad narrative highlight the fact that
 shifts can be taken as textbook exercises in point of view. Then they are "point of Literary AnalysicI
' conceived as being inseparable from speech. Conrad's kind of thinking "has
vered the symbolic." His practice of style is a literary and textual equivalent of the
ssionist strategy of painting "hence his kinship with the greatest of all literary

.2 Point Of View :A New Point Of View

r the first time the third person narrator Marlow in "Youth", a short story.
ually becomes a transtextual character in many of his novels. The need to
may have arisen because of Conrdd's anxiety to adopt an English point of
denied to him. The anxiety is evident in his initial and inadequate attempt
by anglicising his own name. We shall look at this
ons; but suffice it to mention here that had he
n voice and not ventriloquised through Marlow, questions about the
ofthe narrator would be raised. After all, he was a Polish 6migr6. His
becomes evident in many of his early letters and prefaces, where he
ns of point of view. For example, he would write to a
ber 1897 "This necessity from my point of view is
ovember 1895 he writes again, "When I speak about writing from an
I mean from the depth of our own inwardness." Much later, in
out treating the subjects of "war, peace, and labour" from the
what angle to see from, what to write from was one of the
e strains in his discussion of literature. Beginning with "Youth", he ensured that
Marlow he could present his own complex experiences and ideas, even while
ate ironic distance.

'Heart of Darkness"
vels, such as Almayer 's Folly, An Outcast of the Islanab, and The Nigger
us, Conrad employs the voice of the traditional omniscient narrator. In
arly in the third, he had no difficulty with the point of view as,he did not
distance himself from the narrating subject. His expressed ideology at that
lose to the official British ideological stance: reactionary and imperial as
riting for the imperialist paper New Review then edited by W.E. Henley
tory to Edward Garnett, who had advised him to wfite sea fiction if he
commercially in England. The novel's version of s'odal and political ,
red by Conrad's anxiety to please the editor. Unsurprisingly the tale
I, masculine, even oligarchic. However, the Englishness of the tale is
ardness springing largely from the lack of distance b,etween the
d the author. Conrad failed to reconcile the viewpoint of the nyator who has
but limited knowledge with that of a narrator who has the reflective scope of

ive change in his fictional technique occurred during his "Blackwood phase"
2). For this was when he tried to negotiate with his English cultural identity
ce. One after the other he contributed three tales ("Youth", Heart of Darkness,
, which were serialised) to Maga, as Blackwood's Magazine was familiarly
It was in the first of these that Marlow made his debut as the chief narrator-
ist, and the aforementioned reconciliation was now possible.

orthy once made the perceptive remark that "though English in name"
ot so in nature. This is very close to Conrad's description of himself as
ose "point of view is English" both on sea and on land; but "the conclusion
drawn that [he] has become an Englishman." Thus Marlow appears to be at
alter ego. But on closer scrutiny the two emerge as separate entities. The
arlow is because of Conrad's felt need for distancing himself from his
a. This helps the author to control and organise his experience without
it. Charles Marlow is unmistakably an English name, which fact enables
English readers of Maga to identify themselves chauvinistically with
Heart of Darkness the seeing and experiencing eye of Marlow (for Conrad's motto to make his reader see,
see a later section). Conrad too had shed his English name when he started writing; yet
"Conrad" gave him away. As Zdzislaw Najder comments perceptively about the
difference between the two :

Marlow, a model English gentleman, ex-officer of the merchant marine, 1

was the embodiment of all Conrad would wish to be if he were to become I
completely anglicised. And since that was not the case, and since he did not (
quite share his hero's point of view, there was no need to identify himself 1
with Marlow, either emotionally or intellectually. Thanks to Marlow's I
duality [different from his own status as homo duplex], Conrad could feel
solidarity with, and a sense of belonging to, England by proxy, at the same
time maintaining a distance such as one has toward a creation of one's
imagination. Thus, Conrad, although he did not permanently resolve his
search for a consistent consciousness of self-identity, found an integrating
point of view that enabled him, at last, to break out of the worst crisis of his
writing career.

When Conrad started writing for Maga he did so with the awareness that "There isn't a
single club and messroom and man-of-war in the British Seas and Dominions which
hasn't a copy of Maga.. .." So, when he wrote "Youth" for the first time for the
magazine, he narrated the story from the point of view of Marlow, a typical British
seaman, and as someone who could explore his reader's cultural traits and values by
indirection, and as an insider. The narrator who introduces Marlow does so as an
outsider, who has an idealised view of England, to win over the English reader, as it
were: "This could have occurred [nowhere] but in England, where men and sea
interpenetrate". Thus Conrad uses a double vision for a very complex response to British
imperialism, and by implication, to European imperialism.

His ambiguity had already been in display in the way he would treat his Congo
experience in a tale, "An Outpost of Progress" a year before the publication of the The
Nigger of the Narcissus. The irony occurs not only in the title but also technically:
through the difference between how the two characters Kayerts and Carlier regard
themselves and what the narrator thinks of their "mission". There also seems to be an
intended pun on the word "progress"; both as advancement in terms of civilisation, as
well as movement forward as an adventure or action. This propensity to pun on the word
remained with Conrad until he gave it up to Marlow in Heart of Darkness.

Its narrator is sardonically relativistic, as becomes evident from the following comment
on his part:

few men realise that their life, the very essence of their character, their
capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the
safety of their surroundings. The courage, the composure, the confidence;
the emotions and principles; every great and every insignificant thought
belongs not to the individual but to the crowd; to the crowd that believes
blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and of its morals, in the
power of its police and of its opinion.

When they move towards self-destruction under the silliest possible circumstance,
Kayerts shoots Carlier before committing suicide himself. The narrator posits:

His toes were only a couple of inches above the ground; his arms hung
stiffly down; he seemed to be standing rigidly at attention, but with one
purple cheek playfully posed on the shoulder. And, irreverently, he was
putting'out a swollen tongue at his Managing Director.

Conrad perhaps wants us to see in this image his own response to imperialism; and the
tale sticks out its tongue irreverently, mocking at Belgian imperialism in "Free State
Congo", at imperialism generally, and at the hubris of civilisation. Hubris, as you know,
is a Greek word that means arrogance, pride. It is an important term in the discussion of
Greek tragedy. The Europeans in spite of their "civilisation" are not necessarily the fittest Literary Analysis1
race. It is the natives who maintain their sanity. The final irony, however, seems to lie in
the actual, physical context of the story. For, alongside Conrad's story people must have
read the essay by Henry Norman, a well-known political commentator for the same
magazine in which both had appeared: "We are Imperialists first, and Liberals or Tories
erwards. I said this, for my own part, years ago, when the sentiment was not quite so
pular. Now it has happily become commonplace." The tale effectively gets an
unity to cock a snook at such cocky points of view. Conrad knew that such an
ogical thrust will not be an attractive proposition for the Maga people, neither the
r nor the readership. So when he came to contribute "Youth" to it, he deliberately
Marlow elaborate on the national character of the English. This was a well-
irected strategy aimed at co-opting the readership of the magazine, exploiting their
logical mindset. At this point two things are to be kept in mind. One is the cultural
ext: an ongoing debate about whether the so-called English spirit was on the wane, a
eakening of the spirit, body and the will. Most discussions in newspapers would insist
at they were indeed on the wane. "Youth on the other hand, inveighed against the
gument. Secondly, Conrad would change the emphasis in drafts for serial publications.

rlow praises the crew for their exemplary discipline and will: "That crew of Liverpool
d cases had in them the right stuff', as if to reassure the English reading public. "It's
experience they always have", he repeafs f& emphasis. This sentence was an
clusive addition for the magazine. He effected significant and suitable alterations in
atters of detail when he came to fictionalise his 1892 experience: the cosmopolitan
ew were turned into an all-English crew for the same reason, as critics have not failed
notice. Such partisan Englishness was to change, as I have said before, as Conrad
came more confident of his success in literary England.

It 2.4 Marlow And The Heart Of Darkness

t, he continued to be cagey, when he wrote about The Heart of Darkness (the definite
le was part of the original title) to the great publisher William Blackwood. Conrad
worried whether the subject would commend itself to him. As you read the following
ct from the letter. mark the apologia on the way:

The title I am thinking of is The Heart of Darkness but the narrative is not
gloomy. The criminality of ioeflkiency and pure selfishness when tackling
the civilising work in Africa is a justifiable idea. The subject is of our tipie
distinctly-though not topically treated. It is a story as much as my OuCpost
of Progress was but, so to speak W e s in" more-is a little wider-is less
concentrated upon individuals.

this apologia is prefaced by a reference to another of his earlier works, "Youth",

h was ideologically congenial to Blackwood. The intention again is obvious:

It is a narrative after the manner of Youth told by the same man dealing with
his [my emphasis] experience on a river in Central Africa. The idea in it is
not as obvious as in Y o u r k r not at least so obviously presented. I tell you
all this, for tho* 1 have not doubts as to the workmanship I do not know , ,.
whether the subject will commend itself @ you for thatparticular number. . +.
"particular number" was the thousandth issue of the magazine. You must notice
rad's confidence about the workmanship, by which I suppose he means the
For his experiments begin by beirrg traditional. He uses the convention of the
or", a convention that was especially popular with Maga, already
d by such writers a9 Wells, Kipling and Stevenson. This again had its cultural
e club culture in which travellers or adventurers would relate their stories or
am. You may have encountered such a storyteller relating his strange adventure
' Time Muchine. Conrad's tales are removed from the comfort and security of
,and are situated symbolically on decks with endless waters around. Thus the
followed in the beach of it. Another aspect of the conventional trick was
Heart of Darkness that in such tales you may notice the writer's anticipation of the reader doubting the
story's veracity, the element of disbelief, such was the strangeness of the tales. Even here
Conrad intensifies the common air of incredulity. Look at Marlow's problem and
compare it with any other narrator's:

This is the worst of trying to tell .... Here you all are, each moored with two
good addresses, like a hulk with two anchors, a butcher round one comer, a
policeman round another, excellent appetites, and temperature normal-you
hear from year's end to year's end. And you say, Absurd!

2.2.5 Marlow Framed

Here, of course, Marlow is the narrator-protagonist, whose story is being exactly retold
by the "frame narrator". Here I must digress a little to illustrate the point about the frame
narrative. The metaphor is that of a framed picture; a picture representation of reality cut
off from the real world by the frame,'and meant for the seeing eye. But there may be
variations and complications of such frames. I shall try to explain the concept in more
concrete terms by drawing your attention to the picture here.

This is a photograph of an exhibit in Madam Tussaud's wax museum in London. The

three ladies who are sitting for the poArait painting are wax figures of the Bronte sisters.
You can see the back of the portrait painter, another wax figure, whose half-finished
portrait is in the inner frame. Now look closely and see how many frames are there. One
is the frame of the photograph framing the scene of some real-life spectators looking at
the exhibit. The painting in the frame is supposedly drawn by the imitation artist; but the
real artist is missing from the scene; he and the wax sculptor may have been two different
artists. The framed portrait painting is thus an attributed one, with the actual artist having
vanished from the scene. Had the picture been simply a painting of a painter painting, it
would have been an exact equivalent of the classic frame narrative. But Conrad's
complex frame narrative is rather more like the one you are looking at here. In Heart of
Darkness in particular, the frame narrator introduces Marlow to the reader, the narratee.
When Marlow takes over and starts spinning his yarn, the anonymous frame narrator
becomes one of the narratees. But then Marlow himself retells other minor narrators'
tales about Kurtz. And so on.
Franc within a frame
 other differences as well. In the classic frame narrative, the frame nmator is Literary Analysis-I
most authoritative and knowledgeable of the narrators. But in Heart of
though the h e narrator passes on Marlow's story and appears to be reliable,
ow's intellectual inferior, as is implied in Marlow's low opinion of and
ence with his audience. We can also see this in the beginning of the narrative,
scribes the Thames, and England's past with
irit of the past upon the lower reaches of the
the English sea heroes. "What greatness had not
he ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth! ...." This is
of what I have told you about "Youth"; except in that here Marlow begins by
anti-imperial meditation aloud: "And h i s also. ..has been one of the dark
the earth. ..." Thus Conrad employs counter-discourses within the framework of
ive by subverting the traditional genre. The method is dialogic as well as
e relative naivet6 and limited insight of the frame
e complexities that they might encounter in the point
e unreliability of any of the several narrators

2.31 NO BOYS' ADVENTURE

2.3.1 Action In Adventure
rawn your attention to the other convention that Conrad useb-only to subvert
n he took to Muga-that of the adventure story. Blackwood continued to publish
es of a relatively unknown entity with the hope that one day he would with his
ackground produce significant (popular) adventure stories such as Stevenson's
Little did he realise that he was expecting what Conrad would not and

central to an adventure story. In Conrad, the adventure story is predicated on

d lethargy. As Frederick Karl has pointed out,bylhile we must "recognise how
ended on certain conventions of the adventure story, we must stress his
m melodrama and a debased romanticism. His reliance on passivity,
obility is one of his major achievements in reshaping the romantic sense of
re." As a result, the focus of such tales as Heart ofDarkness is never where the
xpects it to be. Further, action in his kind of "adventwe stories" is always
the manner of telling them. The narrator stops, comments, alerts the inner
of his yam: the narrative gets halted and is even infinitely regressed. As Allan

the action comes to seem almost incidental to the true point of the story,
which is something or somewhere, between the self-consciousness of the
narrator and the self-consciousness of Conrad himself, hiding behind walls
of narration, behind the dislocation of time, denying, almost, that he has
anything to do with the creation at all-losing himself, in other words, in
the exercise of his craft.

d would have Blackwood believe that his stories were action-oriented. Read
ing extract from his letter to the editor. In its essence his work

is action ... nothing but action-action observed, felt and interpreted with
an absolute truth to my sensations.. . action of human beings that will bleed
to a prick, and are moving in a visible world.

trying to hoodwink the editor? Or, do you think, he was redefining the very
'action"? I think the answer to the question would have to be a complex one.
pticisrn towards action must have sprung from, on the one hand, the lost
olish freedom fighters; on the other, the sham "civilising mission" of the
turers. So the adventure, if it can be so called, that he portrays is the
Heart of Darkness adventure inwardslthe journey into the inner heart of darkness, and not the literal kind,
as displayed in conventional adventure tales. As the character in one of Conrad's later
tales says, "we are not living in a boy's adventure tale".

2.3.2 Action With A Difference

There are times when Marlow is on the verge of some action, but the nature of the
problem he confronts is such, owing to its metaphysical nature, that no "action" on his
part can redeem the situation for him. Hence his propensity for inaction and evasion. His
dilemma is almost Hamletian in its unnaturalness. Hamlet, as you know, is the
protagonist in shakespeare's play of the same name, whose words "To be or not to be"
symbolise his perpetual dilemma. Action is suitable or possible only under normal,
worldly circumstances. But not in the kind of situation he finds himself in. As he says at
one such conjuncture.
1 fretted and fumed and took to arguing with myself whether or no I would
talk openly with Kurtz; but before I could come to any conclusion it
occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine,
would be a mere futility. What did it matter what anyone knew or ignored?
What did it matter who was manager? One gets sometimes such flashes of
insight. The essentials of this affair lay deep under the surface, beyond my
reach, and beyond anyone's reach, and beyond my power of meddling.
This is not a special but typical situation for Marlow. Soon he takes to his more usual
mental posture: that of meditation. He has now become Buddha-like. This is indeed no
boys' adventure.
Marlow continues to play a passive role, preferring to meditate than act. He sees and
hears. But his work begins when he is confionted by the wilderness. He starts by such
apparently insignificant acts as taking off his boots, blowing the two-penny whistle, and
throwing the dead body overboard. You will notice the suspenseful action typical of an
adventure story when Marlow approaches Kurtz, and tries to rescue him. From now on he
exercises a choice, even if it be a choice of nightmares. His final action is the telling of
the lie to the Intended, more of which we shall have occasion to examine.

2.4 LET US SUM UP

Conrad's invention of Marlow then is indissolubly linked with his desire to accommodate
his stylistic and ideological needs. This successful technique of distancing needs also to
be seen in the broader context of modernist experiments. Technique is inseparable fiom
ideology.
P --
2.5 QUESTIONS

I. In the opening section of the story what differences and similarities do you
notice in the points or view of Conrad, the frame narrator and Marlow?
2. What is meant or implied by the term "efficiency" in the context of imperialism?
3. Try to rewrite the opening section of the novel employing the conventional point
of view of the omniscient narrator.

2.6 SUGGESTED READING

Frederick Jameson The Political Unconscious. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981.
Frederick Karl Joseph Conrad:The Three Lives: A Biography. New York : Farrar Straus,
Giroux. 1979.
Ian Watt. Conrad in the Ninteenth Century. Berkley: University of California Press 1979.
 UNIT 3 LITERARY ANALYSIS-I1
Structure
Objectives
Introduction
An Approach to the Meaning
3.2.1 Structure-wise
3.2.2 Not Exactly A Story for Boys
Marlow :From His Point of View
3.3.1 Is Matlow a Passive Receptacle of Experience?
3.3.2 Marlow's Adventure :an Inner One
Delayed Decoding
Let Us Sum Up
Questions
Suggested Reading

I 3.0 OBJECTIVES
You may have already got some idea about how tricky the task of reading Heart of
Darkrress is. The purpose in this unit is to clear some of the snags you might encounter
while reading the text by suggesting some guidelines to approach it. We shall see, among
other things, how it is a reworking of the genre of the adventure story. Marlow embarks
on an adventurousjourney all right, but does that mean that his journey therefore
becomes an adventure? If yes, how is that different from the conventions of the genre?
How does Marlow's character contribute to his way of telling the tale? Is it a
psychological drama; not so much a journey in space and time as a spiritual descent into
the heart of darkness, some kind of a Dantesque Inferno? (Dante (1265-132I), as you
know is the ltalian poet who wrote the allegorical epic Divine Comedy). As Marlow
would say, "My purpose was to stroll the shade for a moment; but no sooner within than
it seemed to me I had stepped into the gloomy circle of some Inferno." In this unit, we
shall take up these issues drawing mostly on textual evidence. So I shall expect you to
pick up the references as we move along.

1 3.1 INTRODUCTION
In the context of the genre of the adventure story, and the more general consideration of
Conrad's artistic intentions in the tale, it would be worthwhile to look at his well-known
"artistic principle" laid down in the "Preface" to The Nigger of the "Nurcissus"part of
which I quote at some length below. For this is an indispensable statement of his artistic
principles, and stands as a touchstone for much of his writing career.

A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should cany
its justification in every line. And art itself may be defined as a single
minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe,
by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every aspect.
It is an attempt to find in its forms, in its colours, in its light, in its shadows,
in the aspects of matter, and in the facts of life what of each fundamental,
what is enduring and essential-there one illuminating and convincing
quality-the very truth of their existence. The artist, then, like the thinker or
the scientist, seeks the truth and makes his appeal. Impressed by the aspect
of the world the thinker plunges into ideas, the scientist into fact-whence,
presently, emerging they make $heir appeal to those qualities of our being
that fit us best for the hazardous enterprise of living. They speak
authoritatively to our common sense, to our intelligence, to our desire of
peace, or to our desire of unrest; not seldom to our prejudices, sometimes to
our fears, often to our egoism-but always to our credulity. And their
words are heard with reverence, for their concern is with weighty matter:
Heart of Darkness with the cultivation of our minds and their proper care of our bodies, with
the attainment of our ambitions, with the perfection of the means and the
glorification of our precious aims.

It is otherwise with the artist.

Confronted by the same enigmatical spectacle the artist descends within

himself, and in that lonely region of stress and strife, if he be deserving and
fortunate, he finds the terms of his appeal. His appeal is made to our less
obvious capacities: to that part of our nature which, because of the warlike
conditions of existence, is necessarily kept out of sight within the more
resisting and hard qualities-like the vulnerable body within a steel armour.
His appeal is less loud, more profound, less distinct, more stirring-and
sooner forgotten. Yet its effect endures for ever. The changing wisdom of
successive generations discards ideas, questions facts, demolishes theories.
But the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependant on
wisdom; to that in us which is gift and not an acquisition--and, therefore,
more permanently enduring.

It was prescient of him to have anticipated the exact situation with regard to his work,
particularly Heart ojDarkness. Ideas have indeed been discarded, facts have been
questioned, and theories have been demolished. Conrad's fortunes have changed. In the
current theoretical climate, his appeals to the higher faculties, universal, transcendental
values have lost their significance. There are no more any "universal categories"; or so
we are told. In spite of such intellectual scepticism, our business as readers of a Conrad
text will be to make sense of our own reading experience.

"Before the Congo I was a beast", Conrad was to say later. The effect of Congo remained
with Conrad for many years. "An Outpost of Progress" was not a profound enough ,
journey into the depths of darkness that Conrad had experienced in Congo. As he
explores the dark recesses of his heart and mind via Marlow, we as readers are also
conducted through the same route. Does Conrad the artist appeal "to that part of our
being which is not dependant on wisdom; to that in us which is gift and not an
acquisition-and, therefore, more permanently enduring?" Unfortunately our reading
habits have changed, as I have just said. And our subject positions dvtermine the effect of
a text on us. We have learnt for example that an African, an Indian, a woman, a
postcolonial subject will each read the text differently. Accordingly, it will mean different
things to different people, not in the sense of its literal ambiguities, b'ut also because of
the subject positions of the readers. We shall take these up in separate sections.

3.2 AN APPROACH TO THE MEANINGS

...So we have an adjectival and worse than superogatory insistence on

'unspeakable rites', 'unspeakable secrets', 'monstrous passions',
.
'inconceivable mystery', and so on.. . Conrad.. . is intent on making a
virtue out of not knowing what he means.
(F.R.Leavis, The Great Tradition. pp. 198-9).
Leavis was one of the earliest and most influential critics of Conrad's method. Forster's
complaints were no less influentia4,the most famous being this: "the secret casket of
[Conrad's] genius contains a vapour rather than a jewel". With such authorities to
contend with, it would be hard to defend the Conradian method; but I shall make a
modest attempt at least to try to understand the method, if not defend it. In this effort I
need your cooperation.

Let us first look at the bald structure first. Conrad breaks the story into three sections: In
the first. Marlow travels from Europe to the Central Station; in the second, he travels
 he Central station to the Inner Station; and then, in the third, he returns to Europe. Literary Analysis-11
lot. similarly, is a straightfotward one; ostensibly following the convention of the
ithin the tale, where a story is told by a British gentleman to other gentlemen.

pite of this simple structure, there are many levels to Heart of Dbrkness, some of
ch -especially those dealing with symbolism -are complex. In what follows, I have
cted some important topics, considerations, or questions. If you try, you can reach
levels in your own way. The suggestions below are designed to alert you to the
ess of the story and its complexities.

e beginning, there is a mention of "the fascination of the abomination". What does

Try to find its significance in the later development of the stoty [I].

I Marlow talks about "breath[ingJ dead hippo, so to speak, and not to be

contaminated" [Ill
Why does Kurtz say "The horror! The horror!" ? [Ill]
Why does Marlow lie to Kurtz's Intended about Kurtz's last words? Does he lie
at all? [Ill]
What does Marlow actually do in the story as an adventurer?

be able to tackle these issues let us see what happens in the text. The episodes on
rd the yacht are minor no doubt, but the frame narrator introduces Marlow,and the
s which he would describe by drawing parallels between their present situation-and
r
is to follow. Even Marlow does the same, though their respective "points of view"
e different: on what an adventure or exploration is; what amounts to heroism, and the
cs of empire-building. Since their views are presented with cutting irony, it would be
A.
resting to see where the author is chuckling; or to quote Joyce, where the "artist, like
od of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork,
isible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails" ( A Portrait of the
is?as a Young Man). Do you feel the same way about Marlow?

ong the many contrasts that we go on encountering, is the obvious one between the
e situation and "predicament" that the listeners aboard the 'Nellie' find themselves
d those complications which Marlow is to enumerate. These latter, he goes on to
ess repeatedly, are "unspeakable". He expresses his frustrations in trying to recall his
e experiences. He begins by saying that he is not going to "bother" his listeners
"with what happened to [him] personally". Yet when he goes on to enumwte what
was going to tell, he uses variations of the personal pronoun eight times. Similarly, the
ame narrator, showing a remarkable, and perhaps uncharacteristic, acumen in his
derstanding of Marlow's character, wams us about the complexities of Marlow's tale:

The yams of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which
lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if his
propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an
episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which
Srought it out only as &ow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these
misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of
moonshine.

I have italicised some lines here, which you must keep in mind; and ask yourself whether
Conrad is himself not giving us a clue as to what and what not to expect of his narrative,
and how to approach its tpaning(s). To my mind the kernel of the meaning lies in the
middle in a realistic tale, whereas in a tale in the symbolist-impressionistic mode the
meaning envelops the tale. Here, then, perhaps one can see Conrad himself sounding a
warning signal to the contemporary readers not to expect the realistic kind of fiction that
they were wont to expect. This is the frame narrator's "Preface" to Marlow's tale, not
dissimilar to Conrad's "Preface" to The Nigger. Marlow himself was also worried about
epistemological issues: "When you have to attend to things of that sort, to the mere
incidents of the surface, the reality-the reality, I tell you-fades. The inner truth is
hidden-luckily, luckily."
Heart of Darkness
3.2.2 Not Exactly A Story for Boys
L

Let us now look at how Conrad uses the narrative convention as well as the popularity of
the adventure story. He had earlier used the latter mode in 'Youth', which Sir Arthur
Quiller Couch had called "after all.. . a story for boys.. .." In Heart of D a r k s similarly,
he introduces the voyage situation to raiseexpectations of an adventue. He uses an
elaborate pattern of voyages, weaving the reader back and forth in time: the voyages of
the Romans to Britain; the voyages of Marlow, Kurtz, the Eldorado Exploring
Expdition, and the other pilgrims to the Congo (never named, only suggested, in the1
tale); and Marlow's two visits to the "whited sepulchre" after and before his Congo
experience. The central voyage in this labyrinth of voyages is Marlow's visit to the
"Inner Station". As it turns out, it becomes a quest for Kurtz,who then himself grows
into an enigma to be unravelled. The quest for the real Kurtz thus replaces the original
adventure: the blank space of the geography book; and thus would increasingly come to
symbolise the quest for truth. So by the end of Part I, Marlow says: "I wasn't very
interested in him. No. Still, I was curious to see whether this man, who had come out
equipped with moral ideas of some sort, would climb to the top after all and how he
would set about his work when there." This is how Part I ends. But by the middle of Part
11, he would imagine their beetle-like steamer "crawl[ing] towards Kum--exclusively".

3.3 APPROACHES TO THE MEANING

.3.3.1 Is Marlow A Passive Receptacle of Experience?

I have drawn your attention to the view expressed by some critics that Conrad, even
while appropriating the genre of the adventure story, was subverting it. Instead of using
action, as it was commonly understood, and which was such an important component of
any adventure, he relied on just the opposite: inaction, and passivity. We have also
discussed how various layers of voyages are submerged into the narrative framework.
Of these, the chief voyage, of course, is Marlow's into the very heart of darkness.
Marlow begins his tale by remarking that he was tired of the usual kind of Eastern
voyages, and then of resting. But before this, the frame narrator tells us that Marlow was
an untypical seaman: "The worst that could be said of him was that he did not represent
his class. He was a seaman. but he was a wanderer, too, while most seamen lead, if one
may so express it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their
home is always with them- the ship; and so is their country--the sea. One ship is very
much like another, and the sea is always the same." What, then, are we to accept? What
the h e narrator tells us about Marlow, or what the latter tells the former about himself!
What Marlow reports about his own "action" ckould suggest, and perhaps confirm the
first impression, that the frame narrator was naive in comparison with him. For much
later, Marlow would tell his a~idience(one of whom is the frame narrator himself) that
"She [the steamer] had given me a chance to come out a bit--to find out what I could
do." But suddenly realising that he might raise our (the nineteenth century reader's) false
expectations about his being a romantic adventurer, he tells us :"No, I don't like work. I
had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don't like work-
no man does-but I like what is in the work." Thus evasion of action, rather than action,
is what we are drawn to see again and again.
Virginia Woolf also draws the same kind of inference about Marlow:
Marlow was one of those born observers who are happiest in retirement.
Marlow liked nothing better than to sit on deck, in some obscure creek of
the Thames, smoking and recollecting; smoking and speculating; sending
his smoke beautiful atter rings of words until all the summer's night
became a little clouded with tobacco smoke. C

But his physical inertia does not prevent him from leading a vigorous intellectual life. It
is not surprising, then, that theMarlow who tells the story is a wiser man, having come .,
back from the depths of his Congo experience. Hence the constant reference to him as the
 the "enlightened one", the literal meaning of the word. Though Viriginia Woolf
go as far as saying this yet she recognises the streak of the philosopher in

Marlow, too, had a profound respect for the men with whom he had sailed;
but he saw the humour of them. He nosed out and described in masterly
fashion those livid creatures who pray successfully upon the clumsy
veterans. He had a flair for human deformity; his humour was sardonic. Nor
did Marlow live entirely wreathed in the smoke of his own cigars.
Iks about what work means for him, soon after admitting his reluctance to
."I like what is in the work--the chance to find yourself. Your own reality-
ot for others-what no other man can ever know. They can only see the
and never can tell what it really means." After worrying himself about the
'Hang!--and let things slide. 1 had plenty of time for meditation."
is manner of reporting the incident is different from that of the other
e rest, his hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices
the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not
owing.. .." says the frame narrator, thus showing a rare insight into Marlow's

3/2 Marlow's Adventure Then Is An Inner One

said about the artist: "In that interior world where his thought and his
eeking for the experience of imagined advmrures, there are no policemen.
o pressure of circumstance or dread of opinion to keep him within bounds.
hen, is going to say, 'Nay' to his temptations if not his conscimce7" Marlow, not
author, has turned into a conscientious story-teller after years of sea
res, with himself as a seer and experientialist rather than an adventurer. He too is
about being as true to his experience as possible. Hence his occasional frustration
tell: "This is the worst of trying to tell ...." For he was trying to tell, not what
outside himself, but of his own psychological adventure. He begins, for
ple, by saying that he did not want to bother his listeners with what happened to him
nally. But then he goes on to declare in the same breath:
...yet to understand the effect of it on me you ought to know how 1 got out
there, what I saw, how I went up that river to the place where 1 first met the
poor chap. It was the farthest point of navigation and the culminating point
of my experience. It seemed somehow to throw a kind of light on
everything about m e - a n d into my thoughts. No, not very clear. And yet it
seemed to throw a kind of light.

i
h deliberate use, and repetition of the term "a kind of light", in contrast to the darkness
Pt e title, and the repeated invocation of it, is significant. Light and darkness, black and
h e operate as complex symbolic pairing, of manichean implication, but more often
a not as truth and the lack of it.
U

.4 DELAYED DECODING -

he reasons why the technique employed in it has impeded our understanding of

Darkness is that he does not reveal the protagonist-narrator's immediate
ding of what he sees or hears. The narrator finds it difficult to make sense of his
e immediately; and Conrad's impressionistic technique allows for such gradual
g of the truth of his experience. Conrad says in his famous Preface that his task
by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel-it is before
you see. That--and no more, is everything." Now take the case of Marlow.
his author, he perceives the difficulties of a story-teller, who is trying to tell an
: "No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any
of one's existenc-hat which makes its truth, its meaning-its subtle and
ssence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream-alone. ..." Exasperated with
f his task he asks his audience: "Do you see the story? Do you see
e admits that what he had seen was much less than what his listeners are
Heart of Darkness able to see now. But he must try and exactly convey his own sense impressions to his
audience: so he follows the same route which he had taken while experiencing the
sequence of events, the sequence of impressions on his broodinglmeditating mind.
Accordingly we notice that mne of his understandings are conveyed immediately; and
we have to wait for another dimension to unveil. This is perhaps what Ian Wan has so
aptly called "Delayed Decoding". Says he: the author through this method attempts "to
prevent a sense impression and to withhold naming it or explaining its meaning until
later.... This takes directly into the observer's consciousness at the very moment of the
perception, before it has beentranslated into its cause." This is a technique whereby
effects precede causes. Conrad had tried this method even earner; but it is with Heart of
Darkness that he perfects the technique. Two examples would suffice to illustrate the
point.

Do you remember some details of Marlow's approach to Kurtz's station? If you do, you
would recall how they suddenly encounter a snag. The snag is both literal and
metaphorical. Instead of saying directly that their steamboat was being shot at, he
expresses his irritation at the way his poleman and fireman were behaving: "I saw my
poleman give up the business suddenly, and stretch himself flat on the deck, without
taking the trouble to haul the pole in. He kept hold oh it though, and it trailed in the
water. At the same time the fireman, whom I could also see below me, sat down abruptly
before his furnace and ducked his head. I was amazed." Gradually he notices "the little
sticks". Then he stops talking about all this, and starts talking about clearing the snag.
And then exclaims suddenly: "Arrows, by Jove! We were being shot at!" What is
happening here is that the listeners as well as the readers are experiencing the same
sequence: "And before all to make you see*'.

The second exhibit is a case even of more delayed decoding. This is about the sighting of
Kurtz's station towards the end of Part I!. f i e jungle and the woods provided the
background for the decayed building. "There was", Marlow saw through the glasses
(telescope), "no enclosure or fence of any kind; but there had been one apparently, for
near the house half-a-dozen slim posts remained in a row, roughly trimmed, and with
their upper ends ornamented with round carved balls ...." Just as Marlow did not know
then what this "ornamentation" was, neither his audience then nor the reader now knows
what the significance of this apparently insignificant detail is. Since Marlow had to wait,
he makes us wait too; but not for the sake of making us wait. The timpg of the disclosure
is important. After considerable time lapse (for the listeners on the yacht) and several
pages (for the reader), Marlow reminds them all:

You remember I told you I had been struck [we do remember, but he never
t ~ l dus that he was really "struck"] at the distance by certain attempts at
omamentation, rather remarkable in the ruinous aspect of the place. Now I
had suddenly a nearer view, and its first result was to make me throw my
head back as if before a blow. Then I went carefully from post to post with
my glass, and 1 saw my mistake. These round knobs were not ornamental
but symbolic; they were expressive and puzzling, striking and disturbing-
food for thought and also for the vultures if there had been any looking
down from the sky; but at any event for such ants as were industrious
enough to ascend the pole.

I am sure you will be able to appreciate the virtues of this method; by which the text does
not always progress, it is regressive too and memory which drives Conrad, and Marlow,
drives us too, and to a better understanding of the experience that is being relayed back to
us. The complexity docs not end there. When Marlow talks about the symbolism of the
poles, Conrad too seems to be conscwusly making us see further symbolism in the poles.
The heads are food for the vultures, the likes of Leopold, and the imperialist forces all of
whom are represented in the lone figure of Kurtz. The ants are the smaller fries who are
crawling around him: the accountants, the managers, the brick-maker, all profiting at the
expense of the natives. Kurtz had meant the heads to symbolise something else: as
warning signals, scarecrows of some sort for the natives, a warning not, revolt. If they do,
he would "exterminate the brutes".
 Literary Analysis-11

On what aspects of narration does Conrad lay stress? Cite examples from the
text to substantiate your answer.
,-

What adventure stories have you read? Have you read any by Stevenson and
Wells? In what way does Conrad's Heart of Darkness resemble or differ from

/
'
How does Conrad create "atmosphere" and "mood"? Do you see traces of the
symbolist and impressionist devices in his style and technique?

on: Methuen, 1986.

UNIT4 RACE, EMPIRE, GENDER IN
HEART OF DARKNESS
Structure
Objectives
Introduction
Kipling's Squint
Race
4.3.1 The Europeans
4.3.2 Marlow Again And Kurtz
4.3.3 The Natives
Gender
4.4.1 The Women (White)
4.4.2 The Women (African)
4.4.3 The Woman (The Intended)
Let Us Sum Up
Questions
Suggested Reading

4.0 OBJECTIVES
The primary aim in this unit is to analyse some characters in the novella keeping in view
the main issues of race, gender and empire. For Conrad questions of race are inextricable
from those of empire. Since the novelist uses characters and puts them in situations to
reveal their and his own way of looking at reality, we can now begin looking at some of
the characters.

4.1 INTRODUCTION
From the discussion in the previous units, it may have become clear to you how Conrad
was wary of exposing himself too much for fear of being rejected by a majority of his
English readers. You have also noticed how cleverly and ironically he used many of the
conventional ideas and techniques, giving the impression to the undiscerning
contemporary public of being a conformist. Little did they suspect that Conrad was
subverting the basic literary and political assumptions of his times. This subtle strategy
may have prompted some early critics of Heart of Darkness to accept the work as
complicit. "It must not be supposed that Mr. Conrad makes attack upon colonisation,
expansion, even upon Imperialism" said a contemporary reviewer. But Edward Gamett,
having been a close associate of Conrad's, was one of the earliest critics to recognise the
subversive nature of the Conrad text: He called it "a page tom from the life of the Dark
Continent-a page which has been hitherto carefully blurred and kept away from
European eyes".

rhis kind of d~fferenceof opinion on the political implications of Heart of Darkness in

the general context of Conrad's politics remains divided to this day. For example, some
postcolonial critics think that Conrad was a racist, and supported the empire. "Conrad is a
bloody racist", Chinua Achebe, would say in 1977 in the Mu.~.~achu~etts Review, though
he was later to tone down his attack somewhat. On the other hand, another writer from
the same continent. Ezekiel Mphahlele would declare that Conrad was one of the few
"outstanding white novelists who portray con~petentlycharacters belonging to cultural
groups outside their own" (The Afrrcan Image, p. 125).

If I were to single out one factor which accounts for such discrepancy, I would point to
the portrayal of the character of Kurtz. Ascertaining Conrad's attitude towards
imperialism will be guided to a great extent by the reader's understanding of Kurtz's
t
r. Similarly, since Marlow uses racist language and also makes snide remarks Race, Emplrc, Gender
ut women in the novella, the reader's understanding o f Conrad's attitude to the In Heart of Dorknaa
stions of race and gender also gets affected by how they look at the Conrad-Marlow
ationship. That he was conscious about the racial question becomes evident from what
once wrote to a French correspondent-that Heart ofDurkness was, among other
study o f racial difference (Letters). For him the two issues o f race and empire

'42 KIPLING'S SQUINT

m your study o f some other political fictions, you may have formed some idea about
at constituted the standard English attitudes towards the Empire. You o f course know
none was more representativethan Kipling's notion of the white man's burden, his
ialistic rhetoric and exhortation. The most famous o f Kiplingesque bombast is his
on "'The White Man's Burden", beginning:

Take up the White Man's burden

Send forth the best ye breed
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need.. ..
P
was published the same year as Conrad's novella, that is, in 1899. The "Exiles'
" with its references to the "chain gangs" also sings o f the "wheel o f Empire"
ire in upper case).

assume that Conrad was familiar with all these. But for tactical reasons he
ldom come out in the open in English papers; not even in his letters to friends
ugh oblique references. He made a casually contorted referenceto "the folly o f
r to Kipling's "squint", in the context o f the Boer war in South Africa. But the
he could go on the subject was in a letter to Graham Cunningham :

The whole business is inexpressibly stupid+ven on general principles:

for, evidently a war should be a conclusive proceeding, this noble enterprise
(no matter what its first result) must be the beginning o f an endless contest.
It is always unwise to begin war, which, to be effective, must be a war of
extermination: it is positively imbecile to start it without a clear notion o f
what it means and to force on questions for immediate solution which are
eminently fit to be left to time.. .. There is an appalling fatuity in this
business. If Iam to believe in Kipling this is a war undertaken for the cause
o f democracy. ... However. now the fun has commenced, I trust British
successes will be crushing from the first ,-on the same principle that if
there's murder being done in the next room and you cant stop it, you wish
the head of &e victim to be bashed in forthwith and the whole thing over
for the sake of your feelings.

g irony here is obviously whetted by a kind o f subterranean anger. Once the

is wrong the method is not important. Like Marlow, who would retort to the
anager's complaint against Kurtz's method, Conrad's answer to the European
erprlse in Africa would have been: "No method at all". So it is not as if Conrad here in
s supportive o f the British method of committing murder.
Heurt of Darkness
4.3 RACE
4.3.1 The Europeans

Fresleven:
. ..

Do you remember this man? It would not surprise me at all if your answer is no, lost as
you may have been in the maze of Marlow's narrative. Yet he is integral to the
foregrounding that Conrad so consciously provides in the beginning. Let us examine
briefly his role in the narrative.

Conrad takes care to specify Fresleven's race and nationality, and of course his gender
(only males can serve the empire in practical terms; but we must return to this point in a
later section on gender). This Dane is dead even before Marlow': central narrative
begins. As a matter of fact, it is his death which provides Marlow with the opportunity of
fulfilling his childhood dream. This dream however which turns into a nightmare towards
the end of his narrative, where he talks about the choice of nightmares, is another, though 4
not unrelated, matter. Fresleven, yet another European, supposedly superior, another
agent of the imperial forces, dies under the silliest of circumstances: a fight over two
black hens-not unlike the quarrel over the sugar between Kayerts and Carlier in "An
Outpost of Progress". The black and white symbolism in the novella, apart from its usual 1
manichean purpose, is crucial to our understanding of the racial difference Conrad speaks
of. He deliberately uses the racist language of the day; anything else would have been
unnatural for the Englishman, Marlow. Do the two black hens stand for black women?
Perhaps not. Conrad's irony in that case loses force. A member of the superior race, a
civilizer of the savages could pick up a quarrel and batter the chief of the village; and he
was "the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs". He went out of his
head becapse he was out there for two years "in the noble cause". Finally the blacks kill
him.

Since we live in the postmodernist times when brackets, hyphens, and quotes are part of
our linguistic weaponry, we feel tempted to put the phrase "noble cause" within quotes.
Conrad is subtler; he expects the irony to work on its own. Marlow, now the wise narrator
tells us that "I should think the cause of progress got [the hens], anyhow". Don't you
think that at this stage the hens assume greater significance than their status as mere
fowls? The implication seems to be that the "cause of progress" smells "foul".

Conrad portrays quite a few representatives from diverse European nationalities, all of
whom contribute to the civilising mission. The accountant has no accounts to keep; the
station manager has hardly anything to do except for gossiping. The doctor glorifies the
company, sends out people by examining them and clearing them; he also carries out
observations in the interest of science (he too is an apostle of progress albeit of science).
But he himself is clever enough not to keep out of the actual business. There was no
"madness in his family".

4.3.2 Marlow Again And Kurtz

You have already been given some idea about Marlow, the personalmask of Conrad's. As
we have seen, he embarks on the journey to the dark comer after a period of stasis. He
has had what he calls "a regular dose of the east". He seems to have been influenced by
his sojourn there, as is evident fm his reference to being charmed by the snake (a
reversal of the Indian cultural code: snakacharming). We are also constantly remindedof
his Buddha-like posture and propensity to meditate. Next, we are told about his childhood
passion for maps, and how his original intention was to go to the great river: "I felt
somehow I must get there by hook or by crook." He would soon, when on the journey,
talk about "the general sense of vague and oppressive wonder". This fascination is
perhaps what he had already referred to as the "fascination of the abomination" that every
explorer has. That the symbolism points inevitably towards a Dantesque hell, towards sin
and evil there is no doubt, with numerous references to hell, snake, Mephistopheles, the
 ard, flies to suggest that Beelzebub was around, darkness, bottom, below etc. Race, Empire, Gender
pheles and Beelzebub are the names of the chief devils). Kurtz, when he is in Heart of Darkness
, is said to be out there: "the very bottom of there" (my italics). He is the prince
. There seems to be in the title an allusion to the Miltonic phrase, "darkness
d Marlow's journey into the dark place of the earth inevitably leads him
z, even though he is initially reluctant to admit it. By the end of Part I he
lenty of time for meditation, and now and then I would give some thought
sn't very interested in him. No". But then he adds: "Still I was curious to
is man, who had come out equipped with moral ideas of some sort, could
p after all and how he would set about his work when there". Later he
crept on, towards Kurtz". Again, "Sometimes I would pick out a tree a
to measure our progress towards Kurtz ...." again, he says "For me it
Kurtz--exclusively". In the third part, Marlow is obsessed with Kurtz,
ues to say that "Mr Kurtz was no idol of mine". For most of his narrative
ow on is focused on him. After all, as he had said earlier, he was the man "who is
onnected with the memories of that time". In spite of his inexplicable
s Kurtz, Kurtz is what Marlow just falls short of becoming. Recall how
at he doesn't tell a lie; and yet, tells more thalr the biggest lie of all to
ilarly, the frame narrator says about Marlow even as Marlow "no more
" says the same thing about Kurtz. But his stopping short, holding back
presented by his act of throwing away his predecessor's blood-soaked

iliar compound ghost: he is an amalgam of Livingstone, Stanley

ots of villages, a lake too", we are told), Klein, Leopold II (a
utmost of all Kipling (eloquence). I arrive at the conclusion by
butes conferred on Kurtz by various characters. Can you make a

" is Russian for "short", whereas Kurtz was tall, "looked at least seven feet long".
ow Conrad describes him here; one does not say "long" for a man, but for an
snake. He is prostrate. So he is seven feet long not tall. Secondly,
ell, the name was as true as everything else in his life-and death".
ysique too gave the lie to him. This discrepancy between appearance and
eive its ironical echo in the words of the Intended about Kurti: "He died
dm.Only Marlow and his listeners know how right and wrong she was, Kurtz's
sham, a hypocritical mask. But his death completely unmasked him. She was
because Kurtz relived the life of deceit and hypocrisy, "desire, temptation, and
' "during that supreme moment of complete knowledge".

4.3f The Natives

(1) Feel considerably in ddubt about the future. Think just now that my life
amongst the people (white) around here cannot be very comfortable.
Intend avoid acquaintance as much as possible.

(2) Prominent characteristic of the social life here: people speaking ill of
each other.
Conrad, Entries in the Congo Diary

asserted that "Heart of Darkness" depicts Africa as a "place of negations.. ..in

ison with which Europe's own state of spiritual grace will manifest." The
cans, according to her, are degraded and dehumanised, and are represented either as a
or wailing mob or as grotesques. They are denied speech, or are granted speech
ondemn themselves out of their own mouths. Africa is presented as a "setting
drop which eliminates the African as human factor. Africa as a metaphysical
d devoid of all recognisable humanity, into which the wandering European
his own peril." Does your reading of the book tally with this view?

k the crucial portions of the text in this regard are those where the chain gang, and
her Africans are presented as "criminals", "enemies", "workers", and finally
 \

Heart of Darkness "rebels". There were also the "cannibals". Marlow wonders why the latter did not eat the
white men. "Restraint" i s the answer. They had restraint, whereas Kurtz and the other
whites had none. This is the crucial difference, Marlow thinks. Also note the difference
in Conrad's portrayal of the Europeans and their treatment o f the Africans. It is
significant that Marlow, while narrating how he got the job uses a cliche: "Istepped into
[Fresleven's] shoes". He doesn't take them off until much later in the narrative. Like
Marlow who often withholds information, or realises the significance o f what exactly he
sees or hears, Conrad expects us to make connections between distant incidents. From
being a mere metaphor at this stage, the shoes become symbols when they get soaked in
blood, the blood o f "imperial mission." Stepping into the shoes o f his predecessor would
perhaps mean what Marlow repeats from time to time, namely, that he too becomes albeit
unwittingly drawn into the mission. This "poor predecessor" of his, we are told later, had
educated the native helmsman in Marlow's steamer, which was crawling towards Kurtz.
When he dies from a spear wound ( a consequence o f being a willing agent of the
mission) "My shoes were full"; of what Marlow does not say; but leaves little to our
imagination. They are full o f blood. "To tell you the truth I was morbidly anxious to
change my shoes and socks." Then he says, "I flung one shoe overboard, and became
aware that that was exactly what Ihad been looking forward to ...." The evasive
technique is used.to a striking effect. What he is "looking forward to", is a meeting with
Kurtz. But the first impression sticks. Through their manner of juxtaposition, the shoes
and Kurtz become indistinguishable. Kurtz's hands too are bloodied. Marlow feels
suddenly guilty o f complicity. Any doubt we might still have about Conrad's tropes at
this juncture is removed when the same identification is repeated through deliberate
ambiguity. When the second shoe vanishes into the water, Marlow exclaims: "By love!
It's all over ....he has vanished-the gift has vanished, by means o f a spear, arrow, or
club.. .." But the shoes become shoes again through Conrad's own brand o f
defamiliarisation. "My dear boys, what can you expect from a man who out o f sheer
nervousness had just flung overboard a pair o f new shoes!"

The other crucial point where Conrad seems to be passing an ironic stricture on the
civilising work occurs when he describes the chain gang and the "shadows". Kipling is
easily identified as one of the targets. It is true that Conrad describes the natives as
subhuman, as Achebe complains; but the white imperialists are treated as inhuman, to say
the least. As Marlow goes on to build a contrast between the civilisation he was coming
from and the place o f his sojourn he says that the earth was unearthly; and is about to say
that the men were inhuman. But he stops short, and says, proleptically as usual: "...and
the men were-No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it-
this suspicion o f their not being inhuman". Then he says even more with one of the rare
redeeming moments o f sensitivity verging on the sentimental: "They howled and leaped,
and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought o f their
humanity-like yours-the thought o f your remote kinship with this wild and passionate
uproar". Now we can't be too sure about the latter part o f his assertion. I t is much later
that we realise the contrast between the humanity ofthese "savages", and the inhumanity
o f the "civilised people".

After the description of the natives as-shadows, even animals (because of thk way in
which the work o f progress is being carried out), Marlow meets a white man: "Ishook
hands with this miracle"; and he says he mistook him to be a sort o f vision. But soon he
would think "his appearance was certainly that of a hairdresser's dummy". As part o f the
mission, no doubt, Marlow reports ironically, the dummy had been " 'teaching one of the
native women about the station. It was difficult. She had a distaste for the work.' Thus
this man had verily accomplished something. And he was devoted to his books, which
were in apple-pie order". The implied sexual perversions o f Kurtz are thus foreshadowed
in this man's "teaching". In the name o f educating her, what he had done was to "keep"
her and exploit her by getting his work done. For his answer was to Marlow's question as
to how he could dress so immaculately. /
 Race, Empire, Gender in
Heart of Darkness

.4.1 The Women (White)

ts to know the real India; Adela is here as the fiancee of Ronny Heaslop. In Con.ad

onrad, however, seems to be playing to the gallery occasionally with his casual, sham-

ys'tmen's adventures. At the same time women, if present, were there only to heighten
e romance. He had written to his publisher: "It is a story of the Congo. There is no love

They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it,
and can never be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up
it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men
have been living contentedly ever since the day of creation would start up
and knock the whole thing over.

"seemed uncanny and fateful.. ..Old knitter of black wool." Marlow cannot
em. Men are playthings in their hands. They have uncanny power over them.
,

dfolded, canying a lighted torch".

