Ambition, Dignity and the Pursuit of Status: Parenthood in Tolstoy's 'War and Peace'

Where does one begin in writing about War and Peace? With most editions being well in excess of 1000 pages and a cast of over 500 characters, it is no mean task. Indeed, one of the things that makes Tolstoy unique is the way in which his novels contain so many strands of story, all intertwined in different ways. The only way it would be possible to offer comment would be to choose just one theme and set of characters and relationships. This is what I have done, deciding to look at the relationships between four sets of parents and children; The Bolkonskis, the Rostovs, the Kuragins and the Drubetskoys. Another angle which would have been interesting would have been an examination of how Tolstoy treats the institution and values of marriage, but given his own life and also the mammoth amount of material on the subject available from Anna Karenina, I have decided that the best theme to explore is the values and ambitions of parents, with regards to their children. 

An important thing which I noticed in my reading of this novel, something which I must say fits in very well with all that I know of Tolstoy as a person, is that the narration of War and Peace is all presented very factually; we have a third person narrator who very much sticks to the conventions of the technique. There is no free indirect speech here, everything we learn of the characters (beyond their own speech) we are told, there is very little room for interpretation beyond what we are given. There are not real deviations of many different points of view. Not that this is necessarily a problem, more just something which influences the way in which we analyse the themes within the text.

 The edition that I have read is the Louise and Aylmer Maude translation in the Wordsworth Classics edition, 2001. The way in which some names of characters are translated is not personally to my taste but to avoid confusion I have resisted the temptation to change them. At the end of this post, along with the references, I have included notes on the characters, in case any confusion arises.

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Perhaps the most striking of all the parental figures in War and Peace is Princess Anna Drubetskaya, an aristocratic woman fallen on hard times and lacking in societal influence. Her son is Borís, and the Princess’ soul aim appears to be doing whatever it takes, losing whatever dignity and respect necessary, in order to secure him a career. Indeed, our first introduction to the character of Anna Drubetskaya is in the middle of her efforts to secure a position for her son by essentially begging Prince Vasíly Kuragin to use his influence to help her.

‘… She gave him an ingratiating and appealing smile and took his hand that he might not go away…. “Listen to me, prince,” said she, “I have never yet asked you for anything and I never will again, nor have I ever reminded you of my father’s friendship for you; but now I entreat you for God’s sake to do this for my son – and I shall always regard you as a benefactor” she added hurriedly.’¹ 

It would appear as though Anna Drubetskaya has gone to whatever depths to convince the prince to assist her, giving up her dignity and even attempting to manipulate the prince. Her dignity is certainly is question when ‘Apparently she had forgotten her age and by force of habit employed all the old feminine arts. But as soon as the prince had gone her face resumed its former cold artificial expression. She returned to the group where the vicomte was still talking, and again pretended to listen, while waiting till it would be time to leave. Her task was accomplished.’²

 

Anna Drubetskaya embodies the expectations of society in Russia of this era -  her raison d’être is the success of her offspring, she has not needs or desires of her own and is willing to go to great lengths of self-sacrifice in order to help him. However, there is a stranger, darker side to her behaviour, in that she really does not care who she tramples to achieve her goals; in this sense, at least, she seems manipulative, cold and calculated. Her treatment of Pierre when his father is dying is essentially quite cruel. His father has literally just passed away when Anna Drubetskaya says to him, ‘“You know, uncle promised me only the day before yesterday not to forget Borís. But he has no time [to alter his will]. I hope, my dear friend, you will carry out your father’s wish?”’³ It is true that she tells Countess Rostova “Let people think what they will of me, it’s really all the same to me when my son’s fate is at stake,”⁴ but her steely determination towards this aim makes her an unpleasant person and her son’s desires (if indeed he has any) are not in any way explored. 

Prince Nicholas Bolkonski treats his daughter, Princess Maria, appallingly. He is exceptionally controlling of her, he ‘himself undertook his daughter’s education… and arranged her life so that her whole time was occupied.’⁵ In addition to this, he bullies and deliberately humiliates her, while all the while being privately extremely dependent upon her. Princess Maria, for her part, is very pious and self-sacrificing, but is also completely terrified of her father. ‘The princess looked in a scared way at her father’s eyes glittering close to her; the red patches on her face came and went, and it was plain that she understood nothing and was so frightened that her fear would prevent her understanding any of her father’s further explanations…’⁶Prince Nicholas deliberately humiliates his daughter in front of her prospective suitor, purely through fear of abandonment, evident in the fact that,

