tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61837377957385854812024-02-08T05:44:02.777-08:00"Oh! It Is Only a Novel!" ". . . or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.” ~Jane AustenJulia Bozykhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788909888234094430noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6183737795738585481.post-54521716640839749272013-04-10T14:22:00.001-07:002013-04-10T15:13:06.641-07:00Innocence and Ignorance in Northanger AbbeyIn Jane Austen's <em>Northanger Abbey</em>, we
find a character who, like others we have encountered this semester,
operates with an innocence born of her virtue. Problematically,
however, this innocence often renders these characters ignorant of
the dishonorable motivations of others. Fairly late in Austen's novel, Henry Tilney characterizes
Catherine's approach to others as follows: "With you, it is not,
How is such a one likely to be influenced? What is the inducement
most likely to act upon such a person's feelings, age, situation, and
probable habits of life considered?--but, how should <i>I </i>be
influenced, what would be <i>my</i> inducement in acting so and so?"
(90). While Tilney seems to hold her in high regard for this very
reason, inherent in his statement is the danger Catherine potentially
faces in her assumptions that others will interact with her with the
same rectitude with which she constantly conducts herself. I am interested in to what extent Austen posits, in this novel, innocence as a positive attribute, and what message about an oft attending ignorance she wishes to share with her readers. <br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In the opening pages of the novel, in a
comparison between the initial plot points of her work and those one
would likely find in a Gothic novel, Austen writes, "But strange
things may be generally accounted for if their cause be fairly
searched out" (8). Austen's protagonist, Catherine Morland,
seems to take this advice to heart later in the novel when, upon
suddenly seeing the man with whom she has shared a brief flirtation,
Henry Tilney, with another woman, she rightly assumes this woman to
be his sister: "But guided only by what was simple and probable,
it had never entered her head that Mr. Tilney could be married . . .
he had never mentioned a wife, and he had acknowledged a sister . . .
therefore, instead of . . . falling in a fit on Mrs. Allen's bosom,
Catherine sat erect, in the perfect use of her senses" (35).
Here, then, Austen shows Catherine to be quite capable of sound
logic. Perhaps of import, however, is the fact that, in this
instance, Catherine's rational calculations inform her only of the
happiest of conclusions. It is in other relationships that we find
Catherine unable to be so discerning.
</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
For much of the novel, for instance,
Catherine is oblivious to the fact that Isabella is using her to
further her relationship with James, that John Thorpe intends to
marry her, and that General Tilney falsely believes she and her
family to be wealthy. What each of these seems to have in common is
that none is something she would be happy to know; each would cause
her anxiety. This anxiety, and a kind of willful ignorance Catherine
seems to employ in order to combat it, is especially apparent in the
scene in which Captain Tilney comes upon Isabella and Catherine
talking in a quiet corner of the Pump-room, and Catherine is amazed
by the impropriety with which Isabella engages in conversation with
him: "She wished Isabella had talked more like her usual self,
and not so much about money; and had not looked so well pleased at
the sight of Captain Tilney" (101). Even with her misgivings so
apparent, however, a few days' reflection finds Catherine yet "not
allowing herself to suspect her friend" (101). Similarly, while
she readily recognizes the amarous feelings Tilney has for her, she
is oblivious to that romantic interest which does not please her, as
evidenced by her amusing response to John Thorpe's flirtatious suggestion
that she will be happy to see him at a later meeting: "There are
very few people I am sorry to see" (86). Finally, pleased by
the positive attention she receives from General Tilney, she seems
not to question why this stern man would single her out for kind
treatment, and she ignores hints that would complicate her estimation of
him: "'Your father is so very liberal! He told me the other
day, that he only valued money as it allowed him to promote the
happiness of his children." "The brother and sister looked
at each other" (141). Although Austen endears Catherine to her readers through the very innocence that allows her to think the best of others, it seems, given the many mishaps into which her ignorance of others' true motivations leads her, that Austen does not conceive of such innocence as entirely wise.<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I wonder, finally, if Catherine's later escape
into the fantastical Gothic is a means by which she is able to escape
the anxieties of these relationships, thereby maintaining her innocence. It is interesting to note that,
while she is long unable to suspect a new friend of duplicity,
she readily suspects General Tilney of murdering or secreting his
wife within the abbey. Further, her imaginings of these hideous
crimes seem to cause her relatively little uneasiness. At one point,
for instance, Catherine determines she will seek out the hidden
woman: "Till midnight, she supposed it would be in vain to
search; but then . . . she would . . . steal out and look once more.
The clock struck twelve—and Catherine had been half an hour asleep"
(131). Soon disabused of her misconceptions by Henry, she admits to
herself that "Charming as were all of Mrs. Radcliffe's works . .
. it was not int them perhaps that human nature . . . was to be
looked for" (137). It seems significant, then, that, no longer
distracted by these romantic ideas, Catherine must now deal with
reality. When, for instance, her ignorance of General Tilney's
ulterior motives leads to the shock she experiences at her forced
departure, she feels keenly the difference between imagined and
actual suffering: ""Yet how different now the source of her
inquietude from what it had been then—how mournfully superior in
reality and substance! Her anxiety had foundation in fact, her fears
in probability; and with a mind so occupied in the contemplation of
actual and natural evil" (156). So embroiled has she been in the idea that
General Tilney was a murderer, Catherine fails to detect, and
protect herself from, that which is truly opprobrious in his
character. Both her own moral innocence and the innocence of reality to which her reading here contributes can be seen, then, as amounting to ignorance. Did Austen share the view of many in the
eighteenth century that certain types of fiction could prove so
distracting as to cause a reader to fail to attend to the
immediate necessities of his or her own life?
</div>
Julia Bozykhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788909888234094430noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6183737795738585481.post-17972839531599196982013-04-05T17:43:00.002-07:002013-04-07T13:53:00.644-07:00On Attending the 44th Annual Meeting of ASECS<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Thursday, April 4<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>th</sup>, I
had the pleasure of attending the Annual Meeting of the American
Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies in Cleveland, Ohio. The first
panel I attended was titled "Novel Experiments," and its
purpose was to discuss to what extent and under what conditions the
novel may be accurately termed an experiment. The first panelist,
Jenny Davidson of Columbia University, argued that calling the novel
experimental is of little use if the term is applied too generally.