Heurl of Durkness
4.4.2 The Women (African)
How are the African women portrayed in the tale? What kind of impact did the emissaries of
light make on them? How does Conrad look at the "work" through Marlow? If you discount
the metaphorical reading of the two black hens, the native women of Africa are first
represented through the woman who was "taught" by the accountant. "It was difficult. She
had a distaste for the work". The most imposing figure among these is of course the woman
who was close to Kurtz in the Inner Station. The "wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman",
who "walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed clothes, treading the earth
proudly.. .." What does she stand for? She was one of the adorers of Kurtz, who did not want
him to be taken away. She was as faithful to Kurtz as the Intended was. She is described by
Marlow in very ambiguous terms. She is both "barbarous" and "superb"; "savage and superb,
wild-eyed and magnificent-

Do you think Conrad meant to projectldelineate her as a "character", in the way characters
are realistically portrayed? To my mind, she is more a symbolic figure; and it would be
somehow wrong to take her as a partial depiction of "the savage woman". She is a symbol;
a counterpoint to the white women or the Intended. If the likes of Kurtz are the emissaries
of "progress" she is a grotesque manifestation of that progress. I feel that Conrad meant us
to catch the pun on the clause: "[Tlhere was something ominous and stately in her
deliberate progress" (my emphasis). More explicitly she is described as "the image of [the
wilderness's] own tenebrous and passionate soul". A less favourable but not less plausible
reading might be to see her as evil incarnate. This will mean that it was by her that Kurtz
was swallowed up; and distanced from her. he can realise the horror of the wilderness. She
would then become a symbol of metaphysical evil that the dark continent held: its ivory,
its fatal attraction. Not that Africa was inherently evil. But it is that aspect of Africa which
lured the rapacious European in the name of progress into the depths of evil. No wonder
this woman had the "value of several elephant tusks upon her." Yet there is something
deeply ambiguous about her, something that cannot be simply described as plain or
metaphysical evil. She is Africa to whom "civilisation" has done grievous wrong; hence
her tragic and angry aspect: "She came abreast of the steamer, stood still, and faced us.
Her long shadow fell to the water edge. Her face had a tragic and fierce aspect of wild
sorrow and of dumb pain mingled with the fear of some struggling, half-shaped resolve.
She stood looking at us without a stir, and like the wilderness itself, with an air of
brooding over an inscrutable purpose." When her dying God is being carried away, "She
,stood looking at us without a stir, and like the wilderness itself, with an fairof brooding
over an inscrutable purpose." Later, in their final separation, "she put out her hands.. .."
Marlow would remember this sight, during his meeting with the Intended. She would
reappear as "a tragic and familiar Shade [the Intended]" with the same posture, "bedecked
with powerless charms, stretching bare brown arms ...." 'Thus in the novella the distinction
between blakk and white is not one of pigmentation. As Eloise Knapp Hay has reminded
us, for Conrad, "'race' meant 'nation' more than 'pigmentation"'. It will be this dark
victim of Imperialism who will strike back at the empire in the form of writers like Chinua
Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

4.4.3 The Woman (The Intended)

Once Conrad wrote to a correspondent about the importance of the last pages of the
novella, "where the interview of the man and the girl locks in ...the whole 30,DOO words
of narrative description into one suggestive view of a whole phase of life, and makes of
that story something quite on another plane than an anecdote of a man who went mad in
the Centre of Africa." In fact. the story is on another plane more than an indictment of
European imperialism in Africa. I think what Conrad explores through Marlow's
explorations of Africa and through Kuhz, are the depths of metaphysical evil of whi'ch it
is impossible to speak in plain language. Had his intentions been merely political and not
the very psychology of evil. he would have been satisfied with what he had done in "An
Outpost of Progress". This is perhaps what he meant when he said that the subject of
Heart ofDarkness, though of his times, was not "topically treated". The tale, he further
said. was "less concentrated upon individuals". So there is really no point in complaining Race, Empire, Gender
about the characters in the story being partial, incomplete or this "-ist" or that "-ist". in Heart of Darkness

So it is signiticant, but not, to my mind at least. a sign of Conrad's attempt tomarginalise

women, that the Intended has no name, like most other characters in the tale.

We notice Kurtz referring to her as a possession: she is clubbed along with some material
possdsions "my ivory", "my station", "my Intended", "my career" .... "Everything
belonged to him". When Kurt2 dies, Marlow goes looking for her. The reasons he cites
are two. One is curiosity, the other is his desire to "give [his memory and his Intended]
up, too, to the past". But no sooner had he mentioned the girl than he would say, "Girl!
What? Did I mention a girl? Oh, she is out of it-.completely. They-the women I
mean-are out of it-should be out of it. We must help them to stay in t.rat beautifid
world of their own, lest ours gets worse." This seems to be by far the most controversial
judgement on women; and feminists have thirsted for Conrad's blood on account of this
"incriminating evidence". But if we remind ourselves of a comment of Marlow in another
tale, Chance, we shall simply be flabbergasted. For he says there that women see "the
whole truth", whereas men live in a "fool's paradise". As for Conrad himself, he would
write to the .then British Prime Minister advocating voting rights for women. So much for
his misogyny!

The tigure of another woman hovers briefly, and inconspicuously in Marlow's tale, that
of Kurtz's mother, though only at her death. She is reported to have been watched over
by the Intended. What do you make of this minor detail?

Marlow, does not accept the view that Kurtz's experience in the Congo, that is, that which is
believed to have been his experience by his worldly-wise employers, will be of any use to
Europe's future action. Yet since he is partially swathed by its "shadow" he would carry it
with him. The memory of Kurtz himself is now a living shadow: "He lived then before me; he
lived as much as he had lived-4 shadow insatiable of splendid appearances, of frightful
realities ['the horror! The horror']; a shadow darker than the shadow of the night, and draped
nobly in the folds of a gorgeous eloquence." It is this vision that he carries into the lady's
house. It is this pall that covers the white lady, her house, everything into darkness. Into the
lady's house with him goes the sound of savage drums, like the heartbeats "of a conquering
darkness." In spite of the darkness, the wilderness is vibrantly alive and throbbing, while in
her "radiance," the lady inhabits a "sarcophagus [a decorative, marble tomb]". She is a
"familiar shade," recalling Dido in Virgil's underworld (In his epic poem Aeneid, the Roman
poet Virgil recounts how Dido the queen of Carthage killed herself when abandon'ed by
Aeneas). And it is her Europe that is the underworld. Marlow's interview with Kurtz's
Intended, like everything in the story, verges on the allegorical, but the profound
suggestiveness is the culmination of Conrad's symbolist method. In his description of the
meeting, for the first time after the opening paragraphs, Marlow collapses the time frames. It
is only now that we realise why Marlow could think of two thousand years ago as yesterday.
"I saw her and him in the same instantof t i m e h i s death and her sorrow-l saw her sorrow
in the very moment of his death" though it "was more than a year since the news came". The
simultaneity of his two experiences is emphasised in the way he says he hears her say, "1 have
survived", which is indistinguishable from Marlow's last cry of metaphysical anguish. Thus
the woman is carried to another plane. She is a living picture of Kurtz's painting. In the
painting the background was sombre; the lady was blindfolded. Here too Marlow discerns the
enveloping darkness in spite of the white marble. Her ignorance is monumental. She cannot
see the reality of Kurtz; his hollowness. It is for this reason that every word she says about
Kurtz is true, but only in their deeper ironies. She is one more European who has
"constructed" Kurtz. But in the end, the woman becomes a tool in the hands of Conrad to
wrap up the significance of Marlow's experience. The torch of the civilising mission
continues to be passed on froq generation to generation. She stands for "us", Europe, and
"the world". This seems to be the meaning of her regret: Kurtz' death is a loss "to me" "to
us". and, finally, "to the world". By giving her a name Conrad would have found it difficult to
make her such a rich symbolic figure.
Heart of Darkness
4.5 LET US SUM UP
Thus what we have just seen is that like most modernist texts Heart of DarRness anticipates
our objections and resists redwtive analyses. This is not to stay that Conrad is politically
correct. He could not have escaped the prejudices of his times in matters of ideology; but he
was certainly breaking new ground, offering acute critiques of political discourse and
adventurism. We know of some policy makers who were influenced by Conrad's views on
the Congo.

4.6 QUESTIONS

1. What do you understand by the term ideology? Have you read any marxist literary
critics? How is Jameson's criticism of Conrad's politics relevant to Heart of
Darkness?
2. Conrad thinks, by implication, at least or what he says, that empire and race are
inseparable categories? Would you agree with reference to your reading of Heart of
Darkness?
3. What is Marlow's ideological position?

4.7 SUGGESTED READINGS

Elaine Showalter Sexual Anarchy. London: Bloomsbury, 1991.

Chinua Achebe. "An Image of Africa*' (Lecture), The Chanceller Lecture Series, 1074-75,
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press 1976.
Teny Eagleton. Criticism and Ideology. London: New Left Books, 1976.
Eloise Knapp Hay. The Political Novels of Joseph Conrad: A Critical Study. Chicago. The
University of Chicago Press, 1963.
 R
IT 5 THE LENGTHENING SHADOW

Objectives
Introduction
Ambiguities and Ambivalence
5.2.1 Title
5.2.2 Marlow on Kurtz
5.2.3 Attitudinal
ApocalypticlMythic
Let Us Sum Up
Questions
Suggested Readings
I
30 OBJECTIVES
C
e purpose in this concluding unit is to see the text as a modernist performance; its looming
sence in twentieth century culture. The purpose, that is, is to see how it inaugurates certain
stic traditions to be identified as modernist traits, and also certain thematic aspects which
w nate twentieth century artistic predilections. We shall also see briefly how H e m of
has been celebrated, condemned, imitated and resisted, but never neglected during
100 years of its life, as we approach the end of the century. We still see the heart of
kness in all its inscrutable complexity through the gaping mouth of Kurtz .
P
1 INTRODUCTION ,

have said before that around the time when Heart of Darkness was published, a paradigm
ift was underway: it was the era of new scepticism, philosophical and scientific, as well as
political upheaval. In the Arts the repercussions were being felt; and at the turn of the
nrad's new work was hailed as having been "ahead of its times", "modem". The
became a symbol of what was new in a new way. Its reputation remained
ed, except for a few dissenting voices, by any major critic. Conrad himself was
s modernism. Or so it would appear from a letter he wrote to William Blackwood,
he said: "I am modern, and I would rather recall Wagner the musician and Rodin the
or. ..and Whistler the painter.. ..They too have arrived. They had to suffer for being
I too hope to find my place in the rear of my betters. But still--+y place." If not
is immediate contemporaries, we at this stage, can see the paint that Conrad makes here. If
e recognise Eliot as the high-priest of modernism, and his Waste Land(1922) a high
atermark in the movement, it would not be difficult at all to recognise Conrad's modernism.
w
s you might well know, Eliot had originally placed a passage from Heart of Dorkness as the
graph to the poem. He withdrew it at the behest of fellow-modernist, Ezra Pound. Later,
en Forster sent him a congratulatory letter, mentioning the pervasive element of horror in
e poem, Eliot told him about the rejected epigraph, and how elucidative it was of the
m's theme. Anyway, epigraph or no, Heart ofDarkness remains a looming presence in the
. Eliot would go on to use another line from the same text as one of the epigraphs to
e Hollow Men" (1925), such was the impact of the tale on him. However, by the 1970s,
when a fresh paradigm shift was underway, call it postmodernist, postcolonial or what you
will, Conrad and Heart of Darkness, as indeed Wells, Kipting et al, were all seen as
interesting cases of "Orientalism"; and were clubbed together as having been of their times:
racist, sexist, imperialist,petit bourgeois.. ..

But, as we have seen, pinning down Conrad to an ideology is far from easy. This is especially
true of Heart of Darkness. For one thing he held different, often conflicting views on
ideological issues at different points of time. For another, he uses the mask of Marlow, and
complicates the point of view, and heaps up various ways of looking at truth-to such an
Heart of Darkness extent that the "real view" of Conrad is well-nigh impossible to grasp. The matter is
complicated by the evasion that the narrator performs from time to time. As Ingram says,
!'the focus of the tale is never where the reader expects it to be."

Such evasion cripples the reader's understanding as much as the narrator's. Even Marlow gets
intellectually crippled, and fails to grasp fuller meanings of his experiences. At the end we are
not sure whether to put the emphasis on the political, existential, or metaphysical aspects of
the tale. Politics is foregrounded no doubt; but as we have seen in some of the earlier sections,
politics recedes into the background beyond recognition. We simplify, no doubt, to make
sense of the narrative; maybe by saying that it is through the political scaffolding of the
narrative that the metaphysical world of evil is explored. But we do so by severely limiting
the scope of this complex work.

Conrad himself never believed in explicit statements; nor did he believe in any monologic
method. It is this tendency, among others, that makes him so modern in comparison with his
exact contemporaries barring Henry James. Some of the modernist methods, which he
anticipates were, ambiguity and, distancing devices to effect impersonality, avoidance of the
romanticising tendencies, and multiplicity of points of view. A few of these we have had
occasion to look at in different contexts. Some others we shall take up presently.

5.2 AMBIGUITIES AND AMBIVALENCE

5.2.1 Title y

This key component of ambiguity and evasion is what connects Conrad's novella to such
other modernist works as Joyce's, Woolf s, and even Forster's.

From the title onwards the tale is replete with ambiguities and authoriallnarratorial
ambivalence. I think the title inaugurates the modernist tradition of titular ambiguity. (Among
the more recent ones is that of Waitingfor Godot.) As we have seen Conrad was ambivalent
about the retentionlrejection of the definite article. Perhaps with the definite article, the
reference to darkness would have been unitary, and particular. Now the "darkness" in the title
could be an allusion to the geographical appellation for Africa (as the "Dark Continent") then
common among the "civilised" peoples of Europe. Marlow undoubtddly gives a vivid
portrayal of the darkness of the centre of Africa. But he begins by referring to the Thames
estuary and England as "one of the dark places of the earth", albeit in the past tense. Even
Kurtz's tract begins by talking about the relativism innate to such notions as "civilisation",
and "savage". This is borne out by Kurtz himself in the ultimate irony about his character:
"Exterminate the brutes", is the post scriptum 1u this noble treatise. All the eloquence, and
piety in the long tract is counterbalanced by the short sentence. This is the method ("No
method at all"). The savagery of his method far exceeds the so-called savagery of the brutes.
They had "restraint", whereas Kurtz and the rest had none. Th/e grin that the heads on the
poles wore are very similar in terms of mockery, the tongue stuck out at the end of "An
Outpost of Progress". Both mock the proponents of the civilising mission. This leads directly
to the literal meaning to the title. Is it a reference to Kurtz's own heart of darkness? Or that of
the darkness within the European entrepreneur? If you have read the tale closely you will
notice that the darkness of Africa (into this we shall turn presently) touches Kurtz and
swallows him up.

The wilderness had patted him on the head, and, behold, it was like a ball; it
had caressed him, anblo!-he had withered; it had taken him, loved him,
embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his squl to
its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation....

Conrad uses what would soon become staple modernist diet: repetition and echo, immediate
and distant. Almost repating the theme of the above passage, Marlow echoes a little later:

...the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible
vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things
 about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception The Lengthening
till he took counsel with this great solitude-and the whisper had proved Shadow
irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow
at the core.. ..

f-realisation which overwhelms him, and prompts the cry: "Horror! The ~brror!"
ledge comes to him in a whisper. The booming voice is now nearly effectively
loquence was a sham- a mask for the profound hollowness within, just like the
ry is again a function of the thematic manipulations in a modernist work of art.
s to have been inaugurated by Conrad in Heart of Darkness. We are supposed,
o recall what has been said before. This recalling is possible through slight
following words about Kurtz occur to Marlow even before he met Kurtz: ','the
ession, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most exalted and the most
pulsating stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of an
kness." Thus one of the major discoveries of Marlow is this
of contrary categories. Light cannot be distinguished from darkness; nor the
ivilised. Conrad may also be thinking of the parallel between the material
and his own artistic plunder, the role of Kurtz and his own.
7
ities are concerned, the last cry or whisper of Kurtz "The horror!
e most ambiguous dramatic utterances in modem literature. We ask
t answer, what exactly this meant. Was this an ethical judgement against
n realisation of the evil that surrounded and eventually consumed him?
nce of Marlow about Kurtz, about the rationalisation ofthe lie he told the
rich the text in a manner we have learnt to expect of modem
nties about, and relativity of reality and experience, conscious
us states, relativism of science (Einstein), and the German
principle of uncertainty, the modem world can be sure of nothing.
~ologicalscepticism and moral relativism.

or of the main tale is of course Marlow; and critics have pointed out the similarities
Charlie Marlow's Faustian hero, Kurtz and Christopher Marlowe's play Dr. Faustus.
ow is, as we have seen on many occasions, not sure about his own attitude towards
f his yarn. He repeats that he was no admirer of Kurtz; the latter was no idol of his.
drawn towards him; just as he was attracted by the "mighty big rL/er9',as an
nake uncoiled" would attract a bird-ti silly little bird". Marlow's ambivalence
out clearly at times when he can't be sure of what to make of his experience: "The
oric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us-who could tell?" Indeed, who
is narration is being relayed back to us by the frame narrator, he can be no less
an Marlow himself here.

s most challenging ahbivalence is with regard to Kurtz. In fact, one of the prime
ibuting to the richness of the tale is this. Just as he is inexplicably drawn towards
ader too undergoes the same experience. The rivets that would fix the steamer to
to Kurtz constitute a metonym for the riveting nature of the narrative from the
is introduced. His first major task was to fix up "the wreck", which was under
ins, but the context in which this appears one might mistake to be Kurtz.

e gather together his impressions of the chief protagonist of his tale, his value
seem to be in an aporetic state. On more occasions than one, Kurtz's world is
by agents of the devil, as much as the agents of the Company: Mephistophelean
snake-imagery, hissing sounds, flies. We have also seen direct evocations of evil all
The first turnabbut comes when Marlow, confronted by nightmares, chooses Kurtz,
frightening of them all:

It seemed to me I had never breathed an atmosphere so vile, and I turned

mentally to Kurtz for relief--positively for relief. 'Nevertheless I think Mr.
Kurtz is a remarkable man,' t said with emphasis. He started, dropped on
Heart of Darkness me a cold heavy glance, said very quietly 'he was,' and turned his back on
me. My hour of favour was over; 1 found myself lumped along with Kurtz
as a partisan of methods for which the time was not ripe: I was unsound!
Ah! but it was something to have at least a choice of nightmares.

Marlow remains faithful to the choice he has made. That is all. His judgement on Kurtz
changes character, gets qualified; so much so he suspects he too has been a little like him.

I had turned to the wilderness really, not to Mr. Kurtz, who, I was ready to
admit, was as good as buried. And for a moment it seemed to me as if I also
were buried in a vast grave full of unspeakable secrets.

He would soon tell the Russian that he was "Mr. Kurtz's friend-in a way". He is told about
Kurtz's methods, but promises that Kurtz's reputation is safe with him. Until then he had no
plans of being so faithful to Kurtz. It is only after he hears the last cry of complete self-
knowledge that he makes up his mind. His employers had asked him to be loyal to Kurtz: "it
was written 1should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice", he says ironically. But the
"foundations of [their] intimacy" with Kurtz were being laid when he was hying to save
Kurtz, prevent his escape back into the wilderness, even when he was certain that the person
he was trying to save could not have been "more irretrievably lost". He could sum up Kurtz's
moral state quite accurately by saying that his soul was "unlawful" "beyond the bounds of
permitted aspirations." Kurtz was not mad; his intelligence, faculties remained unimpaired;
but "his soul was mad". And at the very last he "looked within" and gave out that anguished
cry. In that cry Marlow understood the real nature of man: "No eloquence could have been so
withering to one's belief in mankind as his final burst of sincerity". This last admission is the
clue to our understanding of Marlow's ambivalence towards Kurtz. After he dies, Marlow
caHs k ~ m"the remarkable man who had pronounced a judgement upon the adventures of his
soul on this earth". Marlow himself had a glimpse of the ultimate reality; but he could not
make the pronouncement Kurtz could. Because Kurtz could sum up, could judge he "was a
remarkable man". The last words were an "affirmation. a moral victory", Marlow says. "That
is why I have remained loyal to Kurtz to the last, and even beyond.. .." He talks about his own
status : he too had "peeped over the edge [himself]". This is very close to what he would say
about the "great British Empire". "Respectable, venerable and holy", it had now disappeared,
and "gone over the edge" (Letters I, p. 16).

5.2.3 Marlow's Lie To The Intended

I have cited Conrad's words about Marlow's interview with the girl. You may have gathered
from those words how much importance he paid to the episode, which takes the narrative to I

"another plane". It now becomes "one suggestive view of a whole phase of life". The climax
of that interview, and perhaps the second one of the entire narrative (the first one being the
cry of Kurtz) is of course when Marlow tells the Intended the lie that the last word that Kurtz
pronounced was her name, following which, he "heard a light sigh and then [his] heart stood
still, stopped dead short by an exalting and terrible cry, by the cry of inconceivable triumph
and of unspeakable pain." Then she says, and Marlow reports, "I knew it- I was sure!" To
this Marlow's ironical retrospective rejoinder is "She knew-she was sure". Why does Conrad
climax the story at this point rather than sometime earlier? Why does Marlow tell a lie? Is it
part of his decision to remain faithful to Kurtz? Many such questions contribute to the
ambiguity of the end-configuration of the novella; and this kind of ending which raises more
questions than answers, prefigures many a modernist ending: Is Stephen Dedalus an ironic
portrayal in Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man? Are the forms achieved by Mrs.
Ramsay and by Lily Briscoe vital or illusory, set against the chaos of passing time in Virginia
Woolf s To the Lighthouse? What did the BOUM sound signify; was Adela Quested really '
molested in Foster's A Passage to India? Does the lie make Marlow a misogynist or merely
confirm the suspicion we already had? To some, Marlow's action is a natural sequel to his
earlier assertion, "Its queer how out of touch with truth women are" as a sharp contrast to his
own pride about truthfulness and his own quest for and fidelity to truth: He "brings truth to
men by virtue of his bringing falsehood to women" (Straus). But is he telling a lie only to the
Intended? Is he not suppressing the truth about Kurtz from his employers? What about the
erasure he performs on Kurtz's "Report"? Also, his assurance to the "spectacled map" in the
 The ~ c ; ~ t h e n i n ~
pulchral city that Kurtz's knowledge would not have any impact on matters related to Shadow
mmerce and administration" is c'omparable to the words of Yudhishtra about the death of
swatthama. In the Mahabharata, this I W r is considered a lie and as such constitutes a sin.

st as Marlow's attitude towards Kurtz had undergone, change, so also his attitude towards
men, particularly the Intended. When he sees the photograph he gets the following

I She struck me as beautiful4 mean she had a beautiful expression. 1 know

that the sunlight cqn be made to lie, too, yet one felt that no manipulation of
light and repose could have conveyed the delicate shade of tmthfilness
upon those features. She seemed ready to listen without mental reservation,
without suspicion, without a thought for herself. I concluded I would go and
give her back her portrait and those letters myself.

In trying to rationalise, Qecites one or two reasons, but then says, "I don't know. I can't tell".
If he tells a lie it is not because of the same reasons he had cited earlier, not because he
wanted her to live in the beautiful world of her own ("We must help them to stay in that
I beautiful world of their own, lest ours gets worse", he had told his listeners). It was under
extremely painful circumstancesthat he could not make himself tell the m t h about Kurtz.
Though he persuaded himself into believing that it was because of his fidelity towards Kurtz.
He feels guilty on behalf of the world of men-because, in contrast to Kurtz, she was so true,
"She had a mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering": these are the values we
know Conrad cared for, both as a seaman and writer-and must atone for by telling a lie, by
keeping her in the dark. But this is mere surmise on my part, since Marlow himself does not
know. We can never be sure. This is one of the great imponderables of modem literature.

1 5.3 APOCALYPTIC VISION

Apocalyptic vision of the collapse of the world becomes a prominent feature of modernist
Weltanschauung. (Weltanschauung, as you may be aware, is a German word, that means
worldview or the total idea of society and its purpose that a person or group has). This may
not have followed from Spengler's Decline of the West, but for many historical and political
reasons this became a widespread anxiety among creative artists, economists, political
thinkers from around the turn of the century. In literature, implications were felt in some
works with which you may be already familiar: Yeats's "Second Coming", Eliot's "The
Waste Land, MacNiece's "Prayer for an Unborn Child", Auden's "Consider", to name a
few. This is also evident in many paintings such as Picasso's "Guernica". What Frank
Kermode has aptly called this anxiety "The Sense of an Ending", Watson calls it "The Myth
of Catastrope". Kermode says further, "Apocalypse is a part of the modern Absurd.

Thus Heart of Ddkness represents an early modernist manifesto in the direction of the
apocalypse. We can detect Conrad's tug towards the eschatological, which means, towards
the image of final, universal dissolution. This receives further confirmation and extension in
Francis Coppola's film Apocalypse Now,where the scene is changed from Africa of the late
ninteenth Century to Vietnam of the 1960s. Kurtz in his last words, "had made that last
...
sttide, he had stepped over the edge. The threshold of the invisible". And "darkness'
becomes a concluding invocation in which everything-the "saving illusion" of the
Intended's faith in an empty deal ;the listeners, the "tranquil waterway", and "the ends of the
Earth"--are all swallowed up: "I had vision of [Kurtz] on the stretcher, opening his mouth
voraciously , as if to devour all the earth with all its mankind.

1 5.4 THEUSE OFMYTH

T.S. Eliot, who has himself used myths with such felicity and to such great effect in many of
I
his poems especially in "The Waste Land", has given a formulation of the mythical ethos
while extolling this technique in Joyce:
Heart of Darkness In using the myth, in manipulating a continuous parallel between
contemporaneity and antiquity, Mr. Joyce is pursuing a method which
others must pursue after him ....It is a simple way of controlling, of
ordering, of giving a shape and significance to the immense panorama of
futility and anarchy which is contemporary history. It is a method already
adumbrated by Mr. Yeats, and the need for which I believe Mr. Yeats to
have been the first contemporary to be conscious.

Perceptive as Eliot is he seems to have forgotten his Conrad here. Or, is it because the latter's
mythical method, as we shall see soon, is not of the kind Eliot had in mind? Theconscious
parallel that Conrad does draw is between distant and contemporary histories, as we have
seen in the beginning of the narrative. But he seems to be alluding to, allegorising on, and
even drawing on myths.

Myth of Faustus: The most obvious myth that he has integrated into the structure of Heclrr of
Darkness is that of Faustus. Kurtz is a Faustian character; and is Charlie Marlow's answer tb
Christopher Marlowe's hero. Like his predecessor, he is extraordinarily gifted. Kunz was "a
remarkable man", Marlow never tires of telling us after his initial repugnance. He is said to
have been a product of entire Europe: an allegorical figure for the European genius, and
maybe, imperialism. But later he becomes a "universal genius". Here the ambiguity and irony
needs to be recognised. He is all those talents combined: poet, musician, artist, explorer,
rhetorician. would-be politician. But he is also someone who knows no restraint. Faustus too
was unrestrained; and that was his tragic flaw. In spite of all his admiration for Kurtz, Marlow
could still say, "His [Kurtz's] soul was mad".

Conrad's Crave
 Quest Myth: Frazer had begun publishing his monilmental work, The Golden Bough The Lengthening
10- 1915) when Heart of Darkness was published. Soon Jessie Weston would publish her Shadow
c on the Grail Legend drawing on Frazer's work. She explains the significance and
bolism of certain Arthurian romances which tell of the Quest for the Holy Grail by
ng them to their origin in the rituals of some ancient fertility gods, and by showing how
persisted throughout the intervening centuries. In these, the ruler of the land, the Fisher
;suffers from a debilitating woundldisease. As a result his land is also cursed, and rots.
an be cured, and his land restored to fertility only if a herolpriest goes in quest of the
I Grail in order to ask of it certain mysterious questions. He has to undergo several
ships and resist temptations to be able to cany out his objectives. Eliot's "The Waste
f' follows the pattern of this myth, but in a very subtle way, with other myths crowding
'he same is the case with Heart of Darkness.

similarities and differences between the traditional Quest romance and Conrad's tale are
y seen. Kurtz undertakes the journey first, but in his quest he succumbs to temptations.
low embarks on another but uncertain quest; and his quest target undergoes shifts, until
x himself, or rather the truth about the elusive hero, becomes his chief target. The quest
not end in expected results, and leads to further quests, which remain inconclusive. This
,ain a modernist method, in which older traditions are either subverted or adapted to suit
lew needs.

rnative Myths: The Christian myth of the corruption of Adam and Eve through
)tation also dominates the imagery in the tale, with references to "the snake", "hissing",
MephistopheIes appearing now and then. This at once connects the tale to the other myth,
of Faustus.

LET US SUM UP

3 we see that Heart of Darkness is indeed modem in more'ways than one; and in certain
s ahead of its time. If it does occasionally appear to share some of the contemporary
lral prejudices, we need to take a closer look to see if appearances are deceptive. If
inned, the prejudices strengthen the text's claims for transcending the other prejudices.
1, Conrad perceived the difference between the earlier attitudes and the emergent attitudes
ler than most of his contemporaries, and registered these in his works, especially in the
under consideration. His own responses were quite complex as we have seen. If we are
re of this complexity it would entail recognition of a current critical habit. ,The past is
ctively falsified in order to justify the political "correetness" of the present. Heart of
kness exposes this habit in its earlier avatar, the "civilising mission".

QUESTIONS

Connect what is initillay referred to as the fascination of the a h i n a t i o n to what

Marlow experiences later. Does he evince the same kind of fascination?

What is your view of the depiction of the two or three white women and the black
women? Is Marlow a misogynist?

How does Conrad employ irony in depicting "progress" in the civilising work in
Africa?

Do you think political-ideological reading of a literary work comes in the way of our
enjoyment of it? Discuss.

' SUGGESTED READING

ric Watts. Conrad's "Heart of Darkness": A Critical and Contextual Dkcussion.Milan,

7.
The Last Words that Conrad Wrote
 Ireland and Parnell

ing of Joyce as a writer and the writing of A Portrait. Joyce's life and the literary
ext of A Portrait are also looked at here.

was an Irish 'modernist' writer with a largely Europeanized sensibility. He

in English and the 'tradition' that affected his 'individual talent' is as much
h as it is European. His concern with l~nguage- its limitations as well as its

the beginning of this century that overlap, when talking of influence,

1.2 IRELAND AND PARNELL

Ireland, as you are probably aware, is a predominantly Catholic country. Charles

Steward Parnell was a Protestant and yet his personal charisma made him the leading
spokesman for the Irish Nationalist cause in the British Parliament. Another
important public fig'ure was Michael Davitt, a leader of the Irish Land League. What
led to Parnell's downfall was a divorce case filed by Captain O'Shea, a member of
Parnell's party, who accused Pzimell of having had a clandestine affair with his wife
Kitty O'Shea. In this period of crisis, the then English Prime Minister Gladstone and
the leaders of the Catholic Church in Ireland both dissociated themselves from
Pamell. As you read the opening section of the novel you would appreciate how this
'betrayal' of Pamell (and figures like Davitt) was a part of the Irish psyche of those
times. That this betrayal stayed inprinted in Joyce's (and Stephen's) mind becomes
obvious in the closing sections of A Portrait.

Joyce had a firm belief that political subjection had led the Irish people to have a
slavish mentality. What Ireland needed was an expansion of consciousness. Around
that time there were strong revivalist tendencies manifesting themselves in Ireland.
Joyce had an attitude of deep distrust towards such tendencies. For example, the
general enthusiasm generated by the founding of the Irish National Theatre Society in
1901 and the coming into existence of the Abbey Theatre Company was not shared
by Joyce.

Parnell and the Irish situation in general have a direct bearing on the Christmas
dinner scene a A Portrait and on the exchanges between students in the closing stages
of the novel where Stephen says to Davin with odd violence:

Do you know what Ireland is? ...Ireland is the old .saw that eats her farrow.
(p.220)

1.3 JOYCE'S LIF'E

On account of the autobiographical element present in A Portrait, a quick look at the

salient details of Joyce's life comes to be important. Here, I shall concern myself
largely with those details that find an echo in the novel.

The first of ten children of John Stanislaus Joyce and Mary Murray Joyce, James
Joyce was born in Dublin on 2 February 1882. The Joyce family's frequent changes
of residence is an important aspect of Joyce's life that has a bearing on the novel.
When Joyce was four, the family moved to Cork and stayed there till 1892. For about
a year after that they lived in Blackrock. The family was often on the move within
Dublin (they moved house at least a dozen times in Joyce's early years). Between
1888 and 1902 Joyce's education was first at Clongowes Wood College (early
schooling), Belvedere College, Dublin (subsequent schooling) and Universirj
College, Dublin (from where he received his B.A. degree in 1902):He then went to
Paris to study medicine but that did not work out as they required fees to be paid in
advance. The one year Joyce still spent in Paris meant reading in public libraries and
living on small remittances from home and occasional fees that he received from
reviewing books.

In 1903, Joyce's mother was on her deathbed in Dublin. That made him rush back to
Dublin. This stay in Dublin was of a little more than a year. In 1904, Joyce left for
Paris in the company of Nora Barnacle (the 'mamage' between the two came to have
'official' status only in 1931 and that too 'for testamentary reasons'). What Joyce
found attractive in Nora was a striking combination of innocence and earthiness. In
 5 Joyce moved to Trieste where he taught at the Berlitz School. His son Giorgio Contexts
b o n in 1905. His daughter Lucia was born in 1907. The year 1906 saw Joyce
ng a short stint as a foreign correspondent in a bank in Rome and later visiting
land where he stayed on till 1910.

e war made the Joyce family move to neutral Zurich (in 1915). The only other
where Joyce had a longish stay (apart fiom Zurich and Trieste) was Paris where
e had moved on Ezra Pound's advice around the time of the publication of
ses. The outbreak of the Second World War brought him back to Zurich in 1940
he died and where he was buried.

gards the publication of Joyce's works of fiction, Dubliners (a collection of

es) was published in 1914, A Protrait of the Artist as a Young Man in 1916,
ses in 1922 and Finnegans Wake (taking about 16 years to complete aid
stingly called Work in Progress during this period) in 1939.

ails of Joyce's life will help you with the novel because the
lement has a strong presence in it. The novel's status as "aesthetic
" is taken up in Unit 2 while considering the question of its 'genre'.

ce if you remember that the aspects of Joyce's life that find more or
in the novel are: the large size of Joyce's family (his brothers and
the family's poverty and its frequent changes of house. Joyce's love of city
anized outlook; his distrust of violent politics, his flair for
s general unease with institutions of various kinds.

1.4 THE EUROPEAN LITERARY CONTEXT

the 'introduction' to this unit, Joyce's was a largely Europeanized

felt much more at home with cosmopolitanism than with
of various kinds.This gave him an affinity with T.S. Eliot and Ezra
e can be seen as among the leading 'Makers of the New' in English
Joyce's reading in European literature was extensive and he came to
European languages quite well. He admired Ibsen's work and translated
, He almost started thinking of himself (at a young age) as being in a line

epresented by %sen and Hauptmann. Another decisive influence on him

book The Symbolht Movement in Literature. Stephen
harles Baudelaire were two of the leading figures of French
delaire gave a new dimension to poetry related to the city and
olism contained within itself a shift from a Romantic to a modem
ic. The Naturalism that Joyce inherited from Ibsen (and Emile Zola)
us tempered by Symbolism. Another important trend of the times was
d it also influenced Joyce though not as directly as Naturalism and
ssionism was important to the extent it made language an
er than a description of activity. In this respect it paved the
the 'stream-of-consciousness' technique. A version of this technique was
A Portrait. Ulysses and Finnegans Wake were to put this
extensive use. This term strearn-of-consciousness applies,
ss, in which,'according to the psychological principle of
ughts or images, one leading to the next, are joined in what
alled a 'train of thought'. With the form of narrative
that employs the associative process, the author's
n into his narrative gets reduced to a minimum. Virginia Woolf was to later
'stream-of-consciousness' technique in novels like Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and

x that Joyce evolved out of his tempering of Naturalism with Symbolism was
affected by his deciding not to step fully out of the broad Realist tradition.
His pursuit of evocation is minus the insubstantiality and softness which sometimes
entered the work of Symbolists. The hardness that Joyce's style exhibits most of the
time was due to the influence of the French novelist, Gustave Flaubext (1821-80), the
famous author of Madame Bovary (1857).

1.5 ENGLISH-LANGUAGE MODERNISM

With the English-language Modernism of his times, (represented by Ezra Pound,

T.E. Hulme and T.S. Eliot among others) Joyce's relationship was more of a
benefactor than a beneficiary. But benefit he did fiom the general intellectual climate
created by Pound, Eliot and the others collectively. This climate encouraged
experimentation and the imperative 'Make It New' was very much in the air.
Pound's advocacy of first Imagism went a long way in focusing on concretion,
immediacy and on toughness of attitude and all this contributed to the 'scrupulous
meanness in style' that Joyce cultivated so successfully.

The important thing to keep in mind regarding all the influences that were then in the '
air is that people as extraordinarily talented as Joyce and Eliot benefited fiom these
influences in a very eclectic (freewheeling) kind of way. There was such a criss-
crossing of influences and the desire to do something unusual stylistically was so
great and the complexity of experience and of sensations offered by city-life so
tremendous that people received 'influences' in ways that were not only direct but
also indirect and as often subtle as crude. Monroe K. Spears is a critic who is among
the better chroniclers of those exciting times. One of the statements he makes in his
1970 book Dionysus and the City has more of a bearing on modernist poem in
general and on Eliot's work in particular but tells us enough about the eclectic way
'influences' worked at that time. I reproduce here a part of that statement to give you
an idea of how it was. Spears writes:

The tradition in fiction of which Stendhal was the forerunner and Flsubert the
founder, variously described as Symbolist, Naturalist, or more often,
Impressionist (the exact, not the soft or blurred kind) reached a kind of
fulfillment in James's three great novels just after the turn of the century and
in Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Nostromo ... . Eliot like pound,.was
imbued in James and Conrad, and we have already seen the powerful
influence that Joyce exerted on him after 1914 @. 114).

The point that Spears's statement just quoted makes is that Eliot, Pound and Joyce
benefited not from a single influence but a composite of a variety of influences and
that Joyce, benefiting from the various artistic and literary tendencies operating at
that time then went on to influence Eliot. It also tells us that what affected fiction
affected poetry also and vice versa and that most writers of the time (poets and
novelists alike) were quite eclectic in their borrowings.

1.6 LET US' SUM UP

The various 'contexts' that went into the making of A Portrait are:

i. Joyce's own life

11. His admiration for Parnell
iii. European literary influences
iv. The intellectual climate associated with English-language Modernism of
which Joyce, Eliot and Pound were the leading lights.
I GLOSSARY

Symbolist Movement:
Contexts

sent purposes), the term 'Symbolist

French writers - Charles Baudelaire,
Rimbaud and others. Broadly speahng,
1s in a poetry of rich suggestiveness
on of this group to twentieth
city into focus.

The Impressionists were a school of painters who wished to depict the fleeting
impression fi.om a subjective point of view. Precise representation was not such a
great concern with them. The consequence that Impressionism had for fiction-
writing was the transfer of interest h m external reality to the inner life of the

In fiption, Naturalism is associated mostly with'the work of the French novelist Emile
Zola (1840-1902). It was an offshoot of Realism and aimed at offering an even more
accurate picture of life than Realism did. The Naturalists believed that the novel
should be based on scientific knowledge and the writers themselves should be
sctentifically objective and exploratory in their approach to work. This also implied
that the envitvnment being portrayed should be treated with exactitude.

Stream-ofionsciousn@ss:

William James used the phrase in his Principles of Psychology (1 890) to describe the
unbroken flow of perceptions, thoughts and feelings in the waking mind. The term
later came to be adopted to describe a distinct m t i v e method in modern fiction.
The novels of Dorothy Richardson, Joyce and Virginia Woolf are often seen as
examples of this method. Somewhat influential in bringing about this approach to
fiction writing were some of the time-related theories of William James himself and
of the French thinker Henri Bergson.

1.8 QUESTIONS

1. What is the relationshipbetween Irish national consciousnessand Charles

Steward Parnell?

2. What aspects of French Symbolism and of Naturalism affected Joyce's

fictional style?

3. Is there any connection (direct or indirect) between Eliot's poetic gCtices

and Joyce's fiction?
A Portrait
1.9 SUGGESTED READING

Four general books you should read if you want to be familiar with the general
climate in which modernism operated arc, Malcolm Bradbury (ed.) Modernism;
Edmund Wilson's Axel's Castle; Monroe K. Spears's Dionysus and the City and
Frank Kermode's Romantic Image. Chester Anderson's illustrated book Jarnes Joyce
and His World will give you a good idea of the then Irish situation and of Joyce's
life.
U:VIT 2 GENRE, OVERALL STRUCTURE AND
POINT OF VIEW

Objectives

Introduction

Genre

Overall Structure

Point of View

Let Us Sum Up

Glossary

Questions

Suggested Reading

nit we shall look at the generic status of A Portrait and at its overall
. The question of 'Point of View' is to be taken up too. This unit will
you to terms like 'Bildungsroman' or the novel of growth. An important
to be considered here would be how much of 'distance' and what kind of
Joyce maintains ffom his hero Stephen Dedalus.

2.1 INTRODUCTION

ading of A Portrait is going to make it quite obvious to you that narration in

four chapters of the novel is more indulgent toward Stephen and in the fifth
there is greater detachment between the narration and the hero. In the first
ters irony, even when deployed, is quite sympathetic (by and large) to
tephen's 'errors', in this portion of the novel, are treated merely as the
of youth. Chapter five makes the narration more distant.

it is marked by'the use of a consciousness that is at least dual. First, there is

's consciousness that helps in capturing the intimacy that a first-person
normally enjoys. Then there is a maturer consciousness that runs parallel to
view. It works to qualify Stephen's consciousness mainly through

it, in terms of genre can be seen us 'aesthetic autobiography' in the tradition

ildungsroman' (it has something in it of the 'Kunstlerroman' - 'artist novel'
). You will realize that determining the novel's generic status help us to
e other aspects of the novel with a greater sense of a awareness.
A Portrait -
2.2 GENRE

Patrick Parrinder in his 1984 book James Joyce calls A Portrait an 'ironic
autobiography' and Suzanne Nalbatian in her 1994 book Aesthetic Autobiography
calls it "aesthetic autobiography". The qualifiers used by Paninder and Nalbatian
underline the fact that though autobiographical elements are strongly present in A
Portrait, it is not straight autobiography. As such Stanislaus Joyce, the writer's
brother has stated:

-My brother was not the weak infant who figures in A Portrait of the Artist.
He has drawn it is true very largely upon his own life and his own
experience.. ..But A Portrait of the Artist is not an autobiography, it is an
artistic creation. As I had something to say to its reshaping, I can affirm thi5
without hesitation.
(Stanislaus Joyce, My Brother 's Keeper, p. 17)

As A Portrait has in it elements of both Bildungsroman and Kunstlerroman let us

look a little at some examples of these. Charles Dickens's Great Expectations (a
novel, that you must already have looked at), Somerset Maugham's OfHuman
Bondage and Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain are all examples of the broad
category Bildungsroman whereas Marcel Proust's monumental novel A la recherche
du temps perdu (Rememberance of Things Past) can be seen as an example of
Kunstlerroman.

The original version of A Portrait was Stephen Hero. In the ten years separating the
two projects, Joyce's endeavour was to move the subject matter of his life largely
fiom the "lyrical" to the "dramatic'' mode. The progression fiom Stephen Hero to A
Portrait is fiom 'the novel of the overt and partisan manager' to that of the "invisible
and impersonal director" (Joseph Prescott "Stephen Hero" in William M. Scutte (ed.)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, p.25) The technique of Stephen Hero is
indeed explicit and ploddingly documentary. What happens in A Portrait is that the
autobiographical element which is otherwise its very significant ingredient is
consciously and painstakingly recast into a mode of depersonalisation, objectification
and mythification. Joyce is able to heighten naturalistic detail onto a dramatic plane
of symbolic art.

2.3 OVERALL STRUCTURE

The first chapter of A Porfrait shows Stephen's development from infant awarene\%
to the first assertion of his identity in an act of protest against injustice. The second
chapter shows the growing isolation that comes with his adolescence. It culminates
in the encounter with the prostitute. The third chapter represents the crisis of
adolescence and a temporary toying with the idea of taking up priesthood as a
vocation. The fourth chapter represents the climax of the development in his
recognition of his true vocation. The fifth chapter shows the completion of his
development and the declaration of his creed of freedom. If we take the first two
chapters as a structural unit then we find that these two chapters together trace the
awakening of religious doubts and sexual instincts culminating in the physical
experience with the prostitute. The next two chapters together (as another structural
unit) continue the cycle of sin and repentance. The fifth chapter as a structural unit
stands a little apart, in terms of ironic 'distance'. This chapter brings Stephen to the
verge of exile and brings to the fore his aesthetic theory and his life's goals. Here the
spotlight is on his University days. University life in general is also taken up
admirably well.
 ,the novel can be seen to divide itself into nineteen smaller Genre, Overall
arked off through typographical marks. These reveal to Stephen the character Structure and Point
orld that he lives in, the demands this world makes on him and the of View
s within himself that push him towards either succumbing to
s or rejecting them. Each broad stage of his growth - awakening of the
vocation, farewell to Ireland - leaves him lonelier than before. Some
hors used to describe the novel's alternations between varying
hor of 'troughs' (depressions) and 'crests' thus underlining the
depression and triumph. The fifth chapter can thus be seen as
atively static calm of (relatively) smooth sailing (as compared to
f the preceding four chapters) on which the emergent artist
on and assumes his new role.

auing &vice is memory. Each smaller unit (a phase in what Joyce

a 'fluid succession of presents') is a tightly constructed narrative unit.
linking of the episodes is achieved through a series of evolutionary chains of
s. This evolutionary process is tied up with phases in the
dentity and with his accumulated memory. The instances
we find in the novel are mostly cases of incremental
te device of modernists - where the motif repeated gets a sort of
lic significance as the work proceeds, This, however, is more of
and the section on 'Repetition' in Unit 4 will give you
Ips the structure and texture of the novel.

not familiar with the 'modernist' approach to literary structure some part of
it, (especially the early pages and the last pages of the novel) may give the
n of disjointedness (T.S. Eliot's poetry also gives the same impression to a
but this 'disjointedness' is actually quite carefully structured. You may have
read poems like Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' and 'Preludes'
't, then please read them as a way of familiarizing yourself with

---
2.6- POINT OF VIEW

lem of 'point of view' in A Portrait is a function of Joyce's attempt at

stion of where an author 'stations' himselfierself in relation to
is quite d crucial one in fiction. A look at Jane Austen's Emma
11 here. Austen treats Emma with irony and her attempt at objectivity is quite
and yet a kind of identification is inescapable. In Joyce's case, the
tion is even more inescapable because his stake in the proceedings is
n there is the additional dimension provided by Joyce's attempt at
In a sense one can say that in offering us the growth and development
dalus, Joyce was not exclusively concerned with getting to the heart of
self or an imaginary equivalent of that, but in getting to the heart of
as such. The destiny we are brought face to face with, could be any
n Catholic Ireland. Especially, if the young man was sensitive
ons or pretensions!

oint in the book is often Stephen's and Joyce does employ a rhetoric which
irection to the reader. And yet quite often, an ironic discrepancy between
dive view of his predicament and the sophishcated readers' view of it is
lip in. Sometimes inflated images are brought in tdmake us aware of a
cy. Quite often the reader is in deep sympathy with Stephen's thoughts and
other times, he is amused by Stephen. Sometimes Stephen's immaturity
eadedness is annoylng too. HISvanity, his way of taking himselftoo
his fanciful romantic dreams are a constant source of amusement and
A Portrait yet Joyce's own irony is held back quite often. But this irony is at work too at a
number of places. Joyce later was so conscious of the way in which his novel's
protagonist comes under judgement that he said, "I may have been too hard on that
young man."

The novel is under no obligation to imply that Stephen will be a successful artist.
Also, one must be on one's guard against judging A Portrait on the strength of what
happens to Stephen in Ulysses. It is enough that Joyce has laid down the conditions
for the artist and that Stephen had found salvation in deciding on the aesthetic rather
than the social, nationalistic, or religious orientations in life. Stephen's character
does not so much change as it develops and that too from a fm basis in a
temperament. Reserve becomes independence, pride grows into the self-assertion of
individuality and sensitivity develops into the artistic personality which, in the
closing stages of the novel (University days), is sufficiently tolerant of others. a s
development is traced by me in Unit 3 at some length.

Joyce's distance from Stephen is never too great and yet a modulation of attitude
, through language goes on all the time. A passage like the following is a good
example:

He too retuned to his old life at school and all his novel enterprises fell to
pieces. The commonwealth fell, the loan bank closed its coffers and its
books at a sensible loss.(p. 104)

There is uncomplicated ironic humour here but the passage is not without sympathy
and without an attempt to show Stephen as quite human. There are a number of
places (especially in chapter five) where the good-natured and generous side of
Stephen's personality is stressed. A good example is the way he takes in his stride
the banter directed at him by his fellow students. The unit dealing with 'Technique'
(Unit 4) takes up this side of Stephen in some detail.

Despite his preference for a certain classicism in matters of style, Joyce remained a
kind of incurable romantic in his life. There are a number of places in the novel
where romantic heroism gets underlinked without a trace of irony directed against
Stephen. One area in which this is quite obvious is in his preoccupation with
language and in his faith in language being some kind of vehicle for transcendence.
Stephen's yearning for other places is a part of his temperament:

The vastness and strangeness of the life suggested to him by the bales of
merchandise stocked along the walls or swung aloft out of steamers wakened
again in him the unrest which had sent him wandering in the evening from
garden to garden in search of Mercedes.b.69)

This kind of imaginative transport and his awareness of Europe have a lot to do with
Stephen's final exile. The sight of the slow drifting clouds, 'dappled and seaborne'
makes him think of Europe:

They were voyaging across the deserts of the sky a host of nomads on the
March, voyaging high over Ireland, westward bound. The Europe they had
come from lay out there beyond the Irish sea, Europe or strange tongues and
valleyed and woodbegirt and citadelled and of entrenched and marshalled
races&. 18 1)

The call of the unfamiliar is thert always and Stephen responds to it most of the time.
It is thus quite apt that the epigraph of A Portrait is from Ovid and denotes the
Dedalus theme. "And he set his mind to work upon unknown arts". Here the
boundary between Joyce and Stephen comes to collapse almost.
 conclude that Joyce, in A Portrait keeps v w n g his distance from Genre, Overall
etimes the two personae almost merge but quite often a distance is kept Structure and Point
s never too great. This kind of management of distance allows Joyce to of View
also into play (at places) but even that is never allowed to become too

2.5 LET US SUM UP

it can be seen as a Bildungsroman and as 'aesthetic autobiography'. In the

'stati~ning'himself, Joyce keeps varying his distance from Stephen but
s so drastically. The novel's overall structure has three broad movements.
hapter is a separate movement preceded by two movements constituting

2.6
I1 GLOSSARY
man :The term refers to a novel which describes the youthfiil
ent of the central character. Dickens's Great Expectations, Lawrence's Sons
and Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain are examples of this kind of

iew : The term refers to the perspectives fiom which events in a narrative
d narrated. In modern treatments of the art of prose fiction 'point of view'
onsistent concern. Thanks largely to the theorizing offered by Henry
'Prefaces' he wrote for his novels (these were collected in 1934 as The
vel). Percy Lubbock's The Crafl of Fiction (1926) also offered extensive
this aspect of novel-writing.

I
2.7 QUESTIONS

1.
I What are the three broad movements going into the overall structure of A
Portrait?

2. W odd you consider 'aesthetic autobiography' a satisfactory description of

the genre of A Portrait?