‘the question was whether he could ever bring himself to part from his daughter and give her to a husband. The prince never directly asked himself that question, knowing beforehand that he would have to answer it justly, and justice clashed not only with his feelings but with the very possibility of life. Life without Princess Maria, little as he seemed to value her, was unthinkable to him. “And why should she marry,” he thought. “To be unhappy for certain. There’s Lise, married to Andrew – a better husband one would think could hardly be found nowadays – but is she contented with her lot? And who would marry Marie for love? Plain and awkward!”’⁷

This strange mixture of resentment and dependence, desire to protect his daughter from pain whilst at the same time apparently valuing her so little, is a complex and strange issue, especially when juxtaposed with Prince Nicholas’ treatment of his son, Andrew, whom he treats almost as an equal and, at least in terms of Andrew’s wife, sides with blindly. Prince Andrew also seems to have a deep understanding of his father and his ways, evident in this speech he makes to Pierre, ‘My father is one of the most remarkable men of his time. But he is growing old, and though not exactly cruel, he has too energetic a character. He is so accustomed to unlimited power that he is terrible, and now he has the authority of a commander-in-chief of the recruiting, granted by the Emperor… So I am serving because I alone have any influence with my father, and now and then can save him from actions which would torment him afterwards.’¹⁶ Both Andrew and Maria have a profound level of love and respect for their father, who does seem to genuinely love and care for them both, in spite of his behaviour at times. Perhaps it should also be noted that the role of fathers at the time this novel was published was obviously very different to the way it is now.

Prince Nicholas is an incredibly selfish parent – the needs of his children always fall secondary to his own. On the subject of his devoted son, Prince Andrew, wishing to marry Natasha, ‘[Nicholas] could not comprehend how anyone could wish to alter his life or introduce anything new into it, when his own life was already ending. “If only they would let me end my days as I want to,” thought the old man, “then they might do as they please.”²² This almost suggests that the Prince does not really care about the good of his children; overall, he is more concerned with his own peace and quiet.  On the subject of Prince Andrew’s desire to marry Natasha Rostova, Prince Nicholas has an interesting array of arguments against it. 

‘In the first place the marriage was not a brilliant one as regards birth, wealth or rank. Secondly, Prince Andrew was not as young as he had been and his health was poor (the old man laid special stress on this), while she was very young. Thirdly, he had a son whom it would be a pity to entrust to a chit of a girl. “Fourthly and finally… I beg you to put it off for a year… then if your love or passion or obstinacy – as you please – is still as great, marry!”’²³ 

The reasons for opposition the Prince deems most important are interesting, in that they all centre entirely on financial or social gain.  

Based upon the family of Tolstoy’s wife Sofia (née Behr)⁸, the Rostovs are a classic example of the archetypal affectionate family. The love of all three children and both parents for the eldest son, Nicholas, is quite startling and ‘on his return to Moscow from the army, Nicholas Rostov was welcomed by his home circle as the best of sons, a hero and their darling Nikolenka.’⁹ The family has limited money and yet it spends a lot on Nicholas (more than it should, really). Examples of the loving, close nature of the Rostov parents and their children are repeated throughout the novel, as when Nicholas is described as being ‘enfolded in the poetic atmosphere of love which pervaded the Rostov household.’¹⁰ Countess Rostova shows a very limited interest in issues of marriage, apart from having some dread of a marriage between her son and his cousin Sonya ‘which might hinder Nicholas from making a brilliant match.’¹¹ Beyond this, the Countess appears to approach her affairs with a degree of naivety, as does her husband. The Countess is even under the impression that “’till now I have always been my children’s’ friend and had their full confidence.”¹² which shows that she is ‘repeating the mistake of many parents who imagine that their children have no secrets from them.’¹³ Both she and her husband are terrible with money and judging by Nicholas, they have not managed to impart any wisdom in this regard to their children.

The Countess relies very heavily on her son later on in the novel, when it comes to issues of family finance. For example, ‘[Nicholas] found in letters from home more frequent complaints from his mother that their affairs were falling into greater and greater disorder, and that it was time for him to come back to gladden and comfort his old parents’.²⁴ The Countess shows a far less pleasant side to her personality when it comes to her manipulation of the feelings of her son, and ‘in the spring of that year, he received a letter from his mother, written without his father’s knowledge, and that letter persuaded him to return. She wrote that if he did not come and take matters in hand, their whole property would be sold by auction and they would all have to go begging.’²⁵ To some extent, one could argue that this is the cost of having been so doted upon in his youth, but the expectations placed upon Nicholas are extreme, and show that even the Countess is not immune to the cold social manoeuvring of the time. ‘She told him that her only hope of getting their affairs disentangled, now lay in his marrying Julie Karagina’.²⁶ After the death of the Count, responsibilities fall even harder onto the shoulders of poor Nicholas, although in keeping with the close and loving nature of the family, he accepts them readily. However, his situation is a far from easy one. ‘The debts of [Count Rostov] amounted to double the value of the property… Friends and relatives advised Nicholas to decline the inheritance. But he regarded such a refusal as a slur on his father’s memory, which he held sacred, and therefore would not hear of refusing, and accepted the inheritance together with the obligation to pay the debts.’²⁷ Nicholas’ feelings for his parents even after the position in which he has been placed demonstrates what many people believe make up the fundamental of essence of an ideal family; unconditional love. The Countess certainly does not help to improve matters for Nicholas, as 