Any fiction writing may be called experimental, she asserts, in that,
unless an act of plagiarism, it is a result of some amount of
innovation; to call the novel an experiment in this sense, then, is
meaningless. Davidson is more interested in what authors were more
experimental than others, and how so. She offers Richardson and Austen
as examples of particularly experimental writers, suggesting that
their work may be viewed from novel to novel as a series of
experiments in which one significant variable is changed, with
differing results. For instance, Richardson's <i>Sir Grandison</i>
may be seen as an experiment building on <i>Pamela</i> and <i>Clarissa</i>
but with the new variable that its "repository of virtue"
is a man. Anne Stevens of the University of Nevada argued, in a
paper titled "Experiments and Microgenres," that it is
futile to attempt to discern which of the earliest novels may be
appropriately called "experimental" until the term "novel"
itself has a firm definition. She makes the excellent point that
early novels are considered experimental only against the conventions
of <i>later</i> novels and, thus, that their designation as such is
anachronistic. She believes these earlier novels may be more aptly
described as simply innovative. As examples of innovation, she
describes the many "microgenres" that emerged during the
eighteenth-century, such as "season" novels, in which, for
example, a summer in Bath or a winter in Dublin may be described, and
"speaking object" novels, in which the novel's narrator is
not human. An amusing example of the latter that she offered is <i>The
History and Adventures of a Lady's Slippers and Shoes, Written by
Themselves</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. Finally, panelist
Katarzyna Bartoszynska of Bilkent University made an argument, in her
presentation, for the early Gothic novel as an experiment. She
equates the novel's early development with the birth of realism, and
suggests that, contrary to what one might assume, the Gothic genre
actually helped train readers to better approach realism. An
imperative of early fiction, she opines, was to teach readers how to
engage with texts that were literally unbelievable yet aesthetically
effective; in other words, readers had to learn that a story need
not be "true" in order to be of value. The Gothic novel may
be seen, then, as key to the development of fiction in that its
uncanny elements were particularly helpful in teaching readers to
suspend their disbelief. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">The
second and third panels I attended were part of a series called
"Women Outside the Blue Stocking Circle." The purpose of
these panels was to explore the lives and careers of those women
writers that were not members of the Blue Stocking Society and,
often, to discuss how and why these writers worked without the
support of this influential group. Presenting a paper titled "The
Curious Case of Charlotte Lennox," Susan K. Howard of Dusquesne
University focused on those aspects of Lennox's writing and personal
life that likely excluded her from the Blue Stocking Society.
That which most divided Lennox from members of the society was most
likely the fact that, while the latter engaged with literature as
part of their leisure time activities, Lennox wrote in order to
survive and support her family. For Lennox, writing was a business,
and one which she could simply not afford to take lightly. In her
relationships with mentors Samuel Richardson and Samuel Johnson, for
instance, Lennox readily made demands about the publication of her
work and expressed her discontent with the market. What interested
me most about this portrait of Lennox was that she operated with what
was considered an "unfeminine directness," and the fact
that this served her in her career. Howard offered the following
illuminating characterization: "She was widely read, but nobody
liked her." In the next presentation, of a paper titled "A
Life Beyond Loveliness: What Can Be Learned from the Latter Days of
Melesina Trench," Katharine Kittredge of Ithaca College
described the unusual career of this woman writer. Well
educated in her childhood, Trench gave up intellectual pursuits in
her early adult life as a wife and mother, instead spending her time
socializing or in leisure activities. Trench later described this
period as one in which she experienced an "absence of
reflection." Interestingly, Trench became a writer in her
mid-forties, after the death of her husband. A friendship she
developed with another women writer, Mary Leadbetter, was
instrumental in her career. Afraid that attempts to have her work
published would be viewed as too aggressive, Trench sent her work to her
friend with indirect suggestions as to which newspapers would perhaps
be interested in it, and Leadbetter, wishing to support her friend,
saw to it that Trench's work was published. In her paper,
then, Kittredge offers an example of how a relationship between women
writers can "embolden" and "enable" them. The
next panelist, William McCarthy of Iowa State University, is in the
earlier stages of a project called "Was Anna Letitia Barbauld,
Because Not a Bluestocking, a No Stocking?" McCarthy asserts
that, though Barbauld is often perceived as a Blue Stocking, she
lived far from London and cannot be accurately described as having
been influenced by or influential in this group. His current work is
focused on simply surveying, therefore, what relationships could have
been of consequence in Barbauld's career: Who were the women she
knew, and to what extent? To this end, then, McCarthy lists the
women writers with whom it is documented that Barbauld corresponded
or engaged socially and describes the duration and nature of these
engagements. What he has found thus far is that each of these
relationships had been too brief or superficial to be considered of
genuine impact on Barbauld's work. He concludes that Barbauld's had
many female friendships, but none that were intellectual in nature
and that, therefore, she could have benefited from membership in the
Blue Stocking Society. </span>
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> In
the second panel of the Blue Stocking series, Eve Tavor Bannet of
Oklahoma University began with a paper titled "'Wretched
Uniques': Women's Genteel Beggary in Mrs. Bennett and Her
Contemporaries." Bannet's work, in its focus on the penury
experienced by writer Anna Maria Bennett, is concerned with the
relationship between female authorship and female poverty. In her
novel </span><i>The Beggar Girl</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
Bennett portrays the plight of a gentlewoman newly impoverished, and
the extent to which she falls prey to both vicious men and women. At
the time, apparently, a common view of the poor was that they were deserving of their lot.
Bennett's point in this novel, then, is to demonstrate the surprising
ease with which, in the shifting economic structures of the time,
members of the gentility, and especially women, could fall into
hardship. Next, Cynthia Roman of Yale, in her presentation on print
seller Hannah Humphrey, offered the career of Humphrey as an example
of a highly successful and influential eighteenth-century
businesswoman. As the owner of a print shop specializing in
satirical prints, Humphrey operated far outside the conservative Blue
Stocking Society. As an unmarried woman, Humphrey ran her business
entirely independently, and did so with remarkable success. Her
political savvy, her understanding of cultural trends, and her sound judgment
of the graphic arts served her incredibly well. As a result,
Humphrey built a highly successful career for herself and
significantly influenced public opinion. Finally, in his paper
"'Observe Her Heedfully': Family, Friendship, and a Lady's Life
of Reading," panelist Mark Towsey of the University of Liverpool
explores what can be known about eighteenth-century Scottish women by
their reading habits and patterns and asks the following question:
"Must a woman have published in order to be considered literary
or an intellectual?" To argue against this assumption, Towsey
offers the example of Elizabeth Rose, a woman whose reading experiences are
heavily documented. Available for study, for instance, are lists of
the books she read and that were included in her personal library,
journals in which she reflected on her readings, and letters in which
she discussed and recommended books. Evident especially in this
correspondence is that eighteenth-century anxiety about women's
reading that we have discussed extensively in class. Rose criticizes
much of the literature she reads and urges her friends and family
members to avoid entirely or attend to only certain sections of
particular books. She also feels strongly, however, about the
potential of reading as a pedagogical tool. Ultimately, in this
portrait of Rose, Towsey presents women as, in their role as readers
and interpreters of literature, intellectual and cultural agents in
their own right, both as individuals and collectively. </span>
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Attending
ASECS was an extremely edifying experience. Given the panels I
attended, I of course learned a great deal about the development of
the novel as a genre and about women writers of the
eighteenth century. As this was the first national conference I have had
the opportunity to attend, I also gained much valuable information
about the nature of conferences in general. I had previously thought
that conferences served simply as opportunities for scholars to
present their finished works. I know now that many use such meetings
to test new ideas or to build on earlier ones, to gauge whether a proposed topic is worthy of
future exploration and to get feedback as to what other lines of
inquiry their own questions may engender. I especially appreciated
the fact that, among the questions asked of the panelists, there were
many "Have you read . . . ?!" and "You have to read .