3. How does Joyce establish some distance between himself and Stephen? Does
this distance stay static or is it varying?

I
2.8 SUGGESTED READING

's basic book James Joyce :A Critical Introduction offers a good starting
pects of the novel including the ones treated in this unit. Specifically,
genre is given good treatment in Suzanne Nalpatian's Aesthetic
and Patrick Parrinder's James Jojlce. Morris Beja's 'Introduction' to
on Dubliners and A Portrait offers a sympathetic angle on the question
w". For a treatment of "point of view'' which is largely hostile to
A Portrait Joyce, you can look up Wayne C. Booth's book The Rhetoric of Fiction tmd Hugh
Kenner's Dublin's Joyce. In her book English Novel : Fonn and Function, Dorothy
Van Ghent has a dbpter on A Portrait. This chapter is useful for a consideration of
the novel's structure.
 IT 3 STEPHEN'S GROWTH AND
PERSONALITY

St1 cture

3.O Objectives

3.1 Introduction

3.2 A section-by--~ectionMapping

3.3 Stephen's Aesthetic Theory

3.4 Stephen and Women

3.5 Let Us Sum Up

3.6 Questions

3.7 Suggested Reading

-
3.(
7
OBJECTIVES

As Portrait is, among other things, a 'novel of formation' and an 'artist-novel', this
unl ooks at the stages of Stephen's growth from infancy to manhood through a
sec an-by-section 'mapping' covering all the 19 sections that constitute the five
chi ters. Stephen's aesthetic theory is examined and his relationship with women is
loc :d at too. The thing to note is that Stephen's aesthetic theory is not quite Joyce's
aes etic theory and that his attitude to women cannot and should not be equated with
Jo! 2's attitude to women.

-
3.: INTRODUCTION

A1 rtrait concerns itself both with growing up and with the early life of an artist.
Th novel traces the two together, but you must rern&ber that it also deals implicitly
w i the relationship between these two. There are certain tensions occasioned by the
dii rent demands that growing up and Stephen's stance as an artist make on him.
Th novel deals with these tensions and constantly takes into account the conflicts
be: een Stephen's drive towards adulthood and his driyle towards becoming an artist.
St( hen's attempt to resolve the struggle between these two kinds of drives also
de rves attention.

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3. A SECTION-BY-SECTION MAPPING

n five chapters of the novel are divided into nineteen sections in all. Let us take a
qu k look at what 'happens' in each of them.
A Portrait The first section of Chapter one shows Stephen at home in his infancy. There is a
bedtime story and a song. Stephen is 'baby-tuckoo'. There is a reference to bed-
wetting and the warm and cold feelings that go with it. His father's hairy face and his
mother's smell (nicer than his father's) are catalogued. Uncle Charles and Dante are
introduced. Dante's two brushes follow a pattern based on colours. One has a black
velvet back. That is for Davitt. The other one with a green velvet back is for Parnell,
the Irish Home-rule leader who was betrayed by the church. The Vances are
introduced. They are Eileen's father and pother. There is a repetition of the
imperative: 'Apologise'.

Section two shows life at Clongowes School. A football game is on. Stephen keeps
on the fringe of his line, out of the sight of his prefect, out of the reach of their rude
feet. He 'felt his body small and weak'. He is "caught in a whirl of a scrimmage and
is fearful of the flashing eyes and muddy boots." One of Stephen's thoughts is that it
"was mean of Wells to shoulder him into the square ditch because he would not
swoop his little snuff-box for Wells's seasoned backing chestnut." The coldness of
the water of the ditch stays with Stephen. A whole series of associations is triggered
by the word "suck". Wells' bullying him about whether Stephen kissed his mother
before he went to bed brings back memories of the ditch. Then there is a geography
lesson. The atmosphere in the Chapel where night prayers were held is evoked.
Once again Stephen thinks of smells (these include the smell of old peasants who
knelt at the back of the chapel at Sunday Mass.). There is the memory of a train-ride
homewards and the welcome received at home. But actually Stephen is sick. On the
way to the Infirmary he remembers 'with a vague fear the warm turf-coloured bog
water, the warm moist air, the noise of plunge, the smell of the towels like
medicines'. He visualises his own dying. The section closes with the news of
Parnell's death, an event that serves as a significant recurrent motif in the novel.

The third scene of chapter one is a Christmas Dinner at home. Mr. Casey is a guest.
Talk of Parnell leads to a violent quarrel. In the course of the quarrel, Dante says
(quite hotly):

0 he'll remember all this when he grows up .... The language he heard
against God, and religion'and priests in his own home. (p.33)

Mr. Casey's retort (equally hot) is:

Let him remember him to .... The language with which the priests and the
priests's pawns broke Parnell's heart and hounded him into his grave. (p.33)

Stephen's father now says:

Sons of bitches ....When he was down they turned on him to betray him and
send him like rats in a sewer. Low-lived dogs! And they look it. (p.33)

The close association of coldness and whiteness is cemented further in Stephen's

mind by another thought:

Eileen had long white hands. One evening when playing tig she had put her
hands over his eyes; long and white and then cold and soft. That was ivory, a
cold white thing. (p.35)

Stephen's father calls the Irish a "priest-ridden race" and Dante says about Parnell:

A traitor to his country. ... A traitor; an adulterer! The priests were right to
abandon him. (p.38)

Towards the end of the scene, she says of Parnell:

 Devil out of hell! We won! We crushed him to death! Fiend. (p.39) Stephen's Growth
and Personality
r. Casey cries with a sob of pain:

Poor Parnell ... My dead king. (p.39)

ther's eyes are also full of tears.

section of the first chapter Stephen is unjustly caned by Father Dolan.

en's glasses were broken and he was exempted from classwork by Father
1. Father Dolan pays no heed to it and goes on to cane Stephen: also calling him
ittle loafer." The humiliation Stephen feels is great. He complains to
studies who is sympathetic. The boys take it as a victory of sorts.

sound of the cricket bats from the playground goes 'pick-pack -pock-puck, like
s of water in a fountain falling softly in a brimming bowl.' This beautiful simile

nd chapter is again set in Stephen's home at,Bladkrock. He is

any of Uncle Charles and accompanying his fathkr and his
their constitutional:

Trudging along the road or standing in some grimy way-side public house his
elders spoke constantly of the subjects nearer their hearts, of Irish politics, of
Munster and of the legends of their own family, to all of which Stephen lent
an avid ear. (p .64)

nte Cristo,Stephen muses on Mercedes. With a boy called

Mills, he founds a gang of adventurers. The two also take rounds with the
n. When Stephen's thoughts returned to Mercedes, "a strange unrest crept

r boys even more than he did at Clongowes. He "wanted

e unsubstantial image which his soul so constantly
eet the image "weakness and timidity and inexperience
agic moment." (p.67)

ter begins with the removal to Dublin .(another

The sudden flight from the comfort and revery of Blackrock, the passage
through the gloomy foggy city. The thought of the bare cheerless house in
which they were now to live made his heart heavy.. ..@.68)

complex sensation". The vastness and

of merchandise stocked along
s wakened again in him the unrest
e evening from garden to garden in search of
m him to Stephen sitting in the midst of a
y now his silent watchful manner had grown
de him with Emma:

he came up to his step many times and went down to hers again between
eir phrases and once or twice stood close beside him for some moments on
e upper step, forgetting to go down and then went down. His heart danced
on her movements like a cork upon a tide. (p.72)

is news of a place for Stephen at Belvedere

fe about how Stephen's protest at Clongowes
4 PO- was laughed at. The rector had told Stephen's father that he and ath her Dolan had
hach-hearty laugh over the protest.

Section three of chapter two describes life at Belvedere. There is to be a play and
Stephen has a role in it. He looks forward to Emma being a part of the audience but
feels let down when she does not come. A little before this, Stephen's declaring his
preference for Byron over Tennyson brings from Heron a bullying reaction. Heron
and another boy Boland intimidate Stephen through physical violence and ask him to
"admit" that Byron was "no-good". Stephen does not yield. Feeling lef down by
Emma, Stephen after the play rushes into the city. After the first flush of anger and
frustration is over, things clear up a bit:

He stood still and gazed up at the sombre porch of the morgue and fiom that
to the cobbled laneway at its side. He saw the word "Lotts" on the wall of
the lane and breathed slowly and sank heavy air.

That is horse piss and rotted straw, he thought. It is a good odour to breathe.
It will calm my heart. My heart is quite calm now. I will go back. (p.91)

In Section four of chapter two Stephen visits Cork with his father. There is a train
ride and as his father talks of Cork and of scenes of his youth, Stephen listens without
sympathy. Later they are at the Victoria Hotel. His fat he^ sings a song and

The consciousness of the warm sunny city outside his window and the tender
tremors with whch his father's voice festooned the strange sad happy air,
drove off all mists of the night's ill humor from Stephen's brain. (pp.93-94)

Father and'son visit Queen's College. The sight of the word 'foetus' cut several
times in the dark stained wood of a desk in the anatomy theatre has a powerful effect
on Stephen. A vision of the life of the absent students of the college springs up
before him out of the word cut in the desk. It shocked Stephen to find in the outer
world "a trace of what he had deemed till then a b i s h and individual malady of his
own mind." His father takes him round pubs that he frequented in his youth but the
overall effect of the visit is to somehow put a distance between father and son. There
is also a stocktaking of sorts on Stephen's part when he thinks of his infancy but the
stocktaking only accentuated his apartness.

An abyss of fortune or of temperament sundered him from them. His mind

seemed older than theirs.... No life or youth stirred in him as it had stirred in
them. (pp. 10 1-2)

In Section flve of chapter two Stephen wins a prize and the prize-money leads to
short-lived euphoria. He treats his family but Soon the euphoria is over as his
household returned to its usual way of life. His restlessness persists.

He returned'to his wanderings. The veiled autumnal evenings led him fiom
street to street as they had led him years before along the quiet avenues of
Blackrock. (p. 105)

Fires of lust wasted Stephen:

His blood was in revolt. He wandered up and down the dark slimy street
peering into the gloom of lanes and doorways, listening eagerly for any
sound. He moaned to himself like some baffled prowling beast. He wanted
to sin with another of his kind, to force another being to sin with hirn and to
exult with her in sin. (p. 106)
 It is I h s state of mind that he fmds himseifconfkonted by a prostitute, who detains Stephen's Growth
him ~dgazes into his face. What weakens his resistance is that her room was 'warm and Personality
and ghtsome' :

Her round arms held him firmly to her and he seeing her face lifted to him in
serious calm and feeling the warm calm, rise and fall of her breast, all but.
burst into hysterical weeping. Tears of joy and relief shone in his delighted
eyes. (p.107)

wh she asks him to give her a kiss, Stephen's usual resistance to imperatives is
thel
'-.; In her arms he felt that he had suddenly become strong and fearless and sure
of himself. But his lips would not bend to kiss her. (p. 107)

Wh the resistance finally goes,

He closed his eyes, surrendering himself to her, body and mind, conscious of
nothing in the world butthe dark press of her soffly parting lips. They
pressed upon his brain as upon his lips as though they were the vehicle of o
vague speech, and between them he felt an unknown and timid pressure,
darker than the swoon of sin, softer then sound or odour.

The rst two chapters complete the first major stage in Stephen's growth with his
Pro. - initiation into sexuality. The larger part of the following two chapters shows
him :eling guilty on this score. There is the brief attraction that Stephen feels for
prie lood as a vocation but it is his rejection of this option that opens the way for his
em1 cing his role as an artist.

At 1 beginning of Section one of chapter three, Stephen is still not out of his
noc nal wanderings in the squalid quarter of the brothels. His life at school is
list1 s. Then 'retreat' i.e. a period of withdrawal fiom worldly activities and of
spir la1 recollection under discipline, is announced, to be followed by confession.
The :ctor talks to him at some length. As he (the rector) looks keenly at his listeners
out his dark stern eyes, 'Stephen's heart had withered up like a flower of the desert
thal :els the simoom coming fiom afar.' (p. 116)

Sec In two of chapter three contains the three sermons given on successive days.
The ttroductory sermon stirs self-disgust in Stephen. That is the first day. On the
secl 3 day sermons on,death and judgement bring the agony of shame. This is
tem ~rarilyrelieved by a day-dream of forgiveness, hand-in-hand with Emma. The
thir lay is the most traumatic for Stephen. Sermons on hell overwhelm him
con ,etely.

In $ on three of chapter three, Stephen returns home in self-disgust and terror. He

is p sically sick too. He prays and the result of this is:

His eyes were dimmed with tears and, looking humbly upto heaven, he wept
for the innocence he had lost. (p.150)

Thc comes confession in a chapel but this is preceded by his walking in the streets
as i t daze. When the priest enters the box and two other penitents take their turn at
COT rsion, the effect on Stephen is striking:

His blood began to murmur in his veins, murmuring like a s i n l l city

summoned fiom'its sleep to hear its doom. (p.153)

wl I Stephen's own turn for confession comes,

A Portrait His sins trickled fiom his lips, one by one, in shameful drops from his soul
festering and oozing like a sore, a squalid stream of vice. The last sins oozed
forth, sluggish, filthy. There was no more to tell. He bowed his heac'
overcome. (p.156)

Once Stephen is absolved, he finds relief and peace:

He knelt to say his penance, praying in a comer of the dark lane, and his
prayers ascended to heavens, fiom his purified heart like perfume streaming
upwards fiom a heart of white rose. (p. 157)

The muddy streets were gay. He strode homeward, conscious of an invisible

grace, pervading and making light his limbs. In spite of all he had done it.
He had confessed and God had pardoned him. His soul was made fair and
holy once more, bold and happy. (p.157)

At college he has the sense of 'another life', life of grace and virtue and happiness -
made possible by his spiritual experience.

In Section one of the fourth chapter there is a change in Stephen's day-to-day life.
He follows a rigorous discipline of prayer and self-mortification. He attends mass
daily and carries rosary beads in his pocket. On successive days of the week he prays
for the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit to counter the defilement of the Seven Deadly
Sins. Here Joyce shows Stephen drifting further and further away fiom reality. The
whole programme of self-discipline amounts to subordinating the real to the ideal.

In Section two of the fourth chapter the Director of Studies summons Stephen for an
interview. The possibility of priesthood as a vocation is suggested to him. The
director tells him that priesthood is the greatest honour that God can bestow and that
its authority surpasses all earthly authority. The effect of the director's words on
Stephen is:

A flame began to flutter again on Stephen's cheek as he heard in this proud

address an echo of his own proud musings. How often had he seen himself
as a priest wielding calmly ind humbly the aweful power of which angels
and saints stood in reverence. (p. 171)

The temptation exercised by priesthood is however temporary. As he is at the door

taking leave of the director four young men stride past, arms linked, singing to a
concertina. The contrast between that sight and the mirthless mask of the priest's
face stirs in Stephen an instinct of recoiling from the cold orderliness of Jesuit life.
The threat to his freedom that such a vocation stands for decides him against it.
Stephen realises that (in priesthood) it was "a grave and ordered and passionless life
that awaited him, a life without material cares". He wondered "how he would pass
the first night in the novitiate and with what dismay he would wake the first momlng
in the dormitory". He "smelt again the warm moist air which hung in the bath in the
Clongowes above the sluggish turf-coloured water". Some instincts waking at those
memories, "stronger than education or piety, quickened within him at a very near
approach to that li'fe, an instinct subtle and hostile, and armed him against
acquiesence, The chill and order of the life repelled him. What fortifies him further
in his rejection of priesthood is the awareness that his destiny "was to be elusive of
social or religious orders. The wisdom of the priest's appeal did not touch him to the
quick. He was destined to learn his own wisdom apart fiom others or to leam from
the wisdom of others himself wandering among the snares of the world". The snares
of the world were its ways in sin. He would fall. Not to fall was "too hard, too hard."

Back home, after crossing the bridge, over the Tolka, he smiles to think that it was
"this disorder, the misrule and confusion of his father's house and the stagnation or
vegetable life, which was to win the day in his soul.''
 on three of the fourth chapter shows Stephen waiting for his father who was Stephen's Growth
ng enquiries for him about a place at the University. That possibility has a and Personality
appeal for Stephen. Turning towards the sea to cross the bridge, to the island
'The Bull' he meets a group of Christian Brothers coming from the opposite

anwhile, we are told that his mother was hostile to the idea' of his going to the
ersity. He sees it as her disloyalty and something makes him aware dimly and
out regret of "a first noiseless sundering of their lives." The voices of the
bathing nearby are heard. They mock his name. He senses the destiny
cally represented by Dedalus. Dedalus is a figure from Greek mythology, a
who built the labyrinth of Crete. He also made wings for himself and his
Icarus. The University, in Stephen's eyes, amounted to his having passed beyond
challenge of the sentries who had stood as guardians of his boyhood. So the name
d with transcendence of sorts.

s from his 'treasure' a quotation fiom Hugh Miller and speaks it softly (and
ccurately) to himself. 'A day of dappled seaborne clouds'. The actual clouds that
sees "voyaging across the deserts of the sky" make him think of Europe. The
pe these clouds had come from "lay out there beyond the Irish Sea, Europe of
ge tongues and valleyed and woodlegut and citadeled and of entrenched and

tephen takes off shoes and stockings and gets down to the sand. He sees a girl
g in midstream staring out to the sea. She has a striking girlish beauty and she
at him, lingeringly. Her legs and thighs are bare. 'Heavenly God' cried
's soul, in an outburst of profane joy. This is followed, a little later by 'Her
d passed into his soul forever and no word had broken the holy silence of his
Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call. The message is
ive, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.' (p.126)

e effect on Stephen's soul is quite remarkable:

His soul was swooning into some new world, fantastic, dim, uncertain as
under sea, traversed by clouds, shapes and beings. (p.187)

?
at had made Stephen receptive to this 'experience' is mentioned a couple of pages
p or to this climactic experience:

He was alone. He was unheeded happy and near to the wild heart of life. He
was alone and young and will1 and wildhearted. (p. 185)

4 s 'experience' is almost a 'resurrection' for him.

f the fifth chapter, Sephen is first shown having breakfast at horn.

dling with tickets for the clothes that the family had pawned under
he walks to the University, his morning walk through Dublin carries
ons evoked by his surroundings. He reaches college late and finds
Studies trying to light the fire in the Physics theatre. The two talk for

are conversations with MacCann, Temple and Davin. Talk of the

cause makes Stephen talk of Parnell's betrayal by the Church. Stephen
oran, the instructor, flirting with Emma and this angers him, The
y audience that Stephen now finds for expounding his aesthetic theory is
es not have much interest in things of this kind. At the end of this
seen under the library arcade. Brooding on her leads Stephen
\
A Portrait (InSection two of chapter five we have fiom Stephen a poem to Emma that is an
artificial product of literary and religious verbalism. In Sectlon three we find
Stephen standing on the steps of the library watching the birds crying and circling
above. When, Emma comes out of the library, in response of Cranly's salutation, she
bows to him and ignores Stephen. Stephen starts thinking about Cranly's possible
interest in her. Yet the sight of Emma in the failing light makes Stephen stroll away
from the group with a kind of inner peace. His reverie as he moves away is first
literary then erotic. A kind of severance from Emma is nevertheless made. He
comes back to the group and takes Cranly away with him on a walk.

Stephen and Cranly talk about Stephen's mother and his family situation. Stephen's
decision to leave is of course final. When Cranly suggests to Stephen the
impracticality of his notion of unfettered freedom, Stephen comes out with a clear-cut
statement of his new faith:

I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my
home, my fatherland or my church, and I will try to express myself in some
mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my
defence the only arms I allow myself to use-silence, exile and cunning.
(p.268-9)

'Cunning' here refers to cultivating craftsmanship and the other two terms ('silence'
and 'exile') refer to his not being afraid of being isolated on his quest of the freedom
he sees essential for the artist.

Finally in Section four of chapter five (the last of the nineteen sections that the novel
is built around) we have scraps from Stephen's journal for the time prior to his actual
departure from Dublin. Those who figure in these jottings are friends like Cranly and
Davin (mainly Cranly), Emma and Stephen's mother. The decision to leave is of
course irrevocable. It only gets reaffirmed in a variety of ways. This section shows
Stephen poised for the flight.

The overall 'portrait' that emerges from the novel as a whole is of an extrasensitive,
proud, isolated individual who nevertheless has in him what is supposed to go into
the making of an 'artist' rather 'the artist'. His continuous search is for warmth, for
experience for its own sake, for 'transcendence' of a kind, for getting away and for
being 'on the move'. Beauty of a certain kind is also something that he reaches out
for. At the same time he would rarely do things under coercion. That is the
rebellious streak in him. Squalor bothers him, poverty bothers him, but certain kinds
of orderliness bother him still more. He likes to be on his own and prefers learning
things first hand. He visualises himself as 'a priest of the imagination' and as some
kind of wordsmith and 'maker'

The diary fragments in the closing sections of the novel are seen by some as a lund of
comedown. Actually they represent the artist's attempt to grapple with subjective
reactions by setting them down. They show the beginning of the creation of an
'objective world' from inner experience. These entries are a way of resisting a
regressive decline into subjectivism. They refer to certain life facts that are yet to be
elaborated and are left like that. These facts mark a turning point in Joyce's life away
from crisis towards the establishment of an identity independent of restrictive locales.

As already noted, Hugh Kenner tells us that the pattern which each chapter of the
novel exhibits is one of dream nourished in contempt of reality, put into practice, and
dashed by reality. The movement of A Portrait in the light of this could be seen as a
Sort of vicious spiral, since each chapter closes with a synthesis of triumph. That in
turn feeds the sausage-machine, set up in the next chapter. In each case the 'synthesis
of triumph' can be seen as an approximation to the cry that Stephen finally utters at
the end of the book: 'Welcove 0 life!' Thus the first chapter ends with his
 against injustice which leaves him feeling 'happy and h e ' and Stephen's Growth
the sound of cricket bats 'like drops of water in a fountain falling softly in the and Personality
cond chapter ends with a new awakening and an image of
the third chapter reads: Another life! A life of grace and virtue and
the end of the fourth chapter Stephen exclaims, 'To live, to en; to
life out of life.' Thus when at the end of the book Stephen
'to encounter for the millionth time the reality of
fifth in an exhilarating sequence of new starts.

3.4 STEPHEN'S AESTHETIC THEORY

i.
1
Th three main principles of the thewy of aesthetics put forward by Stephen are:
Art is a stasis brought about by the formal rhythm of beauty;
ii. Art of beauty divorced from good and evil is akin to truth, therefqre, if truth
can best be approached through intellection, beauty or art is best approached
... through the three stages of apprehension.
111. The three qualities of beauty which correspond to the three stages of
apprehension are in the terms of Aquinas, integritas (wholeness), consonantia
(harmony), and claritas (radiance).

les of his theory - art as stasis and the separation of beauty and
ased by Stephen on one sentence by St. Thomas Aquinas, a 13" century
h he translates 'that is beautiful the apprehension of which pleases'. The
e of the association of beauty with truth, of the stages of apprehension
lities of beauty is that it helped JoyceIStephen to suggest that pure art
licate balance between the art-object and the one who perceives it. What
re is to secularize the Thomist insistence on the moral obligations of the
ng instead intellectual or psychological obligations (by 'Thomism'
of Thomas Aquinas).

the three qualities of beauty are concerned, Stephen's inteqmtation of

nantia' accords generally with the 'due proportion' that Aquinas notes as a
stic of beauty. Here the important difference to be noted is between
's concept of f o m and rhythm as a manifestation of being and Joyce's more
echanistic interpretation. With 'claritas' Stephen sharply diverges from
interpretations of Saint Thomas. When Stephen is talking of claritas in
ere is a substitution of 'quidditas' far 'claritas'. The purpose seems to
spiritual connotation of the latter. In Stephen's scheme of things
s the 'whatness' of a thing. As for 'integritas' Stephen translates it
ut what is nearer to his meaning is 'peffection.'

consistently secularizes Aquinas. He adheres to Thomist categories but his

on of them is suited to his own purposes. One doctrine which he accepts
is the identification of truth as the conformity of mind and object. He
cially useful because it provides him with a justification of absolute,
a1 standards for art. It also offers him a defence against the chafge that
that of an art for art's sake votary. His major difference with Aquinas is
art-work as a world in itself, with the appropriate standards of
armony and clarity, rather than as a hgrnent or a symbol of a
ensive unity. Aquinas was helpful to Joyce to the extent Joyce
use the scholastic method of logical argument against the vague generalities of
oralists or the dilletantes.

important aspect of Stephen's 'theory of art' is his explanation of the three

art. The lyrical, the epical and the dramatic. Aquinas does not come in here.
best be read as simply a commentary on Stepherl's (and Joyce's) artistic
A Portrair development, which is clearly a progression from the lyrical to the dramatic. In a
sense, Stephen's aesthetic is made to grow and change as Stephen himself grows and
changes. Some parts of the aesthetic, however remain constant.

In essence the theory offered by Stephen is that the beautiful is what can be
pleasurable, apprehended by the senses or the mind. Static reception of this
precludes the moral element which, instead of offering satisfaction, stirs feelings of
desire or loathing. Truth satisfies the intellect, while beauty satisifies the
imagination. The beautiful affects the mind in this respect that the mind is seized by
its wholeness, fascinated by its harmony and enchanted by its radiance.

3.4 STEPHEN AND WOMEN

Apart from his mother and Dante, the first person from the opposite sex who figures
in Stephen's life is Eileen. It is her white hands and golden hair that first stir his
boyish notion about girls. His relationship with Eileen is not shown as amounting to
much in the ultimate analysis. Then there are the romantic dreams about Mercedes (a
character from the novel The Count ofMonte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. She is the
beloved of the novel's hero Edrnond Dantes). Stephen pictures himself grandly
rejecting her because she had earlier slighted his love. The next person from the
opposite sex to figure in Stephen's life is Emma whom he meets at the party at
Harold's Cross. Withdrawing from the other children, he relishes his isolation.
Emma glances repeatedly and invitingly in his direction. She gives rise to a feverish
excitement in him. Together they take the last tram home. They stand on the steps of
the tram. He is on a step above hers. As they talk, she keeps mming up to join him
on his step. He knows that she is making an advance to him. And yet he is unable to
respond in kind. The failure bothers him but all that comes out of it is an attempt to
write a poem to Emma.

Two years later, there is school-play in which Stephen figures. He works himself
up into an excited romantic mood anticipating a meeting with Emma after she has
seen the play. The whole thing collapses when he does not find Emma in the
audience. The sexuality that might have found an outlet through this relationshp is
diverted elsewhere culminating in his experience with the prostitute. In this
experience he is able to find not only relief from the goadings of his lust but a new
self-assurance. After a cycle of sin and guilt, the wading girl becomes for him a way
out of his dilemma. She becomes the catalyhc agent for creativity.

In the final chapter Stephen imagines that Emma flirts with Father Moran. And yet
the sight of her near the entrance of the library gives rise to the thought that she may
be innocent. There is a surge of emotions but again much does not come out of it.
He does write a poem to her and pictures her in remorse. When Emma ignores him
outside the library he thinks that she is consciously rebuffing him and that Cranly is
pursuing her. The diary jottings at the end tell us that she has been wanting to make
contact with him. She wants to know why she sees so little of him and whether he
still writes poems. His reply is a rebuff aimed at embarassing her. And yet he cannot
fully get over the attraction he feels for her. It is another thing that the call for exiling
himself to which his soul responded makes him push her (temporarily) to the back of
his mind.

Essentially Stephen's inability to connect fully with girls of his age is tied up with his
aloofness from most of his compatriots at school and university. It is partly timidity
and partly a feeling of self-importance which prevents him from reaching out to
people. His 'notions' about what an 'artist' should be like, also contribute to his
isdlation. In general, his encounters with girls are awkward and unsatisfactory. The
fallout quite often is that he submits to crude sexual fantasies.
 not only a powerful imagination but an overpowering sensuality. When Stephen's Growth
sexual yearnings are frustrated, fantasizing takes over quite often. The vaguely and Personality
alized notion of a tryst represented by the sentimental fantasy'over Mercedes is
rst projections of Stephen's sexuality. This sexuality gets physically
into the idea of Emma. Stephen's enigmatic use of her initials for his
the poem she remains a vague, distant figure) helps to underline her
ss. So while one can grant something of a search for love in Stephen's
,agitated yearning (aggravated by the kiss that he wanted, not really
rializing), it is lust, not love, which finally gets gratified in the scene with the
an in the brothel. The woman is in many ways, the end of his searching,
omising release as well as rest. The encounter also promises a kind of knowledge
d with that some amount of certainty.

arding Emma's presence in the rest of the novel there is a slight shift towards the
of the novel. There is Stephen's fear that he has misjudged her, that his mind
eeds 'vermin' and that she is beyond the images he projects on her. Stephen's
arp recognition, in the closing lines of the novel, of how he had been distorting her
lso a recognition, significantly, of patterns of delusion that have clouded-his mind
ly parts of the novel. At the same time, we should not overlook the fear
Stephen that Emma would keep his soul at home in a sterile Ireland if he
y get away from her and from thinking of her.

or the larger part of the novel, Stephen is unable to think of woman except in fixed,
d terms. Most of the time Stephen is able to come to terms with woman
cally as a strong maternal figure (even the prostitute, in a sense, mothers
im). His clumsy response to Emma towards the end of the novel is a function of a
onklike withdrawal into the spiritual-heroic refrigerating apparatus that he has. The
preeminence of the virginlmother model prevents Stephen from approaching woman
on more comprehensive and inclusive terms though woman is represented in A
Portrait in a wide range of figures and images.

I We can conclude that, in general terms, 'woman' as image can be seen as having two
contradictory (and almost mutually exclusive) sets of meaning. At one level
'woman' is possessive and a kind of stumbling block where Stephen's progress
toward freedom and creative art is concerned. His mother largely and Eileen,
Mercedes and E.C. partly belong here. At the other level 'woman' is a source of
freedom and 'enlightenment'. The wading girl and before her the prostitute belong to
this category.

3.5 LET US SUM UP

Stephen's growth into adulthood and his evolution as an artist are captured by Joyce
quite competently though the two thrusts are often at variance. Stephen's aesthetic
theory is influenced substantially by St. Thomas Aquinas. His attitude to women is
inadequate partly on account of his general inability to relate to people in general and
partly on account of the virginlmother f ~ a t i o nthat he suffers from. Upto a point, the
prostitute is the end of his search because she offers him release, certainty and
knowledge in a variety of ways. . ,

3.6 QUESTIONS
I

1. What is the significance of the Christmas dinner scene in A Portrait? Who

are the main participants in the discussion?
2. What effect does Stephen's experience with the prostitute have on hnn?

3. What is the relationship between Dublin and Stephen especially in the light
of his wanderings in the city?

3.7 SUGGESTED READING

As suggested earlier, Harry Levin's James Joyce :A Critical Introduction offers a

gpod starting point. You should also read William York Tindall's A Reader's Guide
to James Joyce. For a treatment of Stephen's aesthetic theory, a good place is
William T.S. Noon's book Joyce and Aquinm. Some idea of Stephen's relationship
with women and of Joyce's general treatment of women can be had from Suzette
Henke and Elaine Unkeles (eds.) Women in Joyce.
LNIT 4 TECHNIQUE

sI ucture

4.) Introduction

4.1 Variety of Styles

Stream of Consciousness and Epiphany

"1 Linguistic Features.

"1 Questions

Suggested Reading

4.1

in this unit is to look at Joyce's technique in A Portrait. As you know

attached a lot of value to technique, the 'how' of a work as
from its 'what'. The slogan 'Make It New' had a special significance
ernist writer. Joyce is no exception. In this unit you will see how the
iousness' technique which was touched upon in the unit on
lly operates in A Portrait. You will also see the variety of styles
by Joyce and become aware of the exploitation of repetition as a stylistic device.
cover repetition of image, symbol and motif.

44b INTRODUCTION

e exercised on future practitioners of his craft and in terms of

d audacity of experimentation,Joyce has been perhaps the tallest figure in
written in English. The whole range of his stylistic daring
omes clear to one only after one has encountered Ulysses and Finnegaw Wake as
1 but A Portrait by itself is enough to stamp him as a dextqous user of English
e aware of the possibilities as well as limitations of the language. The
ect of the novel is conveyed to us both by the surface narration of events and by
a deliberate carefully woven network of verbal associations
rated into the text. The langyage strives towards a kind of radiance and
richness and density thoughout and there is an exactitude, tautness and
about it which is really striking. The best lessons of Realism, Naturalism
Symbolism are evidently internalised quite well by Joyce and he adds a lot of his
special technique to the cumulative and composite legacy represented by these
A Portrait
4.2 VARIETY OF STYLES

One of Joyce's major stylistic achievements in A Portrait is the modulation o i styles

throughout. As you read the novel, you are going to realize that Joyce uses a
different style in each section to underline each stage of Stephen's development.
Each style is meant to represent a different stage in Stephen's progress towards the
final realization of his true vocation. The changes in style are deliberately
foregrounded (highlighted).

The novel is set in motion by the formula one would use for starting a fairytale. By a
selection and patterning of language, Joyce is able to mimic the growth of the child's
mind:

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming
down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road
met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo.. ..

His father told him that story : his father looked at him through a glass : he
had a hairy face.

He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne
lived : she sold lemon platt.

0 , the wild rose blossoms

On the little green place.

He sang that song. That was his song.

0 , the green wothe botheth.

When you wet the bed first it is warm then it gets cold. His mother put on
the oilsheet. That had the queer smell.

His,mother had a nicer smell than his father. She played on the piano the
sailor's hornpipe for him to dance. He danced:

Tralala lala
Tralala tralaladdy
Tralala lala
Tralala lala

The usual narrative links are replaced to a large extent by verbal echoes and
associations. There is a direct representation of sensations, feelings and impressions.
The suggestion of party recitations helps to evoke family life in the parlour.
Sensations of wet and dry, the sense of a ministering mother and the contrast in the
child's mind between father and mother are all introduced here. As the child grows,
the idiom changes and the range of interests becomes wider. Now the language and
perceptions are those of a schoolboy. Further we come across a mind becoming
aware of itself and of the body:

He kept on the fringe of his line, out of sight of his prefect, out of the reach of
the rude feet, feigning to run now and then. He felt his body small and weak
amid the throng of players and his eyes were weak and watery. (p.4)

The schoolboy slang now introduced into the novel richly reinforces and enlivens
Joyce's rendering of school life. There are words like 'scut', 'feck', 'rump', 'stink',
'dog-in-the-basket', 'smugging' and these bring about a subtle alteration in the
language amidst which Stephen grows.
For : Christmas dinner episode we find Joyce taking recourse to a dramatic, Technique
imy onal mode. In a sense, the world of adults takes over here. Later the style
reh bto Stephen's subjective viewpoint around the pandying incident but the
ng is described by way of an intrusion of external reality. Stephen's thought .
Pan
Pab s and the associations of 'cruel and unfair' and the internal monologue that
Ste n has is pitched at a high level of tension. It is defused after the interview with
the tor. The mood now changes to the dramatic and the form reflects that.

Ad iled cataloguing and sampling of the great variety of styles is not possible here
so I ne give you an indication only of some of the broad stylistic shifts mostly
coil ling with transitions fiom chapter to chapter.

Tht cond chapter traces Stephen's adolescence from the first awakening of
sex ity and his growing isolation from family. In the first section of this chapter
we 1 Stephen nauseated with the reality of his life as well as with avenues of
esc that are available to him. He now thinks of a meeting with an idealized
W01 1. This hope is presented to us in a parody of sentimental romantic fiction.
Tht rle matches Stephen's cultivated posturing and his romantic reading: ' ... in
sec he began to make ready for the great part which he felt awaited him.. .' (p.64)

Lat vhen Stephen roams the backstreets of Dublin's brothel district, there is a
sub change in style as the coarse insistent external reality makes its presence felt.
In t ihird chapter the external reality and its grossness take over for a while:

He hoped there would be stew for dinner, turnips and carrots ... stuff it into
you, his belly counselled him. (P. 109)

w we come to the sermons, a different kind of rhetoric takes over. One example
WO' suffice:

I pray to God that my poor words may have availed today to confirm in
holiness those who are in a state of grace, to strengthen the wavering, to lead
back to the state of grace the poor soul that has stpyed if any such be among
you. (p.145)

Thc etoric here relies as much on sound as on meaning for its effect. Once Stephen
has nfessed, the mood changes and the prose reflects the change:

The muddy streets were gay. He strode homeward, conscious of an invisible

grace pervading and making light his limbs. In spite of all he had done it.
(P. 157)

On 'the climactic epiphanies in the novel is represented by the sight .of the wading
girl d its effect on Stephen. The prose with its buoyancy lives up to the demands of
the :asion quite well:

Heavenly God! cried Stephen's soul, in an outburst of profane joy.

He turned away from her suddenly and set off across the strand. His cheeks
were aflame; his body was aglow; his limbs were trembling. On and on and
on he strode, far out over the sands, singing wildly to the sea, crying to greet
the advent of the life that had cried to him.

Her image had passed into his soul forever and no word had broken the holy
silence of his ecstasy. Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the
call. To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life! A wild
angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from thk fair courts of life, to
A Portrait throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the.gates of all the ways of
error and glory. (P.186)

The buoyancy of style is reminiscent of the simile used earlier by Joyce to inaicate
Stephen's state of mind when he and Emma take a tram-ride home after the
children's party at Harold's Cross:

His heart danced upon her movements like a cork upon a tide. (p.72)

In the final section of the fourth chapter the style that takes over is (most of the time)
exultant, almost riotous. A boisterous energy seems to be driving the language. The
cumulative rhetorical effect of the resonances of words come to be of great
importance in such a linguistic situation.

In the opening paragraph of the fifth chapter we get a taste of Joyce's great ability
handle uncomfortable detail through cataloguing and through tight structures of
modification:

He drained his third cup of watery tea to the dregs and set to chewing the
crusts of fried bread that were scattered near him, staring into the dark pool
of the jar. The yellow dnpping had been scooped out like a boghole dnd the
pool under it brought back to his memory the dark turfcoloured water of the
bath in Clongowes. (P.188)

Later in the fifth chapter Joyce's mastery of dialogue and of dramatic form is
strikingly at work in his evocation of life at University College, Dublin. Bantering
.
between
.
students is handled with great dexterity and there is, at the same time,
remarkable warmth and humanity beneath the surface ribaldry and word-play.
Innuendos that the students direct at each other are an example of the vital sources of
native humour which sustained the liveliness of Joyce's prose throughout his career.
One example will suffice. When Lynch has a hearty laugh on something Cranly says,
Cranly comes up with:

Lynch is awake. (p.218)

h he most notable thing about linguistic play in the fifth chapter is that Stephen
(tacitly or otherwise) is now very much a part of it all:

His fellow student's rude humour ran like a gust through the cloister of
Stephen's mind, shaking into gay life limp priestly vestments that hung upon
the walls setting them to sway and caper in a sabbath of misrule. (p.208)

In response to Cranly's words, 'Lynch is awake', Lynch straightens himself and

thrusts forward his chest. Stephen's comment on this is:

Lynch puts out his chest. ...

As a criticism of life. (p.218)

So, we can conclude that the variety of styles that we come across in A Portrait is
qulte functional and tailored to the different stages of Stephen's growth. The broad
progression of the style is from a kind of 'interior monologue' of the infant, through
growing objectivity, to the adolescent lyricism of the v~sionof the wading girl. Then
there is broad humour and finally there are the diary jottings that amount to some
kind of shorthand for the 'interior monologue' form associated with 'stream-of-
consciousness' and used more extensively in ITlvsses.
 Technique

stylistic and structural device is used by most modernist writers. A

also uses it quite effectively. It offers endless difference in sameness and
s in which variety can be organised around some governing
. At the same time, you should keep this in mind that the function of
f image, symbol and motif in A Portrait is most of the time only
definitive. The use of some of the key motifs in the very first section
novel thus has in it as much of fluidity as fixity of connotation. This fluidity

s, water and colours are chief among the symbols that Joyce has woven into the
cture and texture of A Portrait. First let us look at water. Associations of wet
dry are there right at the start in the bedwetting episode. The bog water with
rch the water of the square ditch into which Wells pushes Stephen comes to be
ociated, has a way of returning to Stephen's consciousness. It does so not only as
atery tea' but as the squalor of the kitchen at home and as the turf--coloured bath
ter. And yet the same water comes to have very different and liberating
notations for him in the episode relating to the wading girl. Moving now to
rs' we find the first colours of infant awareness, the green of Ireland and
I and the red of the family hearth are both joined in the ivy and holly of the
stmas dinner and then go on to be reflected in the colours of the seaweeds
gh which Stephen wades. The wading girl's colours are also significant; thighs
ivory, dress of blue and white, and hair of gold. Interestingly, ivory and white also
with Eileen's hands. Finally there is the symbolism associated with birds. It
with the eagles that will pull out the infant Stephen's eyes. Then there are the
"talons' of the young Jesuit prefect Mr. Gleeson. The bird image later comes to be
associated with flight, liberation and transcendence. First there is the figure of Icarus
rising above the waters. Still more significant is the wading girl who is envisioned
as having been transformed into a sea-bird with the delicate legs of a crane, standing
in the water as if poised for flight. Her bosom is like the plumage of a dove.

Along with the chief symbols two more things have symbolic significance. These are
flowers and roads. Both play an important role in Stephen's mental make-up and
baggage. The rose symbolism in the novel is complex. The associations of roads are
tied up with walks and wandering. These are also a part of the topography of Dublin
(in actuality and as part of Stephen's internal landscape).

Samuel Beckett once warned readers against the danger of excessive 'neatness of
identification' where Joyce's use of symbols was concerned. You would do well to
keep in mind the fact that Joyce mostly keeps his symbolism in a fluid state so that
the connotations keep changing most of the time.

I 4.4 STREAM-OF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND 'EPIPHANY'

Some indication of the implications of the term 'stream-of-consciousness' has

already been given to you by equating it (roughly speaking) with a 'train of thought'.
The method is in evidence at many places in A Portrait,more so in the opening and
the closing pages of the novel. The emphasis in the 'stream-of-consciousness'
method is on the psychic being of the characters and the associative mode is kept in
the forefront of Stephen's consciousness. This is at the heart of the novel as it is both
its subject-matter and its major structuring mechanism. In the opening and the
closing pages, the inner aspect of this consciousness is on view. At the start, the
reader is rushed back and forth through sudden disruptions. The story of the moocow
A Portrait is linked in Stephen's consciousness with Byrne's sweetshop. A memory of his
father leads to a memory of his mother. Associations lead us to Eileen. The coldness
of the bed and its wetness are all part of associative processes as are the smells
exuded by Stephen's parents.

Another good example of the method is when Stephen is on the football field. He is
in the midst of a scrimmage and is thinking of going home for the holidays. He longs
for the warmrh of the room where he has pasted at his desk the number of days still
remaining between then and the holidays. His thoughts on the field move in quick
succession fiom his cold hands,to the various meanings of the word 'belt', to nasty
expressions used by the boys, to his mother's warning not to speak to the rough boys
and so on.

The way associative processes are pressed into the service of the weaving together of
recurrent motifs is quite obvious in the episode related to Wells and the discomfiture
it causes everytime it comes back to Stephen:

He shivered as if he had cold slimy water next to his skin. That was mean of
Wells to shoulder him into the square ditch. ...How cold and slimy the water
had been! (p.7)

The motif of wetness and coldness stays with him:

He felt his forehead wann and damp against the prefect's cold damp hand.
That was the way a rat felt slimy and damp and cold. (pp.19-20)

There are many other examples in the text where associative processes are at work.
You should locate them and see how they tie up with Joyce's overall technique. You
will find that Joyce mostly sticks to a kind of realist-naturalist style with symbolic
motifs interwoven into the narrative. In the first and last pages the technique is more
or less exclusively 'stream-of-consciousness'. The diary-jottings at the end are
syntactically much closer to the style of Ulysses due to their being more fragmentary.
In the opening pages the 'train of thought' is expressed in complete sentences and
regular syntax.

Let us now look at the role of 'epiphany' in A Portrait. The concept of 'epiphany' is
basic to the appreciation of Joyce's general approach in A Portrait. By an epiphany
Joyce meant a sudden spiritual manifestation or 'showing forth'. With some
stretching of the connotations of the word, it is possible to see A Portrait (as many
critics have done) as incorporating a sequence of related epiphanies in the form of a
forward-moving narrative. The 'showing forth' that Joyce had in mind was the
reality (the 'whatness') of an object, person, an event. The estuary epiphany is the
most notable example of the kind of 'showing forth' that Joyce had in mind. What
happens here is that Stephen, in a flash of insight, recognizes the call of his artistic
vocation, transfigured into the form of the wading girl who becomes for him (then)
the embodiment of art and beauty. The second thing to note is that another aspect of
epiphany (the joy or the sense of enlightenment it creates) is conveyed to us in the
wild transport of delight experienced by Stephen at the sight of the girl. The two
aspects have a way of reinforcing each other. They resonate and bring the fourth
chapter to its rapturous climax. The interview with the Jesuit director also has in it
strong elements of epiphany. That episode needs to be seen in its totality (its before
and after included) to realize its epiphanic status.

4.5 LINGUISTIC FEATURES

To the extent
. --
Joyce's
. -
style in A Portrait
- a - retains naturalistic tendencies,
. - . . - . . it tends
. to. be. -
 with this linguistic thrust is that there is a preponderance of tight structures of Technique
dification (adjectives, adverbs, adjective phrases, adverbial phrases and adjective
auses and adverb clauses) occumng both in pre-head and post-head positions. The
is to give us as exact a description as possible. Three examples of varying length
illustrate this linguistic tendency. The fust is:

The sad quiet grey blue of the dying day came through the window and the
open door, covering over and allaying quietly a sudden instinct of remorse in
Stephen's heart. (p. 176)

3e second example is:

Near the hoardings on the canal he met the consumptive man with the doll's
face and the brimless hat coming towards him down the slope of the bridge
with little steps, tightly buttoned into his chocolate overcoat and holding his
furled umbrella a span or two from him like a divining rod. (p. 191)

e third example is:

He passed unchallenged among the docks and along the quays wondering at
the multitude of corks that lay wobbling on the surface of the water in a thick
yellow scum, at the crowds of quay porters and the rumbling carts and the
illdressed bearded policemen. (p.69)

example, the word 'blow' is modified by three adjectives (sad, quiet, grey)
'came through' is modified by the participir.1 phrase 'covering over and
tly a sudden instinct of remorse'. In the second example, the noun
tive man' is modified by 'with the doll's face and the brimless hat'
se taken together is tied up to the participial phrase 'coming
slope of the bridge with little steps'. This modified structure is
'tightly buttoned into his chocolate overcoat and holding his
an or two from him like a divining rod'. In the third example, the
ed first by 'unchallenged among the ducks and along the
y 'wondering at the multitudes of corks'. The 'corks' themselves
er modified by 'that lay wobbling on the surface of the water in a thick
scrupulousness' is the expression which is quite appropriate for
of nagging accuracy and this accuracy works very well in the service of the
t preoccupation with city-life, with concretion and with immediacy and

I
4.8 LET US SUM UP

other great modernists, technique is an extremely significant part of Joyce's

art and most technical devices are there to add novelty as well as accuracy
entation. The variety of styles in the novel is extraordinary and each
style conforms to some stage in Stephen's growth. 'Stream-of-
ess' is used less extensively here than in Ulysses and epiphany is used to
effect. Tight structures of modification mark the syntax of the novel at

4.7 QUESTIONS

at kind of style does Joyce use to convey the workings of Stephen's mind as
Infant in the opening pages of A Portrait?
A Portrail 2. What do you understand by the term 'stream-of-consciousness'? Which works o,
Joyce use it more extensively than does A Portrait?

3. Write a short note on associative processes in A Portrait in terms oT the random

working of memory leading from one thoughtlimagelimpression to another.

4. How does the use of tight structures of modification (adjectives, adverbs,

adverbial and adjectival phrases and adverb and adjective clauses) help Joyce in
giving textural density to his style in A Portrait?

5. Give at least one example of 'epiphany' &om A Portrait.

4-8 SUGGESTED READING

A good introductory book on mattas related to the technique of A Portrait is

Clristopher Hanson's A Pormit ofthe Artist as a Young Man. Oxford, Basil
Blackwell, 1969. You will find Patrick Parrinder's book James Joyce quite useful in
the matter of shifts on and variety of styles. Anthony Burgess's extensive wntings on
Joyce are useful in the matter of throwing light on Joyce's linguistic virtuosity. His
1980 book Joyceprkk is quite heiphl.
 I
UNIT 5 CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES. : A BRIEF
I SELECTIVE OVERVIEW

1
5.2 ( .Early Critical -on
II 5.3 SubsequentCriticisrn
I
5.4 The Advantages of a Psychoanalytic Approach to A Portrait
I

5.5 LetUsSumUp

5.? A Select Bibliogmphy

i M
5.b OBJECTIVES

we shall look at the criticism related to a A Portrait first in tenns of its

ediate critical reception and then in terms of criticism fiom the forties onward.
shall also see how one recent approach - the Psychoanalyhc approach - is likely
more fi-uitful with this novel.

31 INTRODUCTION

of its critical reception A Portrait has had its share of detractors and its
. Foremost among'those attacking the novel are those who see it as an
ilure on account of Joyce's inability to properly handle 'point of view'.
se believe that Joyce has failed to consistently manage his 'distance' fiom
ephen. Those who see the novel as an artistic success believe that the problem of
e' has been handled quite well by Joyce in A Portrait. More recent
hes have by and large, stopped seeing the 'distance' problem as all that

15.2 EARLY CRITICAL RECEPTION

A- number of its early reviewers saw A Portrait as a seriously flawed book. They saw
in ~t'lack of organisation.' Some had problems with what they saw as its prurient
realism and its franhess about physicality. Some saw the discussion of aesthetics
and the sermons as not hlly integrated into the organic structure of the novel. Some
saw Joyce as a realist but thought that his method was too chaotic to produce the
effect of realism.
A Portrait Quite a few people saw positive merit in A Portrait. The poet Hart Crane found it
'spiritually inspiring.' H.G. Wells saw it as 'by far the most living and convincing
picture that exists of an Irish Catholic upbringing' (Nation, XX (24 February 1917).
Francis Hacket in a review in New February, X, No 122 (3 March 1917) saq ,f
Portrait as not entirely pleasant but thought it 'has beauty, such love of beauty, such
intensity of feeling, such pathos, such candor it goes beyond anything in English that
reveals the inevitable malaise of serious youth'. John Macy in a review in Dial IX ii,
No 744 (14 June 1917) thought A Portrait was outspoken, vigorous, original, .
beautiful.'

5.3 SUBSEQUENT CRITICISM

The broad division in subsequent criticism of A Portrait has been between those like
Hugh Kenner and Wayne Booth on the one hand who attack the novel on some
counts and those on the other hand who are quite enamoured of it. Both Booth and
Kenner fail to appreciate fully tLe novelty of Joyce's effort. Kenner believes that the
vagueness we come across in A Portrait regarding Joyce's precise attitude to Stephen
is calculated and that this vagueness answers the imperatives of a nearly solipsistic
novel. Booth thinks that Joyce fails in properly managing the problem of 'distance'.

Both these criticisms all simplistic in that they fail take into account Joyce's
modernism, his handling of and mastery of a multiple perspective and his subtle
modulation of tone and attitude. As an answer to the Booth Kenner approach, those
sympathetic to Joyce's method take the position that A Portrait uses at least a 'dual
consciousness'. One part of the duality is that which, from Stephen's point of view,
enables Joyce to capture the intimacy of a fust-person narrator, recording and
observing, experiencing at different levels, ages and sensitivities. The other part of
the duality from the point of view of the mature narrator, allowes Joyce to retain
legitimate control of the form and to comment indirectly on the subject matter.