‘[she] could not conceive of a life without the luxurious conditions she had been used to from childhood and, unable to realize how hard it was for her son, kept demanding now a carriage (which they did not keep) to send for a friend, now some expensive article of food for herself, or wine for her son, or money to buy a present as a surprise for Natasha, or Sonya, or for Nicholas himself’.²⁸

The younger Rostov daughter, Natasha, is very outgoing and flirtatious (perhaps what would now be described as ‘boy-mad’). Her ‘honour’ is not very well protected, it would seem and her behaviour is never curtailed by her parents, even when it is inappropriate for her age. Her mother is aware that she is too young to marry and so her neglect presumably comes from a lack of noticing her daughter’s behaviour. Indeed, the Countess is outraged when Nicholas’ friend Denísov proposes to Natasha and is ‘indignant that they should have dared to treat this little Natasha as grown up.’¹⁴ As much as the Rostovs do not do their offspring any favours when it comes to financial stability, when Natasha is sixteen and discussing with her mother a possible union with Borís, her mother’s reasons why the marriage would not be a good idea are ‘because he is young, because he is poor, because he is a relation… and because you yourself do not love him.’²¹ That Countess Rostova considers the latter point  a reason to be acknowledged among the others is surprising, not least when looked at in relation to the other parents discussed here. Her concern for the long-term happiness for her daughter, while practical in terms of the financial implications, is also emotional and this is one way in which the Rostov parents are well-rounded.

Ultimately, Natasha’s fate proves to be a good one, but the journey to it is far from easy and she experiences great suffering along the way. The failure of her parents to curtail her behaviour and teach her how to avoid becoming entangled in scandal, is certainly a large part of this. However, the love that pervades the Rostov household is definitely unmatched by any other household presented in the novel.

Where to begin with the Kuragin family? With a father who claims to have no natural affinity for speaking to his own children, who describes his sons as fools, and yet has a strangely determined interest in their marrying well, it is no surprise that they are so dysfunctional. Prince Vasíly Kuragin supports his daughter, Hélène, in seducing as many men as possible if it will lead to her success within society. Hélène, like her brother Anatole, is sexually free (there are even rumours that the two have had a sexual relationship) and she has several affairs. Prince Kuragin attempts to marry his son Anatole off to Princess Maria Bolkonskya, reminding him that “for you, everything depends on this.”¹⁵ His concerns regarding his children amount simply to ensuring that they make financially and socially acceptable matches; their happiness, mental health or reputations seem to matter very little to him.

Bizarrely, Prince Vasíly’s wife is hardly ever mentioned in the novel; indeed, for a very large part of the novel I assumed her to be dead. The few contributions she makes are pointless at best, and unpleasant and worst. For example, upon being congratulated on her daughter’s upcoming marriage to Pierre, Hélène’s mother ‘did not reply, she was too tormented by jealousy of her daughter’s happiness.’¹⁷Now this is hardly healthy. It would appear that Prince Vasíly wife, who as far as I could make out remains unnamed, is as terrible as her husband when it comes to conspiring and manipulating for the benefit of their children, while at the same time entirely neglecting to bring their children up to be well-balanced and possessing of good morals. When Pierre receives a letter from her, he sees that ‘there was a conspiracy against him and that they wanted to reunite him with his wife…’¹⁸

 

The strange involvement of the parents in their children’s’ affairs is very different to the involvement of Anna Drubetskaya in those of her son, in that the latter is motivated by a profound and all-encompassing love and a desire to see her son succeed as best he possibly can. There seems to be something a little more sinister when it comes to the behaviour of the Kuragin parents. Prince Vasíly himself is unpleasantly involved in the relations between Pierre and Hélène. After they separate, Kuragin tells Pierre that ‘Hélène is as innocent before you as Christ was before the Jews¹⁹ and states ‘…I know all about it…it is simply a misunderstanding… [if you do not reconcile] let me tell you it’s quite likely you’ll have to suffer for it.’²⁰