. . !" It was so neat to witness the enthusiasm with which
these scholars approached their and others' work, and it made me all
the more excited to participate in such conversations in the future. </span>
</span></div>
Julia Bozykhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788909888234094430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6183737795738585481.post-22025578621519280442013-03-27T14:36:00.000-07:002013-03-27T15:08:58.164-07:00The Novel: Please Enjoy Responsibly<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having recently read Catherine Gallagher’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nobody’s Story</i>,
which discusses extensively the social role of the reading of fiction in the
eighteenth-century, I was specially attuned to mentions of reading in
Radcliffe’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Romance of the Forest</i>. Throughout the novel, Radcliffe posits literature as
something that offers much to its readers. We learn early that Adeline, the
novel’s heroine, has benefited from reading: “From books, indeed, she had
constantly derived her chief information and amusement: those belonging to La
Motte were few, but well chosen; and Adeline could find pleasure in reading
them more than once. When her mind was discomposed . . . a book was the opiate
that lulled it to repose” (82). Especially important here is the fact that
reading has offered Adeline not only entertainment but also education and
comfort. As we observe Adeline’s relationship with literature throughout the
rest of the novel, it seems that this sense of comfort is that which Radcliffe
figures as the most constant benefit of reading. Whether suffering from
loneliness at the abbey or grief at Leloncourt, Adeline takes solace in poetry
and plays (82; 236; 261). Indeed, the narrator even goes so far as to mention,
in one of the moments in which Adeline turns to literature for comfort, that
poetry “had seldom forsaken her”; this indicates that, in a life in which
instability and betrayal are the norm, the written word alone has been
steadfast. Clearly, then, Radcliffe posits reading as beneficial. She does not
do so, however, without some degree of caution.<o:p></o:p><br />
<u1:p></u1:p>
<br />
There are two instances in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Romance of the
Forest</i> that, although not directly related to reading, respond, I
believe, to an uneasiness about reading that we have seen intimated by other
early novelists. Like Sarah Fielding, through the example of the beggar
in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Governess</i>,
and Charlotte Lennox, through the example of Sir George in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Female Quixote,</i>
Radcliffe cautions her readers against readily assuming the veracity of a story
and instead urges discernment by writing of Adeline’s encounter with Theodore’s
suspect surgeon. In order to support his claim of “infallible judgment,” the
surgeon tells Adeline a story of a patient who passed away while under his care.
With the utmost confidence, he asserts that this death was the result of fatal
mistakes made by the physician who first administered to the patient:
“Depend upon it, said I, you are mistaken; these medicines cannot have relieved
him; the patient is in the utmost danger”(183). The surgeon goes on to tell of
his final efforts to save the man through an alteration of the first physician’s
prescriptions but concludes finally that “all would not do, my opinion was
verified, and he died even before the next morning” (184). As Adeline is a
careful listener, Radcliffe expects us to be discerning readers; we are to
notice, like Adeline, that this patient’s condition improved with the care of
the first physician and worsened immediately when the surgeon assumed his care.
Because Adeline attends the story with caution, she is able to conclude that
this other physician is far more fit to tend to Theodore, and ultimately,
Theodore lives as a result. Clearly, then, one must exercise prudence when the
audience to a story. <o:p></o:p><br />
<u1:p></u1:p>
<br />
Another anxiety with which British society
regarded reading by the late eighteenth century is well represented
metaphorically by Radcliffe’s account of Clara and her lute. According to
Gallagher, novel readers were, by this time, pejoratively figured as so
embroiled in the emotions of fictional characters that they often failed, and sometimes
disastrously, to attend to the immediacies of their actual lives. Clara,
similarly, is so enthused upon receiving a lute from her father that she
“played it again and again till she forgot every thing besides” (249). Her
zealous interest in the instrument soon results in her neglecting a needy
family, losing valuable instructional time with her father, and missing dinner with her family (249-253).
Ashamed at her lack of discipline, Clara attempts to return the lute to her
father; in doing so, however, she proves to him that she has gained command of
her impulses, and he no longer fears the instrument a perilous distraction.