Hany Levin's 1941 book James Joyce :A Critical Introduction is in the forefront of
sympathetic treatments of A Portrait. Some of the major points Levin makes are:

a. The Stephen we finally meet is more sharply differentiated from his

surroundings than the figure Joyce set out to describe;
b. Joyce's notable contribution to English prose is to provide a more fluid
medium fbr refracting sensations and impressions through the author's mind
- to facilitate the transition from photographic realism to aesthetic
impressions.
c. Joyce's use of conversation is one of the most vital elements of Joyce's
writing.

James Atherton's "Introduction" to his edition of A Portrait for the Heinemann

Modern Novel Series in 1964 in another good example of criticism that is
sympathetic to Joyce's overall achievement. The most remarkable thing Atherton's
"~ntroduction"does is to draw attention to cinematic elements in Joyce's narrative
technique in A Portrait.

Seeing A Portrait in the light of technical and stylistic innovations initiated by

Modernism is a big help in arriving at a sympathetic view of the novel. Most books
on Joyce that appeared before poststructuralism came on the scene (around 1966) are
informed by this modernism-sympathetic attitude. Colin MacCabe's 1979 book
James Joyce and the Revolution of the Word was the first full-length attempt t o e e
Joyce's writings from a poststructuralist perspective. John Paul Riqulme and Maud
Ellman are other notable critics who have brought a broadly poststructuralist
perspective to bear on Joyce's works. The broad shift brought about by
~oststructuralist~ermectivescollectively is to orient Joyce criticism towards
 related to identity, naming and patriarchy largely in the light of theories Critical Perspetives:
into currency by the woPir of the French psychoanalyt~cthinker Jaques &Brief Seketive
Overview

t litenuy theory (in relative tenns) has paid much more attention to Uysses
1 to Finnegan 's Wake than to A Pod?. Those two novels provide much mom
I
le ground for many of the mon rqccnt critical trends. In the wake of the relative
out-of-favour of the New Critics in particular and of Formalism of various
general, a text like A Portrait has s u f f h d some relative neglect but for
seriously intemtcd in the h&ve stages of eerly English-language
ism and for those interested in fiction-writing as a rraft, it remains a virtual
f ine. Only whm a reader approaches this novel m a spirit of appreciating
I ernism in general is hehhe able to fully realise the reach and full impact of the
le hngs Joyce did with languae in his novel and the extraordinary
i and compression and radiance with which he was able to do that. If, on the
I
hand, ideology and gender-related issues make a reader hostile to everything
I odemistic', then part of that hostility gets transferred to the reading act itself but
t is seen by many as an affordable loss in this period of reader-empowerment. At
e same time, we should not forget that some of the ideological and feminist
adings are quite likely to go against the grain of this novel.

e approach that is likely to work best with this quintessentially 'Modernistic' novel
s one combining close stylistic and formal analysis with Psychoanalytic insights of
kind provided by the th&es of Jacques Lacan. One such extremely useful
ght is tying up selfhood with the unconscious. The idea of the self as a stable
amalgam of consciousness is sought to be replaced in Lam by seeing novelistic
characters as assemblages of signifi~s (always mobile) clustering around a proper

It is in areas related to growing and the acquiring of identity and to 'otherness' that
Lacanian theories are most relevant for opr present purposes. One of Lacan's most
important texts is 'The Insistence of the letter in the Unconscious.' One question
Lacan poses in this essay (anthologistd by David Lodge in his 1988Modern
Criticism and Tlteory: A Reader) is;

I Then who is this other t

6whom I am more attached than to myself since at
the heart of my own assent to my own identity it is still he who wags me?
(Lodge, p. 102).

In the same essay Lacan insists that the Freudian discovery of the unconscious be
followed through to its logical conclusion, which is the self s radical excentricity to
itself. (Lodge p. 101). Stephen too is preoccupied with 'othemesss' and the nature of
Stephen's existence and of the shape of his character, always depends on the 0 t h
end of his thinking. Personality, seen from this viewpbint, is not something static but
a succession of phases. Because the different modes of Stephen's thought react to his
environment, the arrangement of the overall structure is already an m g e m e n t of
technique as different situations entail different rhythms and modes of thought. Each
chapter in the novel tries t~ offer a coherent image of Stephen but the real focus is on
the 'movement' which involves the shift between the moment of stasis at which
perception fmes on epiphanies at the end of each narrative unit. The distant attitude
that Joyce has toward Stephen early in each unit corresponds to the naturalist view of
the figure trapped by his social system. And yet each chapter ends with a sense of
passing through or passing on and Stephen achieves a transcendence (at each such
point) that brings him close to Joyce.

The cycles of Stephen's progress in A Portrait are rites of sundering and

reconciliation. The word 'sundering' is extremely important in A Portrait because in
the Psychoanalytic approach 'sundering' it tied up with 'lack' and 'desire'. Sin for
Stephen comes to be an activity through which he develops himself by being shaken
loose fiom an established context so that he can gain entry into a realm of semiotic
shifting that expands his range of linguistic structuring. Shaped by the self that he is
yet to become, Stephen (at fourteen or fifteen) already begins to understand the
process by which he is creating that self. The movement toward clarification of his
own self in Stephen's case comes about through expanding into language.

A sense of separation and loss expand Stephen's language in the action of each
chapter. His mind at the same time, moves back and forth between an attractive
maternal image and a threatening paternal one. Whenever he settles into a somewhat
stable relationship with his maternally-oriented environment he perceives a male
figure as threatening this stability. His usual reaction is to set off in a new direction to
find a new world involving a transformed maternity, a shifting of language. The
shifting expands his perception into a new world of images. These images not only
become a new wing of his mental development, they in fact constitute him as a new
person. Seen from this angle, the linguistic flow, imaged as moving liquid or material
embrace at the end of each cycle gives Stephen a new enhanced potential for
language. Contact with maternal flux has a way of energizing Stephen at crucial
points in the text.

The characteristic mode of Stephen's involvement with the world is complex. A very
interesting aspect of the vision Stephen has of himself as an artist is that by projecting
himself outward as a narrator, he generates a creative power that returns to expand
the mind that sent it. Insofar as he creates his object by shaping his story. he creates
himself.

This kind of psychoanalfic line on Joyce's works as a whole is spelt out quite will
by Sheldon Brivic in his 1991 book The Veil of Signs, reference to which has already
been made elsewhere in this unit. My summary of Brivic's argument regarding A
Portrait is a little simplistic but it is sure to go some way in indicating to you how
such a broad approach helps considerably, especially in the case of an identity-
oriented and language-oriented a novel as A Portrait is. Most other current
approaches have in them the potential of being either a misreading or an overreading
or a reading against the grain of the novel. In any case, a very large part of feminist
criticism is informed by Lacanian insights to such a remarkable degree that the
Lacanian approach is bound to be a more comprehensive one. As readers you are
free to go in for any one kind of reading which would be more in keeping with your
own ideological or readerly preferences. The text that you then create will be your
text in keeping with the 'reader-response' notion that a text gets created only in the
process of reading. This could be quite subjective. That subjectivity also needs to be
checked through conventions of reading or through protocols of reading.

To succeed better with Joyce's novel you need to be aware of the technical side of the
modernist enterprise as a whole (with some idea of Imagism, Symbolism,
Modernism). You also need some minimum awareness of some later development
like poststructuralism. Finally, you need to come to A Portrait with a relatively open
mind. Then it will be easier to understand the full implications of the kind of glowing
tribute that Derek Attridge pays to Joyce:

Far more people read Joyce than are aware of it. Such was the impact of his
literary revolution that few later novelists of importance in any of the world':
languages have escaped its aftershock, even when they attempt to avoid
Joycean paradigms and procedures. We are indirectly reading Joyce,
therefore, in many of our engagements with the past half century's serious
fiction - and the same is true of some not so serious fiction too.. .. In
television and video, film, popular music and advertising, all of which are
marked as modem genres by the use of Joycean's techniques of parody and
pastiche, self referentiality, fragmentation of word and image, open ended
 narrative, and multiple point of view. And the unprecedented explicitness Critical Perspectives:
with which Joyce introduced the trivial details of ordinary life into the realm A Brief Selective
of art opened up a rich new tenitory for writers, painters and film makers, Overview
while at the same time it revealed the fruitful contradictions at the heart of the
realist enterprise itself. (Derek Attridge. The Cambridge Companion to
James Joyce, pl)

5.5 1 LET US SUM UP

1Unit of our study material on A Portrait we have briefly looked at some

a1 responses that the novel generated - upon publication and subsequently
s. Joyce criticism has become something of an industry as generations
to unravel the complexities of the writer's mind and his technical
e this Block deals with some of the basics of A Portrait, it is meant to
a more extensive and intensive reading of other available critical
ore incisive understanding of Joyce's novel.

5.6 A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

G. Anderson, James Joyce, Thomas and Hudson, 1986

(ed.) James Joyce: Dubliners and A Portrait: A Casebook, Macrnillan,

1
Sydn y Bolt, A Preface to James Joyce, Longrnan, 1981.

t
Malc lm Bradbury and James McFarlane (eds.) Modernism. Penguin Books, 1976.

P
Sheld n Brivic, The Veil of Signs. University of Illinois Press, 1991.

t
h t h y Burgen, JoycepncR, Clarion Books 1980.

att
Rich d Ellman, James Joyce, Oxford University Press, 1982 (revised edition)

John ross, Joyce, Fontana, 1971.

1.
Chris pher Hanson, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Basil Blackwell, 1969.

e Henke and Elaine Unkeles (eds.) Women in Joyce, University of Illinois

t
Stani aus Joyce, My Brother 's Keeper, Faber & Faber, 1982.

Levin James Joyce: A Critical Introduction, Faber & Faber, 1969 (revised

I
Hugh Kenner, Dublin's Joyce, Chatto and Windus, 1955.

t
Willi m T. Moon, Joyce and Aquinas Yale University Press, 1957.

Parrinder, James Joyce, Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Riqulme, Teller and Tale in Joyce's Fiction, John Hopkins University Press,
AP o w ~ i l l i a mM. Schute (ed.) A Portrait offheArtist as a Young Man,Prentice Hall, 1968.

Thomas F. SEalty and Bernard Ecnstock (eds.)Approaches to Joyce's Portrait :Ten

Essays,University o f Pittsburgh, 1976.

William York inb ball, A Reuder 's Guide to James Joyce, Thomas and Hudson, 1960.

Edmund W i l m Axel's Castle, Charles Scribntr's Sons, 193 1.

 U

@NITI PASSAGES TO INDIA

Objectives u

l ntroduction
Title of the Text
1.2.1 Whitman's poem as source
1.2.2 Forster's adaptation
Earlier Passages to lndia
1.3.1 Babar
1.3.2 The East lndia Company
1.3.3 Government by the Crown
Forster's attitude before his first Passage to lndia
1.4.1 As an individual
1.4.2 As a Novelist
Let Us Sum Up
Glossary
Questions
Suggested Reading I

110 OBJECTIVES

i e primary objective of this unit is to offer a point of entry into the novel A Passageto
1 diu by looking at the causes, the route, and the consequences of journeys in history and
i fiction undertaken to reach India. Forster's understanding of various colonialisms will
b considered so as to lead up to the novel itself.

41 INTRODUCTION .
s a commonplace in nineteenth century European writing to assume that a passage
de from England to India entails a complete revolution in cultural codes and values. \

h a journey made in a P. and O., or a Peninsular and Oriental liner is loaded with a 1

that the Eng!ish voyager who makes it will feel a severance from the only civilised
known to himher at Port Said, at the head of the Suez canal. It is a journey with
resonances which are frequently contradictory. To begin with, the trip is heavy with
-
e of loss. The known world has to be given up for the unknown and of course so !

e common assumption -that which is known has to be superior to that which is

same time, political and moral impefatives make such a passage to lndia not only
ary but wholly admirable. The business 01 empire involves not only the political
ance 01 the conquered country, and the economic control 01 its markets, but
education and enlightenment 01 its subject peoples. Hence the idea of the civilising
sion to the colonised develops at this time, and its best-known expression of course
es in Rudyard Kipling's 1899 poem, 'The White Man's Burden'.

Take up the White Man's burden

Send forth the best ye breed
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild
APassage to India . ~ o " new-caught,
r sullen peoples,
~aif-deviland half-child.

AU the premises on which this writing rests can and must be interrogated. First why are
the colonised never granted the status of their own human individuality ? They are
described as wild beasts (who have been captured with difficulty) who are either demonic
or immature. In no case are they seen as adults capable of deciding their own political and
cultural destinies. Next why is only one value-system -that cherished by Caucasians -
seen as possessing cultural superiority? There is no sense that the subject-peoples might
have developed competing systems of their own which possess equal validity. Then why
is Empire-building so entirely perceived as being a male activity? It remains debatable as
to whether women are not worthy of being involved in this task, or whether such a task is
not worthy of women. Finally why is it that when those who carry the White Man's
burden are said to have gained the moral high ground, no mention is made of the political
and economic gains that accrue to them ? The use of the word 'burden' suggests that
Empire entails moral advantages and practical disadvantages. In fact as our century has
shown, the reverse is true.

I make these points not to demolish Kipling who is an incredibly complicated writer but
to suggest that -writing as he does at the high noon of Empire - it is useful to pick up
notes on which Forster -who writes in the twilight of Empire -sounds variations. The
complexities that surround a journey out of England to lndia are handled in an 1890
poem by Kipling, 'The Exiles Line' which sets out the dynamics of the P. & 0. voyage:
/
Linked in the chaiq of Empire one by one, -.
Flushed with long leave or bnned with many a sun,
The Exiles' Line brings out the exiles' line,
And ships them homeward when their work is done.

Bound in the wheel of Empire, one by one,

The chain-gangs of the East from sire to son,
The Exiles' Line takes out the exiles' line ,
And ships them homeward when their work is done.

The Exiles' Line is of course the Peninsular and Oriental Shipping Company whose
passengers, the exiles line or the generations of Englishmen who serve their country
while stati0md-k India, no doubt shoulder the white man's burden. But look at the
-complex little eddies of meaning here. Isn't there somewhere the notion that Empire-
building is-vaguely a criminal activity ? Else why would Empire-builders be bound on the
wheel, or indeed be part of.chain-gangs, serving their sentence ? The 'chain of Empire',
the 'wheel of Empire' and 'the chain-gangs' all evoke a world of crime and punishment.
Most of all, a passage to 1ndia.i~fraught with a sense of misery contingent on the exile
from the known, the familiar, and the loved world that it entails.

Simultaneously however there is sometimes a sense of liberation that is the result of such
a journey. The unacceptable face of Empire has what appears to be its most infamous
expression in lines like these from Kipling's poem 'Mandalay': 'Ship me somewhere east
of Suez where the best is like the worst, Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an,'
a man can raise a thirst'. Here the suggestion seems to be that people like the speaker,
who is socially and economicatlly challenged -might find love and comfort more easily
'East of Suez' (in other words, on the Indian subcontinent) than in England because oT,
the relaxation in social and moral codes that characterises South-Asia.The question thit
remains is, does this sense of liberation -that is one result of a journey to lndia -have
an acceptable face as well ?
 I

1.2 1 TITLE OF THE TEXT

I . . Whitman's Poem as Source

we took up in at the end of the previous section, the answer is:

it does. The more philosophically acceptable facf:of such a voyage may be
Whitman's poem 'Passage to India' which in turn was a pan of his epic
1 give below an extendql quotation so that its meaning may come

Passage to lndia !
Lo, soul, seest thou not God's purpose from the first ? '
The earth to be spanned, connected by network,
The races, neighbours, to many and be given in marriage,
The oceans to be crossed, the distant brought near,
The lands to be welded together.

All these hearts as of fretted children shall be soothed,

Nature and man shall be disjoined and diffused no more,

The true Son of God shall absolutely fuse them.
(0pensive soul of mine -0 thirst unsatisfied -waitest not there ?

uestions are raised by this poem. First it offers an essentialist

the poem does not mention even one particularising feature of
I, social or economic ? It would seem that the poet's engagement is
r-land of his creation wbich has nothing whatever to do with the
I realities of the subcontinent. It is i s if lndiahas no right to any "
own and exists onty as a territory to be colonised and governed
. Next lndia is shown not to be peopled by its own citizens with
enges but by an amalgam of abstracti~ns-races, voyages,
gain no attempt is made to engage with specificities such as
n that may be used to describe a multicultural society. Then .
ticism - union among all peoples, union among all life-
ith the divine, follow quickly upon each other. What are the
ism, and what has this 'triumphalisrn to do with lndia ? Finally
t' for whom the soul waits, out of all time and space ?

of the questions raised by Whitman's poem which is the

Forster's own novel. some of these questions are answered, and
d in Forster's adaptatiakof the first line quoted above for his title.
A Passage to India 1.2.2 Forster's Adaptation

At first glance the distinction between Whitman's opening line and Forster's title seems
trivial. All Forster seems to do is to slip in the indefinite article before Whitman's phrase
so that it now reads ' A Passage to India'. In reality though he accomplishes a good deal
through this apparently insignificant gesture. Tentativenesd takes the place of certainty. .
'A' passage suggests there may be many more passages than the one taken by the writer
or indeed by any one or all the characters. This sense of competing routes also helps
decentre the notion of the supremacy of the writer. If no one route is superior to the other,
h i s own imagination can no longer claim hegemony over his territory. We do not then as
readers have the passive role of map-readers. You and I might, if we wish, claim the right
and indeed the duty of cartographers or map-makers since the writer does not claim he
has discovered the only, or even the best route to India. Against Whitman's sense of self-
generated and self-sustained romanticism then, it seems to me that this is a more self-
examining and self-critical Modernism. This does not suggest the death of Romanticism
though, for the title is still built around the ideal of an open-ended journey. At the same
time its tentativeness suggests that the title questions it own primacy.

Looking still at the title, it isn't possible for me to say whether Forster himself considers
the predicates of race, class and gender which 1 criticised Whitman for ignoring. I would
like though to indicate a few slight parallels between the two writers. Both wrote during
the aftermath of wars that revolutionised their societies. Whitrnan wrote after the
American Civil war that ultimately brought the industrialised North and the agrarian
south together in the federation that we know today as the United States of America.
More than a century down the road the position of Civil Rights in such a society - one
of the stated war-aims of the Union - is continually debated. Yet Whitman's own
enthusiasm for this democracy led him to write an epic for it, Leaves of Grass, of which
'Passage to India' is a part. Forster began writing A Passage-to India before the First
World War and before its publication witnessed both the formation and the emasculation
of the League of Nations (the predecessor to the UNO)the decline of the British empire
after the war, and the rise of Gandhi. His tentativeness thus is explicable. Thus there are
continuities and discontinuities in their attitudes but I'm not sure this argument can be
pushed much further. Instead I'd like to look at Forster's attitude to earlier passages to
lndia and to earlier colonialisms and colonists. To illustrate my argument 1 will use
Forster's writings around the time of the publication of A Passage to India.

1.3 EARLIER PASSAGES TO INDIA

1.3.1 Babar
In terms of the chronology of conquest the first invader of lndia whom Forster discusses
at any length is Babar, the founder of the Mughal dynasty. At first Forster treats Babar's
aggressive foreign policy as being pretty much a practical application of Machiavelli's
theory of statecraft. Forster's introduction of Babar thopgh is surprisingly disarming: 'At ,

the time that Mqchiavelli was collecting materials for The Prince, a robber boy, sorely in
need of advice, was scuttling over the highlands of Central Asia'. Indeed this seems at
first disquieting. Why should the fact of foreign conquest, based only on force and with
the sole purpose of pillage and loot be trivialised in this way ? I suspect that Forster's
sneaking admiration of Babar's love of life, of friends, and also Forster's enjoyment of'
Babar's prose-style ( as seen in the latter's autobiography) have something to do with it.
Had this been Forster's only response to an earlier invasion of India, it would have been
immature and insignificant.

But Forster's position is more complicated than this. He goes on to use Babar's
disparaging account of India as an early mode! of the antipathy between the conqueror
 .-
Passages to lndia
the conquered. At first he seems to get a good deal of mileage out of this comparison
to be in agreement himself with Babar's Lack of sympathy for lndia and also with the
ish residents in lndia (the Anglo-Indians as he calls them) who subscribe to this
nt: 'His description of Hindustan is unfavourable and has often been quoted with
by Anglo-Indians. "The people," he complains. "are not handsome, have no idea of
arm of friendly society, of frankly mixing togzther ....no good fruits, no ice or cold
o good food or bread in their bazars, no ba:hs or colleges ... .' He has small
ience with a race which has never found either aesthetic or moral excellence by
ussing upon details. Just as Forster seems to agree with these conquerors - both of
ast and of time present - he stands aside from their criticism. He does this not
he suddenly finds some hitherto unsuspected virtues in India. Quite the contrary.
this because he locates a surprising virtue in Babar that he does not find in the
itish. This is the ability Babar shows to respond to a value which according to Forster is
ntral to all lndian cultures, the value of henunciation. Babar gives up his life so that his
n Humayun might live.

Nothing in [Babar's] life was Indian, except, possibly, the leaving of it.
Then, indeed, at the supreme moment, a strange ghost visits him, a
highly unexpected symptom occurs - renunciation. Humayun, his son,
lay sick at Agra, and was not expected to recover. Babar, apprised that
some sacrifice was necessary, decided ... that it must be self-sacrifice.
He walked ceremon~allythree times round the bed, then cried, 'I have
borne it away'. From that moment ...[Babar] ceased to exist ... like the
smoke from the burning ghats that disappears into the sky.

find this remarkable for what it tells me of Forster's understanding of the relationship
etween a ruler and his subjects. First it suggests that Forster's concern is not with
vernance as an end in itself but with the way in which the governance of a culture is
possible without an identification between the conqueror and the core-values of the
onquered. What makes Babar a sympathetic figure for Forster is his graspipg -
accidentally or deliberately -of the lndian value of renunciation. I realise that this lays
Forster open to the charge of essentialism. Why should he write as if there is only one
cultural value-system in India, and why should he so arbitrarily place renunciation within
it ? Is Forster not guilty of continuing the cliche of the 'spiritual9 East ? Still, I find the
passage worthwhile because it shows how Forster goes along with the mainstream culture
of his time -that of the British ruling class -only upto a point. First he shares the
criticism of lndia they make using Babar's own words. Next he goes on to show that
Babar developed beyond this point and that he values Babar's late; position of
appreciation at least as much if not more than his earlier depreciation of lndian culture.
Then the episode suggests Forster's own sympathy with the mainstream not of an early
coloniser (Babar) nor of a contemporary coloniser (the British) but of the colonised.
Finally the simile of the burning ghats shows how the expansion of Forster's political an&
cultural sympathies translate directly into an increase in the resources of his prose-style.

1 1 1.3.2 The East India Company

I

What happens then when Forster examines the cultural sympathies of the British ? For a
start he makes the point that as a nation and also as a colonial power the chief vice of the
.British people is their hypocrisy. By this he means that, as he explains, the British are
guilty not of conscious wrongdoing but of what he calls 'unconscious deceit' which has
led them to be thought of as ' ... the island of hypocrites, the people who have built up an
Empire with a Bible in one hand, a pistol in the other, and financial concessions in both
pockets' (Abinger Hawest, 20). Yet again Forster's criticism seems to be directed at the
attitude of the coloniser rather than against the political and cultural realities of
colonisation. He objects to the unhealthy nexus between empire, religion and commerce.
earlier in this set of 'Notes on the English Character' Forster has already drawn attention
to the strong commercial instincts in the British national character which have led to the
description of the British as 'a nation of shopkeepers'. The empire was essentially a
 I
A Passage to Inrp'a . commercial proposition with the colonies providingihe colonial power with free markets,
cheap human resources, raw mateiials and opportunities for eniployment. And as Forster
explains elsewhere in the essay, religion becomes of significance to him only to the
extent that it brings humanity into direct contact with the divine, When it functions only
as another manifestatidn of imperialism and entails the demolition of other faiths, it
\
become meaningless.

It is exactly this spirit of commercial aggrandisement based on force that characterises the
establishment of the Eqt lndia Company. Despite opposition for the Portuguese who had
already come out as traders, the Company established factories at Surat (1612), Madras
(1639), Bombay (1661) and Calcutta (1690). The Company however had been granted its
original charter -giving it the right to trade -by Elizabeth I in 1600. This is the way in
which Forster condemns the Elizabethan age: 'The Elizabethans, even the greatest of
them ... increased our [i.e., Britains's] political power and glorified our race and are
rightly commended on public occasions. But they were at once too violent and too hazy
to contribute much towards the development of the human mind' [Advani, 1731.1do not
'suggest this is a fair comment on the Elizabethan age. But 1 offer it as a development of
Forster's views Bbout an empire built on commerce. Concerning the earlier essay I'd
suggested the factors that annoyed Forster by their presence in a colonial situation,
namely trade and religion. To my mind this liter essay suggests the factor that annoys
Forster by its absence from a colonial situation, namely philosophy. He indicates that
colonialism in 1ndia -as carried out by the East lndia Company -prevented any
adventure of the hind. In this sense Forster believes, since it blocked out thought, the
Empire as founded by the company could only be temporary.

1.3.3 Governmer~tby the Crown

However unphilosophical Forster might find the colonialism of the company thaugh, he
finds the colonialism of his day and age even more dispiriting, as the imperial
imagination grows increasingly mean-minded and alienated From Indian cultural realities,

After the Mutiny and the transference from John Company to the
Crown the change began. The new type of official ... was harder
worked, less independent and less in touch with the lndian socially ....
So it followed that our conceptions of the land grew more sterile. The
glamour of the nawabs and missionaries had gone, the kindly light of
Tod and Sleeman had gone also. Our guides now were often Anglo-
lndian ladies and their theme the disaster of intermarriage; that disaster
obsessed and obsesses then, and the novels that exhibit it read as though
written on an elephant's back, high above the actualities of the b a r .
We were assured that there was na religion in the country, no literature,
no architecture ....Official enthusiasm had petered out (Das, 1).

I don't quite see the point that Forster makes here as regards his specific examples. James
Tod and William Sleeman wrote about the history of Rajasthan and the suppression of the
Thugs in Central lndia respectively during the time of the same Company Raj which (I
suggested earlier) Forster criticises sharply. Forster's general point however is well
taken. Colonialism, when it leads to an alienation of the rulers from the ruled, does make
any form of art impossible. Religion, literature and architecture are alike enfeebled
because there is no dialogue bvehveen the ruled and the rulers. As a result while
Company rule had used commerce to demolish thought, Forster condemns its successor,
the directwle of the Crown even more seongly. For under the Crown the ipaginations of
both the colonisers and the colonised were vitiated, as the former trivialised the artistic
achievements of the latter. ' Enthusiasm petered out' precisely because it was official
enthusiasm. And this official apathy is precisely the reverse of the sentiments of Babar as
Forster interprets these. Qabar, according to Forster, attacks the daily realities of lndian
life and yet remained inLtouchwith the realities of the Indian spirit. The Civil Service on
the contrary, which administers lndia on-behalfof the Crown ignores the daily realities of
lndian life and is therefore ignorant of realities of the lndian spirit. Forster's attitudes to
 the thr re colonialisms he examines, those of Babar, the East India company and the Passages to IndC
British government thus vary considerably, In general though Forster's attitude to a
particu ar colonialism depends on the attitude it shows to the colonised territory, India.

1.4
1 FORSTER'S ATTITUDE BEFORE HIS FIRST
PASSAGE TO INDIA

I
.1.4.1 As an Individual

s Forster's own attitude to lndia before he came out on his first trip to this
2 ? To begin with, he stressed he unofficial character of his visit. I
le earlier that Forster believeci that the official stand on Indian
as one of sterile apathy. In contrast he insisted on the personal aspect of
ast in part because his feeling for lndia was coloured by two friends,
od whom he had tutored briefly and Malcolm Darling, a college-mate
to the Indian Civil Service. Of Masood Forster wrote: 'My own debt to
le. He woke me up out of my suburban and academic life, showed me
a new civilisation, and helped me towards the understanding of a
met him, India was a vague jumble of rajahs, sahibs, babus and
as not interested in such a jumble, who could be ? He made everything
soon as he began to talk ....'(A Passage to India 7-8. Hereafter, APT),
g because -whether or not Forster is to be believed here -the
ith a sense of liberation that earlier writers [see 1. I and 1.2.11 had
ent to which Forster rises above the jumble ofcliches of which he
e debatable. The very fact though that he recognises such a jumble
level of self-awareness of his personal response to India. This accent on
was valuable to Forster for another reason too. Throughout his career as a
the need of an artist to engage with people rather than with
'I am a novelist and my business lies with individuals not with
nificance of lndia to him, he insists, rests on the basis of a

1
I My connection with 'India is peculiar and personal. It started because 1
made friends with an Indian, but for him I might never have gone to his '
country or writtqn about it ....

It is on the basis of personal relationship that my connection with this

strange country rests. I didn't go there to govern it or to make money or
to improve people. I went there to see a friend. [Ganguly, 2991

questions concerning Forster's attitude to lndia as expressed in these .

t, of what value is the response of an individual to the problems generated '
n this case the system of imperialism ? A personal response alone is
ing about significant political or cultural change. Forster's remarks are'
retreat of liberalism into its own personal world when confronted by a
enge too large for it to handle. Next, lndia is not necessarily stranger than
nation who describes it in this way. All too often the strange is either
nferior or worthy only of being ruled. Yet I believe there is some value in
ion. First he dissociates himself from the empire-commerce-religion nexus
d elsewhere [see 1.3.21. Hq stands aside from empire ('I didn't go there to
commerce ('or to make mmey') and from religion ('to improve people').
may empower him to critiifse these forces more freely.

enough this emphasis on personal relationships helped set Forster's next goal
For Masood was the first person to urge Forster to write a novel on India.
 - -- - -

A Passage to India He believed in Forster's ability to sympathetically feeifor a situation even while
analysing it. In 1911, a year before Forster's visit to India Masood wrote to make a
suggestion: 'You know my great wish is to get you to write a book on lndia ....In you I
see an oriental with an oriental view of life on most things .... Go on improving your
imagination and with it your power of physically feeling the difficulties of another. That
is what d~call tarass ....' (~uibank,1,194). Again I find the assumption that race
determines attitude disturbing. But it suggests yet again the way in which personal and
novelistic p'tessures, so to speak, fuel each other to influence Forster's attitude before he
embarked on his journey to India.

1.5 LET US SUM UP

A passage orjoumey from England to India as seen by an earlier writer like Kipling is
complex. It denies Indians -the colonised -their right to their own political and
cu!tural destinies. It upholds British culture over non-British cultures, marginalises
women and morally exalts imperialists. Imperialism in turn carries contrary implications
of exile, guilt and liberation. Simultaneously lndia is seen in Whitman's poem 'Passage to
India' as the symbol of mystical fulfillment, which has both positive and negative results.
While it exalts India it does not analyse it in terms of race, class and gender specificities.
Forster's adaptatioq of Whitman's phrase for the title of his novel suggests a greater self-
examination and a mqve from Romanticism to Modernism. It allows the reader her own
point of view and requires her to make her own journey through the text. Forster wrote
about three colonial regimes before the publication of A,P&age to India. These were the
governments of Babar, the East India Company and the Crown. His attitude to any
colonising power is shaped in thrn by what he regards as its attitude to its colony, India.
So his approval of them declines accordingly in descending order. Finally Forster's own
attitude to India was shaped by his personal relationshid? and his goal as a novelist. His
close friend Syed Ross Masood suggested he write a novel about India, while praising
Forster's quality of tarass or imaginative sympathy.

1.6 GLOSSARY
Anglo-Indians Forster uses this t e q to denote British
people who lived in India. Please do not
confuse this with current usages
Cliche - A stereotyped hackneyed phrase.
Essentialism A Critical approach which suggests there are
truths of universal accuracy and application.
Imperatives Urgent, commanding requirements.
Interrogated Questioned.
Modernism' A movement in the arts at the start of the
twentieth century which uses devices such as
multiple narratives, and points of view to
offer . a psychologically convincing
presentation of reality. James Joyce and
' Virginia Woolf are among the modernists.
Romanticism , A movement in the arts at the beginning of
q e nineteenth century which suggests that
sdbjective reality (the landscape of the mind)
\
-'\ shapes objective reality (the external
landscape). Wordsworth and Coleridge are
among the early Romantics. z
 Passages to India
QUESTIONS

Outline the connotatib,ns of a passage to India in late nineteenth century writing.

What are the positives and the negatives of such a passage ?
\
What is your understandingof the phrase, 'the White Man's burden' ? Analyse
its implications.

Indicate the possible advantages and disadvantages in Forster's insistence on the

personal quality of his response to India.

1.a. SUGGESTED READING

-
~ Prim y material
E.M. rster. Abinger Harvest. 1936, repr.
Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1974

see0 mry material

Furbi :, P.N. E.M.Forster: A Life. 1977, repr. (in one
vol.) Oxford, 1979.
3oor Ileke, D.C.R.A m ma& ojthe Raj. London, 1988.
Gree~ :rger, Allen J. The British Image ofIndia: A Study in the
Literature imperialism. London, 1969.

I
I
 UNIT 2 REPRESENTATION OF INDIA (A)
APPROACHES TO THE,NOVEL
STRUCTURE

2.0 Objectives
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Kinds of writing in thetext
2.2.1 The Travel Guide
2.2.2 The c is tory textbook '
2.2.3 The Romantic landscape
2.2.4 Social comedy
2.2.5 The Modernist quest
2.3 Kinds of writing about the text
2.3.1 Studies in symbolism
2.3.2 Studies in language
2.3.3 Colonial-discourse analysis
- _ . --
.-
2.4 Let Us Sum Up
2.5 Glossary
2.6 Questions
2.7 Suggested Reading

2.0 OBJECTIVES

The two main objectives of this unit are (a) to indicate the varioui kinds of writing in A
Passage to India and (b) to indicate various critical approaches which may be applied to
the text. Taken together they suggest the wide range of representations of India: those
offered by Forster in the novel and those offered by critics who have written about this
and related texts as well. All illustrations from the text will be drawn from its opening
chapter so please read Chapter 1 alongside this unit.

2.1 INTRODUCTION

The epigraph to Howard End, the novel Forster published immediately before A Passage
to India urges the importance of connection: 'Only connect the prose and the passion ...
and both will be exalted'. I think'of this as suggesting something of a clue to Forster's
method in the later novel in the way it indicates the need to make links and connections
between various levels of reality both within the text and outside it, between various ,
kinds of literature with which Forster was familiar and between various lontradictory
political and cultural influences on the period over which the novel was written. This
activity of building bridges and associations was one that was self-avowedly close to
Forster's heart. As he once said 'My defence at any Last Judgement would be that I was
trying to connect up and use all 'the fragments 1 was born with'. Does this activity suggest
the need for tarass or imaginative sympathy -particularly when exploring a range of
cultures -which was discussed at the end of Unit 1 ? Or does it suggest a concern with
self-expression that may edge out political and culturalconcerns outside the self? The
answer is a matter of opinion but in either case please try to think of how a texi which
results from such a need for connection, is likely to have within it several types of
'
writing. I suggest that each kind of writing in A Passage to India is the expression of a
particular kind of reality -historical, literary or philosophical. Furthennore each kind ~f
writing produces a certain representation of India which in turn corresponds to that
particular order of reality. I shall try to work my way through these types of writing in the
order in which they appear in Chapter I . Please keep your text open throughout this unit
so that you can make your own readings and draw your own conclusions.
 II also discuss some well-known critical approaches to the text. I shall try to illustrate Representations of
e approaches with examples from Chapter 1 and to suggest - as 1 see them -the India (A):
gths and the limitations of each. I shall also try to indicate how each kind of criticism Approaches to the
ces a corresponding represkntation of India. Novel
\ *

I make a few suggestions h e y ? First -although only Chapter 1 is used for the
-
of convenience illustration? of textual and criti'cal practices set out in Unit 2 may
und throughout the novel. Please apply these arguments as freely as you wish. Next

you read this unit and when you read the novel you will see how each categqry of

k best however when yoa begin to map your journey through A Passage to India.

2b KINDS OF WRITING IN THE TEXT

1
2. .1 The Trivel-Guide

ry first thing that the text does, I think, is to trick the reader. Look at the way it
L

Except for the karabar Caves -and they are tweqty miles off -the city
of Chandrapore nothing extraordinary. Edged rather than washed
by the river Ganges, it trajls for a couple of miles along the bank, scargely
distinguishable from the rubbiqh it deposits so freely....The streets are
mean, the temples ineffective, and though a few fine houses exist they are
hidden away in gardens or down alleys whose filth deters all but the
invited guest ....The very wood seems made of mud, the inhabitants of
mud moving. '

does this kind of writing actually do ? First it seems designed to help a reader
e' a town in her mind by suggesting its importance on account of any natural,
a1 or architectural features it may possess. Conversely, as in this case, it helps the
te such a town as being of no significance since - bar the caves -Chandrapore
o extraordinary feature. Next the accountseems designed to help a reader find her
nd such a town. River, streets and buildings are 'placed' against each other so
gliness which marks one feature automaticalky touches the next. Again the
r's mind seems to be made up for her in advance. Even before she sees the town to
e for herself, the account appears to h'ave tqken her decisions for her. All its m a p
em to have been rated. Indeed, so negative is the account in the particular and
nerd that she may well decide to give the town a miss. Finally the account seeks to
r the meanness of the town to its residents. 'The very wood seems made of mud,<
ts of mud moving'. The dismissal seems complete as people and places seem
the dustbin where they belong.

d of an account is this ? It is in fhct very like a travel-guide designed to provide

ith as comprehensive an accountof a country as possible before she embarks
can plan a pleasant and profitable stay. To help a tourist prioritise sights and
el-handbooks usually have a system of rating. Indeed in his first two novels
r had aiready had a good deal of fun with travel-guides. Where Angels Fear to
Room with a View had pointed out how limited were the insights offered by
ar travel-guides to the culture of Europe in general and Italy in particular. Its
predetermining the interest of a place by awarding it an appropriate number of
A Passage to Iridia stars was shown to be futile, as it could offer na reliable guide to the inner values of a
place or its people. Now in A Passage to India Forster parodies the travel-guide by
adopting its style while subverting the application of its contents. Place this extract from a
survey of Bankipore -the real-life equivalent of Chandrapore, where Forster stayed
. x
with Masood on hi$ first trip to lndia - alongside the opening of the novel. Keep an eye
- open for similarities and dissimilarities.

The city of Patna ... includes the suburbs of Bankipore and Jafur Khan's
garden, an extent nearly of nine miles along the bank of the Ganges ....
Many of the houses are built of brick, more however are built ~f mud with
tiled roofs, but very few are thatched. To outward view they are
exceedingly unsightly and slovenly, and are rendered peculiarly mean by ,

the lower storey .... The inside of the town is disagreeable and disgusting,
and the view of it from a distance is mean ....Still, however, the appearance
... is very s o w , the predominant feature being an irregular high steep bank
of clay without herbage, and covered with all manner of impurities.
(Ganguly, 335)

To my mind, as far as notation of minor details goes, there is no great difference between
Forster's opening and this extract from Francis Buchanan's Survey Report of 181 1-1812.
The difference lies in the application of these details. Buchanan is very clear that the
town is disgusting and that is all there is to it. Forster appears to make the same
connections but I think there is an important difference. Take for instance that sentence
which is deeply offensive at first glance: 'The very wood seems made of mud, the
inhabitants of mud moving'. When I look at it more closely though I find myself asking,
'From whose point of view is the remark being made?' The answer I suspect is 'From
the point of view ofthe remote travel-guide writer, or perhaps the travel-guide reader
who naturally share the same biases'. Such a person is furthermore likely to be someone
who is passing through lndia as a tourist with an eye for the well-known rather than for
the obscure. It is for such a person that this representation of lndia is constructed. In fact,
as the opening sentence shows, Forster has already demolished the spirit behind the
travel-guide by insisting, not on well-known sights of Chandrapore, but on the less well-
known feature: the Marabar caves. Except for these (and they are twenty miles outbf
town) the implication is that Chandrapore is not worth visiting. So what does the reader
do ? If she thinks of visiting the town she is warned, well in advance, that it is
unremarkable. If she thinks of giving it a miss she is warned, again well in advance, that
it has the extraordinary caves. This is what I meant earlier when I said that Forster
preserves the format of the travel-guide while subverting its content. He appears to
construct a model - lndia as the subject of a travel-guide - only to demolishlt. The
kinds of writing at work in the novel, and the resulting representations of lndia, are very
much more complex.

2.2.2 The History Textbook

Next there is the model of the histo'ry textbook as Chapter 1 goes on to set out the history
of Chandrapore 'Chandrapore was never large or beautiful but two hundred years ago it
lay on the road between Upper India, then imperial, and the sea, and the fine houses date
from that period. ?he zest for decoration stopped in the eighteenth century, nor was it
ever democratic'. If the model of the travel-guide as suggested above [2.2.1] may be
found in the nove1,so may that of the history textbook. The travel-guide organises details
spatially ('twenty miles-off, 'along the bank') while the history book organises details
temporally ('two hundred years ago', 'the eighteenth century'). Earlier [1.3.3] 1 had
suggested that Forster sometimes plays one colonialism off against another. Now, in
Chapter 1, he refers to two imperial governments. First there is the Mauryan empire, with
its capital Patliputra (Patna) which is close to Bankipore (the Chandrapore of the novel).
Forster had referred to the Mauryan empire in a review-essay written ten years before A
;Passage to India where he noted that the Mauryan empire had proved impermanent in
bontrast to Buddhism whith had started under the Mauryas but had outlived it into the
present day: 'The Mauryan empire is famous not for its extent or duration, though both
 able, but for the edicts of Asoka9(Ganguly,340). 'Then there is of course Representations of
eriod during which Forster writes. Two points I think may be noted lndia (A):
r cuts across time and space to take a quick look at two imperialisms. I . Approchts to the
e 'then imperial' very clever. It decentres British India's notion of itself as Novel
w unique by suggesting that lndia has known other imperialisms in time .
time we read Forster's account of the British area in Chandrapore it has
ivested of its pretensions. It stands as only one phase in history. Other
ded it and will by inference supersede it as well. Then Forster shows
isms have been anti-people. '... the fine houses date from that [the
d. The zest for decoration stopped in the eighteenth century, nor was it
*. In other words, the Raj was not the first form of oppression to be
n people - if domestic architecture is a reliable index - have always
h ugly and mean whether ruled by the Mauryas or by the British who in
ct a township 'which charms not, neither does it repel'.

er construct this historical model ? I wouldn't care to choose one option

t I'll suggest a few. First this m6del as I've suggested before debunks
uniqueness. Nextt~uggeststhat all imp,erialismsare fundamentally
This may seem a more radical point than it actually is because Forster's
y are somewhat mixed: ' So Two cheers for Democracy: one because
two because it permits criticism. Two cheers are quite enough: there
e Beloved Republic deserves that* (Wasi, 61). ,
,Forster is careful to associate fine houses and
rule. His history textbook is not quite so clear on the class issue as
ed Forster suggests such a two-edged proposition is he a critic of
ism or an apologist for it ? Does he suggest that because India has been
ed in time past its conquest in time present is justifiable ?

an intensely Romantic mode of writing, usually reserved for descriptions of

. This kind of writing is characterized by the way in which a subjective
apes external reality. Look for instance at this stretch of prose.
settks everything -not only climates and seasons, but when the earth shall be
. By herself she can do little -only feeble outbursts of flowers, But when the
rain into the Chandrapore bazaars, or a benediction pass from
32). At first it seems to be a lyrical description of a given
ion, however, which I think is governed by a particular
principle in turn is Forster's desire to show that there is a
both sections of Chandrapore: the Indian and the British. I
were ugly. Now, to show that humanity is not the only or even
,Forster shows his readers what the cosmos, or non-human
potential for beauty is shown here. Look at the deliberate
the one hand he has shown us how the human
terised by alienation -whether race-based or class-based
led to ugliness and meanness. On the other hand, in this
orld of nature pronounces a bbnediction or a final blessing
Ily rainirig its beauty down on the city. The non-human
ions of class and race generated by the human world as
shared alike by all humanity.

omantic writing because I think that the desire to organise external reality
of nature) emerges from within the writer's imagination. In other words I find
mple of how landscape becomes psychoscape. What begins as a map of a
a map of the mind. I'd like now to look at the consequences of Romantic
ust be said, 1 think ,that his reliance on Romanticism allows Forster some
e within which he can mount a critique of imperialism. Seen from such a
oint the divisions that keep humanity so hopelessly fissured, and that are the
 product of various imperialisms, are shown as being of no lasting importance. In a way
this might be said to recall a linehom Whitrnan rl.2.11:

All these separations and gaps shall be taken up and hook'd and link'd together/
The whole earth, this cold impassive, voiceless earth, shall be completely
justified.

At the same time I think Forster may be reckoned more radical than Whitman on this
point as Forster's opening shows nature to be an active, deciding participant in the cosmic
drama: ' The sky settles'everything ....' The non-human world is thus brought into the
novel to redress the imbalances and discriminationscreated by the human world. In this
sense I think it is fair to say that Romanticism is used to facilitate a critique of
imperialism.

Nonetheless the game charge of essentialism discussed in the context of Whitrnan rl.2.11
may be brought against Forster here. Yet again no attempt is made to consider the
specificities -social, political or cultural -of the Indian situation. Is Forster using the
beauty and an unexamined assumption of liberation that sometimes characterises this,
writirig to gloss over such ugly realities ? In other words is Romanticism ultimately being
used as an escape-hute away from the guilt of Imperialism ?

2.2.4 Social Comedy

If the novel provided the reader with drama only on a cosmic scale, I would be tempted to
say 'Yes'. However4 Passage to India also works an the level of social comedy and the
comic mode functions as a useful corrective to the cdsmic mode. Take for instance this
account of the Civil Station from Chapter 1: '...viewed hence Chandrapore appears to be
a totally different place ....It is a tropical pleasance, washed by a noble river. The toddy 1
palms and neem trees and mangoes and peepul that were hidden behind the bazaars now 1
become visible and in their turn hide the bazaars .... They glorify the city to the English
...
people so that newcomers cahnot believe it to be as meagre as it is described, and have
to be driven down to acquire disillusionment'. Look at the curious way in which the
writing works. First there is an eloquent overtlow of feeling for the beauty that seems to
be an integral part of the town when viewed from its British enclave of the Civil Station.
The deliberate use of the archaic word 'pleasance' heightens this stereotypical
Romanticised picture, rather like that of Cgleridge's Xanadu where 'Alph the sacred
river ran / Through caverns measureless to man / dawn to a sunless sea'. Next there is a
slight change. The trees are given their common Indian names, neem and peepul, and are
shown to hide the sordid realities of bazaar life. Then the reader is told that even if the
trees look beautiful, the newcomer is warned to expect a meagre town. Finally the exotic
pretensions of the description are punctured by the line about the disenchantment people
feel when they are made to confront the ugly realities behind the leafy screen of the trees.
b
Social comedy thus punctures easy Romanticism. The cosmic seems likely to yin at first:
the tropics are paradise, the river noble, and the trees are stronger than 'man and his
works'. The comic is always at hand though and introduces the note of disuillusionment
by wryly pointing out that at the end of the day there is always a sense of let-down. So
the intensely-imagined metaphysical presentation of India that was discussed earlier
[2.2.3] is questioned from within by thejcomic mode.

2.2.5 -'Ge&lode~ist Quest

Ultimately there is also 1 think a modernist impulse that helps shape the novel. Chapter 1
for instance begins and ends on the same note: that of the challenge posed to order and
mtionality by the Marabar Caves. The very first sentence announces their extraordinary
nature and the conclusion circles back to a reminder of the 'fists and fingers [that] are the
Marabar Hills, containing the extraordinary caves'. I suspect that the caves are used here
to suggest a disturbance of a sane and unquestioning acceptance of the universe. They
defy all rational attempts to classify them. To this extent they may perhaps symbolise a
quest for meaningthat, within-the context of Modernism [see Glossary to Unit 1 ] could
 in upon itself. Pushed to its logical conclusion such an argument might once again be Representation of
to press charges of essentialism against this representation of India. Once again the India (A)
may be raised as to whether this search for meaning might not lead the novelist Approaches to the
al problematic social and political issues concerning India. If so, can he be Novel
have the vested interest of supporting empire at heart ? I'm not sure we need to
s-or-no answer here though, largely because I find Forster's modes of *

ng India always varied and sometimes mutually corrective.

2.4 KINDS OF WRITING ABOUT THE TEXT

1
2. 1 Studies in Synibolism

rster is not the only who represents India. The critidal industry that has
-
ed itself with A Passage to India has while addressing the text - also
ted representations of India. I'll consider the specifics in Units 4 and 5 but just
like to address more general trends in critical thought and method. Textual
n will again come from Chapter 1 so please continue to keep your texts open.

cue perhaps understandably from Forster's own perception of fiction as art

uld be 'melody or a perception of the truth' one of the influential critical trends
has been that which sees the novel as an extended symbolic system. The main
it makes is that the text works chiefly on the level of symbolic statement ...
n most novels it has to be absorbed and contemplated, meditated upon like a
fore its yields its secrets' (Beer, 16). Following this is the further assumption
broadly speaking -the meaning of the text is equal to the sum of the meaning of
Wilfred Stone's The Cave and the Mountain: A Stu@ ofE..M. Forster
most comprehensive book-length study of the way in which the symbols of
novel convey universal truths about human psychology and experience. Here is an
act from Stone's book, from which I will try to illustrate his method:

The caves represent the unconscious in two senses - the repressed

elements in the individual life and the survivals in modem man of the
pre-historic and the prk-human, those elements that Freud termed the
id, so that [the echo from the caves] is something before language ...
[and] before mofality. It is a time and condition that wipes out
distinctions -- all the 'disctinctions on which Anglo-India built its
culture and empire. ~ h a isi why it is so terrifying: to lower one's guard
before the primal forces of the unconscious is ... nothing less than an
t

abdication of all culture and a return to something like savagery (Beer,

.
the n'ovel then locates its meaning in the 'fists and fingers' of
ich the opening ch'apter so compulsively returns. I will try to\
aves themselves in Units 4and 5 but just now I'd like to suggest some
of giving the novel a largely symbolic meaning. First as the above extract
sts that essential human experience is somehow a common denominator
inctions of time, place, race, class and gender. But isn't human
these distinctions 7 Far instance, if we were to look at the novel as
rience as members of a colonising culture are likely to differ
former colony. Can there be any core of human experience
1s universally true and not touched by distinctions of culture, history and gender7
by reading the novel as an extended symbol, or an extended series of symbols,
at are cultural or historical are also ignored. Take for example
there is something comic about the phrase 'fists and fingers'. It is
you and I might be of the stereotypical Romantic images of sky,
ides to humanise an essemtially non-human landscape in this
the caves go on to be terrifying rather than homely but Forster (I
y this contrast. Finally the symbolic method represents India as
exotic than it is, since it holds that the novel has 'to be meditated upon like a
A Passage to India mandala'. Such an approach may suit a ruler as the exotic is distant and therefore can be
shaped according.to a ruler's will or a ruler's imagination. It may also suit a tourist since
the exotic always has curiousity-value. But to what extent does it help our passage
\
\ through the text ?

\, 2.3.2 Studies in ~ a n h a ~ e
a

',
With analyses of language 1 find myself much further down the road. Take the following 1
extract for instance and place it (as this critic goes on to do) against the first paragraphof
the novel:
\
So far as this text is ideological, it is an ideology which manifests itself
, as space - the space between cultures, the space beyond the human,
the space which never will be sufficiently filled by aspiration or
encbunter .... The frequent use of the word 'nothing' in A Passage to
lndia therefore supports my general argument that negation has
.-.---
I
ideological significance (Beer, 46-7).