It would appear that all issues regarding parenthood in War and Peace focus around the pursuit of status, be that through the attainment of further wealth, through good marriage, or through good educations or careers. Almost all of the parents are lacking in some way; the Rostovs fail massively when it comes to providing financial stability, Kuragin has produced emotionally unstable offspring and Bolkonski has a daughter who not only fears him, but is also fairly unable to cope with life. It could be said that the Princess Drubetskaya is a healthy example of good parenting, but even she has put too much into her son, who is himself embarrassed at times by her behaviour.  The pursuit of status is symptomatic of this particular culture during this era, when love meant very little next to ‘a good match’ and it is not necessarily a criticism when parents attempted to attain this for their offspring. More generally, Tolstoy succeeds in this novel in creating a full cast of characters, situations, relationships and circumstances, vast in scope and yet minute in detail. I did not find it as enjoyable as Anna Karenina, hitting a wall about halfway through which required I take a bit of a break from reading. It is, however, unquestionably a work of genius and an important piece of literature. I would recommend this novel to anybody, without question, although it would be advisable to take it slowly and just enjoy it. It is certainly not a novel to be rushed.

My next blog post will be on the subject of Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native, which I will be reading for the Beaconsfield Book Club in North London. I know it may seem strange to be going back to Hardy so soon, but I will do my best to keep the next post as far in subject from the post on Jude the Obscure. Check back in two weeks to have a read. As always, feel free to leave a comment, or contact me on greeninliterature@gmail.com. You can also follow this blog on twitter (@00KVortex).

Thanks,

-       K

Questioning Definitions of Masculinity and Femininity in Shakespeare's 'Macbeth'

‘The repetition in a woman’s ear would murder as it fell’

 Macbeth is one of my favourite plays by William Shakespeare. One of the things I noticed upon first tackling this play was the presence of issues surrounding gender and sex; what expectations characters had in this regard and also how they met those expectations. Of all the characters in the play, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth provide the greatest opportunities for analysis through this lens, although the other characters also have roles and characteristics which either strengthen or draw attention to the gender ambiguity of the Macbeths, or make comment themselves on the nature of gender. The following passage, which comes from the Duncan’s Corpse by Susan Zimmerman, an essay found in A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare, helps greatly to illustrate this point:

‘If signification is structured by means of concepts that safely situate phenomena in categories – male/ female, sacramental/ diabolic, familiar/ alien – then Macbeth is about the tenuousness of these distinctions and the psychic and social horror that ensues when they collapse.’

The emasculation of Macbeth, due in part to his own failings and also a result, to some extent, of Lady Macbeth’s treatment of him is an important element of this theme. Masculinity in Macbeth is closely entwined with violence and ambition. Lady Macbeth accuses her husband of being, “too full o’th’ milk of human kindness” – in other words, that he is too woman-like to kill Duncan. Macbeth argues against the murder, not because it is fundamentally wrong, but instead because things are going well for him, as when he says, “We will proceed no further in this business;/ he [Duncan] hath honoured me of late and I have bought/ golden opinions from all sorts of people…”. Macbeth’s inflated sense of ambition could be said to stem from a sense of inadequacy, considering the level of success he already enjoys. He is not ‘his own man’, instead he is weak, selfish, easily manipulated and quick to fixate. Macbeth is easily manipulated by his wife; she preys upon his sense of masculinity, something which is made even more painful by her own lack of traditional femininity. Even when Macbeth is finally able to commit the act of murder, he finds himself breaking down and being unable to complete the cover-up. It falls, then to his wife to protect the couple from suspicion, meaning that again Macbeth has failed to assert himself in a ‘gender-appropriate’ way. Even the first notion of becoming king is planted in Macbeth’s mind by females, although the witches, too, have traditionally masculine appearances which confuse him, evident when she says, “You should be women/ and yet your beards forbid me to interpret/ that you are so.” The role of women in the play is perhaps even more fascinating.