Counseling her on her further engagement with the lute, Clara’s wise father
offers her the following: “Since you have sufficient resolution to resign it
when it leads you from duty, I doubt not that you will be able to control its
influence” (253). These words seem readily applicable to reading and, thus,
strike me as Radcliffe’s soliciting her audience to approach reading in such a
way that it, too, may be enjoyed responsibly.</span> </span></span></span></span>Julia Bozykhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788909888234094430noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6183737795738585481.post-35089115793258918562013-03-06T17:32:00.000-08:002013-03-27T14:57:02.087-07:00Passion and Compassion<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Early in Fielding’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Governess</i>, the pupils of Mrs. Teachum’s academy are reformed by an
experience in which<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> they physically fight over an apple, feel and inflict pain, and later reflect seriously on the motivations for and consequences of their actions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This, their first of many lessons, soon finds the girls, when dining together, “so changed, that each helped her next Neighbour before she would touch
any for herself” (59).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was surprised,
then, to encounter, just a few pages later, what seemed a very different
sentiment</span> regarding one’s fellow person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When, out on a walk, the class comes upon “a miserable ragged Fellow,
who begged their charity,” they move instinctively to provide him aid, which prompts the following from their governess: “She told them, she approved of their
Readiness to assist the poor Fellow, as he appeared to them: But oftentimes
those Fellows made up dismal Stories without much Foundation, and because they
were lazy, and would not work” (109).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That Mrs. Teachum would advocate caution, even mistrust, when
interacting with the seemingly needy seemed incongruous with what I had thus
far read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Further reflection recalled, however,</span> a story shared by Miss Jenny Pearce earlier in the novel, by which I began to form a clearer picture of that which Fielding is here promoting. Jenny tells of a time in her youth in which she was much grieved by the loss of a beloved pet. When Jenny's mother believes
her daughter to have spent sufficient time mourning her loss, she advises her daughter thus: “Now tho’ I have always
encouraged you in all Sentiments of Good-nature and Compassion . . . you are to
consider, my Child, that you are not to give way to any Passions that interfere
with your Duty" (65).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>The narrator soon
offers several striking exemplifications of the validity of Mrs. Peace
and Mrs. Teachum’s calls for caution. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the fairy tale concerning Princess Hebe, the queen
warns her daughter against “the Indulgence of the most Laudable Passion,
even Benevolence and Compassion itself, through the tale of a “Hen, who,
thinking that she heard the Voice of a little Duckling in Distress, flew from
her Young ones, to go and give it Assistance” (129). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In consequence of committing this charitable
act, the helpful hen is eaten by a fox, and her offspring by a falcon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yikes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Soon after, Mrs. Teachum’s students are told, by Miss Jenny, of
Princess Hebe’s being tricked into estrangement from her mother by her impulse
to rescue a shepherdess from the clutches of the deceitful Rozella and of the fairy Sybella’s having been
similarly hoodwinked in her efforts to aid what seems an old man interested in
the reformation of his wayward son (135; 137).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These grave lessons could clearly be perceived as suggesting that
charitable action leads to disaster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However, as so many didactic voices throughout the novel explicitly commend
benevolence, there is obviously something more at work here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This may simply amount to one aspect of Fielding’s
larger admonition against acting with “Passion.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the aforementioned examples in which
charitable action has dire consequences, it is important to note that each
hinges on a spontaneous reaction, that of leaping to the aid of one in need, to
a spontaneous emotion, that of compassion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
Happily, t</span>here are many examples in the novel in which concern with the
well-being of others does not lead to oppression or death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The students’ selfless interaction with one another following the “apple fray” is, of course, one important example, as the
girls are only equal to such magnanimity after careful reflection upon their own
and the others’ behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Fielding posits reason, then, rather than passion, as the proper impetus for action. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Because I, in my reading of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Governess</i>, thought its views on charity
strikingly pronounced, I wondered what other philosophy may have informed these
views.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having read, in the text’s introduction,
that Fielding was influenced by Locke’s theories on education, I was interested
in Locke’s views on benevolence, and I found Steven Forde’s <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/25655842.pdf"><span style="color: blue;">“The Charitable John
Locke”</span></a> to be helpful (29).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
would be very difficult to paraphrase Forde’s treatment of the complex nature
of Locke’s views on charity, but the following excerpt from his essay, though seemingly
not wholly related to that which I am concerned with here, is instructive:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“In both [his “Venditio”]
and the passage on charity in the First Treatise, Locke is very precise in his
language: though charity is a duty it is not a duty of ‘justice.’ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Justice, in matters of property, is concerned
only with respecting the possessions of others and with fair rules of trade, a
standard relatively easily reconciled with self-interest. Charity is a more
exacting moral standard, but one to which people cannot strictly be held . . .
[M] men are duty-bound only to refrain from harming or destroying one another.”
(451)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Forde also asserts, ultimately, that “Lockean morality
is not individual right per se, but concern for the common good.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(1).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
I, in my admittedly very limited study of this aspect of Lockean theory, am
correct in believing it to suggest that, because a natural right to self-preservation
logically engenders self-interest, mediating one’s compassionate impulses
through one’s self-interest is ethical, then these views seem to relate to
those espoused by Fielding in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Governess</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For Mrs. Teachum and the
novel’s other educators, self-preservation amounts, of course, to the
preservation of one’s moral character, or the strict adherence to one’s “Duty.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would be interested in learning of the extent to
which Fielding, like Locke, conceived of such preservation as ultimately beneficial
to both the individual <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Julia Bozykhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788909888234094430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6183737795738585481.post-65389506650599226512013-02-27T18:34:00.000-08:002013-02-27T18:34:48.922-08:00"O Vanity!"<span lang=""><br />
<span lang="">In reading <i>Joseph Andrews</i>, I was most intrigued by Fielding's representation of the character of Parson Adams. In his introduction to the text, Thomas Keymer refers to the "ludicrous yet good-hearted Adams" (xxvii). Examples of the humorously ludicrous in Adams include his forgetfulness, his tendency towards being drawn against his nature into physical altercations, and his sometimes being the brunt of others' jokes (82; 103; 218). Fielding seems to approach something more serious, however, in his representation of other aspects of Adams' character. In the preface to <i>Joseph Andrews</i>, the narrator states the following:<i> </i><br />
<dir><dir>"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: for as Vanity puts us on affecting false characters, in order to purchase Applause; so Hypocrisy sets us on an Endeavor to avoid Censure by concealing our Vices under an Appearance of their opposite Virtues." (6)</dir>
</dir>
While Adams proves, throughout the novel, to be a loving and giving individual, he does not seem, as the narrator claims, to be "a Character of perfect Simplicity" (8). Rather, there are many moments in which he seems guilty of the vanity of which the narrator so disapproves. Adams, for instance, considers himself quite learned, and is resentful when others seem to question his intellectual or moral authority. While the first of the many debates in which he engages throughout the novel, this with Joseph Andrew's doctor regarding their respective knowledge of surgery, ends with Adams "very contendly suffer[ing[ the Doctor to enjoy his Victory," later discussions find the parson less willing to relent. For example, In a debate with with one of his many hosts concerning whether one's countenance may provide an accurate reflection of one's disposition, the other man speaks "with so little regard to the Parson's Observation, that it a good deal nettled him" (158). Injured, Adams boasts of the knowledge of the world he has obtained through reading: "I can go farther in an Afternoon, than you in a Twelve-Month" (159). Similarly, when Peter Bounce later refers to Adams as one who is ignorant of the world, the parson interrupts: "'You will pardon me, Sir,' returned Adams; 'I have read of the Gymnosophists" (238). <br />