First try to list the various forms of negation that occur in the opening paragraph:
'nothing extrwrdinary','scarcely distinguishable', 'no bathing steps', 'not to be holy',
'nor was it ever democratic', 'no painting' and 'scarcely any carving'. Next contrast this
with the apparently positive constructions: 'Houses do fall, people'are drowned'. Does
this not suggest that meaning is to be found in the negatives which move the description
ahead rafher than the positives which carry a sense of black' farce ? Then try to work out a
possible consequence. Can it be that this is going to be a novel where what is either
unstated or just mentione'd will be more important that what is ceaselessly described ? In
this case for example the Marabar Caves to which reference is made only twice in
Chapter 1 are easily more important than the Chandrapore which is described in detail.
Finally think about the theoretical significances of this critical model. At the end of this ,
essay, the critic remarks 'Forster's work presages the end of empire, not simply of the Raj
in India (though it does that) but also the end of that struggle for dominion which is
implicit in the struggle for language and meaning -the struggle to keep man at the i
centre of the universe' (Beer, 58). Here I should sqy that I have divided views. I agree
that -as with the negatives in Chapter I - I feel I am reading a text written towards the
end of the Raj in the sense that the language draws attention to the power of the non-
human and human worlds to survive various imperialisms. But doesn't the language draw
- a great deal of attention to itself? After all we do not meet a single character or event in
Chapter 1. We interact only with the language. And I tind that puts a burden on me
because -as in this chapter - I am forced to relate immediately to the novelist and to
what Ire thinks and feels as he represents India. What do you think about language here 7
I
I

2.3.3 Colonial-Discourse,Analysis I
I
. \

~nhyseesof writing about India focus with increasing frequency on the politics of the
representation of India, whether these be the politics of race, the politics of class and the
politics of gender. I have clubbed these three subdivisions tagether not becfluse I think
they are synonymous but because -with this kind of fiction -there has been a
continuing dialogue between these subdivisions. Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) is an
exhaustive exploration of the 'discipline by which European culture was able to manage
-and even produce -the Orientpolitically, socially ...and imaginatively' (Said,.4).. In
other words Said suggests that just as imperialism means political control in the field of
government and economic penetration of markets it implies a certain representation of
the East in literature. This stereotypical representation portrays the East as irrational,
incapable of self-government and therefore open to the organising imagination of Europe.
Subsequently Aijaz Ahmad's In Theory: Classes, Yations, Literatures (1992) inshts that
class and gender are as important as race when it comes to understanding human
experience. Neither Said nor Ahmad has written on Forster at any.great length here so I
wiU try to apply their ideas to Chapter 1 to suggest how these work. As farm'the question
of race goes, we ate told about the Indian inhabitants of Chandrapore, the British visito~
 , Representationof
nd the Eurasian commun~ty.1'11 come to the question of class in a little
t now I'd like to suggest how race influences point of view. As I indicated
\, ' India (A)
Approaches to the
I find the greater part of Chapter 1 written from the standpoint of a
Novel
tern obsever. But look at the second paragraph: 'On this second rise is laid
ivil Station, and viewed hence Chandrapore appears to be a totally differeyt
ty of gardens. It @ no city, but a forest sparsely scattered with huts'. Now,
a n d r a ~ r eis wheM3determined by race as the Civil Station has a
is solely British. Only British residents therefore are likely to have access
iew of Chandrapore. To the Indians the town is completely ugly. At the
suggested earlier [2.2.4] this sense that ~handra~ore is beautiful is a
perspective the British have on Indian reality is one of loveliness, yes,
is false. Race thus cbnditions point-of-view in an intensely ambiguous

'
uestion of class ? To my mind this is an incredibly dodgy proposition.
's narrative interrogates colonialism, it does little to examine class ,
oned a little while ago [2.2.2] why I thought ~orster%hesitation to take
class complicates his position on colonialism. I'd like now to reinforce
h the help of another textual illustration:'Houses do fall, people are i

neral outline of the town persists swelling here,

ndestructible form of life'. It seems to me to make a
t on the position of common people. Over the centuries various
or British -have treated their subjects as people of no importance.
e death of such people is of any consequence to their rulers. So life
em and indeed passed from them to the inanimate town which now
low but persistent life-form. Is Forster's comment here a critique ,
r empire which takes away the importance of common people ? Or
note the fact and pass on, without making any commitment on the

nce from Chapter I to disc~issthe issue of genbe! in Forster's

so I will pick it up as I go along. Please be as open to this question
though, as you are to the questions of race and class. Remember
nt of Said's model of colonnial-discourse analysis is precisely this
der are as important as race when it comes to discussing human
ee (as I've shown how questions of race and classcomplicate
ns of race and gender affect each.other as well.

in this way it is clear that the reader can intcrrogate the premises
cted so that its preferences and prejudices emerged clearly.
ke these questions further. For instance, is Forster's position 04
his age ? What in turn does this tell us of his times 7 However
scrupulously handled so that a reader does not allow her own
to colour the text. As an lndian woman I maynote (as I just
say on the question of gender in Chapter 1. I may not draw
xplore the text further to collect evidence on this point.
the great advantage of readings such as these is that they take the
of the moment of production of the text, and of the moment of reception
A Passage to India political and cultural realities of India. The linguistic model can be used to focus on areas
&textual difficulty(studies of language) that are symptomatic of areas of political
difficulty (the loss of Empire). Models of colonial discourse focus on questions of race,
class and gender at the moment of production of a text and at its moment of reception.

Moment of production The period when a text is written,

and the historical and cultural
trends which shape that period
Moment of reception The period when a reader interacts
with the text, and the historical and
cutlural trends which shape that
period
Pleasance Pleasure-ground
Premises (in this context) Basic assumptions of a text or
argument, from which further
inferences are drawn
Subvert / Overthrow or destroy from within

2.6 QUESTIONS (TO BE ANSWERED WITH THE

HELP OF CHAPTER 1

Q 1. How and why does Forster subvert the content of a travel-guide ?

Q 2. What are the characteristics of Forster's presentation of history? 6

Q 3. How and why does Forster romanticise the landscape ?

Q4. What is the relationship between EITHER the cosmic and the iomic OR
between Romanticism and Modernism?

Q 5.. Give the opening pa;agraph of Chapter 1 EITHER a symbol-based OR a

language-based reading.

Q 6. Use the factors of race A N D class to analyse the second paragraph of Chapter I .

2.7 SUGGESTED READING

Primary material

E.M. Forster Two Cheers for Democracy (1948) repr. ed.

Oliver Stallybrass, Abinger edn. 1 1 London
I
1972.
Secondary material
Beer, John (ed.) A Passage to India: Essays in Interpretation.,
London, 1985.
~ a n ~ u lAdwaita:
y; India: Mystic, Complex, Real. Delhi, 1990.
*IT 3 HISTORY AND A PASSAGE TO
INDIA

3.2.2 In fiction

3.3.1 Infact
3.3.2 In fiction
3.3.3 In letters and essays

3.4.1 Outside the novel

I
3.0 1/ OBJECTIVES
te objective of Unit 3 is to outline the various dramatic changes that took
ry between 1912 (the year of Forster's first trip to India) and 1960 (the year
orded comment of politi'cal significance on the novel). The ultimate
is unit is to suggest how these changes in history shape the theme of the
ay Forster thought his readers might look at it. Please read the novel
it. Sections I and 11 of the novel will be used to illustrate 3.2 and sections
rate 3.3 and 3.4 Give A Passage to India a very quick reading at this
a more detailed reading of the novel after Units4 and 5 which will be

3.1 (INTRODUCTION L

I
end of Unit 2, I used the phrask 'the'moment of production' which sugge'sts
ng of A Passage to India took place at one point in time. This is not so. The
ave it, was begun by Forster on his 1912-1913 visit to India. The outbreak
rld War (1 914- 1918) was one of the many reasons why Forster put it
out to India for the second time (1 92 1 - 1922) bringing the draft of his
el with him and published it finally in 1924. He continued to write various
art and mythology and made a third visit to this oountry in 1945. Forster
(and spoke) on Indian'art and mythology, publishing in 1953 The Hill of '

of letters from his first tw; visits. I believe that A Passage to India as
oday is a curious palimpsest comprising various layers of fact and
apidly changing historical face of lndia. Of course these layers do not
n the other. There is a good deal of bluming, overwriting, and erasure.
it to separate these layers so as to suggest the nature and extent of the
--

A Passage way in which tile novel interprets history. I shall also focus on the way in which history
and philosophy combine to contribute to the main theme of the novel.

Forster's own hope on his first visit to lndia was that it would somehow provide him with
material for another novel. After the 1910 publication of Howards End he felt he had
exhausted the only subject that could be handled in contemporary fiction. namely the
ielationship between the sexes. ye had in any case lost interest in this subject and cast
around for a new theme, anxious that he might have run out of possible subjects for
fiction. As he wrote to a friend: 'You ask me about my work. I feel you too sympathetic
to keep silent. 1 am dried up. Not in my emotions, but in their expression. I cannot write
at all .... I see beauty going by and have nothing to catch it in .... I wapt something
beyond the field of actipn and behaviour: the waters of the river that rises from the
middle of the earth to join the Ganges and the Jamuna where they join. lndia is full of
such wonders ....' (Furbank 1,249).

I think this letter suggests some useful clues about Forster's attitude to lndian realities
before his initial journey here. First his use of the Saraswati (the invisible 'river that rises
from the middle of the earth ....') indicates Forster's desire to somehow capture a ,
metaphysical rather than a historical theme for his novel. N a t it suggests Forster's wish
to extend the frontiers of the novel as an art-form beyond an examination of reality
('something beyond the field of action and behaviour'). Then it offers an idea as to,the
importance of lndia for Forster. lndia was not only thought to be 'full of such wonders'
(which as 2.4.3 suggests might be another extension of orientalism) but to be a means of
exploring and expressing these philosophical truths. Finally the letter-demonstrates
Forster's desperate need for s6mething that would ease his inability to write ('I am dried
up') and his belief that lndia is what he needs to help him deal with this problem. All four
intentions &e ahistorical, that is, they have nothing to do with history. Yet (as I will
demonstrate over the next three subdivisions) the novel has to use history and has to be
altered by historical pressures, before it cnn claim to set history aside. How exactly does
this work ?

Simultaneously however individual protest could not be ruled out. Forster had first-hand
experience ofthis, for a young lawyer-friend of his burst out while riding with him 'It
may be fifty or five hundred years but we shall turn you out' (Furbank, 258). The
Morley-hiinto reforms, culminating in the lndian Councils Act of 1909 had originally
been anticipated by the Congress 'as likely to constitute an early step on the road to self-
government. In fact though the Reforms had proved.disappointing. Greater representation
was given to Indians in the provincial councils but Britain was very keen to avoid any
suggestion of parliamentary franchise. So the model of government offered by the Act
was representative rather than responsible as far as lndian members were concerned. It
was intended to appease the moderates in the Congress who were in favour of gaining
Swaraj or self-government by means of constitutional reform. The extremists in the
freedom struggle after the Surat split.in Congress ranks in 1907 had become (by 19 12-
1913) less important. The Moderates led by Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Motilal Nehru
dominated the ~dngressat this time. From the point of view of British rule, George V's
Darbar of 191 1-1912 had been the most spectacular event of rwent times. The transfer of
the capital from Calcutta to Delhi had been announced at the Darbar. Unlike Forster's I
second visit to lndia then, the first took place at a time of relative political calm.

How, if at all, were these cross-currents to reapppear in the novel ?

3.2.2 In fiction
First this period of relative tranquillity is,used as a point of reference in the novel.
$lthough I hope to show that the greater part of the novel is influenced by Forster's
,
 nd visit I believe that the first visit appears as vaguely evocative of a Golden Age History i ~ n dA
re politics blighted personal relationships. Pnssnge to Inciia

[Hamidullah]was glad that Aziz, whom he loved ... took no interest in

politics which ruin the character and career, yet nothing can be achieved
without them. He thought of Cambridge - sadly, as of another poem that
had ended .... Politics had not mattered .... 'Th<:re, games, work and
pleasant society had interwoven, anti appealed..
to be7 suff~cient
substructure for a national life. Here all was wire-pulling and fear (API
120).

hard to know how to read this. It seems as if in terms of place an apolitical life is
eated as a luxury which India cannot afford for her people. It also seems as if the
being apolitical has come to an end, certainly for the lndians and possibly even
ritish. Next when the novel was p~~blished it was sometimes attacked for being
e in matters of detail. E A. Horne, a Civil Servant, drew attention to
isms, inevitable in a novel written over a period oftwelve years of political and
nge: 'Even about the general background, however, there is a slight air of
This is partly because the picture is out of date. The period is obviously before
Furbank 1, 128). To my mind though, there is value in a blurred atmosphere
tance one of the minor anachronistic details that
tions, Forster's depiction of a Lieutenant-Governor. By 1924, this post was no
istence. Forster however makes Sir Gilbert Mellanby in the novel appear as
overnor, although such a post had been long since defunct. By creating this
er though Forster casts light on the notion of political change. 'Sir Gilbert,
enlightened man, held enlightened opinions .... "The [Marabar] affair [he
ed by certain of our friends up the hill" who did not realise that
ove forward, not back" (API, 257). Forster is, I think, being
n the theme of political change. He suggests how the apparently new kind
he old since he too has been careful to keep
cal details. That Forster slips up over this
atter is that two time-scales are used here: the
by the anachronistic off~cial)and the present (where it is politically
ghtened towards the Indians). Here Forster's
nge can be real under the Raj. Sir Gilbert's enlightenment is a
ghlights the major political theme: the more things change the more they

, comes the question of individual protest. I had alluded to this in 3.2.1 but since a
remark appears in the novel embedded in material from subsequent periods, I will
it in the context of later visits, to which indeed I now turn.

3.3.1 1 In Fact
te contrast to the political dullness of 1912-191 3, Forster's second visit took
time of intense excitement. The enthusiasm with which they had supported the
r effort during the First World War made lndians hope for a tangible step
If-government in recognition of their cooperation. Instead the Montague-
h produced the Act of 19 19 were draconian measures
r arrest and trial without any any legal cover. Then came the massacre of
Bagh (1919). With the emergence of Gandhi and his coordination of the
gle came the call in 192 1 for Satyagraha, or non-violent non-cooperation
good ethical [and] sound practical politics'[Nehru, 731. 'The period has

1921 was an extraordinary year for us. There was a strange mixture of
nationalism and politics and religion and mysticism and fanaticism.
h Passage
. to India
. .
Behind all this was agrarian trouble and, in the big cities, a rising
working-class movement. Nationalism and a vague but intense country-
wide idealism sought to bring together all these various, and sometimes
mutually contradictory, discontents, and succeeded to a remarkable
degree. And yet'this nationalism was a composite force, and behind it
would be distinguished a Hindu nationalism, a Muslim nationalism
partly looking beyond the frontiers of India, and what was more in
consonance with the spirit of the times, an lndian nationalism. For the
time being ... all pulled together. It was remarkable how Gandhiji
seemed to cast a spell on all classes ... and drew them into one motley
crowd strugglillg in one direction (Nehru, 75).

-
A number of pointers c'oncerning the political landscape of 192 1 1922 emerge. First
there is the sense of a multi-faceted struggle: politics, religion, agrarian uprisings and
labour revolts come together. Next the emergence of lndian nationalism goes together
with the fraught question ofthe rise of religious fundamentalisms which are not
necessarily marked by national interests. Then there is the related problem of the
relationship between the national movement and extra-national movements. The Khilafat
movement ( a pan-Islamic movement for the restoration of power to Turkey) was one
such agitation. Yet there is also a sense that the concept of lndian nationhood, rising
above commu~alloyalties is beginning to come alive. Clearly this has to do with the
coming of Gandhi, the first genuinely all-Indian leader of the freedom struggle. In what
way do these emerging trends in lndian political thought appear in the novel ?

3.3.2 In Fiction

To begin with A Passage to India orchestrates at a crucial moment the notion of subaltern
protest. In other words, groups of hitherto marginalised people are shown to come
together against the injustice sanctioned by imperial rule. An excellent example'is the
way in which minority groups protest against the imprisonment of Aziz on the morning
of his trial.

... queer reports kept coming in. The sweepers had just struck, and half
the commodes of Chandrapore remained desolate in consequence --
only half, and sweepers from the District, who felt less strongly about
the innocence of Dr. Aziz, would arrive in the afternoon, and break the
strike, but why should the grotesque incident occur ? And a number of
Mohammedan ladies had sworn to take no food until the prisoner wa!
acquitted; their death would make little differeence, indeed being
invisible, they seemed dead already, nevertheless it was disquieting. A . I
new spirit seemed abroad, a rearrangement, which no one in the stern
little band of whites could explain. (API,21 8)

The extract suggests various sidelights on the fact of political struggle. First it cuts across
barriers of class and gender to include sweepers and women respectively. Hitherto both
groups have been cut off from the mainstream on account of untouchability and purdah.
Faced with the necessity of protest ba\th groups change their stand ( and possibly society
also changes its stand regardingthem), Next -even allowing for the point-of-vlew to be
that of a detached British observer -the protest is shown to be partial. The strike will
soon b broken as far as the sweepers' protest goes, and the impact of the womenfolk on
\
public o p ~ion is thought to be negligible. Still the dynamics of the colonised-coloniser
situation are seen to have changed. Precisely because of the sporadic, disorganised nature
of the protest it is found to be difficult to and hence difficult to control. This \

makes it new and disturbing.

1

Religious fundamentalism relates to nationalism in a more problematic way. Aziz initially

, has a fleeting impulse to respond to the call of Islam over that of national commitment:
 .-
.-t - - - -

m assumnce came the feeling that lndia was one: ~ u d b ; . $ l w a ~had

s been, History and A- '
surance that lasted until they looked out of the door' (APl, f 19). Yet even as he Pussuge to Indili
s in this way and longs for a pan-Islamic federation with 'the sister kingdoms of the
(present-day Pakistan, ~ f ~ h ' ? i s t a and
n Iran) Aziz realises subconsciously that this
swer to the problems 0%India. At the end, when Fielding taunts Aziz by
m what he thinks is to be the future of India, Aziz suddenly bursts out, having
d that he had, or ought tcr have, a mother-land ...."lndia shall be a nation ! No
any sort ! Hindu and Mdslim and Sikh and all shall be one ! Hurrah !
dia !"' (API, 315). Has Aiziz's vision for India matured so that he can look
unal stereotypes ? Earlier in the novel for instance there is a moment when
nal stereotypes are used. Aziz -on meeting a Hindu acquaintance -wishes
did not smell of cowdung' While the latter thinks Muslims are always violent.
recognises the stereotype forming in the other's mind. I'm not sure there is
se these references to demonstrate Forster's
hip between Indian nationalism and communalism and between
and non-Indian aspirations.

st amazing erasure in the novel is that of and hi. Despite all that can be
shifting time-scale that it employs, the fact is that the novel includes
ces to events shortly before its publication. When Mrs. Turton says (after
e caves) that all Indians should be made to crawl as a particularly
shment, it is possible to see a parallel with the infamous 'crawling order'
era1 Dyer in Punjab after Jallianwallah Bagh (1919). Aziz's arrest, which
uddeness of a thunderclap, is an event that can take place only when
ssive as the Rowlatt Act of the same year are in force. How is it that
le to work other contemporary events into the novel he excludes
itd contemporary individual ?

for this otherwise inexplicable erasure is the fact that Forster's 1921
t by him in the princely state of Dewas (now part of Madhya
to its Maharajah. Most of the matter for Section 111 in the novel
s as Mau) and all the material for The Hill of Devi (although this
. Hereafter W)is derived from this visit. The chief consequence
ak,ing, is that Forster lived and worked in a state tha~waseven
ss arid-thefreedom struggle than British India. For the instit'ution
s anachronistic as Forster explains: 'There is no perceptible
atmosphere is in some ways less Western than it was nine years
English feeling. It is Gandhi whom they dread and hate'(HOD,
assage to India Forster writes the most 'Indian' section qf his
and places it in princely India, it is understandable he cannot
a setting Gandhi as a leader would have no placelSince the
r why the British government does not ask them 'for the head of
binger Harvest, 370. Hereafter AH).

ossible reason for the exclusion of Gandhi from the novel is Forster's intensely
s attitude to the freedom struggle. On the one hand (as suggested in 3.3.2) the
nsitive in the way it records the complex faces of the national movement. On
and, I think it carefully avoids explicit comment on the movement. Further I
hesitation is the result of his ambivalence towards this historical change. As

Non-co-operation is only one aspect of the wider tendency that

envelops not only lndia in particular but all the globe -the tendency
to question and protest ... . A new spirit has entered India. Would that I
could conclude with a eulogy of it. But that must be left to writers who
can see into the future and who know in what human happiness
consists. (AH, 379)
-
A Passage India In other words the novel as a chronicle of historical events cannot be more - in the way
it handles contemporary nationalism. On tour during his second visit Forster had
encountered lndian crowds in Nagpur 'the most fanatical and anti-British in India, all
contemptuous and indifferent, and many of them wearing the white Gandhi cap' (HOD,
123). The novel,while it describes lndian crowds at Mau is careful to consider only the ,
farmers who are said to be in astate of ignorance that is bliss: ' Hindus sat on either side
... Hindus only, mild-featured men, mostly villagers, for whbm anything outside their
villages passed in a dream. They were the toiling ryot, whom some call the real India ....
The assembly was in a tender, happy state unknown to an English crowd, it seethed like a
beneficent potion' (API, 28 I). First the extract makes a point that is class-based:
knowledge would mean power and perhaps the problems that go along with power. These
peop!e are the uneducated rural masses who (since they have no knowledge) can enjoy
their state of freedom from responsibility since they know no better. Next it makes a
comniunal point: the crowd is made up of people from one community who are shown to
participate in their'festival so as not to concern themselves with anything outside their
world. Then the extract makes a race-based point: this kind of ecstasy is somehow
available to Indians (here, solely Hindu) in a way that is not available to others. Finally it
suggests (despite the face-saving phrase 'whom some call ....) that in the world of Mau,
where the novel ends, anything in the outside world such as political or economic
development is unreal as a dream is unreal. In this representation of lndia then, the novel
suggests that history ( for reasod of race, class and relgion ) is kept out. If the novel as
chronicle does not go any further then, what about the novel as prophecy ?

3.4 1945 AND AFTER

3.4.1 Outside the Novel

The prophetic note in A Passage to India relates to events which took place after 1924
and were foreseen by the novel. To begin with there was the Second World War (1 939-
1945) which, while it ended in victory for Britain and her allies also foreshadowed ( in
the rise of the United States of America and the weakening of Empire) the hastening of
independence for South Asian colonies. India gained independence in 1947 at the cost of
Partition. She went on to see various wars: with China (1962) and with Pakistan (1965
and 1971). Gandhi was assassinated in 1949.

Forster lived to see and comment on most of these events bar the 197 1 war. In 1945 he
made his third and last visit to India. He travelled to Jaipur at the invitation of the A 11-
India P.E.N. (Poets, Essayists and Novelists) Club to attend a conference. Forster was
very conscious of the fact that lndia was changing, for such a conference could never
have taken place say, on his second trip to India. This time he travelled by air which was
only the most obvious sign that the P & 0 passage to India, or the Exiles's Line [see 1.I]
had changed. To Forster however the continuities in the evolution of Indian society were
as important as discontinuities. As he spoke about the future of literature at the
conference he found himself observed by women from the purdah gallery. As he said of
himselfand his fellow-writers 'We might be the future ... but we were observed by the
past' (Furbank 11,261).

In general I find Forster's views on the changing geopolitical landscape of lndia puzzling.
Nonetheless 1 also find them useful in suggesting - retrospectively as it were -the way
in which he deals with history in A Passage to India. Take for instance the following
remark:

...throughout I use 'India' in the old, and it seems to me the true sense
of the word to designate the whole sub-continent. Much as 1 sympathise
with the present government at New Uelhi, 1 wish it had not chosen
'India' to describe its territory. Politicians are too prone to plunder the
past. (HOD, 10).
 ms to me that Forsterl$,representationof lndia sets aside, gently b,ut firmly, History and A
derations of both geography and history. The notion of a distinctly 'Indian' nation is passage to lt~rlirr
ioned here. Can there be an [&an identity distinct from a South Asian identity ? If
what territory -geographical or imaginative -can it stake a claim ? More
ntly, who will be the citizens of such an Indian state ? For such a remark does
contest their right to create their destiny and people thek own territory.

ter was konscious that with the passage of time his novel would increasingly suggest
ndia that could not be recovered. As he pointed out in a 1957 hote on the novel: ' The
described in A Pussage to India no longer exists either politically or socially.
ge had begun even at the time the book was published (1924) and during the
ing quarter of a century it accelerated enormously .... Assuredly the novel dates'
17). If the text then represents an lndia that was changing even while it was being
ed, how can a survey of later history add to an understanding of the text ?

1 3*412 As Prophesied by the Novel

here the idea of the novel as prophecy becomes important. The novel anticipates
h degree of prescience certain political events and trends. I do not find the
ays challenging. Aziz is made to predict the Second World War in a way that
ns in real life might have done: ' Until England is in difficulties we keep
the next European war -aha, aha !' (API, 31 5). History is also witness to
when war broke out lndian cornmitrnent to the war-effort, though whole-
disturbed by Britain's refusal to consult her before entering the war.

ficant is the way in which the conclusion of the novel handles the developing
ionalism and internationalism. Fielding questions the value of nationhood in
ersation with Aziz: ' lndia a nation ! What an apotheosis ! Last comer to the
enth century sisterhood ! Waddling in at this hour of the world to take her
hose only peer was the Holy Roman ~m~ire,'she shall rank with Guatemala
perhaps !' (API, 3 15). There are many ways of taking this acc'ount of
First the notion itself is shown to inspire comedy. It is hard not to laugh at
njured up here of a nation shuffling in like a shoddy late-comer because it is
tmoded nineteenth century concept of a nation-state. Next there is the sense
ret. India - which once headed an imperial system as massive as the
of old - is now to lose her dignity. As a nation she will be reduced to the
f fellow-nation-states such as Guatemala or Belgium. Then I sometimes '

n nationalistic aspirations are mocked in this way. 1 suggested earlier

ter's views on democracy are somewhat mixed. The extract from the
nversation above suggests that Forster's views on the nation-state -the
on of democracy -are similarly mixed. Therefore I am not sure
Forster thinks nationalism will demean India or whether lndia is not fit for
nk that both views, however contradictory, are present in the novel.
question of internationalism. Towards the beginning of 'Temple' there
idelight as the author refers to the theme of Aziz's poetry:
I
... they [Aziz's poems] struck a new note: there cannot be a mother-land
I without new homes. In m e poem -the only one finny old Godbole
I liked - he had skipped over the mother-land (whom he did not truly
1 and gone straight to internationality. 'Ah, that is bhakti; ah my
g friend, that is different and very good. Ah, India, who seems not
I o move, will go straight there while the other nations waste their time.
I '
I
is extract work ? First it suggests that nationalism (ihe motherland) is
ly to the eqent that it makes people feel 'at home' here on earth. Hence there
reate new homes. Next it explores the idea that nationalism is important not
ecause it is a preparation for internationalism, or a sense of human
hen this community is to be held together by a sense of oneness or
.il Pmsage to lndia devotion (the idea of bhakti) which is to be its chief defining feature. Finally there is the
feeling that India's apparent political stagnation (as seen in her inability to move f r ~ n
Empire to nation) will turn out suprisingly to be her chief advantage. She will pass over
or skip the stage of nationhood (at which other nations halt) and move straight ahead to
claim her place at the oentre of internationalism.

1enjoy the speculation in the extract though I have some reservations about the direction
it takes. On the one hand, it certainly gives lndia an almost mystical role to play in the
world history of the future. On the other hand such writing lays Forster open to the same
charge of essentialism brought against Whitman [I .2. I]. Since I've already opened that
space for discussion though, I shan't repeat myself. Instead I'd like to focus on one of the
ideas that develops from internationalism, namely the search of humanity for
accommodation in this world. I think this is important because it forms, as I hope to
show, a component of the theme of this novel, which is built around both history and
philosophy.

3.5 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY

3.5.1 Influences on Theme
Forster's own attitude to the position of history in A Passage to lndia was I think, to
separate himself from a direct treatment of a historical subject. At the same time he
claimed a direct interest in philosophy, or rather in the treatment of a philosophical
subject. This subject was the position of humanity, in other words, its accommodation.
within the universe. As he wrote in 1960:

I began to write the novel in 1913, but the First World War intervened
and it did not get published until 1924. Needless to say, it dates. The
lndia I described has been transformed politically and greatly changed
socially. 1 also tried to describe human beings; these may not have
altered so much. Furthermore- taking my title from a poe'm of Walt
Whitman's - I tried to indicate the human predicament in'a universe
which is not, so far, comprehensible to our minds.

I feel that Forster here accomplishes a shift from a historical towards a philosophical
interest in his treatment of India. I do not think that this is because he is unconscious of
history. Quite the reverse is true. It is precisely because he is conscious of the enormous
sociopolitical changes that have taken place on the subcontinent that Forster is keen to
stand apart from the position of a historian. It is his awareness of historical change that
makes Forster realise that the novel might have become outdated even while he was
writing it, and not his ignorance of historical process. It might also reflect his
ambivalence towards the shitt from empire to nation. Therefore he draws attention to
what he considers the organising theme of the novel: '... the human predicament in a
universe ...not ... comphrehensible to our minds' (API, 335). 1 will go on [in 3.5.21 to
discuss the consequences of this turning away from history to philosophy but just now I'd
like to expand on the philosophical theme of this novel.
1
Forster himself had explained the metaphysical quest that is at the heart of A Passage to
India very much earlier when he claimed:

...the book is not really about politics, though it is the political aspect
that caught the general public and made it sell. Its about something
wider than politics, about the search of the human race for a more
lasting home,about the universe as embodied in the Indian earth and the
Indian sky .... It is -or rather desires to be - philosophic and poetic
(API, 25).

In other words, Forster's interest is not primarily in a historical representation of I~diaas

an end in itself. The fact that the novel deals with a historical problem of its own time -
 gradual dissolution of empire - has ensured its hold on the popular imagination. The History an
velist's intention has been, self-confessedly, to write a novel with a metaphysical P(~ssageto
arch as its subject. This subject, he feels, is of universal interest and application.
multaneously though this search for the accommodation of humanity is to be conducted
ainst an Indian background. What are the consequences of this relationship between the
hor, history and philosophy, likely to be ?

I
3 5.2 Consequences for Reading
I think this will mean that a reading of the novel which moves on the lines of
ical pressures -as these register through predicates of race, class and gender -
e reading against the grain of ihe text. I don't think this is a bad thing. In fact it is
likely to yield valuable insights as it might lead the reader to ask questions of the
at the text does not always ask of itself, say, with reference to characters and
ts. Nexl it opens up an altenative space within which apparently ahistorical forces
religion can be examined. Then it will enable the reader to analyse the shaping
es of BOTH history and philosophy in areas such as structure and imagery.
it will enable the reader to see history and philosophy not as oppositional forces
vel but as cooperating to construct various representations of India.
i
3.6 L.ET US SUM UP
to India provides a chronicle of the changing historical face of India from

That which allows more than one meaning

The co-existence in one person of opposing
emotional attitudes towards the same object
Not concerned with history
An error assigning a thing to an earlier or a
later age than that to which it belongs
Glorification (used sarcastically in this
context)
In this context, a large flat dish
A bare record of events in the order of time
Capable of being understood
Belonging to the same time
 4

Historicist An interpretation that takes historical

realities into consideration
Metaphysical Philosophical, that which concerns thought 1
Predicament A difficult position
Palimpsest A manuscript in which old writing has been
rubbed out to make room for new
Prescience Foreknow lege
Ryot An Indian farmer I

3.8 QUESTIONS
Q 1. How does Forster use historical events in the novel ? What conclusions from this can
be drawn concerning his views on the Indian freedom struggle ?

Q 2. To what extent does the use of the novel as prophecy seem to you to supplement its
role as chronicle?

Q 3. How and why (do you think) does Forster try to shift the theme of the novel from
history to philosophy ?

3.9 SUGGESTED READING

Primary material

. E.M.Forster The Hill of Devi and Other Indian wrrthgs.

Ed. Elizabeth Heine, Abinger edn. 14,
London 1983.
Jawarharlal Nehru An Autobiography. 1936, repr. Delhi, 1982. '

Secondary material

Das. G. K. E. M. Forsier 's India. London, 1977.

 PASSAGE TO INDIA

Introduction .

4.2.1 Aziz
4.2.2 Godbole
4.2.3 Fielding

4.3.1 The unorganised sector

4.3.2 Indian professionals

4.4.1 Mrs Moore and Adela

4.4.2 Adela
4.4.3 Purdah
4.5 Let Us Sum Up
4.6 Glossary
4.7 Questions
48 Suggested Reading

4.0 OBJECTIVES
The main objective o f this unit is to analyse the major characters in the novel. Episodes
will be examined as and when they are relevant to this purpose. The three predicates used
for this analysis will be race, class and gender. Please make sure you have completed
your reading o f A Pussage to India before beginning this unit which presupposes a
: working knowledge o f the text.

4.1 INTRODUCTION
,

Towards the end o f Unit 3, 1 suggested that I found it rewarding to analyse the novel in
-
historicist terms. I suggested further that history is not - in this context a study o f
events so much as a study o f forces o f socioeconomic conditioning. I hope to show in
this unit how three o f these forces - race, class and gender - shape characters and
episodes in A Passage to India.

Curiously the most articulate contemporary criticism o f the novel was a protest against
Forster's handling of both character and incident. Again, E.A. Home was the first to
address this subject:

... it is o f Mr. Forster's Anglo-Indian men and women that I wish to

speak .... What is one to make of the women ? ....I think they are
scarcely worth discussing, so inhuman are they without exception. And
ifthese people are preposterous, equally preposterousare the scenes
which they enact ....

And why is this ? Why are these people and these incidents so wildly
improbable and unreal ? The explanation is a singular but a simple one.
Mr. Forster went out to lndia to see, or to study, and to make friendsof
Indians. He did not go out to lndia to see Anglo-Indians; and most o f
what he knows about them, their ways and their catchwords, and has
A Passage to lndia . put into his book, he has picked up from the stale gossip of Indians. Just
as the average Englishman who goes out to lndia picks up most of what
he knows about Indians from other Englishmen. It is a curious revenge
that the lndian enjoys in the pages of Mr. Forster's novel which profess
to deal with'Anglo-Indian life and manners; [though] some would say a
just one ( Furbank 11, 128-9).
c

What are the main features of this criticism of Forster's characterisation ? First that
Forster mishandles the question of race by accepting at second-hand all the stereotypical
complaints that lndians make about the British without exploring the minds of his British
characters from within. Notice, incidentally that Horne is not exactly racist in a simplistic
way. He is conscious that hitherto in British literature about India, lndians have been
discriminated against by British writers. Hence his reference to the 'curious revenge'
enjoyed by lndians in A Passage to India which he says discriminates against the British.
Next there is a suggestion that Forster is particularly unsound on the gender question in
that maximum unfairness is reserved for British women in his novel. Then there is a .
passing reference to the role of the spoken voice in this matter of charactedsation. v.,
Catchwords, gossip and conversation have together played a part in the inaccurate
delineation of character and incident. Finally there is the cumulative effect of unreality
that is the product of all these inaccuracies. People and events are alike improbable
because they have not been observed with either historical or psychological accuracy.

Forster's response to this piece of criticism in turn helps move the argument along.

You say I don't like [the British] because I don't really know them. But
. how can I ever like them when I happen to like the lndians and they
don't .... If l saw more of Anglo-India at work (or shared its work,
which is the only sympathetic seeing) I should of course realise its
difficulties and loyalties better and write about it from within. Well and
good, but you forget the price to be paid: I should begin to write about
lndians from without [i.e., from the outside, or superficially] .... You
haven't seen that this lack of balance is inherent in the Indian tangle,
and that if I got the club sympathetically true, Aziz's shanty would ring
false and no longer move you (Furbank 11, 129-3)

Some additional points may be found here. First there is Forster's explicit avowal that ill
a time of historic unfairness -reflected in the colonial conquest - it is not possible for a
nbve~istto aim at psychological fairness while dealing with both the coloniser and the
colonised. To write a novel under such circumstances is at least a gesture of political
engagement since the novelist must take sides. In this case Forster claims that hc attempts
to redress the balance by positive discrimination,.that is, discrimination in favour of the
Indians. Next there is an implicit suggestion that the race-divide has also resu,lted in iin
economic divide. The notion of the Club suggests not only race-based segregation but
also public spending. In contrast 'Aziz's shanty' suggests private poverty. Thus along
with the issues of race and gender the question of class enters as well. To see how these
issues affect character and episode though it is necessary to turn to the text.
--
4.2 RACE

~ z i zthe l very first character to whom the reader is introduced - is initially 'all
animation' and resolutely apolitical. Indeed I find his mood and perspective at the stan
very close to the way I instinctively approach the novel, which is natural because at this
stage no other perspective is offered: 'Delicious indeed to lie on the broad veranda with
the moon rising in front and the servants preparing dinner behind, and no trouble
happening'. It is through his eyes that the reader is introduced to the world of the novel
and this is important for two reasons. First it ensures that the introduction effected is
 ,but he is concerned also only with Race, Class and
ish, not because they are the Gender in A
ersation while he would rather Passage to Indiu
st responses are evoked on the
at the mosque is important to
established between them.
has betn snubbed by her
t that they feel for each other,
ty can nourish was springing up,
low secretly'. Again when Aziz
race-divide he insists that the
h the racial origins of its
is the fact that he can show
wish to see it for personal

ot -Aziz is entrapped

As he entered [the] arid tidiness [ of the Civil Lines], depression

suddenly seized him. The roads, named after victorious generals and
intersecting at right angles, were symbolic of the net Great Britain had
- thrown over India. He feltcaught in their meshes. When he turned into
Major Callendar's compound he could with difficulty restrain himself
from getting down on foot, and this not because his soul was servile but
because his feelings - the sensitive edges of him -feared a gross
snub (API, 39).

uthorial intervention suggest ? To my mind it indicates the way in which

historical and the psychological interpenetrate each other. Aziz's sensitivity is a little
d to take. It leads him to be unnecessarily irritable with Fielding as when he interprets
Iding's dismissal of art to mean that as an Indian he (Aziz) must be ignorant of art
ile Fielding simply means that art perhaps is not worth much thought. Most of $,the
onial context breaks Aziz's personality down after the Marabar case. Acting on'
~mpulseas always Aziz retreats to the Princely state of Mau which [see 3.3.3.1 is a

However 1 am puzzled by some aspects of the impact of colonialism on Aziz. There is the
question of his profession. For instance, Aziz is introduced not simply as a doctor but as a
very competent doctor who is better than his boss, Major Callendar. The latter knows that
had Aziz operated on Mrs. Graysford instead of himself, the old lady would have lived.
Aziz is interested in reading more about his area of work than he actually needs and
enjoys talking to Adela about his work, even if he talks for effect. Its true that (as ,
Callendar sourly points out) Aziz is careless. After innoculating a patient against typhoid
he drinks unboiled water himself. His enthusiasm for medicine nonetheless, is real. I find
it very hard to accept that such a person would retire to a backwater like Mau, become the
equivalent of a witchdoctor at the court of its decrepit ruler and allow his instruments to
rust and his interest in medicine to fade. Even if 1 accept Forster's argument -that
Aziz's instinct to escape from the constraints of British rule after the Marabar crisis is
sound - I find it hard to accept the application of this argument to Aziz. What is the
purpose behind such a portrayal ? If it is only to show the degradation of the soul of the
col~nisedunder the impact of colonisation,'it may be seen as radical. On the other hand,
Fielding's restatement of this idea is problematic: 'Away from us [the British] Indians go
to seed at once'. If Aziz's decline is put down solely to the fact that - being in a Princely
State - he is away from the civilising influence of the British, I cannot accept it.

Another problem concerning the portrayal of Aziz's change under colonialism is that of
his poetry. At the start Aziz's enthusiasm for poetry is genuine and contagious.
Hamidullah, Mahmoud Ali and Syed Mohammed fall under the spell of his effortless and
A Passage to lndia extended quotations from Hali lqbal and ~ h d i bThis . happens the more easily because
these selections from the poets bflttress their conviction that lndia has always been
Muslim and hence they will have a kingly role to play in it. 'This conviction is shared by
Aziz too: who casts himself in an imperial mould occasionally: '... he seemed to own the
land as much as anyone owned it. What did it matter i f a few flabby Hindus had preceded
him there, and a few chilly English succeeded?' In other words Aziz relies on cultural
stereotypes as much as the British do. So, when at the end he is shown to have changed
the subject o f his poetic interest to social questions such as nationalism [see 3.4.21 and the
position o f women, the reader may be surprised. Its possible to argue that - under
pressure o f political harassment - Aziz has developed but I'm notquite sure how
credible this development is.

On balance, however, I find Forster's treatment o f the way in which history (the race-
question) influences psychology (Aziz's nature), challenging. Its true that critics such as
Nirad Chaudt~rihave found Forster's creation unacceptable because Aziz lacks dignity
and credibility. Its also true that Forster is not always sensitive. His comment that
suspicion is the besetting limitation o f an Indian, and his dramatisation o f this in the latter
half o f the Aziz-Fielding relationship is clumsy. A t the end o f the day though, this lack o f
sensitivity is not just a limitation o f the author. tsn't it part o f the colonial situation.? As
Forster explains about the Aziz-Fielding relationship: 'When they argued ... something
racial inevitably intruded - not bitterly but inevitably, like the colour o f their skins:
coffee-colour versus pinko-gray. Within the colonial framework the colonised cannot
have a greater dignity or credibility than that exhibited by Aziz. Fear will intrude ( as the
extract quoted at the start o f this section showns) even if it is only the fear o f a gross
snub. G i v p the political and cultural imperatives o f race-based rule, an Aziz rather than a
King Porus is the more likely result.

4.2.2 Godbole

A professor at the Government College in Chandrapore is introduced apparently as a .

figure o f fun. 'He wore a turban that looked like pale purple macaroni, coat, waistcoat,
dhoti, socks with clocks. The clocks matched the turban, and his whole appearance
sugggested harmony - as if he had reconciled the products o f East and West, mental as
well as physical, and could never be discomposed'. This opening description o f Godbole
is important because it indicates immediately the two major elements in Forster's -
characterisation o f him: the comic and the cosmic that earlier [2.2.4] 1 had associated with
Forster's representation o f India. On the one hand, Godbole is very much a figure o f
slapstick. His clothes are a laughable combination o f two cultures, he is greedy, he misses
the Marabar picnic because he has miscalculated the length o f a prayer and he dances in
foolish abandon on the occasion o f Janmashtami. On the other hand, Godbole i s shown to
be in touch with a level o f mystical experience to which no one else in the novel has
access. Thus when Fielding questions him about his feelings on Aziz's arrest, Godbole
expands a point he has made earlier when he sings at Fielding's tea. Both good and evil
are aspects o f God, and represent respectively God's presence and God's absence. Yet
God's absence is not the same as God's non-existence. God exists eternally and thereforc
a devotee such as Godbole is entitled to invoke God's presence and ask him to come.
Evil, according to Godbole, is not so much a reason for despair as a reason for
demanding God:s presence the more urgently since evil too is part o f the complex reality
o f God.

When Iapply Said's paradigm [see 2.4.31 to Forster's treatment o f Godbole, I am .

surprised at the congruence. Said suggests that Europe has traditionally constructed the
Orient as 'other' than itself, with the Orient as mysterious, irrational, and-thcrefore
vulnerable both politically and imaginatively to the organising, governing powers o f the
West. Keeping this in mind, look at this comment on Godbole by Forster. Aziz is trying
(at Fielding's tea) to get Godbole to speak o f the Marabar Caves and Godbole keeps
fending off the discussion: 'The dialogue remained light and friendly, and Adela had no
conception o f its underdrift. She did not know that the comparatively .simple mind o f the
Mohammedan was ericountering Ancient Night'. What exactly is happening here ?
 a very strange cultural contrast being worked out. Forster takes the notion of Race, Class and
ness' as nonnative here. Adela is English but then since being English is the Gender in A
o mention of her nationality is made. Notice that Forster does not describe either Passage to Intlin
odbole as an Indian. Aziz is described in terns not of race but of religion - as
-and Godbole as 'Ancient Night'. In other words, Godbole's entire complex
a human being is defined only by one tern, his religion. This in turn, by
belling of such a mind as 'Ancient Night' becomes unknowable, irrational and
's theory suggest.) vulnerable because inferior to systems of coherent rational
h as those exhibited by the West and by Islam.

eless there is a point beyond which this argument cannot be pushed. In 'Temple',
h the element of slapstick persists, Godbole's character develops so as to include
ent of dignity. Strangely enough, I think this is the result of an exercise that fails
an one that succeeds, namely, Godbole's attempt to sustain a moment of spiritual

Thus Godbole, though she was not important to him, remembered an

old woman he had met in Chandrapore days. Chance brought her into
his mind while it was in this heated state, he did not select her, she
. happened to occur among the throng of soliciting images, a tiny
plinter, and he impelled her by his spiritual force to that place where
completeness can be found. Completeness, not reconstruction. His
senses grew thinner, he remembered a wasp seen he forgot
somewhere, perhaps on a stone. He loved the waspequally, he
impelled it likewise, he was imitating God. And the stone where the
wasp clung -could he - no, he had been wrong to attempt the
stone, logic and conscious effort had seduced, he came back to the
strip of red carpet and discovered that he was dancing upon it. (API,

orster's characterisation of Godbole works on two levels, the cosmic and the
begin with there is the description of Godbole as the bhakt or devotee who
e devotion or bhakti as a means to reach the divine. In an attempt to play God
me God's creation and peopling of the world -'Godbole attempts a synthesis.
ent of mystical vision Godbole puts together a whole collage of people and
this is a somewhat far-fetched cosmic exercise. And then comedy enters. It
t that Godbole's effort has failed precisely because it was conscious and
te rather than spontaneous. He has tried to include even a stone in his vision and
ion of reality, the vision collapses. For once therefore Godbole is treated
ntative Hindu.who cbrries a mystical burden which is too heavy for him or
ulder. He is treated instead as one who inhabits the same world of reality
n this section, a world that combines social comedy and a cosmic quest.
risation of Godbole therefore while it relies heavily on cultural
eeds briefly at such moments when the stereotype (here, that of the
placed within the context of social comedy.

is introduced as a character who is suspected of being unsound by his

iots in India because he associates socially with Indians and educates them. The
of teaching in the context of any government based on force is itself
ary to the extent that education implies the encouragement of ideas and free
Fielding's conduct both at the Bridge party and at his tea suggests the
ation with which he tackles the race problem. UnIike Turton, Fielding remains
Indian guests at the Bridge party andmthe Indians respond by covering any minor
stakes he makes. When tea is served he purposely avoides the Western snacks
nd bums his mouth with gram. He invites Adela and Mrs. Moore to tea with
Godbole only because he knows these ~nglishwomenwill not discriminate
dians. In general Fielding believes that 'the world ... is a globe of men yho are
A Passage to India trying to reach one another and can best do so by the help of goodwill plus culture and
intelligence'. Fielding's beliefs here are similar to those expressed by Forster in his 1941
essay 'What I Believe':

I believe in ....an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the

plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all
through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them
when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one
permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos .... their
temple ... is the holiness of the Heart's Affections, and their kingdom,
though they never possess it, is the wide-open world.

These ideas -expressed by Forster and attributed in the novel to Fielding -together go
to make up the doctrine of liberal humanism. Its characteristics include first a belief that
people are important in terms of their individualism and in terms of the personal
relationships they form with those who think like them. In other words, people are more
important than organisations and systems. Nexf such communities of like-minded
individuals can be found throughout human history, cutting across all boundaries of
cultures and classes. Then there is the sense that the creation of such relationships and
communities is the best safeguard against brute force. Finally liberal humanism is closely
related to love and this approach enables its proponents to feel they have access to the
worldpf the heart.

How does this tie in with the characterisation of Fielding in A Passage lo lndiu ? For a
start he befriends Aziz wholly setting aside the racial divide. He remains on Aziz's side
even when to ho so means that Fielding is cut dead by the entire British community at *
Chandrapore. Again when Ke befriends Adela he dges so because she has been a loser.
not considering the fact that she belongs to the race which has cut him. However ignorant
Fielding may be concerning any form of religion, he is ready to recognise. although only
dimly, the impulse of love in Hinduism that he sees in both Stella and Ralph.

At the same, time this is very much a novel where Forster explores the limitations of the
philosophy of liberal humanism and these come across in his characterisation of Fielding
as well. Firsf it is unrealistic and also potentially damaging for any philosophy to set
aside an existing political or social context and operate in a vacuum. When Fielding
attempts to make friends with Aziz he behaves as if the racial divide simply does not
exist. This is surely unrealistic. On the personal level Fielding is disappointed that his
Indian friends lack dignity either in the pre-trial panic or the post-trial euphoria. He
forgets that the colonial context itself denies the colonised any semblance of human
dignity and appeals to a value they have been denied. On the political level this
continual setting aside of the race question leads Fielding to be unimaginative and
unsympathetic with regard to India's nationalistic aspirations as expressed by Aziz at the
end of the novel [see 3.4.2 for the implications of thes views]. Next it suggests tie way in
which liberal humanism is not a forward-looking philosophy. It does not look forward.
my more than Fielding does, to a multicultural, pluralistic world. It sees only 'one true
uman tradition' just as Fielding always believes in Western European cultural values
. ,one. For Fielding ultimately ' the Mediterranean is the human norm' and every other
culture is a departure from that norm. He is unable to translate the delight he takes in
European art to his Indian friends, because there is something exclusivist in the way he
appreciates its use of colour and form. India for him is formless and therefore inartistic.
Finally liberal humanism is an ineffective instrument for social and political change
because -apgt from love as a human value - it does not suggest any althative
programme for social action. At the beginning Aziz speaks of the way in which Indians
re$ond to personal kindness when Fielding visits him. At the end, when it is clear that
Fielding -and the way of life he represents - have nothing else to offer the lndia of the
future, Aziz scggests Fielding and his compatriots leave. Fielding offers friendship but
this, as Gandhi once said in another context, is a postdated cheque on a failing bank.
There is no space in the colonial framework for personal relationships if they pretend the
race-dividgdoes not exist.
 --
--

I Race, Crass and

Gender in A
4.$ CLASS Passage ro Inclia

1 The Unorganised Sector

nised sector comprises those people in the novel who are without any
ower because they lack the education and the money.to organise themselves
ive or a group and gain influence. In Howards End (1 9 10) the novel
Passage to India, Forster remarks, 'We are not concerned with the very
age to India- is a landmark in Forster's development as a noveliiFsiKefoF-
ps out of his habihally middle-class environment and considers 'the
le who are outside the widest circle of social invitations andLaspirations.
ple who wore nothing but a loincloth, people who wore not even that, and
s in knocking two sticks together before a scarlet doll - humanity grading
nd the educated vision, until no earthly invitation can embrace it'. This
ening of the canvas in terms of class works, I think, in a complicated way.
one hand, its suggests that the novel engages with subcultures in India as well,
who have been cut off from socioeconomic realities since it reads as 'though
on an elephant's back' [see 1.3.31. The novel -seen from this point of view -
radical. On the other hand, I wonder whether Forster's depiction of marginalised
hwallah, the servant at Fielding's tea who listens to Godbole's song,
at the Janmashhi celebrations who immerses the model of the village of
es not intensifjl rather than reduce their marginalisation. Do they have voices of
or are they represented by a novelist who uses them for their value as tokens
ibute%umancomplexity to them ?

kahwallah receives the most extended treatment. To begin with he is presented as

type of male beauty. At the same time, since he is outside any cultural, social or
c milieu to which any reader of the novel is likely to belong. He can be be looked
he outside. Indeed'he can practically be ogled at since he is presented entirely as
. Adela sees him the moment she enters the courtroom.
Almost naked, and splendidly formed, he sat on a raised platform near
the back ... and he seeined to control the preceedings. He had the
strength and beauty that sometimes come to flower in Indians of low
I
birth. When that htrange race nears the dust and is condemned as
untouchable, then natlire remembers the physical perfection that she
accomplished elsewheie, and throws out a god -not many, but one
here and there ,to prove to society how little its categories impress her.
This man would have been notable anywhere: among the thin-hammed,
flat chested mediocrities of Chandrapore he stood out as divine, yet he
was of the city, its garbage had nourished him, he would end on its
t

uneasy when I try to relate to this exercise in characterisation.

discourse analysis [4.3] suggests that race is the single most
retation while Ahmad's extension of this model places class as
r. When I read Forster's account of the punkahwallah keeping
come up with contradictory responses. First I realise Forster's
hwallah in that he uses this figure to challenge the positions
by Adela and her supporters as they enter the room. They are
f the ruling race, he is an outcast, a pollutant expelled from
is very presence is beyond the range of their suburban
aloofness impressed the girl from middle-class England
f her sufferings .... Her particular brand of opinions, and the
I them -by what right did they claim so much
me the title of civilisation ?' Then Forster uses the
ately, the watertight compartments that categorise
equence. The race-divide and the class-divide are both
A Passage to India meaningless. Moreover his attitude to the trial is one of supreme unconcern. His ,
complete aloofness in a sense places the Marabar case in perspective since he show&

before the trlai has begun. However I find the representation of the punkahwallah f
(through his remoteness) that it is unimportant. The case is dismissed in this sense ven

unacceptable on the whole because he is treated only as an object at whom Adela and the
reader can look as much as tliey please, safe in the knowle,dge that since he comes from
the lowest class possible, he will never be allowed to respond. He is never presented as a
human being. He is only represented as such a figure without a voice and without a
thought of his own. Yet he is deified as Fate itself, but are not all gods paid tribute only
when they are safely silenced ?