Lady Macbeth is a woman of extreme character and force. Possessed by ambition, she controls, bullies and manipulates her husband, only at the end of the play discovering that even she is human and unable to escape human guilt. In fact, she actually displays a shocking degree of flippancy following the murder, believing that, “A little water clears us of this deed”. When the curtain of guilt finally falls across Lady Macbeth, it manifests itself in a form of madness, which is only evident through sleepwalking and constant hand washing, as though she is unable to properly feel and acknowledge what she has does while conscious. Not only does Lady Macbeth lack the traditional feminine ways but she also rebels against them. Rejecting her femininity, she says, “Come, you spirits/ that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here/ and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/ of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood;/ stop up the access and passage to remorse,/ that no compunctious visitings of nature/ shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between/ the effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,/ and take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,/ wherever in your sightless substances/ you wait on nature’s mischief!” This passage is very fascinating; not least because of the assertion that Lady Macbeth makes that violence is incompatible with femininity. She calls upon the ‘spirits’ to ‘unsex’ her – to remove her female characteristics and replace them with cruelty. She asks that her breasts’ milk be replaced with gall, or poison, and that she no longer experiences the ‘visitings of nature’ (menstruation). This idea that it is impossible to be both cruel and female is interesting, especially when examined alongside the character of Macbeth. It is unbelievably ironic, considering the role played by Lady Macbeth in the murder of Duncan, that when the crime is discovered MacDuff is reluctant to speak of it in front of Lady Macbeth, stating that, “the repetition in a woman’s ear/ would murder as it fell”. This again comes back to the traditional idea that a woman is submissive, fragile and must be protected from the cruelty and evil of men. None of this is true of Lady Macbeth.

 I personally felt a degree of sympathy with Lady Macbeth. It is true, of course, that she is cold and perhaps even slightly psychopathic. She tells Macbeth that if he has committed to the murder of Duncan then he must carry it out and that she has”…given suck and know/ how tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me -/ I would, while it was smiling in my face,/ have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums/ and dash’d the brains out had I so sworn as you/ have done to this”. How horrific! To say that she has herself experienced motherhood and loved her child, she would still easily murder it is shocking and I believe that our culture would view it as the worst possible crime. Lady Macbeth is far from good, and she is certainly not someone with whom it is easily possible to sympathise. However, it is important to note that in the context of the era a woman was profoundly trapped in a patriarchal society, which allowed them no life or ambition of their own. That Lady Macbeth must be so cold and lacking in humanity in order to achieve her own agenda is sad but perhaps understandable.

The contrast between the characters of Macbeth and MacDuff is very interesting. MacDuff, upon discovering the murder of his family, is told my Malcolm that he must he manly and not dwell upon it. To this he replies, “I shall do so,/ but I must also feel it as a man”. Thus, to experience emotion is to be embody the true meaning of masculinity. I believe that it is this that we must take from the play, as ultimately Macbeth is defeated and MacDuff prevails. Macbeth’s weakness and ability to be manipulated by women is juxtaposed with MacDuff’s triumph, bravery, goodness and power to feel.

 I found this to be the most difficult post to write so far. Perhaps this is because it is on a Shakespeare play, and the pressure is high, or perhaps it comes from basing the post on notes made months ago. Either way, I would be interested to hear what you all think, because my stats tell me that I actually have a fair few followers!

Next week’s post will be ‘The Representation of Children in Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy’. Following that will hopefully be on Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Thanks for reading,

 - K

Corruption and Influence in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde

I have actually read The Picture of Dorian Gray before, but it was about eight or nine years ago, so it was interesting to see it from a more adult perspective. Many readings of The Picture of Dorian Gray tend to focus on a homosexual angle, analysing the relationship between characters with a deliberate nod to the life and experiences of Oscar Wilde himself. I would argue, however, that in doing so, one could easily miss several other very valuable points and observations that this novel has to offer. In addition, Wilde himself argued strongly for a separation between art and the artist, as well as between art and morals. With this in mind, I would like to look at The Picture of Dorian Gray from a slightly different standpoint, namely, to what extent are art and people able to be corrupting influences and also, whose responsibility is it to avoid such corruption.

The preface Wilde wrote for the book edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray (it was first published in a magazine and faced criticism for its contents) is actually very famous in and of itself. In it, Wilde argues against any attempt to find himself within the novel, stating that ‘to reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim’. In fact, it is interesting that it is only when it comes to forms of sexual ‘un-normalness’ that authors and their works are attacked as one and the same. One could, for example, think of Lolita and the view of Nabokov held by poorly informed readers, that in some way he himself must be a pervert; how else could he write so convincingly? I believe that this is a trap fallen into by many readers of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Of course, the novel does have a homosexual element, but it is in my opinion a very minor one. Originally, it may have been a more important theme but after substantial editing of this element (in his trial, Wilde admitted cutting passages that may have had more overt homosexual overtones), this is a lesser theme.