<br />
<span lang="">Adams is further characterized as one who is not terribly receptive of the wisdom of others. His and Parson Barnabas's discussion of tithes, for instance, "continued a full Hour, without the Doctor or the Exciseman's having one opportunity to offer a Word" (65). Later, in a rare moment in which Andrews shares his philosophical musings, the narrator remarks that "the Reader hath not been a little surprized at the long Silence of Parson Adams, especially as so many Occasions offer'd themselves to exert his Curiosity and Observation. The truth is, he was fast asleep, and had so been from the beginning of the preceding Narrative" (204). It is evident, then, that Adams gives greater weight to his own reflections than he does those of others. Didacticism is the nature of his profession, of course, but the aforementioned moments suggest that there is something of vanity in the eagerness with which Adams endeavors to share his wisdom with the world. <br />
<br />
This is most succinctly, and humorously, related in Adams' conversation with Mr. Wilson concerning the latter's personal history. Here, Mr. WIlson expresses his scorn for vanity, and proves that he does so in both thought and deed by very honestly sharing with Adams the extent of his youthful transgressions (175-195). This leads to the parson searching "after a Sermon, which he thought his Masterpiece, against Vanity," and explaining that he has "never been a greater Enemy to any Passion than that silly one of Vanity" (186). That, in response, the humble Mr. Wilson simply "smiled, and proceeded" calls special attention to the irony, and hypocricy, of boasting of one's ability to speak against vanity (186). <br />
<br />
These moments of Adams' hypocricy are brief but, given that they exist at all, significant. Late in the novel, at the supposed death of Adams' son, Andrews tries to comfort the parson with his own past sermons, in which he "preached nothing more than the Conquest of [passion] to Reason and Grace" (272). Adams dissolves, instead, into an emotional tumult, but shortly thereafter advises Andrews to bear his own suffering with composure. The fact that the parson is deeply offended when an impatient Andrews rejoins with "it is easier to give Advice than take it," suggests that Adams is here trying to avoid the censure of which the narrator earlier speaks by advocating a virtue he does not himself hold (272). <br />
<br />
I woud not be interested in this characterization of Adams did I consider it a straightforward condemnation of vanity and hypocricy. Rather, I am intrigued by the fact that these traits exist in a character who is otherwise represented as so thoroughly good, and I wonder what Fielding means to communicate through this. In the preface, the narrator states, "O Vanity! How little is thy Force acknowledged, or thy Operations discerned How wantonly dost thou deceive Mankind under different Disguises?" and follows with a thorough discussion of the trait as a great force of evil in the world (60). Following this diatribe, however, the narrator, in a self-conscioius moment, continues to address vanity thus: "I know thou wilt think, that while I abuse thee, I court thee; . . . but thou art deceived, i value thee not of a farthing; . . . for know to thy Confusion, that I have introduced thee for no other Purpose than to lengthen out a short Chapter" (60). The narrator's rather desperate insistence that vanity is of little consequence to him, coupled with the dubious assertion that he mentions it only to avoid brevity, communicates that it is an attribute with which he himself struggles. Perhaps the character of Parson Adams is meant to remind Fielding's audience that even the best of humans are subject to vanity and to encourage all to guard against it. <br />
<br />
<br />
</span><br /></span></span>Julia Bozykhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788909888234094430noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6183737795738585481.post-65087559207159298512013-02-20T14:03:00.000-08:002013-02-20T14:38:02.088-08:00"Ruin'd": A Cautionary Tale<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In
Richardson’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pamela</i>, there is so much
talk of the title character’s being “ruined” should she submit to the sexual
advances of Mr. B., that I was immediately struck by a far different, though equally pejorative, use of the word early on in Haywood’s <em>Anti-Pamela. </em>Rendered uneasy
by the idea that her daughter, Syrena, could feel genuine emotion for a man
with whom she engages romantically or sexually, Mrs. Tricksey warns, “I hope
you do not stand in need of any Caution against indulging a secret inclination
for him; for if it once comes to that you are ruin’d!—No Woman ever made her
Fortune by the Man she had a sincere value for” (66).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, as Syrena’s various failed exploits seem
to imply, women are in danger whenever inclination plays a role in their
strategic approach to “love,” for as Catherine Ingrassia asserts in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Anti-Pamela</i>’s introduction, every time “Syrena
approaches ‘success’—e.g. marriage or a financial settlement—her own sexual
desires undermine her” (38).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Syrena is
not, then, “ruined” when she compromises, according to the customs of her time,
her virtue by engaging in pre- or extramarital affairs, for here she is using
her sexuality to exert power over the various men in her life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather, it is in those situations in which
her own desire controls her, such as when she hazards her comfortable arrangement
with the Mercer in order to aid the Gallant by whom she is taken, or risks her
potential marriage to Mr. W. for the sexual gratification of a brief affair
with his son, in which she meets her demise (38-39).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This notion of control seems of great import to Haywood, as the narrator
takes pains to point out the disastrous potential of a loss of such control: “And
here, methinks, it is worth remarking, how the indulging one Vice, destroy’d
all the Success she might have expected from the other; for had she been less
leud, her Hypocrisy, in all Probability, had obtain’d end” (198).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not, then, Syrena’s lack of virtue, but
her lack of self-discipline that aborts her best-laid plans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ingrassia posits <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Anti-Pamela</i> as “a complex novel that offers an alternative
didacticism that teaches cunning, duplicity and, ultimately, self-sufficiency
within the treacherous financial and sexual economies women confront”
(37).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Necessary to “self-sufficiency,”
it seems, is the idea that no woman can allow herself to be manipulated by
affection or sexual desire, or any motivation other than the strictly
pragmatic, when navigating these economies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Were not Syrena’s experiences sufficient, then certainly the sad
circumstances of the myriad <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">virtuous</i>
female characters of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Anti-Pamela</i>
validate this idea<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Haywood urges, as Ingrassia asserts, that female readers of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Anti-Pamela</i> recognize “the dangers
and desires of the men who court them, employ them, or, potentially, marry them,”
then the tragic end of the loving Maria and the jealous misery of
Mrs. E. and Mrs. C </span>indicate that even when marriage is
pursued honorably, women often proceed at their own peril when not attending
strictly to the practical aspects of the union (43).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The only female character ultimately rewarded with a happy, mutually
loving relationship is, in fact, the Mercer’s wife, and her prize is an adulterous husband
who, one may note, is reformed only after he learns of his mistress’s own infidelity
and nearly brings his family to financial ruin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">All of this
recalls, of course, Haywood’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Love in
Excess</i>, in which female desire manifests itself in a variety of ways but
generally to the misfortune of those women who experience it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ingrassia claims that, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Anti-Pamela</i>, “Haywood seems to be
offering a cautionary tale to the women—and men—who misread not only <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pamela</i> but her earlier fiction as well”
(36).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this is true, then perhaps <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Love in Excess</i>’s heroine, Melliora, is
meant to serve as an example of proper conduct not only for her maintaining her
virtue in the face of D’ Elmont’s advances, but also for maintaining self-control in the midst of strong emotion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her self-exile after </span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Alovisa’s death,
for instance, indicates that, despite her love for D’Elmont, she retains the
self-sufficiency Haywood advocates in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Anti-Pamela</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This idea also sheds new light on an aspect