Indeed all those at the bottom of the class-pyramid are silenced. At Fielding's tea, a
servant responds enthusiasticaly to Godbole's song to Krishna: 'The man who was
gathering water-chestnut came naked out of the tank, his lips parted with delight, -
disclosing his scarlet tongue'. As with the servant of the Janmashtami pageant he is mute.
It is as if Forster presents these people as objects of desire without any inhibitions
because -both on account of their race and their class -they are exotic and therefore
fit subjects for political and imaginative rule.

4.3.2 Indian Professionals

Unlike the unorganised sector which can be discussed along caste lines - being a feature
peculiar to Indian society -Forster examines both Indian and British professionals. 'The
former ipclude Aziz and Panna Lal (doctors) Hamidullah and Amritrao (barristers) Das
(Assistant Magistrate) Mahmoud Ali (pleader) Haq (police inspector) and Syed
Mohammed Gngineer). By and large then, the lndians in the novel are educated people,
trained for their respective professions. They are shown to be in the process of creating a
social network for themselves. The narrative begins with one such meeting at
Hamidullah's house. Eater, when Aziz falls ill, many of these people come to visit him.
Although Das officially presides over the trial of Aziz, he Foes to Aziz later on a personal
level to ask for a prescription and a poem. 'The difficulties that even professional lndians
face when they try to come together are many. While the novel is sympathetic on the
whole towards the way in which this class towards a sense of national identity there are
some areasof disappointment. I have referred [4.2. I ] to the feeling of let-down that
seems to me to mark Aziz's professional decline. Godbole is shown to change in a similar
way.

4.4 GENDER

4.4.1 Mrs. Moore and Adela

Mrs. Moore and Adela provide an example of how people who belong in one sense to the
elite (in that they are both members of the ruling race) belong in another sense among the
subalterns (in that their roles are relatively marginal on account of their gender). This puts
them in an unusual position. On the one hand, they are able to Frame a critique of British
rule from within since their viewpoints are by definition personal rather than official. On
the other hand, precisely because they are women they are not thought to have a
viewpoint other than that of their official protector (Ronny). Both have views on the Raj
that are unorthodox. Mrs. Moore is convinced that the determining factor in personal
relationships is love and also that this Christian principle -God is love - should be the
basis of Empire. This vision that she projects is an alternative to the vision that Empire is
based on force which British officialdom projects. Ronny dismisses her critique by telling
himself that her vision is only the delusion of a sick old woman, inclined to foolish
sprituality, and therefore need not be taken too seriously. Yet Mrs. Moore's alternative
vision of lndia and the lndians cannot be dismissed lightly. Her grasp of 'the essential
life' in Aziz is intuitive and enduring. It is intuitive in that she acquires it in one brief
meeting and this leads Aziz to call her an 'Oriental' or one who instinctively knows
whether she likes a person or not. It is enduring in that she conveys her feeling for Aziz
t
I
,
- - - ---- - -

i o the next generation.

- - -- - --- - -- --

d for India in her letters to her younger children -Ralph and Stella -so that it lives

ike other marginalised characters such as the punkahwallah, Mrs. Moore is

by the text. It is true she can do 'no good at the trial' to use Ronny's words as
Race, Class and
Gender in a
Passage to India
I

no evidence to give. At the same time there are-differentkinds of witnesses. Mrs.

s presence itself is an obvious reminder that there is a way of looking at Aziz and
arabar which is personal and not official. To the British she becomes a tiresome
who never gives up haunting them with the sense that she must be takin into '

nt. Having made her voyage to lndia she dies at sea and her ghost which-
nies the ship throughout the Red Sea - refuses to enter the Meditermnean
the first European port of call. To Indians she becomes 'Esmiss Esmoore' a
hose name is chanted like a mantra. Neither as a British ghost nor as an lndian
gh can Mrs. Moore speak. She is silenced on account of her gender.

t
4. .2 Adela

a is characterised by her cry 'I want to see the real India'. The Collector throws a
for this purpose but India is presented to her only superficially ' as a frieze and not
pirit'. Aziz is a little suspicious of this attitude of Adela's as he sees it only as a re-
t of the British ambition to rule India. Her dry rationalism does not win her any
either from the British or from the Indians. She also forfeits the sympathy of both
being ugly, which is again proof that the text does not award her gender-justice.
al, the remark that hurts her the most is '...the lady is so uglier than the
n'. It is a response to Macbryde's racist taunt and should not be taken out of
ike Mrs. Moore though, Adela is silenced. We are neither told nor encouraged
into what actually happens in the caves. So Adela is not heard. And since she is
as ugly she is, in a sense, dismissed as not fit to be seen either.

4.43 Purdah

begun in Northern lndia as a response to the fact of foreign invasion. At no time

sense that women who worked on the land for instance were not in
ce purdah was always a statement that had resonance on all three counts of
d gender. As far as its treatment of lndian women goes, I think the novel is
ows us the immediate consequences of purdah at the Bridge party. As
reaching consequences, both Hamidullah and Fielding in conversation with
that unless the status of women is altered lndia can never change. Aziz's
f the fact that even if India wins political freedom she will never win
until her women are free and equal. Fielding points out Aziz's hypocrisy
es it an anti-national twist -by saying that as long as Aziz treats his
ly as a naqny, ger?der-justicecan never be given. Until gender-justice is
ationhood and lndian freedom are only distant dreams.
- -

4.51 LET US S U M UP

d by this novel which silences both Mrs. Moore and Adela who offer
to the imperial vision.
 - - -

A Passage to India.
4.6 GLOSSARY
Apartheid segregation on the basis of race
Farce comedy of ridiculous and extravagant
humour
Feminism movement to empower women
Frieze a decorated surface
Marginalised reduce to insignificance
Slapstick low comedy
Vulnerable capable of being wounded

4.7 QUESTIONS
Q.l Analyse Fielding's tea-party so as to bring out the way in which race shapes the
behaviour of any two of the following (a)Aziz (b) Godbole (c) Fielding.

Q 2. Examine Forster's treatment of the following so as to show the strengths an(/

the limitations of his attitude to class: the unorganised sector and Indian
professionals. .

Q 3. . Examine Forster's portrayal of Mrs. Moore and Adela so as to show that gender
justice is denied them.

4.8 SUGGESTED READING i

Background material
Chakravarty, Suhash. The Raj Syndrome. Delhi, 1979.
Edwards, Michael. The Sahibs, and (he Lotus: T;c,
British in India. ' London, 1 986.
Secondary material
Cavaliero, Glen. A Reading ofEM Forsfer. London.
1979.
 (B) RELIGIONS IN THE NOVEL

1 STRUCTURE
5.0 Objectives
5.1 Introduction

I 5.2 Christianity
5.2.1 Background
5.2.2 Specifics
5.3 lslam
5.3.1 Background
5.3.2 Specifics
5.4 Hinduism
5.4.1 Background
5.4.2 Specifics
5.5 Let Us Sum Up
5.6 Glossary
5.7 Questions
5.8 Suggested Reading

1 5.0 OBJECTIVES

I
*.

The main objective of this unit is to analyse the ways in which Forster's representations
of India are shaped by his attitude to the three major religions he encountered in his life
and examined in his novel. These are Christianity, lslam and Hinduism. Certain central

I orgsinising images that give their names to the three divisions of the novel will be
examined in this context. The interpretations given to these religions in this unit apply

1 only to Forster's work and are not to be read & commentaries i n these faiths or applied
outiide this unit.

So far, particularly throughout Urlits 3 and 4'1 have suggested specific historical events
and general socioeconomic forces that help shape A Passage to India, I now wish to offer
--
- not an alternative to such a historicist reading but one that examines historicity with
reference to another kind of framework. This latter frarpework is constituted by Forster's
responses to religions during his life and also by Forster's treatment of religions in the
novel.. Before offering this interpretation though I'd like to make a couple of points.
\
First Forster always claimed that -however interested he became in a religion - he
did not necessarily believe in it. For example, on his last trip to India, Forster visited
I!
I various mosques kneeling in them 'like a believer' ( ~urbank11,260). On at least one
occasion he emerged 'looking radiant'. Subsequently, towards the end of his life, he was
asked if he would describe himself as an unbeliever. Forster replied that he would rather
be called 'a non-believer'. Although he 'liked things about Krishna-worship' he
explained he was not more inclined to believe in Krishna than in any other god. In other
words Forster seems to have wanted to extract meaningful experiences from various
- -
religions even if these were completely unlike each other without believing as a
worshipper in any one religion.

Secondly in developing the argument in this unit, I deliberately begin with Christianity
and go on to,discusslslam and Hinduism. It is true that the tripartite division of the novel
[ I suggests -through its central images -that the order ought to be Islam, Christianity
A Pcrssage to India
and Hinduism. Nonetheless Ibegin with Christianity. Forster was baptised into a family
that was nominally Christian. The Empire - his chief concern in this novel -was
officially Christian. By force of circumstance rather than by choice then Christianity
constitutes Forster's common denominator of experience. This i s not to say that he likes
it. Indeed it is when Islam and Hinduism are most unlike Christianity, rather than most
like it, that Forster approves of them. Nonetheless Christianity provides Forster - in
matters o f religion -with a yardstick that i s always available.

5.2 CHRISTIANITY

5.2.1 Background

Towards the end o f his life Forster had a conversation with his biographer:

He said he didn't feel he wanted to know Christ: this had been an

important factor in.his loss o f faith. If Christ were in the next room.
would he want to go and meet him ? Could one like someone who
never laughed ? Also, he lacked intellectual power: could one put up
with the lack o f that ? (Furbank 11,306)

The conversation i s suggestive in that it indicates some o f the problems Forster had with
Christianity at least to the extent they were related to its founder. First there is the'
suspicion that Jesus is somehow an unsympathetic figure. The implication i s that Forster
would not wish to meet Jesus even if (for argument's sake) this were possible. Next there
is the related idea that Jesus is unsympathetic in that he has been presented as one who
lacks humour and presumably the human sympathy that goes with it. Then there is the
anxiety that somehow Jesus appears to be unwelcome company because he lacks
intellectual stature.

Forster and his generation had reason to be suspicious o f the nexus between Empire,
commerce and Christianity [see 1.3.21that had developed throughout the high noon o f
imperialism in the nineteenthcentury. Christianity had been used to give political
conquest a moral legitimacy. At the best o f times Forster distrusted missionary activity.
He believed that it allowed the British the freedom to spend their surplus income with a
sense o f moral comfort, by enabling them to fund the conversion of conquered peoples
from their inherited religions to Christianity. 'Missions in England began with the
Industrial Revolution. Thanks to the development o f machinery a pious and leisured
middle-class came into existence who, mindful o f the Gospel injunction, prepared to
evangelise the heathen .... Some societies would have endowed art and literature with the
surplus .... [the British] middle-class spent theirs in tying to alter the opinions and habits
o f people whom they had not seen'. In other words, Forster distrusts both the means and
the end. The means employed are middle-class donations allied to the force o f Empire.
The end i s proselytisation.

5.2.2 Specifics
The most detailed examination o f Christianity in the novel is made through the character
o f Mrs. Moore. Earlier [4.4.1] 1 suggested that Mrs. Moore's corrective to the imperial
vision is expressed in her belief - which is the cornerstone of Christian doctrine -that
God i s love. I'd now like ta extend this idea by showing that Mrs. Moore's notion o f
Empire goes further. She points out that the Empire as it exists is valueless in a Christian
sense because it is not based on love. In other words, the Christian critique of Empire -
based on its doctrine and expressed in the novel through Mrs. Moore - is radical.

At the same time Christianity i s shown to be unequal to meeting the challenge posed by
India to the human imagination. This is dramatised by the episode of the Caves where --
confronted by the echo -a crisis breaks out. 'But suddenly, at the edge o f [Mrs.
Moore's] mind, Religion appeared, poor little talkative Christianity, and she knew that all
 ords from 'Let there be light' to 'It is finished' only amounted to 'boum' Representations of
1611 'Let there be light' is the first statement made by God in the Bible to signal his India (B): Religions
on of the world. 'It is finished' is the last statement maale by Jesus before he died to in the Novel
ork on earth was over. Taken together these statements are meant, I think,
vely evoke a great deal of the Christain experience. The echo however
all categories of meaning based on the power of reason. It shows how all such
can be broken down and made to seem nonsensical. Among the structures
smissed in this way are those of 'poor little talkative ~hristianit~'.
is seen as pathetic because it is ineffectual. When it comes to Empire
can only criticise it theoretically. In practical terms, at worst, it collaborates
and at best can do no more than talk against it. To the extent that Christainity
n reason and divides human experience into categories of good and evil it is
ach is based on realism and therefore it cannot handle the challenge of
out by the Caves. Christianity shows it cannot cope and all its statements
ly meaningless or distorted.

ortion comes out in the last section where, in the midst of all the chaos of
htami a banner with the words 'God is Love' is displayed. The choice of the
e (English) and of the sentiment (which is Christian) have been made deliberately
rtist who has painted the banner to indicate'the universal nature of God. The
of writing 'si' for 'is' however has various meanings. On the level of social
edy it suggests that yet again India and Britain have been unable to understand each
r. One culture cannot be translated into another on these terns. As far as religion
annot be easily understood.

light is thrown on Christianity through an analysis of two missionaries

rd and young Mr. Sorley - whom the reader meets only through their
n be faulted readily. They lead painfully simple lives: buy the
e in the poorest part of town, avoid the social and racial
that heaven is open to all, without reference tcr barriers
ey are shown to be ineffectual. Unlike the church to
go, the little church of the missionaries is open to all, English and
rner makes a loud appeal while the bells of the latter ring only
vince any Indian seriously of the strengths of Christianity. The
temporarily is during a famine. The doctrine they preach is
sjstently. When asked whether Christian~tyis sufficiently open
g monkeys, jackals and bacteria they hesitate and finally draw
to be insufficiently inclusive.

extent though can any argument be pushed without becoming absurd ? Also, to

t1 $3
xteht is it accurate to treat Christianity as a British religion simply because it is the
religion of England ? Its place of origin is very close to that of lslam and this faith
e next subject of inquiry.

ISLAM
#

P I

I t
5 .1 Background

t
F rster?sviews on lslam before A Passage to India are perhaps set out most clearly in an
e jy essay.

...the Mosque sets itself against a profound tendency of human nature

-the tendency to think one place holier than another ....I't does not
fulfil what [to most Westerners] is the function of a religious building:
the outward expression of an inward ecstasy. It embodies no crists,
leads up through no gradation of nave and choir and employs no
hierarchy of priests. Equality before God - so doubtfully proclaimed
by Christianity - lies at the very root of Islam; and the mosque is
essentially a courtyard for the Faithful to worship in, either in solitude
A. Pmsa& to India or under due supervision ....Since the edifice under consideration is a
courtyard and not a shrine, and since the god whom it indicates was
never incarnate and left no cradles, coats, handkerchiefs or nails on
earth to stimulate and complicate devotion, it follows that the
sentiments felt for his mosque by a Muslim will differ from those which
aChristian feels for his Church. The Christian has a vague idea that
God is inside the church, presumably near the east end [where the altar -
is]. The Muslim, when his faith is pure, cherishes no such illusion, and
though he behaves in the sacred enclosure as tradition and propriety
enjoin, attaches no sanctity to it beyond what is conferred by the
presence of the devout [AH, 306-71
I
I
This extended quotation helps indicate a good deal about Forster's response to Islam. 1
First -at least in its early stages - it was strongly colored by Forster's reaction against
~hristianit~. Whenever Forster notices a special characteristic of lslam it is seen by him '
as an improvement on Christianity. Next lslam seems genuinely democratic in both
theory and practice unlike Christianity. The equality of lslam is one of experience in that
all parts of the mvsque are uniformly sacred. It is also an equality of worship in that there
is no hieritrchy of priests to interfere between the worshipper and God. Then since lslam
worships a transcendent God(who is above his creation) all worshippers are equidistant
from him.
C

5.3.2 Specifics
The first group of people to whom the novel introduces the reader are Muslim but this is
not simply a communal point. As is later explained, one of the features of contemporary
India is that educated Indians are in a state of difficult social evolution. They use
whatever little external assistance they get. Relgion already exists as a binding factor and
so Hamidullah, Aziz and Mahmoud Ali use if as an excuse to get together: '... the
educated Indians visited one another constantly, and were weaving, however painfully, a
new social fabric'. Even when lslam surfaces in their conversation it acts as a window
onto poetry and not only as a religion in its own right '...the themes [ ~ z i zpreferred
] were
the decay of lslam and the brevity of love ... the name of the poet, Hafiz, Hali. lqbal was
sufficient guarantee. lndia -a hundred Indias -whispered outside beneath the
. indifferent moon, but for the time lndia seemed one and their own and they regained their
departed greatness by hearing its departure lamented ....'[API, 381

I find it difficult to respond to the picture of lslam presented here. Certainly it contributes
to the romantic beauty of the evening, and it also contributes to the inner happiness of
these people who are shown to be responsive to the arts. Yet isn't there an element of
ambiguity present too ? For one thing, Islam while associated with beauty is associated
specifically with a sense of elegy, or the sense of the passing away of an age. While Aziz
and his friends respond to this, they are also shown to be oblivious to the fact that a
hundred Indias other than their private nation exist. They may seem to think of the decay
of lslam but in fact as is shown this is submerged in their own sense of well-being. Does
this suggest that lslam is seen here less as a religion than as a phqe of human
development ?

I th'ink this suggestion is strengthened by the subsequent description of Aziz's favourite

mosque:

-
The front in full moonlight -had the appearance of marble, and the
ninety-nine names of God on the frieze stood out black, as the frieze
stood out white against the dky. The contrast between this dualism and
the contention of shadows within pleased Aziz, and he tried to symbolise
the whole into some truth of religion or love. A mosque by winning his
, ' approval let loose his imagination. The temple of another creed, Hindu.
Christian or Greek, would h e bored him and failed to awaken his sense .
 of beauty. Here was Islam, an attitude &wards life both exq;isite and
durable, where his body and his thoughts found their home [API, 411
I

lam is presented in an extremely complex way here. First its beauty is shown to rest on
very ordering of experience. Indeed it seems ro depend for its beauty on an almost
lack-and-white seiof contrasts. Next there is a sense of cultural exclusiveness built into
appeal of Islam. Aziz is moved by the mosque because it is a mosque, not just
ause it is a beautiful building or because it is a place of worship. Then there is the
ral coherence that Islam holds out to all its believers. It unites them as it
more than a religious or even a national promise. Islam offers the mind of the believer

is idea is important. Forster was to say that the theme of the novel was ' ... the search
the human race for a more lasting home ....' [API, 25 I]. Putting these ideas together it
s that lslam offers a certain accommodation to the human spirit. Yet what exactly is
e nature of the accommodation offered by lslam ? Does Forster suggest it here as a
anent resting-place for the mind or a temporary transit-house ? Islam, however
tiful and sensitive as it is, might not be enough. It has room for the glory of life -
as the 'unattainable Friend' -but not for its horrors. Ultimately then lslam like
r~stianityis inadequate because it is exclusive.
B

4.4 HINDUISM

i 4.1 Background

rster did not, tiowever, reach this conclusion immediately. Indeed his initial response to
duism was one of confusion and alarm. As his stay in Dewas came to an end he found
relief to turn from his Hindu working environment to be with his Muslim friends on
y: 'I have passed abruptly from Hinduism to Istam and the change is a relief. I have
o into a world whose troubles and problems are intelligible to me [HOD, 1521. He
'
d this idea in a letter:

.The Hindu character is almost incomprehensible to us ...the more I

know the less I understand. With the Mohammedans it is different.
When after the dgh-e of Gokul Ashtami, I stood on the minaret of
the Taj in Agra, and heprd the evening call to prayer from the adjacent
mosque, I knew at all events where I stood and what 1 heard; it was a
land that was not merely atmosphere but had definite outlines and
horizons. So with the Mohammedan friends of Masood, whom f am
meeting now. They may not be as subtle or suggestive as the Hindus, *

but I can follow what they are saying. [Furbank 11,991

hile Forster's initial response to Hinduism is one of horror at its apparent chao5, his
sponses to it are more complex and sensitive. This development takes place when
that the reason for this seeming chaos might be perhaps the all-influsiveness of

ation is formulated by Forster in the course of an essay on temple architecture.

...the temple [is] the World ~ o u b i onn whose exterior is displayed

life in all its forms, life human and superhuman and subhuman and
animal, life tragic and cheerful, cruel and kind, seemly and obscene, all -
crowned at the mountain's summit by the sun. And in the interior of the
mountain [is] revealed a tiny cavity, a central cell, where, in the heart of
the world complexity, the individual could be alone with his go&
. ~induism-unlike Buddhism, Islam and Chrisitanity - is not a
congregational religion: it bypasses the community and despite its
A rassage to India entanglement with caste it bypasses class. Its main concern is the
individual and his relation to reality. [Advani, 851

What are the points that emerge from these comments with regard to Forster's attitude to
Hinduism? First he claims it embraces all life-forms. This emphasis on inclusiveness
contrasts favourably with the?exclusiveness of Christainiq which Forster criticises in the
novel [see 5.2.21. Next is the readiness with which Hinduism -despite its broad-based
appeal - seems to allow the individual complete privacy in her personal relationship
with the divine. The individual is allowed this space because there is no priesthood. Then
there is the attendant relief Forster feels when he finds Hinduism the only major religion
not to insist on congregational worship. To his delight only the individual worshipper
seems to matter. Finally Hinduism seems not to influence society for the worse.

On the face of it, it seems strange that Forster's views on Hinduism appear to have
undergone such a change. How did this occur ? Possibly his experiences in Dewas as the
much-c'elebrated Secretary to a Hindu prince -and his retelling of these experiences in
A Passage to India and The Hill of Devi - have a good deal to do with this. Forster's
attitude to his stay in Dewas is complicated. Hinduism seems to irritate Forster because its
external manifestations frustrate his seaich for beauty and for meaning. Thus he seems
doomed to remain an outsider. How - if at all -would he come to acquire a measure of
inwardness concerning Hinduism ? I will go on to outline a possible argument but need
first the help of an extended reference. The passage below is taken from Forster's account
of the Gokul Ashtami celebrations at Dewas in The Hill of Devi;

What troubles me is that every detail, almost without exception, is .

fatuous and in bad taste. The altar is a mess of little objects, stifled with
rose leaves, the walls are hung with deplorable oleographs, the
-
chandeliers, draperies everything bad. Only one thing is beautiful -
the expression on the faces of the people, as they bow to the shrine and
he himself is, as always, successful in his odd role. I have never seen
religious ecstasy before and don't take to it more than I expected I
should but [the Mahahrajah] manages not to be absurd. Whereas the
other groups of singers stand quiet, he is dancing all this time, like
David before the Ark .... The minutes afterwards I saw him as usual, in
ordinary life.. ..(HOD, 104)

1 think both the problem concerning Forster's attitude to Hinduism and a possible
resolution are set out here. The problem is marked by his sense of the apparent
incoherence and clutter in the celebrations. At the same time Forster realises that this
appears chaotic only to the outside observer. The participants clearly see a purposk and
meaying in the chaos since their faces in turn become blissfully serene. Moreover
Hinduism seems to open up the possibility of a mystical cision. This is suggested by the ,
parallel between the Maharajah of Dewas and David. David was a king of Israel who,
according to the Bible, danced before the trunk which contained God's word in a state of
religious ecstasy. Throughout Forster stands on the sidelines as a confused observer. He is.
puzzled about the form of these celebrations which seem to lack order and beauty. He is
also puzzled by the content of the religious experience which seems to him to alternate
strangely with ordinary life. Nonetheless he comes to realise that both form and content
are satisfying to believers. What direction does this give to his analysis of Hinduism in A
Passage to India?

5.4.2 Specifics

To begin with the chaos consequent on Janmashtami is described again in 'Temple' with
a difference in mode. It is as if two modes of writing [see 2.2.4 and 2.2.51 come together : ,
those of social comedy and of the philosophical quest.

But the clock struck midnight and ...Infinite Love took' upon itself the
fonn of SHRI KNSHNA and saved the world. All sorrow was
 annihilated, not only for Indians, but for foreigners, birds, caves, railways, Representations of
and the stars, all became joy, all laughter; there had never been disease lndia (B): Religions
nor doubt, misunderstanding, cruelty and fear. Some jumped in the air, in the Novel
others flung themselves prone and embraced the bare feet of the universal
lover ....Not an orgy of the flesh. ...But the human spirit had tried by a
desperate contortion to ravish the unknown, flinging down science and
history in the struggle, yes, beauty itself. Did it succeed ?'[API, 2851

I think this evocation of Hindu festivities-showsa certain development in Forster's '

representation of Hinduism. He tries to show that there is a meaning behind what appears
to be slapstick however annoying this may seem [see 4.2.21. Forster's formula of 'Infinite
Love' may not be acceptable. But it is a gesture, however incomplete, at the philosophical
meaning behind the festivities. Forster shows that while both Christianity and Islam
require the exclusion of some categories, Hinduism makes no such demand. Before it
science, history and beauty itself which habitually require categories and entail exclusion
ust fill.

however raises some problems in my mind. As regards beauty, I think Forster's final
least in it. more obvious manifestations - suggests a certain maturity
handles Hinduism. Islam was associated in 'Mosque' with an intensely
on of beauty is a marble mosque on a moonlit night. Christianity had
oked at least one conventionally beautiful image: those of Italian churches which
lebrate the beauty of both line and colour. Hence if Forster is ready to write of
nduism without evoking conventional ideas of beauty it does suggest a certain growth
his treatment of relgion. Indeed he goes so far as to say here that Hinduism is
le precisely because it triumphs over stereotypes of beauty. But why should it be
essary for any religion to have to triumph over science and history? I have earlier [see
-
1 .] suggested that it is a limitation for 'Temple' to depict an Aziz who under the
of life in a Hindu state - gives up his scientific vocation. Surely it is not a
isite for Hinduism that science has to be abandoned, any more than history. +
[see 3.3.31 1 had suggested the historical implications of Forster's poitrayal of life
princely state. Can it be that it is not Hinduism which is unable to cope with
of science and history in India but Forster's novel which cannot face this

s the novel which is insufticiently rpdical. Earlier in 'Temple' there is this

nterlude: 'The fissures in the Indian soil are ihfinite; Hinduism, so solid from
riven into seals and clans, which radiate and join, and change their names
g to the aspect from which they are approached. Study it for years with the best
you raise your head nothing they have told you quite fits' (API, 285).
nnection made between Hinduism and India. They are treated as being
ntical, a conclusion that may not be equally acceptable to all. Moreover,
Hinduism are seen as mysterious and irrational. Hence, if Said's paradigm
plied here what will emerge is that yet again lndia is being shown as
led by the organised, rational West. To the extent that Forster's treatment
s into his representations of lndia then I believe it to be interesting but
ately it treats India's cultural pluralism as 8 cause for concern rather
nd this to my mind is the reverse of the truth.

5.5 LET US SUM UP

aimed an interest in more than one religion. Yet he preferred - in matters of
-
be called a non-believer. As regards Christianity the religion into which he
ally baptised -he found Jesus lacking in humour and intellectual ability.
r he believed Christianity had strengthed class-restrictions in England and given
uiliding an unacceptable moral legitimacy. Missionary actiivity was also
A Passage to India Islam seemed more democratic than Christianity: in the relationship it envisaged between
its followers and Allah and amongst its followers as well. 'Mosque' demonstrates the
strong social, cultural and aesthetic appeal of Islam. It holds out a promise of a spiritual
home to thebeliever. ~ t . t h esame time this is shown to be based on a sense of cultural
exclusiveness. Hence it is shown to offer only a partial approach to the quest of humanity
for lasting accommodation

Hinduism is polytheisticand so appears to be characterised by its all-inclusiveness. Non-

congregational, it allows the individual space to relate to her god. Hinduism despite the
caste-system does not impede social structures and does not give conversion any place.
As in the Janmashtami celeb@ions of 'Temple', Hinduism defies form and beauty to
present a festival which -although chaotic and comic -allows the believer access to
mystical experience.

Llltimately however A Passage to India- recognises multiculturalism but does so within

such a strong Orientalist paradigm that its representation of India is reactionary rather
than radical.

5.6 GLOSSARY
Agenda Programme of things to be done
Congregation An assembly of believers in the act of worship
Radical Favouring social and political reform
Fatuous Silly
Mysticism Direct communion with god
Oleograph A print of an oil-painting
Polytheistic The doctrine of a plurality of gods
Proselytise To convert from one religion to another
Pluralism Culture of various beliefs and communities
Reactionary That which tries to return to past political conditions

5.7 QUESTIONS,
Q I. ' Comment on the significance of the phrase"poor little talkative Christi-qity'.

42. Analyse the symbol of the mosque so as to bring out the complex pic ,re of
Islam presented in the novel.

Q 3. Outline your resp nse to the adequacy (or otherwise) of the 'representation 01''
1
Hinduism in the no el.

5.8 SUGGESTED READING

Background material

Ackerley, J. R Hindu Holiday: An Indian Journal. 1 932, repr. Delhi,

1979.

Secondary material
Advani, Rukun. E.M. Forster as Critic. London, 1984.
Shahane, Vasant. Focus on E. M. Forster's "A Passage to India"
Bombay, 1979.
 -
A

@NIT6 PASSAGES FROM INDIA

Introduction

6.2.1 Nature
6.2.2 Culture

6.4.1 Theplay
6.4.2 The film
6.4.3 The novel
6.4.4 Forster's Subsequent career

' 6.0 /. OBJECTIVES

rse of a serids of lectures delivered at Cambridge on the subject of the

ure of the novel as,an art-form, Forster voices some significant regrets.
- ....
yes the novel tells a story and I wish that it was not so, that it could
-
fferent melody or perception of the truth ....'[A PI, 3201. So far 1 have
in A Passage to India-which, in one way or another, have had something
ory both in its narrative and in its dramatic modes. In this unit though I'd
hat might be called the atmosphere of the novel as this is evoked by
of landscape and motif. History, character, incident, and religion -
have moved at least ostensibly in the direction of representing lndii
ituted passages to India. I now hope to show that landscape and
-
comprise the atmosphere constitute passages from India. I think it is the
these two sets of journeys that shapes the conclusion of the novel. I
is sort of an unresolved crisis that makes A Passage to India the last
d and published.
I A Passage to India
6.2 LANDSCAPE
6.2.1 Nature

Nowhere does Forster's inheritance of Romanticism - the ability to reorganise external

landscape in the light of innei reality or psychoscape - show itself more clearly than in
his symbolic treatment of natural landscape. Earlier I'd suggested two contradictory
implications of his handling landscape. On the one hand it could be said that - as in
Whitman's poem [see 1.2.11 it could be regarded as essentialist in that it deliberately
distracted the reader's aitention away from the political and social realities of life in
colonial India. In other words, Forster's Romantic treatment of landscape could be seen
as' an extension of the imperial imagination that seeks to extend its control over tt.;itory
that is exotic, hence inferior and vulnerable to domination. On the other hand [see
2.2.31 it can also be argued that romanticising the landscape challenges the categories
i -
imposed by empire. It shows that the forces of Nature sky, rain and sun - are equally
open to all regardless of race and class distinctions and thus criticises imperialism.
1
An example of the use of landscape to work out a journey away from the concerns of
lndia towards the concerns of the West is the description of the false dawn that Adela
encounters on her way to the caves. Adela sees what appears to be a spectacular sunrise
only to find later that it has been a mirage. When the sun actually rises it does so without
splendour. A little later she sees what appears to be a snake. Aziz and the villagers
promote her delusion until she looks at it more closely and finds instead it is a tree-stump.
The Indian landscape is shown to hold out a promise of exuticism it fails to keep. How is
this description to be read ? On the one hand it can be said that Forster's confidence in
the power of the Indian landscape is so great that he is ready to run the risk of presenting
it to his readers without the conventional trappings of Raj fiction. He is confident that it
can make an impact without the glorious sunrise or the mysterious snake always
associated with stereotypical representations of India. This interpretation will demonstrate
the artistic and political maturity of Foriter's treatment of lndia which is deluding only to
those who approach it with the limitations and mistakes of the Western imagination. On
the other hand it might also be argued that Forster's presentation of a muddled and
chaotic lndia is very much in keeping with the Orientalist paradigm of an irrational and
therefore inferior culture. Elsewhere, Forster wrote of a similar experience that had
befallen him in Dewas: 'I call the adventure "typical" because it is even more difficult
here than in England to get at the rights of the matter. Everything that happens is >aidto
be one thing and proves to be another ....' [HOD,59-60]. The landscape moves the
attention of the reader away from the realities of lndia towards the needs of those who
observe her. And these observers, by definition, are western. They demand that lndia
offer them various things: spiritual healing, order, and exoticism. Once more then the
focus of Forster's use of natural landscape is not a passage to India. Instead the focus is
on a passage away from India towards Western concems.

6.2.2 Culture

Further, I think that a similar sense ofjourneying away from lndia is evoked by Forsters
selection of landscapes from the world of culture as well. Consider, for instance. the
surprising fact that - in a novel which describes itself as a passage to lndia -the only
two journeys of any length which are depicted are return-voyages from lndia to England.
Mrs. Moore's departure from lndia is described in this way:

She watched the indestructible life of man and his changing bces, and
the houses he has built for himself and god, and they appeared to her
not in terms of her own trouble but as things to see. There was, for
instance, a place called Asirgarh which she passed at sunset and
identified on a map ....No one had ever mentioned Asirgarh to her, but
it had huge and noble bastions and to the right of them was a mosque.
She forgot it. Ten minutes later, Asirgarh reappeared. The mosque was
 Passages from
to the left of the bastions now. Thetrain in its descent through the
Vindhyas had described a semicircle round Asirgarh. What could she
"India
connect it with except its own name ? Nothing; she knew no one who
lived there. But it had looked at her twice and seemed to say 'I do not
vanish'. 'I have not seen the right places', she thought, as she saw
embayed in the platforms of the Victoria terminus the end of the rails
that had carried her over a continent and could never cany her back.
[API, 2 13-41

How does such an extract work?First the landscape this time belongs to the world of
culture in the sense that its components have been constructed by human hands: the for€
of Asirgarh, the railway-tracks and of course Victoria Terminus. Next this scene takes
on a life of its own quite distinct (as is indicated) from the life and the preoccupations of
the human observer. Then it seems to speak directly about human experience. Although
the landscape itself is inanimate its message seems to embody the cirularity of human
experience. Finally it appears to suggest that -given the circularity of human
experience - it is futile to try to understand it or try to make any coherent statement
about it. To the extent [see 2.2.51 that this is a novel which is -among other things -
about the modernist theme of a quest for meaning then, this is a statement that poses a
problem.For if human experience and meaning are indeed circular then the quest has
turned in upon itself. It is right that this should be a moment of farewell and departure.
For the novel as an art form is about human experience.Jf this is circular then neitherthe
quest nor the novel can go on. A journey away from such a world therefore becomes
imperative. This is underlined by the fact that at this point even the world Knature is
evoked to emphasise the need tor departure: thousands of cocoanut palms appeared all
I...

round the.mchorage and climbed the hills to wave her farewell' (API, 214). In this way,
the novel creates the ideal of a passage from India.

6.3 MOTIFS
6.3.1 Sight

The detailed images generated by the novel repeat this movement. The most important
visual motifs or images are of course the Mosque, Caves and Temple that constitute the
tripartite divisioning of the novel.' 1 think though that it is possible to discuss these on the
basis of Unit 5.. I'd like to move on to consider small but important images that recur.

One of the niore puzzling motifs in this category is that of the wasp. Mrs. Moore's
tolerant attitude to the creature which she calls 'pretty dear' is contrasted favourably with
that of the missionaries [see 5.2.21. Their attitude of rejection of non-human life-forms is
in turn contrasted unfavourably with Godbole's attempt to include it in his vision [see
4.2.21. Since the wasp has been considered so far within. various religious frameworks can
it also be seen to have any non-religious significance ?

This is just possible if the narrator's comments on lndia in general are considered. For
instance there is a point when he takes a break from the napative to say 'Most of the
inhabitants of India do not mind how lndia is governed'. At first this sounds preposterous
until it emerges that this is Forster's little joke. The 'inhabitants' are the lower animals
and life-forms; squirrels, birds (and presumably) wasps. To begin with this seems a silly
remark. Surely animals across the globe are blissfully apathetic to politics. Yes indeed,
Forster seems to say, but there is a difference. 'Nor are the lower animals qf England
concerned about England, but in the tropics the indifference is more prominent, the
inarticulate world is closer at hand and readier to resume control as soon as men are tired'
(API, 126). Again I find'this complex. When I read it 1 find I have two choices. For one,
I can accept Forster's claim that 'the book is not about politics'. In that case it would
seem that the novel is about the way in which people find accommodation for themselves
in an atmosphere which is non-human, hostile, and ever-ready to take control. For '

another, I can set aside Forster's claim and give the novel, including this extract, a
 ilPassage to India historicist reading. In that case it will seem thatthis fits into Said's paradigm. The Orient
is once again shown to be chaotic, irrational, and in need of Western organising rule.
--
Regardless of which line of interpretation I choose whether symbol-based [2.3.1] or
histo.rifist [2.3.3] one factor is common. When Forster challenges his readers to consider
the non-human world -as he does through the recurrence of the wasp-motif -he
implicitly leads them to make their passage away from India. lndia is shown to be only
the starting-point of a metaphysical quest.

Another puzzling visual motif centres around two characters, Ralph and Stella. As Mrs.
Moore's children by her second marriage they might seem to be a simple continuation of
her, as it were, into time future. I don't think however that it is quite so siinple. They
represent, I think, not a continuation of her metaphysical journey but a branching-off
from it in a definite way. Mrs. Moore's original aim 'to be one with the universe' is one
I
she herself sees as too simplistic. When she realises the horror of the Marabar, she ceases
to wish for this union with a universe that can contain so much horror. Nonetheless
though she leaves lndia she never'actually reaches England as she dies on the way. Even
her ghost refuses to enter the Mediterranean [see 4.4.11. Her children, it is true, come to
lndia, apparently on a quest. Fielding tries to endow this with significance, by suggesting
vaguely that '[they] like Hinduism, though they take no interest in its forms' [API.
313l.What exactly does this mean ? Surely this motif is not one of the continuation of the
past into the present and presumably into the future. I think it is a motif that doesn't so
much continue the old passage to lndia as initiate a new journey. This is a quest that is
not discussed with any degree of specificity. Nonetheless one thing I think is clear. It is a
journey which uses lndia as a point of departure rather than as a destination. heyond
that the novel has to lapse into silence as it cannot indicate the course and end of.this new
passage from India. .
6.3.2 Sound
b
Recurrent motifs of sound or auditory images share.similar resonances. There is the echo
or BOOUM of the Caves which Forster said he felt somehow justified in tfying 'because
[his] subject was India. I think it is endlessly debatable as tp whether Forster's use of the
echo as ansuditory image moves his subject closer or further. To begin with the echo
stands for that which - like the Caves [see 5.2.21 abolishes distinctions. In this sense it
might be seen to offer a critique of the rational appraoch - here seen as synonymous
with the West -by setting aside the only premises on which it functions. At the same
time the echo has other, more confusing variants as well. There are 'the echoing walls of
civility' at the ~ r i d Party
~ e which refer to the feebly polite conversation between Adela
and Mrs. Moore on the one side and the Indian ladies on the other. However polite it may
be, there is little or no genuine communication between them. The idea that the echo
symbolises the demolition of all distinctions also means that it contributes to the erasure
of all meaning. Again, as with the circularity suggested by the landscape, this may be
.
central to the'hot'ion of the modernist quest [see 2.2.5 and 6.2.21 By the sarne,token such
a blurring of experience completely wipes out cultural and social specifities. lndia
remains firmly in the Orientalist bind of the unknowable, inchoate East. Like the images
of sight, the images of sound also use lndia as their point of departure rather than as
their point of arrsal.

6.4 TONCLUSIONS .
6.4.1 The Play

Curjously though two significant alterations of A Passage to lndia have been ma& that
-radically alter its atmosphere in terms of bo,th landscape and motif. In 1956, Santha
Rama Rau wrote a playscript on which Forster commented thus:

... I tried to indicate the human predicament in a universe which is not,

so far. comprehensible to our minds. This a s M t of the novel is
 displayed in its final chapters. It is obviously unsuitable for the stage, Passages from
and Miss Rau -most rightly in my judgment -has not emphasised it, India
and has brought down her final curtain on the Trial Scene [ API, 3351

lncide illy, it is surprising that Forster should doubt the dramatic suitability of a
situatil in which the universe is shown to be inexplicable. Is not this the major theme of
the mc :m Theiltre of the Absurd ? But this is by the way. The reason the dramatised
versio~ s interesting to readers of the novel is because it provides a ready-made
alternt ie model. In other words, it suggest what the consequences wohld be if the novel
were t :onclude with 'Caves' instead of 'Temple'. Fint the novel would have been
much >relike a detective novel instead of a metaphysical one. The important question
to ask ~ u'Whatl happens
~ in the caves to the characters ?'. It would not be
imp011 ~tto ask -as I think it is now - ' what happens to the perceptions of the readers
as a re It of 'Caves' ? Also by concluding with 'Caves' rather than with 'Temple' yet
again i ahistorical approach is confirmed. The most obvious way of getting readers to
questic and criticise Empire ,is to show the Aziz-Fielding relationship coming under
strain. 'emple' makes this possible. The play- by ringing the curtain down on a
Fieldi~ and Aziz happy with the verdict in 'Caves' - fails to do this. It suggests all is
well ir le best of possible worlds. Thus the interrogation of colonialism is completely
ruled ( t.

6.4.2 The Film

Anoth alternative model is provided by David Lean's 1984 film version of A Passage
to lndi The film shot the third section in Kashmir which is far more picturesque than the
Mau o he novel. The question of Hinduism is completely side-stepped. In other words,
many estions that the novel asks are muted in the film. First there can by definition be
no thr~ .way dialogue between Islam, Christianity and Hinduism such as the novel
sugge! . The film thus suggests an essential continuity between Sections I and I11 with
no atti pt to comment on the consequences of religious exclusiveness and inclusiveness.
Next t re can be no questioning of the notions of aesthetic beauty or form either with
refer& :to the portrayal of a religion or a nation. The novel decentres conventional
notion )f beauty and form [see 5.4.21 with regartd to Hinduism in particular andtIndiain
genen The film however fal!s into the trap of portraying picturesque beauty at the end. 1
think 1 s is damaging because [see 6.2. I] one of the concerns of the novel has been to
show 1 ~tthis beauty is not part of India.

6.4.3 he Novel

Both F y and film then offer alternative passages frch India. But what about the novel
as it st ds ? So far I have discussed certain aspects of the conclusions: its attitude to
India': olitical aspirations [3.4.2] its impact on relationships [4.2.1 and 4.2.31. Just now
thougl 'd like to focus on one particular feature of the conclusion, namely, the way it
contril tes to the notion of a journey with Ipdia?,asthe point of departure and not the
\
point ( arrival.

'Why can't we be friends now ?' said [Fielding], holding [Aziz]

affectionately. 'It's what 1want. It's what you want'.
But the horses didn't want it -they swerved apart; the earth didn't
I want it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single-file; the
temples, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest
House, that came into view as they issued frod the gap and saw Mau
beneath: they didn't want it, they' said in their hundred voices,'No, not
yet', and the sky said, 'No, not there' [API, 3 161

Exact l what is happening here ? First there is the point that Fielding's liberal humanism
[see 4 31 misguidedly leads him to believe that a personal relationship between Aziz
and hi self can subsist even in the midst of the hostile political context of imperialism.
He car ot understand that in such circumstances the personal LF the political. Next there
A Passage to India is the problem of Forster's own sexual identity. By this time Forster had not only come to
terms with his homosexuality but had also writtcn (and suppressed) Maurice, a novel in
which he deals with homosexual relationships. Forster did not wish to publish this and
other fiction he had written concerning homosexuality as he did not wish to put his
personal life and relationships under strain. In an extract such as this the homosexual
aspect of the Aziz-Fielding.relat.ionship comes surprisingly close to the surface. Most
significantly there is the question of the landscape. On the one hand it might seem to be
radical. Landscape compels a reader to interrogate the situation and ask why two
individuals cannot be friends until the answer emerges that it is the political context that
endlessly defers and delays a personal relationship. On the other,hand, why should,the
Indian landscape always to be shown to challenge the imagination ? Can it never speak
for itself, and has it always be represented by Western rationalism ? Earlier the novel had
informed its readers that trouble befalls those who 'challenge the spirit of the Indian
earth, which tries to keep men in compartments' (API, 141). Now again the picture
presented is that of an Indian landscape which is irrational in its hostility and yet again in
need of Western organisation and control. I believe that the conclusion of A Passage to
India is marked by various kinds of tension, both political and personal. As regards
aesthetics, this is in accordance with Forster's views as outlined in Aspects of the Novel.
Forster suggests here that a conclusion is about 'completeness not reconstruction' and
should concern.itself with 'an opening-out, not a rounding-off :The conclusion of this,
his last completed novel, seems pretty much written to this prescription. Personal and
political conditioning therefore come together to serve Forster's artistic purpose. All three
factors - personal, political, and aesthetic - promote evasiveness. What could be more
suitable from his point of view than to evoke an India which defers rather than denies
fulfillqent; an India from which therefore one must eternally take one's passage ?

6.4.4 Forster's Subsequent Career

Gandhiji once remarked of Edward Thompson (a novelist roughly contemporary with

Forster) that although Thompson had written a novel entitled Farewell to India he would
-.never actually bid farewell to lndia himself. Surprisingly this was.both true and not true
of Forster. Forster always claimed that nothing in the world seemed to him 'to add up'
and make sense after the First World War and that this was why he never wrote another
novel. Indeed one of those who tried to draw him out from this state of despair was his
old friend the Maharaja of Dewas who sent word through a friend saying 'Tell him from
me to follow his heart and his mind will see everything clear' [HOD, 1 141.Forster
returned to writing, but not to the writing of fiction. He said later that like a rat he
'deserted the ship of fiction' and 'swam toward biography'. During this phase he
continued to write on India and published reviews, essays and his travel-journal The Hill
of Devi itself. A phrase that he uses in a review at this stage furnishes a clue to his
method: 'I came away feeling ...that Hindu art' ...was an achievement which I might
interpret in view of my own experiences and needs'. this comment might well be
extended to cover Forster's response to India, which is certainly evocative, but always
personal rather than political. He never quite says farewell to India in his career and yet
in another sense contrives to travel a fair distance on his passage away from India.

.6.5 ,LETUS SUM UP

I will now attempt to draw out the commonalities in all six units for this final summary
although Unit 6 will of course be treated in greater detail. Please monitor your progress
through the text against this step-by-step summary.

Earlier writers of Raj fiction such as Rudyard Kipling saw imperialism - especially as
symbolised by a passage from Engjand to India - as carrying complex implicationsof
exile, guilt and liberation. Forster's novel adapts the title of a poem by Whitman but
complicates Whitman's uncritical romanticism with an element of self-critical
modernism. Forster's essays on colonialism before A Passage tq lndia explore the three
way nexus between empire, commerce and religion.
 i
Two ets o f representations o f lndia emerge. Within the novel the models derive from the Passages from
histo y text-book: Romanticism, social comedy and Modernism. The models made lndia
avail ble by the critical industry include symbol-based studies, language-based studies,
and lonial-discourse analysis.

el i s a chronicle o f the changing historical face o f lndia from 1912 (when Forster
ted this country) until 1924 (when the novel was published). I t is prophetic o f
istorical forces. Forster claimed that the novel seeks to be philosophical rather

he1ess.a historicist reading of the novel suggests how race, class and gender (which
o f socioeconomic conditioning) shape character and incident. Such an
can be supplemented by an analysis o f Islam, Christianity and Hinduism as
three divisions respectively of the novel.

of all thesekes o f interpretation is to suggest that Forster's

o f lndia is imaghatively challenging and radical in appearance but

ition i s strengthened by an analysis o f the atmosphere o f the novel, comprising

es and motifs. Landscapes in nature appear at first to constitute a critique o f
sm by suggesting that natural resources are accessible to all humanity
ive o f barriers o f race and class. In fact, however they also help blur this critique
ticising and thus constituting an lndia that conforms to the Orientalist paradigm:
therapeutic and therefore-fit only to minister to western needs, including the '

lonise. Landscapes from the world o f culture suggest the circularity o f human
and the impossibility o f translating it across cultures. Thus they embody the
al quest o f modernism but in doing so take the reader away from the
I realities o f India.

sound together present an incoherent, irrational lndia which seems in

need of western clarity and control. The stage and screen versions o f the novel,
itself, possess conclusions that evoke the notion o f a passage not to, but
was to be the direction taken by Forstet's subsequent career too.

6.6 GLOSSARY
The dead and rotting flesh o f any animal
Enclosed or em bedded
Unfinished
A dominant figure

6.7 I QUESTIONS
Q 1. Examine either a landscape o f nature or o f culture to demonstrate how it works
out the ideal of a passage from India

Q 2. 1 Outline a symbol-based study o f eitlter images o f sight or images o f sound.

Q 3. Suggest the political and artistic implications o f placing the conclusion o f the
novel within the Orientalist paradigm.

618 SUGGESTED READING

Seconc ary material

Drew, John. India and the Romantic Imagination, Delhi, 1987.