Oscar Wilde’s 1895 trial involved a fairly long cross-examination of Wilde, on the topic of The Picture of Dorian Gray, which had first been published five years earlier. The notes that I have made on the trial come from Irish Peacock and Scarlet Marquess by Wilde’s grandson, Merlin Holland. Upon discussing the novel, Edward Carson (the prosecutor), asked Wilde, “A well-written book putting forth sodimitical views might be a good book?” to which Wilde replied, “No work of art ever puts forward views of any kind.” This observation is important when looking at what becomes of the character of Dorian Gray in the novel. Two ‘works of art’ are central to events in Gray’s life; one is, obviously, the painting, the other is the unknown book detailing the life and misadventures of the young Parisian. Firstly, let us look at the portrait itself. I would be inclined to argue that it has no corruptive power. Its ability to allow Dorian his sins and vices with greater ease comes from Dorian’s own wish; in other words, Dorian had the desires before, the portrait only assists him. The portrait itself is not a corrupting influence – Dorian was already well on his way. When it comes to the unnamed book, one could first of all comment that the book is given to Dorian by Lord Henry, so it is he, perhaps, who is to blame for its apparent influence over Dorian. In addition, ‘for years, Dorian Gray could not free himself from the influence of this book. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he never sought to free himself from it.’ – p.102 When we are told that ‘Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book’ – p.116, it is important to note that this was done willingly. Dorian was utterly fascinated by its contents. The idea of a work of art corrupting a human being is ridiculous and this was the position held by Oscar Wilde.

When it comes to some characters’ influence of, and responsibility towards, others, there is plenty to say. Even Mrs Vane has a responsibility towards her daughter Sybil, and her failure as a mother reminded me of Dickens, in particular the character of Mrs Nickleby in Nicholas Nickleby – too self-absorbed and self-concerned to notice the troubles of their offspring. Basil has responsibility towards Dorian only in the sense that he is older and they are friends. It is clear that we are looking at Dorian’s feelings on the matter when it is stated that ‘Basil could have saved him. But it was too late now’ –p.96 Indeed, what could poor love-struck Basil ever have done? Dorian was, I believe, doomed from his first meeting with Lord Henry and perhaps even from birth; not everyone is so easily corrupted, nor so easily becomes a corrupter. Lord Henry’s influence over (but I believe by no means corruption of) Dorian is an interesting topic. On page 18, Lord Henry says that “There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr Gray. All influence is immoral – immoral from a scientific point of view. Because to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul… His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed”. From this, one is led to question whether Lord Henry even believes he has the ability to truly corrupt Dorian. His influence, I believe, is limited as Dorian easily outstrips Lord Henry’s depths of deprivation. His experiences are also more limited, something evident when he tells Dorian, “Someone has killed themselves for love of you. I wish that I had ever had such an experience.” –p.82. Lord Henry is simply words, while Dorian takes the sentiments in the words all the way to actions. Lord Henry could perhaps be seen as a trigger,  as for example ‘that curiosity which Lord Henry had first stirred in [Dorian]…” –p.103. Ultimately, however, this trigger could have been anything – Dorian’s beauty and eventual obsession with maintaining it, would always have caught him in the end.

One thing which struck me in the reading of this novel is the possibility that it may have been intended to be satirical. On the one hand, Wilde stated in his trial that a novel cannot exactly have an angle, but he also sought to remove himself from his work, making any opinions he held almost irrelevant. Thus, he is of little use to us! Throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray, the protagonist finds numerous ways to distance himself from his wrong-doings, most obviously in his relationship with his portrait, but also in other ways. He blames others for his behaviour and corruption, even going so far as to implicitly blame Basil. Even after events with Sybil, he somehow finds ways to distance himself from any blame. I read that Wilde believed Lord Henry to be what the public believed Wilde himself to be. From here I think it is possible to infer that the entire concept of one person corrupting anybody else, let along someone so emotionally damaged as Dorian (with regards to his relationship with his Grandfather), is entirely absurd.

Perhaps my reading of The Picture of Dorian Gray is a little unusual – it is certainly flawed. I found it a somewhat difficult novel, as though I couldn’t quite get to the ‘truth’ of it. I enjoyed it, I think, and there is definitely a lot to say about it but it was also challenging.

I have noticed in my stats that I have a very wide variety of readers (I have a surprisingly high number of readers in Israel!). I would just like to thank you all for reading, and encourage you to e-mail me, or leave a comment, especially if you have any constructive criticism.

The next post will be written based on notes I have made in the past, starting with a gender-based exploration of themes in Macbeth by William Shakespeare. It’ll be my first foray into writing about Shakespeare since school, so feel free to take a look!

Anyway, as always thank you for reading!

-      K

Greene's Catholicism: Life, death, betrayal and sin in 'The Power and the Glory'

It has been almost three weeks since my last post, thanks to a pretty horrible situation with a laptop repair shop. But, here it is! Enjoy!