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Love in Excess</i> that troubled me well
after I had completed the novel, that of the meaning of Violetta's death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certainly this minor character’s love for D’Elmont,
given its utterly selfless nature, could be said to be even more virtuous than
that of Melliora.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It surprised me, then,
that such an affection, that which incited
Violetta to follow her beloved to another country with the intention only of advancing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">his</i> happiness, would be rewarded, by Haywood, with death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps, however, Haywood offers, in
Violetta, that which she later echoes in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Anti-Pamela</i>,
a warning to women of the dangers of loving without at least some element of pragmatic self-interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Julia Bozykhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788909888234094430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6183737795738585481.post-9186518555077595872013-02-13T13:58:00.000-08:002013-02-13T14:48:35.176-08:00"But whatever you do, Pamela . . ."<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In an
article titled “Richard’s characterization of Mr. B. and Double Purpose in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pamela</i>,” Gwendolyn B. Needham contends
that the average reader of Samuel Richardson’s first novel fails to recognize
the complex character the author renders in its hero-villain, Mr. B.: “Convinced
of Mr. B.’s wickedness, outraged by a seeming switch from black dye to whitewash,
the reader doubts the ‘miraculous conversion’ and deplores Richardson’s
ineptitude” (437).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Needham holds,
instead, that Mr. B.’s motivations have been represented consistently throughout
the narrative and that “Richardson’s psychological insight and conscious
realism make convincing what happens to a Mr. B. when he encounters a Pamela”
(452).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am interested in Richardson’s
characterization of Mr. B. because of an unbecoming characteristic I
found to be as prevalent in him <em>after</em> his “reformation” as before, that of his nearly
paranoid concern with others’ perception of him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is evidenced by a series of solemn
counsels he administers to Pamela in regards to her behavior as his wife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fearing the opinion of their wedding guests, for instance,
he asks that she adopt an artifice of lightheartedness at their nuptials: “But
whatever you do, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pamela</i>, be cheerful;
for else, may-be, of the small Company we shall have, some one, not knowing how
to account for your too nice Modesty, may think there is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">some other</i> Person in the World, whose Addresses would be still more
agreeable to you” (342).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of her role as
hostess, he enjoins, “[B]ut yet I will say, that I expect from you, whoever
comes to my House, that you will accustom yourself to one even, uniform
Complaisance: That no Frown take place on your Brow . . . That . . . <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>you signify not, by the least reserved Look,
that the Stranger is come upon you unseasonably” (371).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally, he warns her against ever
representing their marriage in an unfavorable light: “In all Companies she must
have shewn, that she had, whether I deserved it altogether, or not, a high
Regard and Opinion of me” (446).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> P</span>rior to reading Needham’s article,
I considered Mr. B.’s excessive vanity just another aspect of his unsavory
character, despite the fact that his creator, Richardson, clearly wished me to
have a far higher opinion of him by the latter half of the novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Needham, however, urges that Richardson’s
continued representation of this prevalent fault in the hero is not indicative
of the author’s inconsistency in characterizing him, but the opposite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is Mr. B’s ego that is at the heart of the
novel’s initial conflict, as his inner struggle, in deciding whether a marriage
to Pamela is worth the censure of his peers, “finally emerges as a clear case
of Pride versus Love” (Needham 455).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However,
as Needham also holds that “Richardson emphasizes pride of self as Mr. B.’s
dominant and pervasive trait” and “convincingly demonstrates that Mr. B.’s ego
and domineering disposition remain essentially unchanged,” I now question his
characterization in but a different way (445; 468).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No longer does Mr. B. seem strangely
converted from one who is thoroughly bad to one who is thoroughly good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather, my own observations regarding his
excessive fear of the judgment of others, coupled with Needham’s insistence
that his vanity explains his psychological motivations throughout the novel
and provides for his realistic rendering, lead me to newly question the
likelihood of such a man marrying below his station.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Of course, Needham also asserts that
Richardson has created, in Mr. B., “a man capable of correcting and
disciplining himself given sufficiently strong motivation” (446).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His love for Pamela may indeed provide just
such motivation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, as he is
hardly reformed in his vanity; as he seems, in his aforementioned cautions to
Pamela regarding her behavior, to prize others’ perceptions over her comfort;
and as, in marrying his servant, he would surely risk a far more extensive
disapprobation of his peers than that afforded by any of the smaller matters
over which he shows so much concern, I have my doubts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
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<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<br />Julia Bozykhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788909888234094430noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6183737795738585481.post-11614711517655760022013-02-06T14:03:00.003-08:002013-02-06T14:03:51.500-08:00The Epistolary Narrative of Pamela: Richardson's Novel Approach
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As evidenced by my previous blogs, I have become
increasingly intrigued by the narrative modes employed by early authors of the
novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As such, I was of course
immediately taken by the many narrative twist and turns of Richardson’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pamela</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Much of its complications may be readily attributed to the novel’s
<a href="http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-epistolary-novel.htm" target="_blank">epistolary</a> form, which interests me in that it seems this style was newly and
uniquely available to the novelist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
seemingly faithful reproduction of a letter in works of poetry or drama would necessitate
a break from their structures and would, therefore, be outside the logic of
these literary forms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That the
epistolary was a new method of narration, then, speaks to the challenges
Richardson faced in employing it in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pamela</i>
and renders me even more interested in his missteps, as they perhaps helped to
shape what would be later novelists’ more polished attempts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Having read Behn’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oronooko</i>
and Defoe’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Robinson Crusoe</i>, we have,
in the past few weeks, discussed the efforts of the authors and publishers of
these works to present them to their audience as though they were non-fiction
accounts of true events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not
surprising, then, that Richardson often seems intent on producing the same
effect with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pamela</i>; what is puzzling,
however, is how inconsistent his efforts appear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A narrative offered in epistolary form seems,
logically, one most apropos to ostensibly faithful reproductions, as it could
be imagined to quite literally be a bound collection of a series of
letters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At times, in the novel,
Richardson seems determined that his audience believe <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pamela</i> to be just such a collection, yet even the novel’s preface,
which references specifically the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">drawing
of characters</i>, belies such a reading (3).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Were Richardson more consistent in his efforts, such a preface could,
like that written by Defoe as an introduction to Robinson Crusoe’s “autobiography,”
have made claims to its veracity by, for instance, explaining how it was that
the editor came about this series of letters concerning Pamela.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, my concern with this aspect of the
novel is entirely predicated on the idea that Richardson had as a goal verisimilitude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This may very well not be the case, yet
throughout the novel there is evidence of Richardson’s creative efforts to
suspend the disbelief of his readers and aid in their imaginative experience of