NOTES
 w

1 THE ENGLISH NOVEL :MODI&NIS~~

\
.
AND AFTER \

IR Objectives
I. 1 Background
1.2 Modes of Narration \

I 2.I Narratives of Ndstalgia

1.2.2 Roman-Fleuve
1.2.3 Political ~arratives
1.2.4 Narratives of Morality
1.2.5 Ironic Documentary
1.2.6 Comic Realism
1.2.7 Voices of Women'
1.2.8 Detective Fiction \
1.2.9 Vision LiteratureIScience Fiction
1.3 Let Us Sum Up
1.4 Questions
1.5 Suggested Reading
H
l.dl OBJECTIVES
previous Block, we studied E.M Forster's A Pmsuge to India (1924). In this Block we
a novel published in 1961. What happened to the development of the novel.in the
kinds of novels were written between the two World Wars and aftefl

t is an introductory one'and it gives us a background to the modem English novel. It

the major shifis in literary perspective which marked the fiction written after the
rld War. It also discusses the outstanding narrative modes of post-War fiction
xamptes of prominent lthorsand texts. This Unit will give you a feel of the
itten during these times and will help you understand better the issues raised by
in The Prime of Miss ~ e a Br+ie.
n

1.1 BACKGROUND
Engli ih literature of the early twentieth century is marked by a definite sense of transition.
ificant fiction,writers, Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence, identified 1910 and
ctively as the years when the human character changed and the old world order
rom then onwards, we may say, the parameters of thought and writing underwent
es, signalling the advent of Modernism.
\a*>.
st writing exploded the long-preserved myth of universal human nature. It
dged the breakdown of the pre-industrial way of life and economy and was
by urbanisation, destruction of reason, and the resulkt uncertainties of the first. --
. These issues loomed large in the consciousness ofthe writers whose works -
ocalyptic, crisis-centred views of history. Literature conveyed the sense of
lienation, disintegration, futility and anarchy that had engulfed the.human
result, undertones of extreme self-con~iousness,introversion and scepticism
rature. Elements ~f the anti-representational came te the fore as poetry kvelled
rjiee verse and the novel took to the stream-of-consciousnessnarrative.
-
rid War I1 kroupt about the birth of what W.H. Auden in-1947called '!the
. The nightmarish realities of the battlefield had impllinted themsekes on the
who had to come to t e q s wlth the destfuction and desolation of the nuclear
ad massacr;es,.new borders and fallen regimes. The sense of holocaust J
nsibility of the years that followed. The post-War world marked, in a way, ,
ism withkhe deaths of literary giants like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and i
I -
 W.B.Yeats. A new strain of liberalism was born and Lionel Trilling, in his book The Liberal
Iqagimtion (1950), called for moral realism that would embody the tragic sense of life that
- literature should reflect.

In fiction lay the possibility of sensitive expression of human scepticism which was higher
than politics and deeper than a social report. Literature saw the world in its.human
multiplicify and variety, and was capable of portraying the contradiction and ambiguity that
I
lay beyond the parameters of ideology and certainty. One important aspect of this new strain
of writing was the variability of human nature which novels dealt with against the
characteristic backdrop of the working or lower middle-classes. The protagonists moved
along in life imbued with a sense of alienation and beset by a sense of anguish.

Novelists and their protagonistswere seen to possess a strange sense of purposelessness

which prevented them from comprehending reasons for their existence. Samuel Beckett's
writing, which initiated the "Theatre of the Absurd", went a long way in reinforcing this
particular tendency which revolutionised trends in contemporary writing. The mathematical
term "surd", which stands for what cannot be expressed in finite terms of number and
quantity, came to symbolise the amorphous attitudes that the literature of the times tended to
reflect and underlined the fact that realism was no longer a reliable entity.

We have to make a distinction here between the "old" avant-garde, which faded away in the
1940s ahd the "new" avant -garde which is postmodernist. Modernism in literature, to put it
succinctly, reveals a breaking away from established patterns, traditions and conventions,
and tries to offer fresh perspectives on thehuman being's position and function in the
universe by experimenting greatly with fdrm and style.

Postmodernism is an extension of the preceding trends and is rather amorphous in nature.

Such writing consciously rejects symbols of authority and adopts an eclectic approach. It
contains techniques like expressing random, unaccountable experiences that guide acts of
creativity, parody and pastiche with their imitative undertones; and the element of chance
also plays a significant role. The noveau-roman and the anti-novel also surface as r

manifestations of postmodernism. Plot, action, narrative and analysis of character are often
seen to be extraneous as the novel is taken to be a medium tha~portraysthe individual
version and vision of things. Franz Kafka, James Joyce, Marcel Proust, and Samuel Beckett
had showti post-War writers the way in this particular regard.

This gave rise to the allied cult of the anti-novel in which a sustained plot was absent and
which was characterised by detailed analysis of objects, many repetitions, variations of the
time sequence, and erratic beginnings and endings. The fiction of the 1950s was
experimental and had shades of the anti-ideological and the realistic. Strong social concerns
came to engross the attention of the fiction writers. Alongside these, we also notice that -
writers tended to place man within a community.

1.2 MODES OF NARRATION

.Inthis section of the Unit we look at some of the most significant modes of fiction in the
post-World War scenario. The outstanding exponents of these modes, along with their
representative works, also find a mention within this section.

1.2.1 Narratives of Nostalgia

Fiction in Britain showed diversity and resilience in the 1950s. A kind of atavistic nostalgia
impelled some writers to look for man's origins and his lost innocence, and displayed a
yearning for the good, old days. These impulses were often mythologised and what emerged
was a distinct distaste for civilisation, materialism, industrialism and progress, and a
conscious creation of the cult of the "noble savage". William Golding's Lordofrhe Ffies
(1954), The Inheiitors (1955) and Pincher Martin (1956), along with Saul Bellow's
Henderson the Rain King (1959). belong to this category'of fiction. They embody the
timelessness of a myth representing the pessimistic vision of the human predilection
, towards eyil which lied at the other end of innocence. Conversely, Aldous Huxley depicted a
utopian w+y of life in Island (1966).
 The English Novel:
Modernism and After
ved popularity as it consisted of a series of novels, each a
If, but interrelated as some characters reappear in each
Balzac and Zola, the tradition finds an exponent in C.P.Snow
gers and Brothers sequence (p40-70), which is a document of English social
925; in Henry Williamson's A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight (195 1-69) in
Powell's A'pance to the Music of Time (195 1-76) in twelve
I
I

ry was one of the modes that fiction turned to after the War. George Orwell's ,

of the& works of thelpost-war era. I t is ostensibly an

s, it satirizes'the totalitarianism that threatened to engulf
of Stalin's treachery with Trotsky, his betrayal of the
ary cause and his subsequent strategies for survival. In another novel, Nineteen
es the same idea against a framework of power equations,
eme of terror and authoritarianism. It is an example of
e spirit of the perverted realism of the times.

e's play Loik Back In Anger (1956) gave cudncy to the term "angry young
is used to describe protagonists who were not angry in the strict sense of the term
ly disgruntled with themselves and their shabby environment. Despite the writer
disclaiming the label, the term has come to define those who choose to defy
norms and mores. Kingsley kmis' Lucky Jim (1954) is perhaps the best
of this sort of novel and the protagonist Jim's anger is directed both against
eing trapped, as against those who have trapped him in a world of hypocrisy

I
1.2.4 Narratives of Morality ,.

is portrayed sensitively in the works of Graham Greene. Set against

riting focuses on espionage, treachery, moral and political confhsion
odd. Greene usually focuses on some ambiguous moral issue as "the
is major novels. In The Confdential Agent (1939) it is pit$, and later
(1978) it is gratitude. Greene, a Catholic, explained that the
n in a novel lay in the fact that it upheld the factor of the human act in
work is a testimony to this belief. Nihilistic undertones can also be
riting which often describes the strange effects of good causes and
e compassionate. The Heart Of The Matter (1948) and
951) are two examples of this proclivity or tendency.

nding exponent of ironic documentary-another post-war trend-is Evelyn

Resorting'to parody and farce, he is a satirist whose characters value themselves a
ighl9 and are then made to face absurd situations. Waugh can be considered the
r of "black humour" in rnodem British fiction. In The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold
ntained an account of an artist whose creative powers have deserted him and who
sea vpyage to recover from this debility. Recovery comes in the form of
s as he struggles to overcome the combined effects of personal ill-health, drugs
seas. These hallucinations comprise the novel which is also a self-portrait of
augh1Pinfold entity that sees escape in these visions. Waugh's world is one of
in which his characters lack psychological depth and live through chaotic
beyond any moral law. This technique serves to emphasize the sense of
aninglessness that characteriserhe modem world. ,
. .
 -----

b e prime of Miss Jean 1.2.6 Comic Realism

Anthony Burgess, a ~athdliclike Graham ~ r e e i eis, known forthis comic realism and his
interest in language and etymology. His chief thematic concerns were the sense of sin and a
consciousness of disaster on the social plane. His two well-known works, The Clockwork
Orange (1962) and The WantingSeed (1962), are apocalyptic fables that satirise human
absurdity. The former is set in a socialist society where, among other ills, language has
declined and-Alex, the hooligan narrator, is de-emotionalised with the result that his
devotion to music, the aesthetic recourse of this otherwise violent personality, is lost forever
and he comes to symbolise a typically conformist member of a socialist regime.

' 1.2.7 Voices of Women

The 1950s are marked by a proliferation of women writers whose works seem to rise from
the changed realities following the catastrophic experience of the War. The post-war social,
economic and cultural patterns radically altered the nature of reality for women, bringing in
its wake new opportunities for them. The questions of identity, career, sexual and economic
freedom, became issues for conscious decisions rather than being subjects for hope and
speculation. Women novelists like Doris Lessing and lris Murdoch reflect these concerns in
their works. Their sensibility, transmuted with great finesse into their creations, is reflected
in the ability to conceive women characters who neither totally csnform to, nor are they in
sustaiped conflict with, their masculine counterparts. They appear as personalities with an
identity of their own and symbolise a microcosm of historical and personal conflicts that
affect society. Muriel Spark's writing is also a testimony to this rich and diverse trend in
fiventieth century fiction.
:
I .
Lessing's fiction usually fakes up l(e concerns of identity and art in an environmenr where
A
systems collapse and require an olution of consciousness. Her first novel, The Grass is
Singing (l950), is concerned wjth the conflict between White interests and Black survival ;n
an Africa tom apart by aparth#id. Her formidable five-volume "ChiJdrensf Viplence"

1
sequence (1952-69) is an ac ount of the protagonist's initial sinre of non-existence in the
flux of history to her gradu I admittance and procurement of a place in it. The sequence
takes up the contradictory/concerns of being and nullification at the same time, thereby
/
symbolising the predicaments of countless modem-day women. The Golden Notebook
(1962) is a remarkable portrait of a woman for whom personal identity and a sense of
incompleteness create a crisis of self. This crisis has wide connotations as it reflects the
moral and intellectual crises of the age. Lessing's characters seem to be in danger of
drowning in the collective political an+gsychological consciousness but are able to claw
their way back from disintegration through a reintegration of consciousness:

lris Murdoch's works, displaying her talent for humour, are marked by a sense of alienation,
degeneration and protest. Her first novel, Under the Net (1954), contgins debates about the
nature of language through Jake, a writer cast in the mould of the anti-hero, who is
concerned with his own silence and his equation with the world. He comes to symbolise the
writer's interest in portraying a new moral philosophy that upholds the supremacy of good
above all else. The Sandcastle (1957) is set against the background of an English school. The
Headmaster has a brief extra-mabital affair with an artist commissioned to do a painting for .
the school: Ultimately fear triumphs, as his sense of duty, obligation and socially-dictated
pragmatism come in the way of any long-term commitment. Murdoch's characters either
stand steadfast in their commitment and become morbidly grim or vacillate between
experiences due to the absence of fixed patterns .in their lives. In this contrast liesaher
philosophy of life which, by portraying the spectacle of human drama, emphasizes the nature
and power of gbodness.

Muriel Spark's novels are clever and entertaining as they reflect humour and irony. Not only
does her writing arouse the reader's sensibility and emotion, byt it also stimulates the
intellect by piecing experience into patterns which characters identify with or seek to
assimilate. The conflict between good and evil overshadows events as her fictive characters
squggle to comprehend truth and values. Her latest novel, Reality and Dreams ( 1 9%), and
almost all her other works are living testimonies of her philosophy of life. Aspects of her
writidg will be discussed in greater wil in Units 2,3 .and 4.
 The EalishI Novel: ,
1.2.f Detective Fiction Modernism and after
1 .
r mode of fiction that dekrves mention is the detective story. It involves crime,
uble murder, a variety of suspects, and a seasoned detective who finds the
able logic and reasoning. A number of writers are known for this
d form of fiction. Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingharn, Agatha Christie and
worked on certain basic formulas with necessary modifications and laid stress
isation and social c o k e n t : Others like Elisabeth Ferrari, Lionel Black and
experimented freely k they were influenced by the tough and ~ t h l e s s
the American crime novels and police procedures.

rature1Science Fiction

n literature" of the Middle Ages, which explored the metaphysical world of

II and purgatory, saw its manifestation in the post-war era in the form of science
d to explore the unknown. The trend, set very much earlier by Mary Shelley
11818), continued after the War and the spectre of the nuclear bomb haunted
f many. H.G. Wells' The Shape of Things To Come (1933) typified this kind of
Asimov wrote a wide variety of such fiction, notable amongst which is I Robot
hn Wyndham, in the 19501s,published a series of novels that amalgamated old-
romance with modem science fiction by depicting ordinary people caught up in
ggles for survival. His outstanding contributions are The Kraken Wakes (1953)
ich Cuckoos (1957). Arthur C. Clarke is another major writer of the times and
wn for Childhood's End (1953) and The City and The Stars (1956).

ction oscillates between voices that endeavour to explore new aesthetic avenues of
and others that seek to critically represent contemporary life.-David Lodge, in his
velist at the Crossroudr'(l969), sums it up remarkably well by asserting that the
ived at a metaphoric crossroad as histher legacy is a mixture of many trends
e writer has to choose between the traditional paths of realism or the
n ones of experiment. Despite misgivings, post-war fiction has thrived as an
tive profile of artistic, cultural and intellectual viewpoints of the times.
u
' 1.3 1) LET US SUM UP
we have read about the literary scenario after the two World Wars. We have
subsequent emergence of the trends of Modernism and Poscmodernism and
immense variety and vitality that contemporary fiction displayed.
2

I u
1.4 [ QUESTIONS - - - -- - - --

1. Trace the development 'of modem English fiction with specific reference to the
major shifts in literary perspective.

1 Discuss the outstanding modes of British fiction written after the second World
war.

3. ldentify the essential features of fiction written by women during the post-war
years.
1I
1.5 ) SUGGESTED READING

1. Frederick R. Karl, A Reader's Guide to The Contemporary English Novel, London ;

Thomaq and Hudson, 1972.
2. David Lodge, The Novelist at the Crossroadr, London : Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1971.

I
3. Malcolm Bradbury, Modernism, Penguin, 1991.
4. Malcolm Bradbury, The Modern British Novel, Penguin, 1993.
 UNIT 2 MURIEL-SPARK-HER LIFE,HER
WORKS AND THE TEXT

2.0 Objectives
2.1 The Li& of Muriel $park
2.2 The Works Of Muriel6park
2.2.1 Her Pottry
2.2.2 Her Short Stories
2.2.3 Her Novels
2.2.4 Her Plays
2.2.5 Biography and Criticism
2.3 The Text: A Summary of The Prime of Miss Jean Broqe
2.3.1 Chapter 1
2.3.2 Chapter.2
2.3.3 Chapter 3
2.3.4 Chapter 4
2.3.5 Chapter 5
2.3.6 Chapter 6
2.4 Let Us Sum Up
2.5 Questions
2.6 Suggested Reading

2.0 OBJECTIVES
In the beginning of this Unit, we shall look briefly at the life of Muriel Spark and a short
resume of some of her important works. Then follows a chapter-wise summary of The Prime
of Miss Jean Brodie. These two aspects are important because they help us understand the
attitudes of the writer and appreciate the evolution of her art. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
is a novel that has strong autobiographical undertones. It can be better understood if we are .
familiar with the important events in the author's life and are aware of her perceptions about
literature. ,
\

2.1 THE LIFE OF MURIEL SPqRK

'\

Muriel Spark was born"in 1918 in Edinburgh, Scotland. She was the daughter of Bernard
Camberg, a Jewish engineer. Her mother, Sarah Elizabeth Maud, was of Italian descent.

Muriel Spark was educated at the James Gillespie's School for Girls which she has
fictionalised in her novel The Prime of Miss Jeae Brodie. She left school in 1935 and got a .
teaching job in a small private day school. Here she preferred to get free tuition in shorthand
and typipg rather than a saiary and this experience stood her in good stead in later life when
she was able to type the manuscripts of her own works.
. .
In 1937 she got engaged to Sydney Oswald Spark who sailed to Southern Rhodesia (now
Zimbabwe) to work as a teactler. Muriel joined him there after a few months and they got
married. Her marital life was a turbulent one as her husband began to show signs of mental
instability and had f- of violence. 7

Two years later, the second World War broke out and S.O. Spark had to join the army. It was
a then that Muriel decided to press for divorce, which came through in 1942. She sailed back
to England in 1944 despite the dangers of being torpedoed by German submarines on the
way. Once in London, she worked at the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign
Office. This involved her active participation in psychological warfare that endeavoured to
camouflage anti-Nazi propaganda.

A year after the War, Spark found a job in a good quarterly magazine called Argentor. Here
she got a grounding in editing, proof-reading and copy-editing. The experience helped her
, when, in the s p r i ~ gof 1947, she took over as the editor of theJoefry Review. She was n.1~
 . .

nine then and had joined the Poetry Society as a member just a year before. Her Muriel Spark : Her
stic advocacy of Modernism antagonised members who, after initially expressing Life, her Works, and
re, eventually called for her dismissal. Spark left the Society in 1948 and founded a - the Text
azine of her own called Forum. She continued to write poetry and finally , .
er collection, The Fanfarlo and Other Verse in 1952.
I

i t event in her life is her conversion to Roman Catholicism. Spark acknowledges

e major influences that brought about this conversion was the theological
hn Henry Newman. In 1954 she was received into the Church of Rome and in
, her autobiography, she states, "I felt the Roman Catholic faith
hat I had always felt and known and believed. There was no blinding
on ....the existential quality of a religious experience cannot simply be summed up in
terms." She later claimed that she began writing her novels only after she became a
9 d saw life in its totality rather than as a series of disconnected
'i
e time, in the early fifties, Spark took a part-time job in the magazine European
d also worked with Peter Owen, the publisher. Around the same time she began
r first novel, The Comforters, which was eventually published in 1957. With this
t came financial security and Muriel Spark moved to Rome in 1966. This city,
I
inues to be her home even today, forms the backdrop of many of her novels.
I
L
tings have brought her critical acclaim and recognition. In 1951 she won a
rt story competition organised by The Observer. She has been honoured with the
nd the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 1967 she was named Commander,

2.2 THE WORKS OF MURIEL SPARK

ark, in her autobiography, Curriculum Vitae, states that "all experience is good for
the "essentials" of literature "lie out in the world". This claim is corroborated in
ich are born out of some of her most memorable experiences. Her involvement
ence Department of the Foreign Office is reflected in the psychological warfare
ed in by her characters as they seek to carve out their respective places within their
nment. It is also reflected in her tendency to camouflage facts and draw out, through
hs relating to fiction.

ife as a chaotic state and strongly believes that it is for the novelist to perceive
order out of it. In her writings she endeavours to present the authorial
ried voices of her characters. The mundane and the trivial are
rpretations that the represent the vital issues and aspects of life.
ich emerges through fictive situations and characters, is what Spark aspires

f
A p lific writer, she began her literary career as a poet at the age of nine. During her
sojo rn in Africa she took to writing short stories but finally adopted the novel as her
pref rred medium for creative writing.

she went to Rhodesia at the age of nineteen, Spark wrote some poetry and many short
. Her poems were then published in 1952 in a collection called The Fanfarlo arid /
,
Verse. In 1967 appeared Collected Poems I'and in 1982 she published another
ion called Sotheby's and Poems. Drawn from experiences in her personal life, Spark's
I
is subjective and lyrical.

i 2.2.1 Short Stories

ewes as the inspiration and background of many of Spark's short stories and novels.
Go-Away Bird", a short story written after a poem with the same title, Muriel Spark
s the homesickness felt by the Whites in the alien continent of Africa. The story
ang You're Dead" is based on a real-life incident that involved Spark's friend, Nita
 I

The Prime of M h Jean McEwen, who w8s shot dead by her husband. In "The Curtain Blown by the Breeze", the
Brodie writer describes the violent horrors of apartheid as she experienced it among the Rhodesian
Whites. Spark was inspired byrthe Victoria Falls and subsequently wrote "The Seraph and
the Zambesi", a story about the mystical experience of the river Zambesi's rain forest and the
symbolic aridity of the White races. This story won a competition run by The Observer in
1951 and established Spark's reputation as a creative writer. For children, Muriel Spark has
written A Very Fine Clock (1968). Like her poetry, Spark's short stories tend to fictionalise
incidents from her own life.

2.2.3 . Novel
Her first novel, The Comforters (1957), was written sh6rtly after her conversion to Roman
Catholicism, a branch of Christianity founded by St. Peter in Rome. It combines the author's
religious convictions and literary values while exploring the relationship.betweenauthor and
characters. The heroine: Caroline Rose, realises that she is a character in a novel and
expresses her resistance to the plot imposed on her by the invisible author. Her attitudes
reflect the conflict arising out of the clash between free will and pre-ordained existence.
These realities have been summed up by Frank Kermode in "The House of Fiction" where he
refers to The Comforters as "a novel about writing a novel". The title "describes the
persecuting effect of 'voices' heard by the main character", writes Spark in her -
autobiography, Curriculum Vitae.
I
The second novel, Robinson (1958), takes up the story of plane-crash sarvivors marooned on
an island. Only twomen-Robinson and Miguel-inhabit the remote island of Robinson.
The novel explores, in allegorical terms, Robinson, the man as well as the island. Memento
Mori (t959) explores the metaphysical mystery of death. The story revolves round a group
of elderly people who receive anonymous telephone calls, ostensibly from death itself, and
are always made aware of their imminent mortality.
In her next novel, The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960), Spark delves into-the supernatural
once again. It revolves round the demonic figure of Dougal Douglas, whb, w a personnel
assistant, is given the task of looking into the inner lives of workv and helping them to
enhance their professional performance. His sinisterly charismatic personality foments
trouble wherever he goes. The characters in The Bachelor's (1960) are caught up. likewise, in
a web of demonology, spiritualism and spurious beliefs. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
(1960) is a novel about a school teacher whose fascistic tendencies come to the fore &d
result in her enforced retirement.The book served as the basis of a highly successful film.

In The Girls of Slender Means (1963), Spark draws inspiration from her own life. Set in the
post-war years, the novel harks back to 1947 when the author had to take up residence in a
London hostel called the Helena Club. A fire in a girls' hostel is described as a catalytic
event that transforms and places under judgemerit the lives of the inmates, Through Barbara
Vaughan in The Mandelbaum Gate (1965), Spark describeSJerusalem, a city divided by the
Mandelbaum Gate along religious and ethnic lines. It evokes the sense of divisiveness that
characterises the Jewish, Christian and Arab populations of this ancient city. The sense of
place is evokedkain in The Public Image (1968). This novel is set in Rome and it explores
the connections between reality and fiction by presenting the image-building industry that
sustains filmdom. Frederick Christopher, resenting his wife's success as an actress, commits
- suicide in order to destroy her public image.

The conventional murder story is inverted in The Driver's Seat (1970). Lise, the victim,
provides a twist in the tale by seeking out her own killer and, thereby, takes over from the
nbvelist as an alternative plotmaker. Through her Spark poses the central question about who
is in the driver's seat-the novelist or the character? Spark's next novel Not to Disturb (1971)
is a thriller set in a stately home. At many places it parodies the traditional Gothic novel as'
the plot moves forward through the murder hunt. The Hothouse by the East River (1973) is .
set in New York in 1973 and in it the central conflict is between moral and metaphorical
truth. It invokes psychological warfare that Spark describes so well after her stint in the '
'
1ntelligenw Department of the Foreign Ofick. Ethics and sanctity are the central thematic
concerns pdrtrayed in The Abbess of Crewe (1974). It is simultaneously a moral satire and a
political allegory which revolves around the realities of electioneering. The Takeover (1976)
is set in Italy and the plot has t o h y i t h the intrigues and fraud that surface in the world of
 - -

,>--

et against the backdrop of Venice,.Territorial Rfghs (1979) is a b u t the

ption that characterises big business interests.

ing wi;h intent (I98 I) Spark returns to an autobiographical heroine. Fleur ' $ 1 ~ a
The writer analyses the balance between fact and fiction and the novel becopes a
cious celebration of woman as artist in the twentieth century. Spark's fascination for
ected in The Only Problem (1984). Job and his fortunes are the central focus in the
ob in the Old Tpstament of the Bible. The novel contains an account of Harvey
who retires to F+ce to write a monograph on the biblical character of Job. Vainly
peace and seclusion in daily life, Gotham finds modem-day counterparts of Job's
and comforters constantly impinging on his time and inclinations.
\

ington'(1988) is based on Spark's experience at a part-time job at

. It evakes the London of the 1950s and takes a sly, entertaining look at
f those times. Insanity and religious mania are the predominant themes
990). Her latest novel, Reality and Dreams (1996), is set in London and
of a filmmaker, Tom Richards. It is the story of a search for the right
aker for whom all projects start as a dream prior to being presented
reality. Spark's fiction encompasses the mysterious nature of life in
reason and is recognised through acts of faith. The contrariness of
t to the fore through paradox of situation and character.

JEAN BRODIE
vel, you don't really need a summary. And I expect that you have read the novel
What follows then will help you to recapitulate what you have already read.
text handy for ready reference.

I reading of the summary will help you understand the critical analysis that follows
. Quotations From the novel appear within quotes and are followed by page numbers
brackets. This will help you locate them easily in the novel. The particular edition
ich the quotations have been taken is the one publist.ed by Macmillan in 1961.

burgh, Scotland, revolves round Miss Jean Brodie, a teacher in the

for Girls. It is in the autumn of 1930 that the book opens and the
aid atmosphere, characterised by tradition and conformity, is shaken by Miss
views herself as "a leaven in the lump" (p.7), a kind of progressive
mely unconventional modes of educating the impressionable yo
Her motto is "Safety$pes not come fis, Gooddess, Truth and
 --
-
Theprime of Miss Jean
I'
do."These words succeed in establishingthat there is a subtle difference o f approach and
I Bfodie interpretation between Miss Brodie and the rest o f the staff, and underlines the fact that she
i s at odds with them. As lessons proceed, Miss Brodie's dominant personality succeeds in
making her pupils participate and share in the guilty secret o f only pretending to do school
work but actually listening to tales of her unfulfilled romance with Hugh Carruthers. The
highly romanticised tale of a relationship nipped in the bud has some o f her pupils regarding
her in the light of a tragic heroine who, despite great personal odds, is struggling to
transform them into the "creme de la creme of society" (p.6). By imbuing them with a sense
o f distinction and making them feel a cut above the rest, Miss Brodie manages to win the
affection and loyalty of six girls who, for ever afterwards "were held in suspicion and not
much liking for showing no signs of team spirit " and having "very little in common with
each other outside their continuing friendship with Jean Brodie" (p.2).

Among them was Monica Douglas who was, in later life, well-known for her mathematical
prowess and her quick anger; Rose Stanley who became "famous for sex" (p.3); Eunice
Gardiner who was a spritely gymnast; Sandy Stranger who, with her exceptionally small
eyes, came to be known for the clarity of her vowel sounds; the graceful Jenny Gray who
became known for her histrionic capabilities; and Mary Macgregor "whose fame rested on
her being a silent lump" (p.5) an insipid personality without any o f the distinction that
marked the others.

, Once their confidence had been secured, Miss Brodie took to grooming them according to
her insights. They were often invited for meals by her and then indoctrinated with principles
that Miss Brodie held dear to her heart. Only with them she discussed the differences she had
with her colleagues and the unsuccessful attempts that had been made to remove her from
the school's staff. With these frequent reiterations of the difficulties she ran into while
imparting education to them, Miss Brodie emerged as an admirable figure in the eyes of the
young girls. Their sense of indebtedness intensified with Miss Brodie's constant reminders o f
how all else in her lik was secondary as she had dedicated her "prime" to them. The result
was that each o f them not only started to idealize her but also endeavoured to protect her
from the machinations o f the headmistress, Miss Mackay, and the other mistresses. The
Brodie "set" (p. 1) was thus born and each member swore eternal allegiance to the woman
who, they had good reason to believe, had sacrificed all to make them the "creme de la
creme" from among their peers.

Though not very well informed about the subjects that formed their curriculum, the Brodie
set had more knowledge than their peers about Mussolini, the Renaissance painters, skin-
cleansing creams, menarche, Einstein, the love life o f Charlotte Bronte and the rudiments o f
astrology. By the time they were sixteen and had reached the fourth form, they were each
symbols o f the non-conformity that was associated with Miss Brodie herself. To publicly
publish and reiterate their individuality, each girl wore her school hat in a'different manner
and at a different angle.

2.33' Chapter 2

Much later in life, when Mary Macgregor was deserted by her boyfriend, a corporal. who did
. not turnup at a date, she remembered her school days as the happiest period o f her life and
relapsed into her usual bewildered state. She died, rather horrifically, at the age o f twenty
four, in a fire at Cumberland Hotel where her usual dullness led her to repeatedly run
through smoke-choked corridors and bring on asphyxiation.

Sandy and Jenny also shared with her this sense o f ecstatic happiness. Sex predominated the
imagination o f these two girls who started writing their clandestine literary 'venture called
"The Mountain Eyrie". It was an imaginative saga o f thsgreat romance that Miss Brodie had
with Hugh Carruthers, a soldier who died ironically just a few days before the Armistice. /
'The story is laced with sexual innuendo which, the girls feel, sullies the the purity d f the
relationship. They declare that any o f their liaisons in future would be free from sexual
familiarity but at the same time, express a desire to closely see and inspect the nude figure o f
a Greek god in the local museum. They plan the trip with Miss Brodie, knowing that nudity
could never bother her like the other grown-ups.

There i s an account of Miss Brodie's poetry class in which she recites Tennyson's poem
"The Lady of Shallot". 'Through it she wants her pupils to cultivate the art o f "composure"
 by the lady and, which she feels, i s " o w o f the best assetsofa'~oman",
~thtle(~park: Her, *

ny with her golden ringlets and sweet Voice enraptured Mr.

Life, Her Wofk, an4
ho daringly twitched her curls and encouraged her to sing. the Text ,

re during music lessons and never lost the opportunity to

ey were her "vocation", that she hid dedicated her prime
n offer of marriagq from a titled man to ensure that they
I
.
t

her favourites and knew she could rely on thtm in

f
ched a head between her and the Headmistre s. More
rodie set, Miss Brodie relied on their parents whom "she could trust n t to lodge
about the more advanced and seditious aspects o f her educational paficy" (p.30).
I girls" here often invited to tea and taken into confidence about her feud with
stress as they "learned what troubles in her career Miss Brodie encountered on
' (p.30). She took them for walks around Edinburgh, especially the oider parts o f
it is throdgh Sandy's memory and vision of one such occasion that one gets to

!
hat Miss $rodie "understood them as a body with herself for the he d...in unified
o her destyy, as if God had willed them to birth for that purpose" ( .36). On
up of Girl Guides, Miss Brodi$ scorns them as she considers them rival group
f loyalty avd duty might weaken and cause some o f her group to rsake her.
ses the Brodie set to the dismal realities o f the poorest suburbs of Edinburgh.
d children playing in the icy winds that sweep the city, witness a man
fe, encounter another ravaged by alcohol and unemployment, and all too
es they come to know o f harsh realities that their protective home

n during the walk, Miss Brodie lets out that she is to have an
ho questions her "methods of instruction" (p.45). She then
y defining education as corning from the root "e frorn ex,
leading out. To me education is a leading out of what is
.45). She feels that there is a radical difference between her -
of the other mistresses-"We differ at the root" (p.47). As
her methods "can be proved to be in any part improper or subversive" (p.48) she does
ime, Miss Brodie i s confident that her set, so carefully
\
let her down by betraying her to Miss Mackay, the
\

-eight years later, after Miss Brodie's own death, Jenny, a nurse, tells her husband. a
about the extraordinary hold that Miss Brodie exercised on her set and expresses a
lay flowers at her grave when they next visit Edinburgh. Jenny also speaks of Miss
betrayal to school authorities by one of the Brodie set and the niggling doubts that
her mind regarding the identity of the betrayer. .

ranger, who took orders as a nun later in life, remembers how their walks opened .
ws of her mind to "other people's Edinburgh, quite different frorn hers" (p.41), and
ked about the biggest influence in her life, remembers it as "a Miss Jean drodie in
Sandy's perception o f reality had been jolted by the walks and later, as Sister
e Transfiguration, she had authored an odd psychological treatise on the nature
ception called "The Transfiguration o f the Commonplace" (p.43). This work had
Helena earn intellectual eminence and greater freedom from the rigorous mores

die was not alone in her views or attitudes to life. "There were legions of her kind
nineteen-thirties, women from the age of thirty an&opward, who crowded their
d spinsterhood with voyages of discovery into new ideas and energetic practices
al welfare, education or religion....They were great talkers and feminists ...who
as mancto-man",(pp.52-54).

herself was in "a state of fluctuating development" (p.54) and believed that
hing she could not learn in the years of her prime. "Little did she realise that the
verning'the end pf her prime would have astonished herself at the beginning o f
* A \ '
 Once, when Miss Brodie in her history class flitted from one digression to another, Miss
Mackay made an unexpected entry to remind the girls of the qualifying examination that had
to be passed before entering senior school. It caused Miss Brodie some anxious moments but
as soon as the Headmistress left, she continued as if there had been no interruption,
"Qualifying examination or no qualifying examination, you will have the benefit of my
experiences in Italy" (p.57). She then prbceeded to tell them about her admiration for
Mussolini who had "performed feats of magnitude" by abolishing unemployment, talked
about the Colosseum in Rome where gladiators fought and slaves were thrown to lions, of
the nasal way in which Americans spoke, her brief encounter with an Italian poet and her
admiration for Rosetti.

Miss Brodie's working environment was marked by a hostility and resentment that her
colleagues felt towards her. There were, however, two exceptions to the general tide of
feeling that flowed against her. These were two men--Gordon Lowther, the singing master.
and Teddy Lloyd, the art master. Both were a little in love with Miss Brodie and were
beginning to compete with each other for her affections. She was unaware of this angle and
saw them as her supporters to whom she felt infinitely grateful. The Brodie set looked with
greater interest upon Mr. Lloyd, who was better shaped and more sophisticated than Mr
~ o f i e rWhat
. added to his charm was the golden lock of hair that fell over his brow and the
fact that he had only one arm, the other having been lost in the Great War.
/

Mr.Lloyd's practical anqysis and appreciation of Botticelli's masterpiece 'Primavera',

resulted in suppressed,laughter heard around the class. Each time his pointer traced the nude
outlines of the womeh in the painting, a collective sound of mirth could be heard around the
room and aroused Miss Brodie's wrath. Mary, out of all the girls, was found giggling "like a
dirty-minded child of an uncultured home" and Miss Brodie's retribution was swift. Mary
was propelled out of the room and this violent action restored sobriety among the rest of the
class. I

Then came the news one day that after school Mr. Lloyd had kissed Miss Brodie in the art
room. Monica Douglas reported it to the Brodie set as an eye-witness account and initially
there was a reaction of disbelief among the girls. It was Sandy who closely questioned
Monica about the details before accepting the veracity of the story. This incident, which
occupied the Brodie set's imagination for many months to come, was kept asecret and
shared only among her favoured students. It began to be noticed that a subtle change had
overcome Miss Brodie who took to wearing new clothes and jewellery.

Then Miss Brodie was away from school for two weeks with an ailment and her leave
doincided with Mr.Lowther's leave of absence for ostensibly the same reasons. This set
tongues wagging and it was Miss Gaunt, temporarily replacing Miss Brodie in class. who
slyly suggested a connection between the two. When Miss Brodie returned after her
vacation, she played for and occasionally sang along with Mr. Lowther during practice for
the annual concert. Sandy could not help deducing that a sirange love triaqgle, involving
Miss Brodie, Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Lowther, had come into existence. The irony of the
situation was that the singing master loved Miss Brodie who, in turn, loved the drawing
master. Despite Sandy's fertile imagination, it "was impossible to imagine her (Brodie) in a
sexual context at all, and ye$ it was impossible not to suspect that such things were so"
(p.49).

Jenny, walking alone, was one day accosted by a man in an isolated spot. He first caught her
attention and then proceeded to expose his genitalia to the innocent girl. After the initial
shock, Jenny escaped unpursued and unscathed and the matter was reported to the police. A
policewoman even came to question Jenny. She mentioned this episode only to Sandy, her
best friend. Sandy's curiosity, however, became obsessive and she made Jenny narrate her
experience over and over again. She got a perverse pleasure out of the repetition'of events
and took to loathing the idea of sex after imagining what Jenny had gone through. This was a
secret which only Jenny and Sandy shared; even Miss Brodie was not allowed to get a whiff
' of it. Gradually the man who accosted Jenny was forgotten and all that Sandy remembered
and admired was the unknown policewoman who became a p i c f i g u r e in her eyes.

In this chapter the focus is on sexual interpretations of the simplest of things like the shuttles
of sewing machines going up and down, a d Sandy and Jenny completing a fictitious and
,,'and highly romantic love correspondence between Miss Brodie and Mr. Lowther which
a 6 in sexual intimacyb&as Miss Brdie was dedicated to her girls in her prime. she
-
 Muriel Spark: Hei
ed marriage. She, however, admiqd that her true affection was for Teddy Lloyd who
to another" (p.95). '., Life, her Works, and
the Text
r. when Miss Brodie had been forcibly retired and was terminally ill, she confessed
er feelings fw Teddy Lloyd and how she camouflaged'her affections by entering
ionship with Mr. Lowther. She died believing that it was her personal life which
f her favoured pupils betray her to the authorities.

'I
2.3. Chapter 4
n senior school and Miss Brodie is no longer the deity presiding
hool teachers are immersed in their fields of specialisation and show
rsonalities of their pupils. 'The most fascinating place is the science room
ns are called "experiments" and the girls have the sneaking suspicion that even
hart, does not know the result of these experiments. This sense of
t marks the science classes come's to the fore when Mary Macgregor
periment that involves magnesium flares and runs panic-stricken
to be met by tongues of flame wherever she goes. It takes Miss
mistress, quite some time and patience to calm down the petrified girl.

,the Headmistress, was particularly pleased that, in senior school, the Brodie
ve Miss Brodie around any more to give them directions. She laid a scheme to .
e this group and rid the school of Miss Brodie. She started by allowing the dull
atin as a subject and hoped that this favour would induce the girl to reveal
yet concrete evidence of Miss Brodie's personal life about which Miss
vague suspicions. Mary, however, was too dumb to understand her probing
she did not take them to be questions at alt. For her they were statements
d meekly. Miss Mackay's plot had backfired.

stem of dividing the senior girls into "houses", or groups for extra-curricular
d competitions, did not arouse a sense of team spirit within the Brodie set. The
intained their loyalty to Miss Brodie and kept her well-informed about all that
class. Miss Brodie, on the other hand, related to them the domestic crisis that
the music teacher, was going through. His housekeeper had deserted him and
Ellen and Allison Kerr, the junior school sewing mistresses, had taken on the
task of running Mr. Lowther's household. Miss Brodie looked on those two
suspicion as she found them too vapid and liable to be easily dominated by the
rrnidable Miss Gaunt. The latter, in fact, encouraged the Kerrs to make this
ith Mr. Lowther a permanent one so that a stern eye could be kept on the

-
iss Brodie was concerned about her girls becoming attached to senior school
she never voiced these concerns before them. Miss Srodie's pattern of life was
. Every Sunday would be spent at Mr. Lowther's house, and more often than not,
t. Her heart was with Mr. Lloyd, the art teacher, but she gave herself to the
r on the rebound, out of a sense of duty and martyrdom. She knew she could
aunt her affection for the married Mr. Lloyd as this sort of a relationship
'
ed upon severely by society. She lost Weight but her true passion remained

a time when Miss Brodie perceived a similar loss of weight in Mr. Lowther and
t the Kerrs were not doing their job. She could not allow them to continue in their
pacity at Mr.Lowtherls if they could not feed him properly. She justified their
claiming descent from Will Brodie, "a man of substance, a cabinet maker and
ts, a member of the Town Council of Edinburgh and a keeper of two
o bore him five children between them", who was caught stealing not for
"for the'danger in it", and who "died cheerfully on agibbet of his own devising in.
ty-eight" (p. 117). The now forty-three year old Miss Brodie cast social
in& and moved in with Mr. Lowther. To her girls, though, she gave the
he went back to her own lodgings each night.

set came torvisit her there each yeekend, two at a time. After exchanging
Brodie would show a subtle interest in the preoccupations of Mr Lloyd and
Theprime ofMiss Jean Sandy, having divined the true nature of her affections, would relate news about him. It
Brge was she who described the warm unconventional atmosphere in his house, his six children.
his Roman Catholic faith, his wife Deidre, and gave the surprising news that Rose Stanley
modelled for his portraits. All the girls, when they visited, would vouch for information .
about Mr. Lloyd and when the summer holidays came Miss Brodie informed them of her
decision to go to Germany;rather than Italy, and leave Mr.Lowther, for the period, in the
hands of the Misses Kerr oncehagain.

2.3.5 Chapter 5

Miss Brodie's passion for Mr. Lloyd is not one-sided. His response and reaction to her is
conveyed through his art. No matter who the model and what the scene, Lloyd's portraits
have a peculiar propensity-they all portray Miss Brodie whose features he is able to
transpose pn the face of anyone who might actually sit for him. Sandy, with her keen insight,
can perceive the transference of Lloyd's hidden affection for Miss Brodie to his creative
works. When told by Mr.Lloyd that he intended to paint the entire Brodie set together, Sandy
remarks "We'd look like one big Miss Brodie, I supposeW(p. 136) and looks at him "with
near-blackmailing insolence of her knowledge" (p. 136). Mr. Lloyd, understanding her
meaning, kisses her passionately. Much later He embarks on a brief affair with Sandy,
contravening Miss Brodie's plans for the future of Sandy and Rose. She had mistakenly
imagined that she would preside over Mr.Lloyd's liaison with Rose and Sandy would serve
as her informant on the affair. It turns out to be the other way round. From here begins her
downfall that culminates in her betrayal.

Mr. Lowther, after two years of Miss Brodie's companionship, chooses to forsake her and
marries Miss Lockhart, the science teacher. The news comes as a shock to Jean Brodie who,
till then, was convinced that he would never be able to muster enough courage to push her
out of his life. The irony of it is brought out with greater emphasis when the evening before
the announcement of the engagement, Miss Brodie confidently tells Sandy "If I wished I
could many him tomorrow" (p. 157). Sandy understands that Lowther was the proxy through
whom Miss ~ i o d i esatisfied her sexual yearnings a ~ it~ isdthen that she sees the hypocrisy of
the figure whose mores the Brodie set wrongly admired and tried to emulate all these many
years. Though Miss Brodie contributed to the China tea Set presented by the school staff to
the couple, her demeanour at the presentation symbolised her sense of sadness and betrayal.

2.3.6 Chapter 6

Miss Brodie seems past her prime as far as her teaching goes. Miss Mackay, while talking to
the Brodie set, voices her concern about the fate of Miss Brodie's class which she doubts will
clear the qualifying examination for senior school. The Brodie set continue to admire Jean
Brodie as an exciting woman whose personality still draws admiring looks from the now-
ma&@ Mr. Lowther.'

Miss Brodie takes a new girl, Joyce Emily Hammond, under her wing. Joyce Emily, a
congenital rebel and troublemaker, has a history of school expulsions behind her. At Marcia
'
Blaine, too, it is the duration of her stay more than anything else that evokes interest in her.
When she disappears without a trace and enquiries are made about her absence from school, ,
it is revealed that she had run awayfrom home to fight in the Spanish Civil War but had
been killed when the train in which she had been travelling had been attacked.

The Brodie set had, by now, developed "outside interests" (p. 156). Eunice practiced
swimming and diving with a boyfriend. Monica and Mary had taken to community service
and went to the slums with groceries. Jenny, discovering her dramatic talent, rehearsed
incessantly for the school dramatic society. Rose continued to model for Mr. Lloyd and was
,occasionally accompanied there by Sandy.

Before finishing school, Mary became a shorthand typist and Jenny joined a school of
dramatics. The four others finished school and then went their different ways. Eunice began
to learn modem languages but finally became a nurse, Monica took science. Sandy preferred
psychology and ~ o s ewho
, was much sought after by boys, got married soon after.

Sandy's interest in psychology had to do with the chief preoccupation of her life at this stage.
She had become highly interested in the painter's mind of Teddy Lloyd and the scheming
 of Miss Brodie. The latter still revelled in knowing that Lloyd's portraits carried the
stakable stamp of her appearance but was magnanimous 'enough to suggest to Sandy
he wanted Rose to take her (Brodie's) place in the artist's heart. It was with shocked
Muriel Spark: Her
Life, her Wokks and
the Text
I
rise that she learnt of the reversal of roles that she had envisaged for Sandy and Rose. It '
Sandy who had become Lloyd's lover and it was Rose who was her informant about it.

as driven by an obsession to understand Lloyd's mind. To do this, she had

en to understand his faith in Roman Catholicism. She "extracted his religion as a
a husk. Her mind was as full of his religion as a night sky is full of things visible
ible. She left the man and took his religion and became a nun in the course of time"

r, Sandy learnt from Miss Brodie that the latter regretted having inspired the young
Emily to go to Spain and join th'e Civil War on the side of General Franco. That Emily
illed before she could complete this mission compounded, in Sandy's eyes, the grim
the situation and brought about a complete reversal in the high regard that the girl
r Miss Brodie. Understanding that her teacher had overstepped the demands of
ivity and used her influence on an unsuspecting mind, Sandy determined that Miss .
longer deserved to continue teaching at Marcia ~laine.She got down to the self-
sk of having Miss Brodie dismissed from the school. Through Miss Mackay, the
plan into action. In her perceptive and methodical way, Sandy was able to
iss Mackay that Miss Brodie could never be pinned down for her sexual
s. She could, however, be hauled up for her political affiliations that were so

iss Mackay expressed delight at the possibility of her finally ensnaring Miss Brodie,
id she was only interested "in putting a stop to Miss Brodie" (p. 167). Sandy
what she wanted. Miss Brodie was forced to retire in 1939 on the grounds that she
teaching fascism. When occasionally invited by her former students, she would
e circumstances of her retiremint and then try to imagine the identity of her
Rejected and isolated, Miss Brodie died just after the Second World War, never
g with certainty the true identity of her betrayer. Sandy, later to become Sister
mate downfall as the consequence of her political ideology
n a punishment for her unconventional love life.

rsation with Monica, Sister Helena reveals the true object of Miss Brodie's
nd how she never got sexual gratification in her concealed love for Teddy Lloyd.
ng another conversation with Sister Helena, confesses that only Miss Brodie
rstand the strange eroticism that filled her being on seeing a stranger in Rome.
r putting flowers on Miss Brodie's grave, reminisces about their teacher who had
retire. Apart from Sandy, who understood and put a stop
ie, the rest of the Brodie set continued to admire their

cknowledging that Miss Jean Brodie had bken the main influence in her life, Sister
marks that "it's only possible to betray where loyalty is due" and asserts thbt for
ie loyalty was due and justified "only up to a point" (p. 170). Betrayal came when
was seen by Sandy to have crossed this point.

I 2.4 ) LET US SUM UP

irly long Unit in which we gkt a bird's eye view of Spark's life, her works and
ised version of the novel. These aspects combine to bring to the fore a number of
discussed in the two Units that follow. You must remember that a summary
te for.the original text, a reading of which is absolutely essential.
2

2.5 1 QUESTIONS
1. ( Comment on Spar&s' prolific diversity as a writer.

2. What arguments would you give in favour of the contention that Miss Brodie is a
symbol of non-conformity?
3. What perspectives does the novel offer on education and art? Give illustriitions from the
text to support your arguments.

2.6 Suggested Reading;

1. Muriel Spark, Curriculum Vitae, London : Constable, 1992.
2. Janet Todd (ed.), Dictionary ofBritish Women Writers, London : Routledge, 1989.
 Y

UNIT3 ANALYSING THE TEXT -1

i.
it cture

Objectives
Muriel Spark's Narrative Technique
3.1.1 The Brevity of Her Art
3.1.2 Narrative-within-Narrative
3.1.3 The Time Sequence
3.1.4 The Plot
3.1.5 Characterisation
.2 Let Us Sum Up
.3 Questions
.4 Suggested Reading

1.6 OBJECTIVES
is lJnit we study different aspects of the author's technique of writing. We look at her
in terms of her treathent of plot and time sequence; we also assess her manner of

I
i.1 SPARK'S NAkRATIVE TECHNIQUE

-F
'e nical aspects of the narrative technique are the focus in this section.

.f1
The B m i t y of Art

Spark is a writer who greatly values brevity irr art. In her writings, therefore, she
on a small group of characters who have some shared interest. Though this tendency
the plot as well as the activities of characters, it is ideal for bringing out "some kind of
that Spark believes must emerge out of fiction. In The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie she
a group of six young school girls who interact in very close proximity with their
Miss Brodie. The reader is subtly invited to assess Miss Brodie as a woman in her
', and as a person who endeavours to hone her favourite students into the "creme de la
f society. From the interaction of the girls with their teacher emerges the
ble and fatalistic hold that Miss Brodie exercises over the Brodie set. It is her
of swaying young impressionable minds to unethical ends that is put to a stop by
f the more perceptive of her students.

ain narrative, two of Miss Brodie's girls, Sandy and Jenny, create another
irs is a fictional account of Miss Brodie's love-life and is written in the style of
r Scott and R.L.Stevenson, whose works the girls have been reading. This pattern of
ive-within-narrative admirably conveys the psychology of young girls exposed to
n, ignorant and curious about sex and exulting in the melodramatic. First
enny together compile ':The Mountain Eyrie", the story of Miss Brodie's jilted
olds these two authors to ransom in order to win back the affections of Jean
ome time they pool together their literary talents and complete a "love
" between Miss Brodie and Mr. Lowther, the singing master. Sandy the more
he two, often imagines herself in romantic interludes in Kidnapped or in

I
.13 The Time Sequence

ology and the time sequence are consciously rejected by the author. The omniscient
tor;knowing all about the past, present and future of the protagonists, deftly handles the
phases by practicing a kind ofJmh forward technique. This involves a mode of
nte Prime of Miss Jean narration that first describes how the protagonists shape up in their adulthood and the novel.
Brodie at the very outset, describes how each of the Brodie girls turned out in the future. I
I

Characters in the novel can be understood better if we perceive their future realities through
the eyes of the novelist. Spark often resorts to presenting insightful flashes that not only look j
forward to the future but also help us in better cdmprehending the present in.the nave\. Thk I
narrative is interspersed with many an account in which the present is understood mow
clearly through events that materialised in the future.