 I came to this novel with very high expectations, having loved every syllable of Greene's work that I have read thus far. I did feel, however, that there was a much darker undercurrent in this actually fairly short piece. Greene's own peculiar attitude to life was very much evident; the cheapness of life juxtaposed with the strength of the need to keep living. Earlier in his career, Greene separated his books into 'entertainments' and more serious 'novels', upon which he felt his career was to be judged. 'The Power and the Glory' is one of the latter, and it certainly feels it! It is a dark novel, with far more questions to ask than answers to offer. The nature of faith and sin, the definitions of good and evil are all topics explored, all the while veiled in a mist of foreboding. This novel, while perhaps not among my favourites by Graham Greene, is certainly an enjoyable read and surprisingly easy to progress through, given the heavy nature of the subject matter.

 To begin with, it is important to explore a brief overview of the context of this novel. President Plutarco Elás Calles oversaw Mexico from 1924 until 1928 and presided over the worst persecution of Catholics and clergy in the history of the nation, including the killing of hundreds of priests. A rebellion against the harsh measures began in 1927, resulting in even more deaths. By 1935, 17 Mexican states were without any priest at all. In the introduction to the Vintage Classics edition, 2002, John Updike states that the novel is set in the state of Tabasco, although it is never named. Incidentally, this is where the violence was at its worst.

 Graham Greene’s relationship with Catholicism was interesting, to say the least. He converted to the religion in 1926, after finding that the reasons to disbelieve in God were becoming fewer and fewer during his discussions with a Friar Trollope. His initial curiosity in the religion stemmed in part from his desire to marry a Catholic woman, Vivien Dayrell-Browning. Greene’s own uncertainty and religious doubt is echoed by his characters; indeed, they are usually his most believable.

 Greene certainly does not shy away from extreme topics in his writing. In this case, he examines the definitions of good and evil. On page 127, the Whiskey priest exclaims, “Thieves, murderers… Oh, my child, if you had more experience you would know there are worse things to be.” From here, one is led to wonder what these things are and, if we are to follow Greene’s gentle lead, Padre José becomes the perfect example. He is not only a bad priest (and Catholic) because he has married under the pressure of the state, but he is also, it could be argued, a bad person. He is a coward, he is selfish and he is weak. Twice he fails to be of help to the Whiskey Priest, and both times he seems whiny and spineless. Compare this, then, to the bravery and determination of the peasants whom the priest meets during his travels. Admittedly, they are motivated by fear of their religion to sacrifice themselves for the priest and spend the last of their money on baptisms and mass. However, they show an ability to blindly follow what they believe in, right into the valley of death, while Padre José abandons his religion and also his people. Ultimately, he loses all dignity and becomes a laughing stock.

 Mr. Luhr, whom the priest meets late in the novel, is a Lutheran with a deep disgust for Catholicism, not dissimilar to that of the lieutenant. On page 159, Mr. Luhr informs the Whiskey priest that he and his sister “don’t hold with your church, father. Too much luxury, it seems to me, while the people starve.” Luhr does, however, shelter the priest for nothing and gives him all the help he is able; in that sense, he embodies the true meaning of Christian charity and goodness. The priest, meanwhile, proves Luhr right in the reader’s eyes when he drinks the money the peasants gave him for religious services. In spite of this, it appears to be faith that makes one good in the eyes of God; for all the sympathetic moments had with the lieutenant and Padre José, they are not good men. It is the continued faith, no matter how futile and tragic, of the people in the face of suffering that compels them to stretch out the hand of kindness. Perhaps, then, this is what makes the lieutenants’ brief moments of mercy so poignant – he is motivated by pure human goodness, as opposed to fear of a faith that, as Mr. Luhr puts it on page 162, “like people to read the bible,” thus perpetuating their fear and servitude.

 The journey of the Whiskey priest towards safety is futile from the offset (it is, ironically, his religious duty that always hold him back). This journey is mirrored throughout the novel by an equally futile spiritual journey towards redemption. The priest struggles always to reconcile the drunken act of sin he has committed and his obvious repentance of it, with his primal love for its fruit: his daughter. His search for forgiveness is constant; at one point he thinks, “what a play-actor I am. I have no business here, among good people”. – p.165. The priest’s inability to repent fully destroys him, spiritually. Interestingly, it appears to be the priest’s reluctance to sin that prevents him from handing himself in, or encouraging others to betray him, as opposed to any desire to stay alive. The juxtaposition of the need to keep living and the cheapness of life is fascinating. On page 23, the anonymous husband tells his wife, “If we don’t like the church, well, we must leave it.” To this, his wife replies, “I would rather die.” The husband summarises an important theme of the novel when we replies, “Oh… Of course. But we have to go on living.” No matter what they are faced with, all the characters must do just that. The theme of life’s cheapness and apparent lack of value is described in this passage: ‘“A man like that,” the lieutenant said, “does no real harm. A few men dead. We all have to die. The money – somebody has to spend it.” p.17. Even Padre José, who chose to renounce his holy life to live sinfully, ‘thought with envy of the men who had died: it was all over so soon.’ – p.23.