reading the actual letters of Pamela and other characters.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Perhaps the most striking of such efforts is Pamela’s
recurring explanation that those letters not written by her are available to
her parents by means of her copying them verbatim in some usually frenzied
moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This makes sense in that it is
unlikely that those letters that are taken from her would be later available to
her for presentation to her parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yet, as we learn throughout the narrative that her letters and writings
are consistently stolen from her, it is difficult to understand the logic that
allows for some of these writings to be recovered and later reproduced and others
not, particularly when we have little doubt as to who is behind the seizure of
them all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A moment in which Richardson does
seem greatly concerned with maintaining the realism of the epistolary form
occurs when Mrs. Jewkes discovers and removes Pamela’s journal and Pamela,
believing her recent account of her troubles to be gone from her forever,
provides her parents a briefer summary of them in a new entry (236).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This, of course, like Defoe’s presenting
aspects of Crusoe’s story in both autobiographical and epistolary form, gives
the effect that the person who offers Pamela’s writings is so committed to
their honest reproduction as to prefer tedious redundancy to the omission of
any of its parts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This leads me to
question, then, why none of the letters that Pamela copied down for her parents
is also represented as an original, as surely, in keeping with the logic of the
narrative, at least a few of them would have been retrieved with the other,
greater parts of her letters and journal entries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Then, of course, there is the no small matter of the novel’s
temporary break from the epistolary form in which, suddenly and, as far as I
can tell, inexplicably, an omniscient narrator is introduced (92-98).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Say what?)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Perhaps I am being presumptuous in my questioning of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pamela</i>’s narration, as I have yet to
even finish the novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am hard put to
imagine, however, what new element Richardson could later introduce that would
account for the inconsistences aforementioned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Certainly, however, my attention to these matters should not be viewed
as indicative of a doubt regarding Richardson’s talent and skill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather, I am simply intrigued by the idea
that Richardson was, in writing an epistolary novel, experimenting with an
innovative new technique, one that was not without its difficulties.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Julia Bozykhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788909888234094430noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6183737795738585481.post-75255882385631154602013-01-30T14:00:00.000-08:002013-01-30T14:00:32.688-08:00"Some Such Thoughts as These Occurred to Me"
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wikipedia has been kind enough to offer me the following
distinction: “<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">First-person
narrations may be told . . . in the guise of a person experiencing the events
in the story without being aware of conveying that experience to an audience;
on the other hand, the narrator may be conscious of telling the story to a
given audience, perhaps at a given place and time, for a given reason.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I fell to “wikipediaing” first-person
narration for these nuances while reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Robinson
Crusoe</i> because of its relevance to my willingness to rely on Crusoe as a
narrator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, after reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Crusoe</i> this time around, the difference
between a first-person narrator who presents his or her journey to a reader as
it unfolds and one who relates his or experiences only after they are complete
seems so significant that I am extremely surprised to be unable to find common,
distinct names for these respective types of narration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Evan R. Davis, in
his introduction to the text, notes, in regards to Crusoe’s oft vacillating actions
and suppositions, that there are “few apologies for his quick turns of
mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Crusoe regrets his actions and
thoughts frequently enough, but rarely in a terribly sustained way” (31).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Crusoe’s narration is ostensibly of the
latter kind of the two types of first-person narration aforementioned, such
oscillation seems rather nonsensical; if Crusoe is relating to us the nature
and effects of his twenty-eight years stranded on a remote island only after
these years have passed, then should not his ultimate reflections upon his time
there be relatively stable?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One perhaps
easy way to reconcile this troubling aspect of the novel is through Defoe’s
inclusion of Crusoe’s journal, the effect of which, as Davis asserts, is to
create “moments when it becomes impossible to know whether we are reading the
journal or a later commentary” (23).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
think, however, that there is more to it than this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I first began exploring
this idea, I was convinced that, as I went back through my annotations of the
novel, I would find many examples of moments when the rescued Crusoe, relating
his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Strange and Surprising Adventures</i>
after this first round of them is over, would offer contradictory bits of
wisdom directly to his reader.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
surprised to find such contradiction in only a few aspects of his narration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More striking was the fact that, when Crusoe
makes strong statements such as “It is God that has made it all” and “[T]his
was the Station of Life the infinitely wise and good providence of God had
determin’d for me” and “How wonderfully we are deliver’d, when we know nothing
of it,” they are usually prefaced with such introductions as “[S]ome such
thoughts as these occurred to me . . . ” and “I considered that this was . . . ”
and “This renew’d a Contemplation, which often had come to my Thoughts in
former Time . . . ” (124; 179; 194).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
short, instead of offering his reader those reflections that could be borne only
from the whole of his experience, Crusoe primarily offers us, in his narration,
a linear presentation of the thoughts of his less experienced, younger
self.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My question in observing this is
simply why, then, Defoe chose to construct the novel from the point of view of
one so uniquely experienced as the aged Crusoe if his reader cannot then benefit
from the wisdom ostensibly gleaned from this experience?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without the advantage of this perspective, why
not simply have Crusoe relate his story “in the guise of a person experiencing
the events in the story”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What does it
mean that the Crusoe writing at the end of these adventures is so careful to
attribute his earlier conclusions to his earlier thought processes?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of
my many last, lingering thoughts is that somewhere in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Robinson Crusoe</i>, an unreliable narrator may be afoot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(No pun intended.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
Julia Bozykhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788909888234094430noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6183737795738585481.post-31507553515032793242013-01-23T14:24:00.000-08:002013-01-23T14:25:18.930-08:00Praise in Excess?<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">I was
surprised, when reading </span><i>Love in Excess</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
by many of Haywood's characterizations and representations of Count
D'Elmont, and these observations gave me pause to consider,
admittedly for the first time, some of the unique creative opportunities
available to an author when choosing as her medium the novel. While
reading </span><i>Love in Excess</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
I often observed a dissonance between the narrator's descriptions of
D'Elmont's character and what I would likely have inferred to be the
quality of his character based solely on his actions. I believe this
troubled me throughout my reading of the novel, but it first became
strikingly apparent when D'Elmont, questioned by Frankville regarding
his and Melliora's relationship, and in an effort to pacify the
concerned brother, "entertained him with the whole history of
his adventures . . . disguising nothing of the truth, but some part
of the discourses which had passed between him and Melliora that
night when he surprized her in her bed" (185). The narrator
goes on to offer the following justification of D'Elmont's
significant omission: "[H]e was too tender of Melliora's honour,
to relate any thing of her, which modesty might not acknowledge,
without the expence of a blush" (185). This moment led me to
more closely consider Haywood's choice of the novel as her form for,
had this interaction instead been represented, for instance, on stage
in the form of a dialogue between the two men, D'Elmont's decision to
not relate to Frankville the extent of his and Melliora's dalliances