At the very outset, Spark recounts the highly individualistic temperaments and tendencies of
the Brodie set in Senior School. These sixteen year olds, studying in the fourth form, are
chacacterised by attitudes of non-conformity. 'This trait is symbolised in their determination
to wear their school hats in every manner but the proper one. Each of the six has her own
area of interest and possesses individual qualities which are acknowledged in later life. Miss
B d i e , on the other hand, represents and symbolises progressive education which is not
confined to the classroom. She invariably shares her personal experiences with her favourite
girls and often exposes them to life's realities by taking them for walks through sections of
Edinburgh forbidden by parents or to museums and operas to appreciate art and culture.

It is, thus, made abundantly clear at the beginning that the novel deals with the theme of non-
conformity, specifically the breaking away from the traditional methods of education. We, as
rea-, are prepared to view the Brodie set as a distinct unit, different from the other
students, and Miss Brodie, their guide and mentor, as a fiercely independent and
individualistic woman.

The denouement of the novel can be understood better if we look at it through the eyes of
Sandy, one of the central figures in the story. She is sensitive and perceptive about people
and situations and is able to sense, even as a very young girl, Miss Brodie's mesmeric hold
over some of her students. Sandy also sees herself liberating them from their teacher's
sinister machinations. Her courage, confidence and defiance are apparent when she ;s
successfully able to negate Miss Brodie's carefully laid-out plans. It is she who becomes Mr
Lloyd's lover and relegates the beautiful Rose to being a mere painter's model. Her betrayal
of bliss Brodie is a vindication of her ability to assess situations and mete out justice.

The dull, clumsy and incompetent Mary Macgregor dies tragically in a hotel fire as she can
only run from one end of a smoky corridor to another. Her helpless, vapid mind, which is
always at a loss during crises, lets her down not only in death but also in life. At school,
Mary can only s c r e h helplessly while the rest of the class completes an experiment with
magnesium flares. Her terror while others work symbolically foreshadows her death. We are
able to understand Mary, the schoolgirl, better by encountering her first as an adult blindly
retracing her steps in the corridor rather than opening nearby doors to seek escape. By
creating a parallel situation in this manner, Spark is able to highlight the character of Mary as
well as to create an extra dimension in the narrative texture.

The novel opens with the Brodie set as sixteen-year-olds, chatting self-consciously with
some school boys. It then describes the special aptitudes of each of the girls before plunging
back to their past, six years before, when they had first been put in the charge of Miss
Brodie. From then on there is a constant flux in terms of the time sequence as the narrative
flits between the.protagonists' immediate past and their distant futures. By first presenting
the future and then interconnecting it to the past, Muriel Spark gives us a clearer picture of
character and situation, helping us to formulate our comprehension and response to the story.

Like most of Muriel Spark's works, this novel is written in the third person and focuses on
the views held by the central figures, Miss Brodie and Sandy. Through them the author
accentuates the contradictions and, later, the conflicts that arise when both perceive
differently the role that a teacher should and does play in the moulding of pupils. Both
represent different versions of similar experience and the unresolved conflict that results,
gives the novel shades of the nouveau roman. Miss Brodie derives pleasure, power and
boundless confidence from the fact that her favourite students were "hers for life" while
Sandy revels in-weakeningand finally shattering the egocentricism of her teacher. This clash
between their two divergent ideologies results in Sandy exposing Miss Brodie's fascistic
tendencies to the Headmistress.
 3.1.
f The Plot

volves round a small group of characters comprising Miss Brodie, her special set
Analysing the T e x t 1

s, Mr Lloyd, the art master, and Mr. Lowther, the singing teacher. The action within
vel is limited and restricted to the intermingling of these few characters. The central
ncern, around which the action takes place, has to do with the identification of
humbug that Miss Brodie exercises. We, as readers, are lured into the world of
laine School which has one teacher, Miss Brodie, standing apart from the rest of the
e story of Miss Brodie and her brood that Muriel Spark chooses to describe. Out
Is in her class, Miss Brodie is shown to share special affinities with six of them.
s them in her own special way, which is radically different from the orthodox
imparted in the classroom. Miss Brodie has the unusual tendency of
rself in the role of a martyr who, despite the staffs hostility, has dedicated the
s of her life to the experiential enrichment of her students. By constantly harping
d war with Miss Mackay, the Headmistress, over her unconventional
aching, Miss Brodie wins the sympathy and the unwavering loyalty of her set.
n her as an unusual adult who delights in breaking conventions by describing
her traumatic love-life, her sensitivity to art and music, her defiance of social norms
s dreams of moulding their destinies in the future. As time passes, the girls
e halo around her and Miss Brodie exults in the knowledge that her eir:s will
n by reporting her bohemian lifestyle to the school authorities.

I s, however, practice a measure of caution when she falls in love with Mr.Lloyd.
seen being kissed by him, she never acknowledges the true nature of her feelings for
long as her girls are in school. In fact, to camouflage her feelings, she takes to
Mr.Lowther and faces the'ignominy of him jilting her and marrying Miss
he science teacher. Much later in life, when Miss Brodie had been forcibly retired
did she acknowledge to the now adult Brodie set the true nature of her

II her proteges, it is the ugly Sandy who is able to perceive hidden aspects of Miss
personality. It is she who looks through Mr.Lloyd's portraits and identifies striking
es in all of them. No matter who the model, all his portraits end up in faces that bear
ble resemblance to Miss Brodie. 'This discovery reinforces her suspicions regarding
ure of her teacher's affection and establishes the fraud and humbug that Miss
lges in. Sandy understands that all along, the Brodie set had been deceived into
iss Brodie's grand passion for Mr.Lowther and that it was Mr.Lloyd who really

ards, Sandy decides that she will not always fall in line with Miss Brodie's
ans regarding the girls. She begins by overturning Miss Brodie's cherished dreams
ing Rose to be Mr.Lloyd's lover and Sandy,,withher insight, to be her informant on
turned out, it was Sandy who became the art master's lover and Rose who
I
ack the information about the affair. Sandy's interest in Miss Brodie's personality
unabated afier this. She begins to $ee Brodie in a negative light, as a being w+o
rself with God and Providence and views herself as a deity that presides over the

I
ly afierivards Miss Brodie mentions in passing that she regretted urging Joyce Emily,
of her students, to go and fight for General Franco in the Spanish Civil War. This
rsation is the mdment of revelation for Sandy as she realises that Miss Brodie is
ly responsible for bringing about the death of Emily Joyce. By arousing the passion of
tionary zeal in a young inexperienced schoolgirl, Miss Brodie had, as usual, allowed
ology to overrule any pragmatism. She had encouraged Emily Joyce to join in a war
young girl died in a train crash on the way to the battlefront. Sandy, on hearing this
ation decides that now Miss Brodie was too dangerous to be allowed to continue as a
moulding young minds.

dy is the only one who sees in Miss Brodie's revolutionary methods and ideology a
berate attempt to legitimise the immoral and fraudulent. Determined to put a stop to this,
Sat dy betrays Miss Brodie by informing Miss Mackay about her fascination for fascism. In

I
The Prime of Miss Jean an era where seeds were being planted for the second World War and Mussolini and Hitler
Brodie - were being perceived as essential evils, Sandy's charge sticks and Miss Brodie is forced to
retire. Till the end of her life, Miss Brodie is left to ruminate over the identity of her betrayer
whom she realises must be one of the Brodie set. Sandy, thus, completes her role as the agent
xx
who first perceives and then puts a stop to misleading propaganda wrought upon innocent
minds. Miss Brodie's negative impulses and the abuse of power brings about her ultimate
downfall.

Miss Brodie embodies the central concern of Murial Spark's early fiction which always
takes up some form of conflict. In the novel it can be discerned in the tension between
conventional doctrines and progressive methods of education.The resolution of the conflict
emerges at the climax when a character's moral awakening helps himiher in evaluating the
authenticity of the conflicting perspectives provided by the other characters.

3.1.5 Characterisation

As her early novels seek to portray psychological and inoral growth, Spark's characters, we
find, are interiorised. This means that they are involved in a search for a self that
accommodates both personal fulfillment and political or social claims. These characters are
usually guided by personal obsessions that turn their live&into channels of self-righteous
imagination and bring about their destruction.

Miss Brodie is one such character. As an eccentric spinster and school teacher, she has made
a tine art out of private judgement of character and specialises in organisi~gthe lives of the
Brodie set according to her own insights. She negates and scoffs at any inculcation of the
team spirit which, in her eyes, contravenes individual freedom. She thinks that as far as hei
proteges are concerned, she is "Providence" who can see their "beginning and end." Her
indomitable personality resists all those who question her unorthodox methods. This
impression of her power is also carried by her pupils who are unquestioning and uncritirdl, ,
absorbing all that she says. In fact they go to the extent of being hostile to all who intrude in
the classroom and seem to challenge the ways of Miss Brodie.

She derives her power from two sources. One emanates from those parents who could be i
trusted "not to lodge complaints about the more advanced and seditious aspects of her
educational policy." The other was the personal equation that she shares with the Brodie set.
Where their parents hesitated to take them, Miss Brodie was a willing escort. She initiated
them into the world of art by telling them of the feats of Italian Renaissance painters. They
learnt to appreciate not only operas but also understood the temperament of devoted artists
like Anna Pavlova and Sybil Thorndike. By inviting them for meals and walks, Miss Brodie
inculcated in the girls a sense of indebtedness which she used to her advantage whenever
there was a confrontation with school authorities. In moments of crisis, she counted on their
moral support and her clique becomes her greatest source of self-protection.

The devastating aspect-of Miss Brodie's hold over the girls is seen in her machinations and
manipulations regarding the future of especially two girls-Rose and Sandy. She oversteps
the limits when she is seen manipulating situations in order to make Rose Mt. Lloyd's lover.
She identifies Rose's "instinct" as the quality that would particularly appeal to the art master.
Then she tries to convince Sandy that, with her insight, Sandy would be the ideal informant
on the Lloyd-Ros'e liaison. It is Sandy who refuses to oblige and thwarts the teacher's plan.

Miss Brodie's relationship with Mr.Lowther also cannot stand the test of time. It starts on a
note of deceit and fraud as Mr.Lowther is only a smokescreen to camouflagk Miss BrodZs
passion for Mr.Lloyd. She has her girls believe that she is only interested in restoring him
back to the pink of health after going through a domestic upheaval that began with the
departure of his housekeeper and the continued inefficiency by her replacement, the Kerr
sisters. She keeps Mr. Lowther on tenterhooks and then begins to treat him with indifferencc
believing all the while that she could many him whenever she pleased. And when he gets
engaged to Miss Lockhart, the science mistress, there is a great sense of shock and
humiliation.

Miss Brodie's ideology also lets her down at a time when war clouds are gathering over
Europe for a second time. Her admiration far fascism's symbols like Mussolini and Hitler
 I \

ke a discord.ant and false note about her in people's minds. It is these beliefs that make it
y for Sandy to betray her.
i
Anrlysin the Text-l ,

Brodie's own fascistic leanings can be seen in her endeavour to cultivate and thrust her 1

of her special girls. She looks upon the Girl Guidls as a rival
rodie set and makes dear her dislike and suspicion of them. She .
e is indulging herself at the expense of the freedom of others. She
its the error of playing God, assuniing that everyone she chooses will fall under her
I. This is the threatening aspect of her personality which sums up her abuse of power,
ly she is reduced to a pathetic creature who loses ber power andcannot understand
e very individuals whom she hadnurtured so carefully, let her down..She herself
the-mostdarnagedvictim of her misplaced corifidence. The pathos of her downfall *
ortance of her defeat is conveyed through a description of her sitting "shrivelled
reserved dark musquash coat and her blind groping for the real

ther character who exhibits propensities of psychological and moral growth is Sandy.
like, Miss .Brodi% is involved in a search for self which leads her through many diverse
ces and culminates in her taking the vows of a nun. Sandy, is, however, the foil
y Spark to offset Brodie. She is seen to undertake a personal mission that initially
,then defies, and ultimately betrays Miss Brodie for what she is. From the very
ndy begins to investigate Miss Brodie's possible weak points and she relies on her
e, images and conscience to help Her in this quest. From the very beginning she
ively assents to Miss Brodie's ideology and doctrine. She initially disrupts class by
dull Mary to give an incohect answer; walks with her head bent back looking at
and telling Miss Brodie that she is imitating the great actress Sybil Thorndike;
chooses to stay away from Miss Brodie's tea party after a walk through the
rgh slums. All this is done to gauge Miss Brodie's reactions to subtle forms of
d Sandy is often told that one day she "will go too far" by exceeding the limits
by the teacher to her girls. With the passage of time, Sandy's experience of Miss
e's domination over the girls is supplemented by images that reinforce her opinion.
reports seeing Miss Brodie being kissed by Mr.Lloyd in the art room after
y begins to see the sexual aspect of Miss Brodie's love life. What until then had
nfined to the romanticised tales thatshe and Jenny wrote, is confirmed in Sandy's
roof of it comes later when she is the only one in the Brodie set who is able to
mage of the teacher in any figure that hir.lloyd claims to paint. Sandy, thus,
hat Miss Brodie's passion and sexual yearning for the married art teacher could
Iled. It was, as a result, transferred to Mr.Lowther with whom she only played a '

ily Joyce's tragic death while the girl was on the way to fight for General Franco in
sh Civil War, Sandy's conscience is jolted into action. Her tentative assent to Miss
rodie's fascist views to Miss
ith the character's appraisal. Spark
n enters a convent and publishes a
al treatise called The Transfiguration of The Commonplace. Though Sandy is
totally redeemed. In too many ways
are made to see her anxieties as a
se of personal guilt and revenge hound her, and are reflected in her picture as
lena, clutching the bars of the convent enclosure and looking out at a world that
have passed her by.

of their lives, both Miss Brodie and Sandy are figures of isolation. Miss
burdened by the guilt of betrayal; she is only shaken by the knowledge that she
ayed and she dies never knowing the true reasons for her downfall. Sandy, as
lives and achieves fame but is always aware of cruelly betraying a woman to
could never recount the past. Both women simultaneously arouse our compassion
e. They stand out as figures who dared to defy conventions in personal and public
ess lies in them being unable to perceive and counter their destructive

to the centrality of Miss Brodie and Sandy, the other characters are peripheral.
serve to highlight the interaction between the two main protagonists. The girh in.
set-Monica Douglas, Rose Stanley, Funice-Gardiner, J p u y Gray and Mary
 I

The Prime Jean Macgregor- symbolically emphasise the strength of hi&Brodie's personality. They are
Brodie figures who represent flexibility and conformity to Miss Brodie's visions of them in the
future. They do have resilience or the spirit to challenge her and remain her docile admirers
even in adulthood. Like their mentor, they can only speculate about the identity of the petson
'
'

who betrayed Miss Brodie and brought about her embarrassing displacement from the
school.
I

f
Mr.Lloyd the art master and Mr. Lowther, the singing teacher, are the ly two maies that
we encounter directly in the text. They are shown to be the satellites of Miss Brodie who
only serve to fulfill her emotional and physical needs. She begins by i eracting with them as '
man-to-man. Her attitude, however, is not taken in the same light by them. 'They look upon
her first as a woman and then as anything else. This naturally arouses a rivalry between them
and it is to Mr.Lloyd that she is inclined. Being a married man, Mr.Lloyd can only indulge in
clandestine meetings, one of which is witnessed by Sandy and Jenny. Till the end, Miss
Brodie and Lloyd nurture their affection but are never open'about it. It is only Sandy who
perceives it in Mr.Lloyd's portraits and in Miss Brodie's questions whenever Sandy visits the
Lloyd household. Mr.Lowther serves to camouflage Miss Brodie's true affection and slowly
recedes out of Miss Brodie's life. In her personal life as well she is thwarted by social
concerns. She can never publicly display her true affections which would be seen in an
adulterous light. Her intimacy with Mr.Lowther is known but as there is never any material .
evidence, Miss Brodie only escapes with social censure.

Conwted with the central figures, the other personalities seem insipid and uninspiring.
They are deliberately protrayed in this manner to highlight the strength, and, thereby, the
weaknesses of Miss Brodie and Sandy. This technique also serves to highlight the, inherent
clash of perceptions that builds up between the two. Spark's manner of characterisation is
both witty and sardonic, s?d it conveys the author's capacity to observe and analyse difterent
levels of human relationships.

3.2 LET US SUM UP

In this Unit we have discussed the technical aspects of Spark's novel. We notice how she
successfully restricts the plot and introduces an unusual framework of time. We also read
about the plot construction and her mode of charz-icterisation.

3.3 QUESTIONS
1. Critically assess the technical proficiency of Muriel Spark with reference to her
handlCng of the narrative-within-narrative, the mixing up of time sequence, versions
of shared experience and brevity.
I
2. Write a note on how Spark conceives the plot in order to present the central concern
of the novel. i

3. The major characters in the novel reflect different aspects of moral and
psychological growth. Illustrate with examples from the text.

3.4 SUGGESTED READING

1. Judy Sproxton, The Women ofMuriel Spark, London : Constable, 1992.
2. Thomas F. Staley (ed.), Twentieth Century Women Novelists, Macm illan, 1 992.
3. Robert E. Hosmer (ed.), Contemporary British Women Writers: Text.9 und
Strategies, Macmi l Ian, 1993.
I
 u

UNIT 4 ANALYSING THE TEXT -2

C
St cture

Objectives
The Elements of Autobiography
Perspectives on Faith
The lssue of Morality
The lssue of Fascism
Let Us Sum Up
Questions
Suggested Reading

4.a OBJECTIVES
Unit is, in a sense, a continuation of the last one. It takes up for analysis some more
that arise out of the text. These include the autobiographical aspects to be found
n the novel; and we also look at the concepts of faith, morality and fascism that
ge so strongly within the text.

4.1 THE ELEMENTS'OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY

utobiography Curriculum Vitae, Spark recounts her days at the James Gillespie High
for Girls in Edinburgh. She begins by describing how prosperous tradesmen from the
th century onwards took a keen interest in founding schools in this city. They actually
h each other in leaving behind their vast fortunes to these institutions, underlining
cottish idea that education was a privilege to be denied to none. Her own school was
in 1797 by James Gillespie, a snuff merchant, who donated to it a considerable
f his wealth. Spark acknowledges her debt to Gillespie whose endowments allowed
e her parents to pay moderate fees and yet receive, in return, educational services
what they were paying for.

r spent twelve years at the school and it is her experiences there that go into the
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. The central figure of Miss Brodie in the novel is
e personality of Miss Christina Kay, one of Spark's favourite teachers. The name
ever, has been borrowed from a young American woman, Charlotte Brbdie, who
author to read at the age of three. The fictional character has strong affinities with
s exhilarating and impressive personality, yet there is a basic difference between

, 3 ~ 2"*
Girls School, Junior Class, 1930, Muriel Camberg ( ~ ~ a r k ) row,
from right; Miss Christina Kay, Centre
 1
The Primre of Miss Jean Fascinating aspects of her personality are reflected in Miss Brodie. Miss k a y "entered" the
,
Brodie
d
author's imagination through gripping accounts of her travels through E rope and Egypt; her
admiration for Italian painters like Leonardo Da Vinci, Botticelli, Giott and Fra Lippo
Lippi; her fascination for the cult of Mussolini's Fascisti; her dramatic method of instruction
in which "shapes,sculptures, arithmetical problems, linguistic points moved easily around ,
each other"; and her strong views on education which she believed was a "leading out" of
what was there already rather than a "putting in". G
I

*
The fictional Miss Brodie's ideas about education bear a remarkable similarity to the reat
Miss Kay's perceptions about the same subject. Miss Kay in the classroom constantly
endeavdured to relate experience to education and Spark emphasises this not only in her
autobiography but also in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie when she writes about how the
Brodie set were "vastly informed on a lot of subjects irrelevant to the authorised curriculum".

Miss Kay's interdisciplinary approach is reflected not only in Miss Brodie's classroom .
methods but also in the attitudes that she is shown trying to build up among the Brodie set.
Miss Kay ardently attended lectures at the university of Edinburgh and other institutions on
such diverse subjects as theology, art, German poetry, health and beauty care, and most of
what she absorbed, was shared with her class. In the novel, Miss Brodie follows a similar
method Miss Kay had a "knack of gaining our entire sympathy, whatever her views" writes
Spark in Curriculum Vitae and she is successfully able to transpose this ability onto Miss
Brodie. Within the novel, this particular knack is Miss Brodie's greatest strength and also her
greatest weakness. Its positive impact is seen in the girls' diverse interests and individuality,
but its sinsiter aspect is most strongly reflected in the circumstances of Emily Joyce's death.
Miss Kay had taught her @Is not to be carried away by "crowd- emotions" and this is
reflected in the total lack of team spirit among the Brodie set. Along with her good friend,
Frances Niven, Muriel Spark was one of Miss Kay's favouritestudents. Miss Kay often took
these girls to the theatre, concerts, films, modem poetic plays and poetry reading sessions by
prominent poets, paying for them out of her own pocket. All this was done, writes Spark in
. her autobiography, because "Miss Kay realised that our parents' interest in our welfare was
only marginal cultural". Miss Brodie's attitude reflects the same concerns as she tries to
weave her girls into the world of art and culture. Spark particularly recalls their visit to the
Empire Theatre to see Anna Pavlova dancing in the ballet "TheDeath of the Swanwandher
experience is reflected in the obsessive interest shown by Sandy in Pavlova, the
temperamental artiste.

There are, however, very obvious differences between the real and the fictional character.
Spark emphasises this in Curriculum Vitae :

In a sense Miss Kay was nothing like Miss Brodie...she was far far above
and beyond her Brodie counterpart. If she could have met Miss Brodie,
Miss Kay would have put the fictional character firmly in her place (p.81).

Miss Brodie's unconventional love-life in the novel did not in any way reflect aspects in
Miss Kay's life. Spark makes this categorically clear in her autobiography but, at the same
time, she gives her reasons for portraying Miss Brodie tom between Mr. Lloyd, the art
master and Mr. Lowther, the singing master.

There would have been no question of a love-affair with the art master, or
a sex-affair with the singing master, as in Miss Brodie's life. But children
are quick to perceive possibilities, potentialities: in remark, perhaps in
some remote context; in a glance, a smile. No, Miss Kay was not literally
Miss Brodie, but I think Miss Kay had it in her, unrealised, to be the
character I invented.

Spark only saw in Miss Kay latent potentialities of sexual love which she then made
so obviously clear in the fictional personality of Miss Brodie. Miss Kay was about
fiAy years old in 1929 when she taught Spark and the author suggests there had
been a man in her teacher's earlier life. The terrible carnage of the war had claimed
him and Miss Kay "was of the generation of clever, academically trained women
who had lost their sweetheartsin the 1914-1918 war". Spark gives her teacher one
of the first accolades by quoting John Steinbeck's tribute to great teachers-"a great
$
teacher is a great artist.. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the
I
 e human mind and spiritn.By moulding the Brodie sets minds and Analysing tbe Text-2
thor has succeeded in immortalising her own teacher. -
rominent characters within the novel are based on people that the author was
ith. Mr.Wishart, Spark's singing master, and Mr.Gordon, the history master,
spiration and models for the creation of Mr.Lowther. Mr.Lowther's playing
rls reflects a trait that he shares with Mr.Gordon, who indulged in a similar
by stroking the young Spark's hair. The author's handsome art master,
finds his fictional counterpart in Mr.Lloyd. In class, Mr. Couling had
r to the ground in order to stop the girls chattering in class and in the novel,
n resorting to this in order to draw the girls' attention to the subject under

e rudiments of sex .through her brief friendship with Daphne Porter and
with Francis Niven. In the novel, it is in the Sandy-Jenny association
d. The close rapport of the fictional characters reveals the exceptionally
at Spark shared with Frances. Their holiday at Crail, a seaside resort,
ted and buried a jointly written story, is incorporated into the novel when
mplete an imaginative account of one of Miss Brodie's liaisons and then
nture in a sandy cave. -- .

the 1930s is sketched with sensitivity. When Miss Brodie takes her girls
the city, they are exposed to the harsher realities of life which lie beyond
ve secure homes. The economic depression of the times are reflected in the
ith its long lines of unemployed people waiting for their dole, the
,the violence and the general air of poverty reflected in the unshod
tie cold winds. More than any of the others it is Sandy who sees and
realities that lie outside the ambit of middle-class existence. In later lifb,
horror she experienced at the squalor she saw on that occasion when
dinburgh she had not seen before. As a young girl she had sought
asant experience by going home but later, as a nun, she could respogd
ho came from these impovqrished backgrounds.

Pitae Muriel Spark is able to recreate the atmosphere and the people she
,especially those at the James Gillespie High School for Girls. After reading
hy we can say that much of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a fictionill
ers and friends of Spark's childhood. The sense of nostalgia and
that characters express in the novel is also reiterated in her autobiography
talks about the intelligent men and women who taught her in the prime of their
r "the benefit of a parallel home life".

'4.2 1 PERSPECTIVES ON FAITH

d from fiction written during and after the first World War. It was replaced by a
ntration on some religious and moral issues. The Prime ofMiss Jean Brodie
both and in Miss Brodie and Sandy are reflected diverse threads of
The teacher's attitude is related to Calvinism while the student's ideology is
oman Catholicism. To understand these divergent beliefs we shall look briefly at
d by Martin Luther, John Calvin and John Knox and understand how
the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.

ancient tradition, St. Peter, the chief apostle of Christ founded the Christian
Bishops of Rome since then have claimed for their office a direct
ter and have come to be called Popes. The Pope is the head of the
lic Church and he resides in the Vatican City in Rome. The Church believes
f faith and morals, the teachings of the church are infallible. This means that
all possibility of error. It thereby follows that when the Pope, speaking in
ity, makes a pronouncement in matters of faith and morals, his teaching is

4
The R formatiod or birth'of Protestantism mark the breakaway from the Roman Catholic
Churc .This took place in Europe during the sixteenth cehtury. It began in Germany where
warti Luther, a miner's son who had b e m e a priest, preached against the granting of
The Prime of Miss Jean indulgences by the Pope.Indu!gences are pardons given in exchange for money. He drew
Bradie attention by nailing a protest to- the
. Church door in Wittenberg. He was condemned as a
$ . .
I

heretic and excommunicated 6y fhe 'Church in Rome. Luther realised he could not reform the
existing Catholic Church and he formulated, in the Augsburg Confession o f 1530. the basis
o f a new doctrine that broke away from Roman Catholicism. In England the Reformation
started when Henry VIII, in 1534, threw off the authority of the Pope and declared himself
Head o f the Church. The Reformation became firmly established in England during the reign
o f Elizabeth I.

John Calvin was a Swiss religious reformer who was greatly influenced by Luther's
doctrines. One o f the controversial aspects o f his teaching was the code o f simplicity and
austerity which he urged people to follow in both everyday life and church ritual. Calvinism
denies the individual free will and sees all events as predestined or predetermined.

John Knox, a Scottish reformer and preacher, furthered the Calvinistic form of
Protestantism. His triumph was achieved in 1560 when, by the Treaty of Edinburgh, Papal
authority was abolished in Scotland and replaced by the Calvinistic confession of faith
drawn up by Knox and his colleagues.

Miss Brodie's religious leanings are distinctly Calvinistic. There is her disapproval o f the
Church of Rome which she considers to be the "church o f superstition" and believes that
"only people who did not think for themselves were Roman Catholics". As a thinking
individual she distances herself from the Roman Catholic Church and becomes, as Sandy
says,"the God o f Calvin...who sees the beginning and the end". Imbued with this sense of
omnipotence, she sets about ordering her own life and also that o f others. Her total lack o f
guilt in assuming this blurs her moral perceptions. "She was not, " writes Spark, "in any
doubt, she let everyone know she was in no doubt, that God was on her side whatever her
course and so she experienced no difficulty or-sense o f hypocrisy in worship while at the
same time she went'to bed with the singing master". The sense o f isolation and alienatio~
that she encountered at the end o f her life was brought on by a weakened sense of mor~rity
which she continues to justify for too long in her life.

Miss Brodie's attitudes to education are also related to Calvinism. She is like Calvin's God,
holding sway over the Brodie set and expecting each o f them to fulfil her expectations at
each step o f their lives. She begins iri an incongruous manner by adopting a psychological.
approach. To her students she portrays herself as a victim of the system that thwarts her high
ideals by questioning the methods o f her teaching. She then seeks to assure them o f an
"academic" salvation by promising to turn them into the "creme de la creme" among their
peers if only they would follow her advice in letter and spirit. Once, having gained the
confidence o f her six girls, she sets about planning and organising their futures for them. She
especially undertakes to run the lives o f Rose and Sandy in whom she sees the potential o f
fulfilling her personal dreams. "It was plain," writes Spark in the novel, "that Miss Brodie
wanted Rose with her instinct to start preparing to be Teddy Lloyd's lover, and Sandy with
her insight to act as informant on the affair. It was to this end that Rose and Sandy had been
chosen as the creme de la creme". Her dreams, however, are rudely shattered when just the .
opposite happens.

Miss Brodie lives by personal insight and experience rather than by any theory and doctrine
and Spark suggests that the Catholic Church was a suitable channel for normalising her. If
Miss Brodie had lived within the parameiers o f doctrine and community, she might have
avoided the pitfalls o f personal judgement. Her vital personal energy could have been -
channelised in beter directions rather than in planting explosive ideas in the minds of her
naive followers. When Sandy perceives the devastating effect o f Miss Brodie's imposition o f
personal ideology and enthusiasm, she understands the suffocating potential o f her teacher.
She is alarmed by the images on Lloyd's canvases where all girls resemble Miss Brodie, and
i s especially perturbed to hear o f the circumstances of Emily Joyce's death. Sandy senses that
Miss Brodie "has elected herself to grace" and saw her as a symbol of power that ruled the
lives o f lesser beings. Miss Brodie's self-righteousness and lack o f humility irritate Sandy
who sees "an excessive lack o f guilt" in her teacher. In later years. when Sandy read John '
Calvin, she found it hard to reconcile to his doctrine in which the human soul was blindly
enslaved to sin and gave people "an enormous sense of joy and salvation" so that "their
surprise at the end might be nastier". Calvinism's deterministic streak i s rejected by Sandy in
favour o f the more redemptive Roman Catholicism. She visualises Miss Brodie as a
Calvinistic presence designing and determining the future of innocent minds and vows to put
 o it. She achieves this end bubat the cost pfprsod$uih that flays her constantly
kes her uneasy as a nun. The author's syhpathies, however, lie with Sandy. When
covers from her place of moral righteousness and looks back, she realises that Miss
~ Analysing the Text-2

defective sense of self-righteousness had not been without its beneficent and

I Spark personally rejects the determinism of Calvin and Knox in favour

of the inclusiveness th& she finds in orthodox Catholicism. Spark values seeing the truth and
without sentimentality. In The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, humbug and falsehood
targets of her denunciation.

4.3 THE @SUE OF MORALITY

1

rbance and degeneracy characterise Spark's vision in the novel. Moral disarray is
rough the presentation of Miss Brodie. She tries to wield moral or psychological
ontrol over the destinies of others but her religious sensibility fails to provide her
moral perspective. By believing that "God was on her side", Brodie gives herself
hysical aura and justifies the excesses in her life. Her success lies in influencing
ch an extent that she begins to see her actions lying "outside the context of
g" and her blurred moral perspectives are thus transferred to the girls. It takes
f Sandy to expose us to the dangerously destructive aspect of her -

openly to state that only the Roman Catholic Church

extreme temperanlent. "It could have embraced, even
d diving spirit, and it even "might have normalised her".
ed from her illusion that her own judgement would
nd this belief epitomises her stunted ethical outlook. Thi
rough the attitudes of Sandy and Jenny, who after being
and are overcome by the boundless possiblities of life.
Rome, "the concise happening filled her with
ind in later days ...the sense of the hidden possibilities
.a Catholic, her mind is as "full of religion as a night sky
'. The girls' feelings nof!only negate Miss Brodie's
mphasise the difference between Miss Brodie and
t imaginative andmost moral of the Brodie set,
self in terms of fiction and romance. Her literary
s love life is an illustration of this. Sandy is tom
solves this internal conflict by giving wdightage to
ighlighted through her psychological treatise on the
Transfiguration of the Commonplace."

eeming to represent diverse moral positions, Miss Brodie and Sandy are ironically,
in a common pursuit-the personal transfiguration of the commonplace. Miss
involved in shaping the lives of her set while Sandy is preoccupied with art and
on. Through these characters, Spark is involved not only in examining the relations
oral responsibility and the transforming imagination but is also reiterating the
s between prt, freedom and destiny.
I

1
4.4 THE ISSUE OF FASCISM
tiny of moral concerns brings to the fore the struggle between good and evil. Evil
be the attempt to take over human beings and we see it in Brodie's exercise of
hological power. Sandy's imaginative way of thinking makes her perceive
ie set was Miss Brodie's "fascisti ... all knit together for her need". She is able to
Miss Brodie disapproves of the Girl Guides who she imagines are a threat to
e Brodie set. Brodie sees them as a rival fascisti whom she cannot tolerate.
ptions do not result in aversion for Miss Brodie when she is young. This
wever, remains in her subconscious and surfaces before her decision to betray
I
 - -- -

P-
The Prime of Miss Jean Miss Brodie's concept of education isdensibly "a leading out of what is already there in the,
pupil's soul" but she dominates the girTs rather than responding to their innate gifts. ?'he '
falsehood of her claims is revealed in their documented fantasies and in their minds which
are filled with her preoccupations: She believes in enriching the lives of her students but.
paradoxically, is resentful of their forming any attachment with othef ~nistressesin school.
This possessive attitude, along with her scorn for girls opting for the modern side (rather
than the classical) in Senior School, show her in a negative light. Like Adolf Hitler's
Minister of Propaganda, Goebbels, Miss Brodie fires the imagination rather than the
intellect. She manages to mystify rather than inform. Her admiration for figures like
Mussolini and Hitler further supplement her image as an ideologue of fascism. We cannot .
help comparing her to these men with whom she shares a sinisterly powerful influence. Her
betrayal and defeat at the end, therefore, becomes inevitable. It symbolises the origin of evil
within human beings, especially its inherent presence within civilised and educated people. '
and its close link with the individual will. The defeat of fascism and Miss Brodie'go
together, placing The Prime ofMiss Jean Brodie within the historical space that it seeks to
portray.

4;5 LET US SUM UP

This Unit, along with the previous one, examines a number of issues that arise from the
text. After going through both the Units, we are in a position to identify and appreciate the
different issues that lie hidden within the narrative.

4.6 QUESTIONS
*
1. In what respects can The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie be called an autobiographica!
novel?

2. Write a note on the perspectives that the novel offers on faith and morality.

3. Discuss how Miss Brodie symbolises Fascism in the novel.

4.7 SUGGESTED READING

1. James Acheson (ed.), The British and Irish Novel since 1960, New York : St.
Martin's Press, 199 1
UNIT 5 THE NOVEE: 1960s AND AFTER +-&

5.0 Objectives
5.1 . The Novel in the 1960s
5.2, The Novel in the 1970s
5.3 The Novel since the 1980s

I
5.6 Suggested Reading

e have now come to the Rnal unit in our course. A study o f the nine novels prescribed has
ven us an overview o f the development o f the English novel. Let us now examine some o f
e recent developments in the novel as a genre, in this unit.

is unit provides a general introduction to the British novel and the novel written in English
m the 1960s to the present day. It has been divided into three parts. The first deals with
e development o f the novel during the 19609, the second with the 1970%and the third part
resents a view of the new novel since the 1980s. The last part also describes how fiction
ranched out in various directions during the last two decades o f this century, giving the
ovel in the English language a truly international character.

e fast-changing socio-political, economic and cultural scenario during the 1960s led to a
sequential decade o f remarkable literary achievements. With the intensificationo f the
d War between the two major super powers, America and the Soviet Union, Russia first
g man into space, the Americans landing on the moon, *e rising nuclear threat, the
am War, and the broadening o f the Black Power and the women's movement, the face
;ThePrime of Miss Jean subjects, and the new focus on the problematics of language. This was, however, different
i Brodie from the French preoccupation with the meanings of signs or the American concern for
meanings in historical extremity. British fiction. being acutely responsive to apocalyptic
changes, still remained somewhat close to liberal realism. Its concern for humanism and
fictional characterisation could be marked in the writings of Angus Wilson. Doris
Muriel Spark, Anthony Burgess and Iris Murdoch, all of whom continued to write well int
the 1960s. British fiction opened its doors and windows to new experiences and newer
modes of expression.

Doris Lessings's The Golden Notebook (1969) and John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's,
Woman (1969) largely represent the British novel of the 1960s. The shift in stylistic mode
was summed up by Lessing when she said that her novel "would walk through the way it is
shaped". It put aside the parameters of the earlier narratives and made a new beginning with
a complicated structure. The portrait of the woman painted as the central character broaches
the issues of self and discourse, and the intermixing of historical, personal, political and
aesthetic codes.
. John Fowles established himself with his short novel, The Collector (1963). but made his
real mark with The French Lieutenant's Woman. "This is a work which," Malcolm Bradbury
pertinently remarks in The M d r n British Novel, "reconstructs and deconstructs the
Victorian novel, and by implication all that goes with its continuing presence: its ideas of
character and society, historical progress and evolution, chronological narrative and god-like
storytelling". As the narrative weaves through its complex moorings, the central character,
Sarah Woodruff, creates her own wavelength of discourse. She dictates tough authorial
parameters for Fowles to negotiate within the terms of past and present and the female
predicament of old and new. Fowles exposed fiction to new artistic challenges as he
manipulated for his benefit the disparate roles of a theorist, a historian and a deft manipulator
of sources.

Both Lessing and Fowles, as self-conscious artists, address the question of canon formation.
They do not drastically change the conventional; rather they retain the spirit of British
continuity with the past. They stand at the intersection of the novel and the anti-novel and
herald a new generation of writers, announcing the arrival of experimental fiction. Prominent
among those who took to such writing are Christine Brooke-Rose, Ann Quinn, John Burger,
Eva Figes, Paul Scott, Angela Carter and Alan Sheridan. Brooke-Rose deserves a special
mention, being a theory-oriented author. Her bold titles like but (1964), Such (1%6),
Between (1968) and Thru (1975), represent a world of signs and interrelated complexities of
the world and the text. Sbe carried on her engagement with intertextuality and honed her art
in Textermination (1991), a campus novel about the postmodem condition.
I
Another version of the postmodernist trend is to be found in the anti-novels of B.S.Johnson.
He intersperses his text with typographical play, blank pages, and comic interruptions. His
novels Albert Angelo,(1964)and The Unfortunate ((1969)thrive on chaos and disorder as
they make bold experiments in form. This tradition of textuhlising chaos also finds
expression in Eva Eiges and Alan Bums. This decade, characterised by its experimental
writings, also produced writers like David Caute, John Berger, J.G.Ballard and Michael
Moorcock.

A different view of modern British fiction emerges in the social novels of Angus Wilson-
Lake Call (1964)and No Laughing Matter (1967). The latter relates the saga of a family
from the first World War to the sixties, of "hire purchase hoovers and sleeping-frill
salvation." In it Wilson presents the breaking patterns of society and the vacuity of existence
in the modern day global village. This perspective is broadened further in As 114,Magic
(1973) when Wilson moves on to the Third world,scenarioand its subaltein images. He
breaks, thereby, the provincial framework of the British novel.

One of the prolific novelists of this period, Iris Murdoch, is supposed to be writing yet
another kind of novel defined by Robert ~cholesas "fabulation". Her novels are more
artistic, realistic and highly evocative. They are concerned with ideas and ideals and are
reminiscent of the novels of manners, of romance, fantasy and historical roles. A SeLered
Head(1961), An Unoflcial Rose (1961), The Unicorn (1%3), T k Italian Gir1(1964), The
i
Red and t k Green (1965), T k Time of T k Angels (1966), The Nice and The Good (1968)
and Bruno's Dream (1968) fall under this categolylyShe continua writing into the seventies
and drew pqralleb with - t h e m in bet novels like A Fairly Honourable Defeat
- - - -
.
-- -- - -
* -
 I
.,
), The Black Prince (1973) and The Sea, Sea (1978). She turns rather philosophical in The English Novel:
vels written during the 1980s. In The Philosopher's PU$I (1983) and The Message of 1960s and After
net (1989), Murdoch affords a fresh look at established institutions of religion,
philc sophy and art. Her novels offer realistic studies on the darker questions of life rather
thar struggling with complex textual codes.
Anthony Burgess, who came upon the scene rather confidently with
and The Wanting Seed, continued writing fables of the future in a '
of language and overpopulation engross his attention. He also
ce fiction writers likc+KingsleyAmis and Doris Lessing. He
t perspective during the 1970s and the 1980s as questions of art
on. MF (1 971), Earthly Powers ( 1980), The End of The World News
mngabm of the Wicked (1985) bear testimony to his ability to encompass .
I lism, history and sin. Burgess, as a postmodernist novelist, is
I
nguistic and technical skill.

tish novel had by now taken several new directions. Wilson and Fowles perfected
ism, Murdoch refined the art of characterisation, Spark made her mark in plot
tion, and Burgess showed ways to handle language. Two new roads to be taken were
"neo-documentary" and "fabulation". David Lodge identified this new trend though
self started with the realistic novel in The Picturegrass (1960) and Ginger, You're
(1962). He took on a playful form in The British Museum is Falling Down (1965) by
lng with the issue of contraception and parodying major novelists of the past. Being a
he also reflected upon the question of art and may best be taken as an experimental

et Drabble, Melvyn Bragg, Julian Mitchell, John Berger are some of the novelists still
g in the realistic mode. Their writings show how deep the roots of realism have gone
h fiction. Their postrnodernist tendencies are reflected in their resorting to
erimentation and fantasy. The spirit of apocalyptic fantasy gets its expression in Angela
's Shadow Dance (1965) and her surreal work The Magic Toyshop (1967). All these
onscious and this finds expression in their works. Elements of baroque
icry find expression in the new narratives of the 1960s. The writers are close!Iy
ed with the questioh of discovering the truth and the chmcters play an important

I
I 4.2 THE NOVEL IN THE 1970s
itish fiction loses its vitality in 1970s. It is not as virile as in the 1960s nor as ebullient as
the 1980s. Both stylistically and historically it is a "sagging" period when contrasted with
e "Swinging Sixties". This is also the time when the novel in English rather than the British
I came to make its mark. Writers from the Cohmonwealth countiies gained
rominence. The founding of the Booker Prize in 1969 introduced the spirit of competition
n the literary scene and literature became a marketplace commodity. The novel in English
cquired a hybrid character and became more complex.

ne outstanding name among these novelists is that of the ~rinidadiannovelist V.S.Naipaul.

is part documentary and part fictitional venture, In A Free State (197 I), represents a
ultieultural scenario encompassing the US, Britain and Africa. Other novelists who
stinguish themselves come from diverse backgrounds: South African writer Nadine
ordimer's The Conservationist (1974), Indian novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Heat and
Dust (1975) and Paul Scott's Staying On (i977) won the Booker Prize and brought forth yet
another view of imperialism and multicultural reality. Fiction was now getting more varied.
This variety was carried further by John Berger in G (1972), Nicholas Mosley in lmposible
Object (1968) and David Storey in Saville (1976).

The fiction of the 1970s returned to "fictions of identity" where empire is created afresh.
I
J.G.Farrellts The Seige of Krishnapur (1973) deals with the Indian Mutiny of 1887 while his
other novel, The Singapore Grip (1978), deals with the Japanese invasion of ~ a y a ~Paul a.
Scott's "Raj Quartet", consisting of The Jewel In the Crown (1964), The Day of the Scorpion
( 1 968), The Tower of Silence (1 97 I), and A Division of The Spoils ( 1 973, represents a
differentview of experience in India. His books have complex perspectiyes on history and
express subjective vieyoints, against the Indian backdrop of 1942-47. O i s strain of writing
4 , 1
The Prime of Miss Jean continued wi* greater force during the 1980sand 1990s. It is in this context thai we hay
Brodie take into account the novels of the post-colonial experience. Remarkable novels h this \
respeat are Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Heat and Dust (1975). Anita Desai's Clear Light
(1980), Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (l981), and Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy
of Dqv

(1993) and more recently Arundhati Roy's The God ofsmall Things (1977).

Another viewok history may be found in the novelist's perception of the European Cold War.
l!.e Carre's The Naive and the Sentimental Lover (1 97 l), Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy {J 974)
and The Honou$pble Schoolboy (1977) consider the important questions of the British
establishment and its identity. Le Carre's influence was, however, not limited to the domain
of Cold War fiction as his novels may also be taken to be keen interpretations of the British
psyche in turmoil. Darker pictures of contemporary history appear in the surreal works of
J,G.Ballard's Concrete Island (1974) and Michael Moorcock's The Condition of Murak
(1977).

Another shade of briting in the 1970s may be seen in Margaret Drabble's The Needle's Eye
([ 972) whe; she p e s up the question of moral decay. In The Realms of God (1975) she
takes archaeologylas a metaphor for understanding British society. In The Ice Age (1977) she
again refers to the)issue of social decay. Drabble's fiction i s modelled upon the realistic
f
ficiion of the last entury.

A.S.Byatt's The Virgin ih the Garden (1978) is a clear improvement on her works
in which she undertakes the ambitious project of writing a multilayered novel, Byatt
continues to write even today and she has emerged as one of the most respected names in
new British fiction.

Discovering new modes of perception came to be.t)le most engaging concern of the new
novelists. Maureen DufQ, and Angela Carter are some of the prominent writers who
explored the feminist perspective and took recourse to magic realism. In The Infernal Desire
Machine of Dr.HoBan (1972) Carter revives fairytale machinery and erotic themes, and in
The Passion of New Eve (1977) she becomes utopian in visualising a future America.
Fantasy and fairy story creep into her work to give it a postmodernist stance. This may be
seen again in The Bloody Chamber (1979) when she presents a bizarre world of clowns,
animals, humans and mythic figures.

Beryl Bainbridge is another important writer in this regard. She dwells upon the elements of
surprise and comic fantasy. She possesses the ability of making the strange familiar and the
familiar strange, and successfully creates the atmosphere of make-belief. Feminist
perspectives emerge in the writings of Penelope Fitzgerald, A.L.Barker, Susan Hill and
Rose Tremain among other. Fay Weldon's Down Among the Women (1971) and Female
F r i e d (1975) are radical representations of the feminist discourse which continues fu-
in Prmis (1978), Puflalls (1 980) and subsequent works.

In thewmid-1970s,writers like Martin Amis and Ian McEwan showed their keen interest in
the grotesq"e and the overtly fantastic. Amis in The Rachel Papers (1973) and McEwan in
.his collection of short stories First Love, Last Rites (1975) show their talentr in handling these.
themes. Amis shocked further in Dead Bodies (1975) and created revealing portraits of those
subjected to drugs and sex. Both these writers perceive the grotesque only through the ,
normal pattern of life. Amis, in his novel, Success (1978) is engaged with the narcissitic self.
In the grotesque b d fantastic portrayals of Amis and McEwan, we have strains of satirk and
morality. McEwan's first novel The Cement Garden (1978) uses this technique and carries it
to its extreme. In The Comfort Ofstrangers he continues with this mode as he conceivq an
imaginary city. McEwan and Amis are two important practitioners of postmodemism in
British fiction. Their works may be appreciated as grim records of the contemporary crises.

A reGew of British fiction during the 1970s shows that it has lost its vitalty in comparisop to
other fictions: The two issues of The New Review and Granta magazines, published in 1978
and 1980 respectively, painted a rather uninteresting literary scenario. The assessment was
that British fiction had turned parochial and it lacked readers. While the postmodemist
experiment was acquiring newer grounds elsewhere, Britain bas laking behind. In fact, the
very face of fiction was changing as such. A new crop of writers, born elsewhere but living
in Britain, came to the forefront. With this phenomenon, Brtish fiction acquired variety in
viewpoints and styles and became "multicultural".
i - 4 - - \
T ~ PEnglish Novel:
5.3 1 THE NOVEL SINCE THE 1980s 1960s and after
I

discontent" following the oil crisis, international recession and the

Thatcher to power in the 1980s, Britain felt the need to forge ahead in
d cultural arenas. The moral, social, and personal cpdes of the 1950s,
had to be replaced by new myths and money. The free market had come
was a commodity and the writer, a salesman of hisher wares.

980s covers the period between Margaret Thatchefs election in 1979 to her exit fror,
in 1990. It was a period of consequential happenings everywhere in Europe as the
were changing very fast. The British novel in the 1980s was largely
vailing state of the nation and the world around. Margaret Drabble's
und (1 980). The Radical Way (1987), A Natural Curiosify (1 989) and
realistically portray this gloom. Similarly, the portrayal of a
ety under "Ma Torture" attracts the attention of Salman Rushdie in
Verses (1988). This continues further in Peter Ackroyd's Hawkesmoore (1985),
s Gabriel's Lament (1986), Michael Moorcock's Mother London (1988). These
e gothic spirit and-the Dickensian portrayal of society. Other novels -
of moral decay and highly commercialised culture are Geoff Dyer's
1 of Memory (1989), Justin Cartwright's Look AI 11 This Way (1990), Ian Sinclair's
I
(1 99 I), Angela Carter's Wise Children and Jim Crace's Arcadia (1992).
I
ve may be seen in the novels that represent the end of empires.
orth's novels like Pascal's Island(l980) which deals with the
I n empire, Stone Virgin (1985) which considers the fate of imperial
(1988) which deals with the death of Liverpool as a commercial
empires also attracted the attention of William Trevor, Molly
and Isabel Colgate in their r~ovelsThe Silence in the Garden (1988), Good B e h a v i o ~ ~
Party (1980) respectively.

extremely complex experiments were unddrtaken at this point of time. We have a

tographic novel, A Humument (1980), by painter Tom Philips. This is based on
.Mollock's novel A Human Document published in the Victorian age. In Nice Look
8) David Lodge went to Victorian England, as did A.S.Byatt in her novel Possession: A
mance (1990). A novel with a similar style was Lawrence Norfolk's Lempriere's
tiofiary (1992) in which an eighteenth century dictionary project is hampered by strange
umstances and stranger characters. The question of fictional archaeology loomed large
r the practitoners of fiction during and after the 1980s.

style underwent drastic shifts, the geography of the new fiction also widened. Africa
erged in the fiction of Wilgam Boyd, South Africa in the novels of Christopher Hope,
bia and Europe in the writings of Anita Brookner and Julian Barnes, and Arabia in the
ks of Hillary Mantel. Travel writing also came to the forefront with Bruce Chatwin, Paul
roux, Colin Thubron and Jonathan Raban. Novelists of multicultunl origins came to
ect richer and diverse versions of the complex huinan predicament. Salman Rushdie,
I
ikram Seth from India, Timothy'Mo from Hong Kong, Kazuo lshiguro from Japan, Ben
I Buchi Emecheta from Nigeria, and Caryl Phillips from St.Kitts in the Caribbean,
d this scenario of unprecedented variety. With their diverse linguistic and cultural
nds, they enriched fiction in English and made it truly international.
L

.4 LET US SUM UP
is Unit discusses the changed face of fiction in the last four decades of the twentieth
It underlined the creative exploration of writers who enriched traditions and broke
placin$ the novel at the intersection of moral, social and philosophical

I How does realism get expression in British fiction of 1960s?

The Prime of Miss Jean
Brodie
2. - Attempt a note on the novel kthe Gglish language with special reference to the
development durini the last two decades of our century.

5.6 SUGGESTED READING

1. Malcolm Bradbury, The Modern British Novel, Penguin, 1993.

2. Alan Massie, The Novel Today: A Critical Guide to the British Novel 1970-1989
London : Longman, 1990.