would certainly have been perceived as an effort to avoid the further
ire of a protective brother. Contributing to this conclusion, too,
is D'Elmont's earlier response to Frankville's accusations of
impropriety: "That I do love your sister is as true, as that you
have wronged me – basely wronged me. But that her virtue suffers
by that love, is false!" (181). As he here conveniently fails
to mention to Frankville that this statement is true only because his
best efforts to the contrary were unsuccessful, it seems quite clear
that it is not, despite the narrator's claims, only Melliora's
interests D'Elmont wishes to protect. I find it interesting that I,
as a reader, doubt the statements of an omniscient narrator;
certainly, though, my doubt renders the character of D'Elmont only
ambiguous in my view. Were he a character in one of Haywood's many
plays, however, and had I only, barring the excessive use of
soliloquy, his dialogue and actions, and not the direct
characterization offered by the narrator, by which to judge his
character, I would likely, by this point in the novel, have denounced
him as thoroughly a scoundrel. I am wondering, then, if Haywood's
use of the novel form allows her to play a bit more liberally with
her characters. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">While
I, for the moment, am simply intrigued by the possible conflict
between direct and indirect characterization perhaps more readily
found in the novel than in other literary forms, Manley, in a preface
to </span><i>The Secret History of Queen Zarah</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
takes a firm stance: "['T]is not by Extravagant Expressions, nor
Repeated Praises, that the Reader's Esteem is acquired to the
Character of the Heroe's, their Actions ought to plead for them; 'tis
by that they are made known, and describe themselves" (36-37).</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">The
validity of this statement is perhaps best evidenced by the
relatively short scene in </span><i>Love in Excess </i><span style="font-style: normal;">in
which D'Elmont is represented by the narrator as falling rather
victim to the seduction of Ciamara. While the narrator insists that
"it was impossible for any soul to be capable of a greater, or
more constant passion than he felt for Melliora, tho' no man that
ever lived, was less addicted to loose desires," certainly, had
this scene unfolded on stage, where an audience would bear witness to
D'Elmont's giving "his hands a full enjoyment" of Ciamara's
"charms," the purity of his desires would have been
rendered far more dubious than they are in the novel (225). It is
for moments such as these that </span><i>Love in Excess </i><span style="font-style: normal;">leads
me to consider the potential in a novel for significant tension
between what a narrator pleads for his or her characters and what
their actions plead for themselves. </span>
</div>
Julia Bozykhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788909888234094430noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6183737795738585481.post-51598612535520918642013-01-16T14:04:00.000-08:002013-01-16T14:04:50.896-08:00Oroonoko: A Special Slave
<br />
<div class="Standard" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;">
Laura Brown writes, "On the
face of it, the treatment of slavery in Oroonoko is neither coherent nor fully
critical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The romance motifs in
Oroonoko's story, based up on the elitist focus on the fate of African
'princes,' render ambiguous Behn's attack on the institution of slavery"
(240).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certainly Behn's description of
Oroonoko's physical appearance,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>his skin
"not of that brown, rusty Black which most of that Nation are" and
his nose "rising and <i>Roman, </i>instead of <i>Arican </i>and flat,"
coupled with that of his character, "He had nothing of Barbarity in his
Nature, but in all Points address'd himself, as if his Education had been some <i>European</i>
court," contribute to what Brown calls "Behn's description of
Oroonoko as a European aristocrat in blackface" (Behn 13; Brown 234).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also speaking to Behn's ambivalence, though
perhaps less obviously, are certain emphatic qualifiers she includes in these
early descriptions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When she attests to
the nobility of Oroonoko's character, she is careful to interject, "I . .
. do assure my Reader," and in her efforts to render his appearance akin
to that of Europeans, she stresses that his lips are "far from" those
of other Africans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With these
statements, she seems to be apologizing to her audience for her audacity in
attempting to humanize a black man or to be reassuring her readers that hers is
an effort only to offer an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">exception</i>
to certain perceptions of Africans, rather than an attempt to humanize the
entire race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A simple explanation for
this may be that Behn viewed such appeasements as a pragmatic means of
combatting slavery from within existing paradigms, of presenting her readers only
with that which they were more readily inclined to hear in order to ultimately
effect, if slowly, change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, Brown
writes that Behn's description of a European-like Oroonoko, "does not
necessarily change the novella's emancipationist reputation; precisely this
kind of sentimental identification was in fact that staple component of
anti-slavery narratives in England and America for the next century and a
half" (234).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More troubling, then,
perhaps, and more puzzling to me in terms of Behn's views, is the way in which
she represents Oroonoko's own perception of slavery.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="Standard" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;">
Clearly, Oroonoko has no qualms
with the institution as the novella opens, as he is an active participant in
the slave trade; all enemies that his army "took in Battel, were sold as
Slaves" (Behn 11).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His later speech
inciting his fellow slaves to flee reveals his logic in considering such a
system just: "'And why . . . shoul'd we be Slaves to an unknown
People?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Have they Vanquish'd us Nobly in
Fight?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Have they Won us in Honourable
Battel?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And are we, by the chance of
War, become their slaves?" (52).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To
be the losing party in a fair fight, then, is, to Oroonoko, to be deserving of
the fate of slavery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(That he is here disputing
the legitimacy of the Europeans' ownership of these slaves raises questions as
to how he originally viewed his selling of them, as his committing such a
transaction without conceiving of it as a legitimate transfer of ownership does
not seem in keeping with his character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Had his views on the justness of taking enemy combatants as slaves
changed through his own experience of captivity, this would be less puzzling,
but as his speech makes clear, this is not the case.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I was most struck by, however, in what
can certainly be seen as anti-slavery work, was Oroonoko's contempt for and
disregard of other slaves, even when he himself has become one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="Standard" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;">
There is, of course, the fact
that, when Oroonoko learns of Imoinda's pregnancy and becomes increasingly
anxious for his and his family's freedom, an immediate recourse is to offer
Trefy "a vast quantify of Slaves" in exchange for former’s liberation
(40).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even more surprising is the fact
that Oroonoko seems to posit slaves as weak, as "he accus'd himself of
having suffer'd Slavery so long; yet he charged that weakness on Love
alone" (42).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Implied here is the
idea that slaves are somehow complicit in their captivity, a view that would
certainly do little to engender empathy in Behn's early audiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is reinforced when Oroonoko and the
other slaves are overcome by the white militia, and only he, Imoinda, and
Tuscan continue to resist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The actions
of his fellow escapees render Oroonoko “asham’d of what he had done, in
endeavoring to make those Free, who were by Nature Slaves” (56).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The notion that individuals possessed by a fear
for their lives or those of their family, which, if a weakness, is certainly a
very common, very human one, deserve to live those lives in servitude to others,
would unlikely be of any efficacy in creating anti-slavery sentiment; it
suggests that slaves are only such because unwilling to risk their lives for
their freedom and are, if Oronooko himself is to be believed, therefore fit to
be slaves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Behn, then, through her
representation of Oronooko’s own views of slavery, speaks less of the injustice
of enslaving human beings than of the injustice of enslaving human beings of a
certain caliber.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even the title of the
novella suggests as much: This is not a story of slaves or of slavery, but of a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">special </i>slave, a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">royal </i>slave. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
Julia Bozykhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12788909888234094430noreply@blogger.com1