 Greene himself had a dangerous relationship with life, even attempting suicide. Take especially this passage from Updike’s introduction: ‘An escetic, reckless, life-despising streak in Greene’s temperament characterised among other precipitate ventures, his 1938 trip to Mexico.’ It is Greene himself, I believe, that makes his novels so difficult to analyse: on the one hand, there is an overwhelming abundance of rich material, while on the other hand, he is simply too much of an enigma. There is still so much more that could said on this novel but for now I shall leave it here. My final word is that I would recommend Greene’s novels to anyone, especially Monsignor Quixote, one of my all-time favourite novels.

 Feel free to leave a comment with any feedback or points of your own. Thanks for reading, - K

The Agony of Gender Confines in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' by Tennessee Williams

“A hot tin roof’s ‘n uncomfo’table place t’stay on"

Believe it or not, this play was not deliberately chosen to follow on some sort of theme that I have managed to have going through my last posts. I was not even aware of Tennessee Williams’ homosexuality until I began my research for A Passage to India! It has, however, made my reading experience more interesting, as there has been a lot of thematic crossover between this play and the previous novel, not least when it comes to ideas of prejudice and gender expectations. I have to say, I am not Williams’ biggest fan; I appreciate he was a very good playwright, but there is just something in the style that I am not crazy about. Nonetheless, I believe I have found a few interesting things to pick out and take a look at.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof premiered in 1955, when Tennessee Williams was forty-four. As with most of his works, critics tend to draw the conclusion that there is a strong link between the characters and events in Williams’ plays and the experiences he had within his own family. His father was an alcoholic travelling salesman and his mother was the archetypal Southern Belle, snobbish and, at times, verging on hysterical. Williams was particularly close to his sister, Rose, who suffered with mental illness throughout her life. The lobotomy she underwent is said to have horrified Williams profoundly. For much of his childhood, Williams’ main companions were his sister and his black nursemaid. I would question the assertion that it is this that caused his sympathetic treatment of female characters and suggest that it is a too simplistic conclusion, but this is, perhaps, a personal choice. Williams was sickly child and was apparently quite effeminate, something which his father was not happy about. Tennessee Williams, a gay man in a homophobic USA, struggled throughout his life with depression, alcoholism and a heavy dependence on prescription drugs. These experiences and circumstances, I believe, gave him a very unique insight into the struggles of the characters he created.

Gender expectations and boundaries is something that I again feel compelled to return to as a focal point. It is quite obvious that Brick does not fit the expectations of his sex from the offset, due to his probable homosexuality. He is weak, and in his weakness he is cruel. Brick is the archetypal alcoholic in this sense – selfish, needy when it comes to drink, even a little lost. He is not masculine in the traditional sense; he drinks, he does not take action when it comes to his marriage and he does not assert himself. Even his broken ankle is symbolic of his emasculated impotence. Interestingly, Brick fails to take advantage of the fact that his possible homosexuality could be accepted by both his wife and his father, the latter even going so far as to say, ‘“Always, anyhow, lived with too much space around me to be infected by the ideas of other people. One thing you can grow on a big place more important than cotton! – is tolerance! – I grown it.”’ – p. 78. All of the prejudice and disgust that Brick must contend with appears to come directly from himself: ‘“You think we did dirty things between us… You think Skipper and me were a pair of dirty old men?” – p.77. I would infer from this that Brick really did love Skipper, and that it pains him to think that the feelings he had could be summarised by a few sexual acts. 

Of course, the rest of the world would probably not have been as accepting, but it is easy to forget this when reading Cat on a Hot Tin Roof because the family is so close, it almost does not feel like there is an outside world – life on the plantations seems to be that oppressive. I believe one would find it difficult to avoid looking at the character of Brick through a ‘biographical lens’, as it were, as Williams’ own homosexuality and experiences as an effeminate child must have had some bearing on the creation of a character so unable to meet the gender expectations thrust upon him.

I personally found Maggie to be a far more interesting character than Brick. Her own challenging of gender confines is far more complex; on the one hand, she is child-like and naïve (‘“It was one of those beautiful, ideal thing they tell you about in Greek legends…”’ – p.42), while on the other hand, she is sexually aware and actually displays sexual needs of her own, such as when she challenges Big Mama, saying, ‘“Why don’t you ask if he makes me happy in bed?”’ – p.35. Maggie is, therefore, nowhere near to being the ideal ‘good’ woman. The following passage, again from Critical Theory Today, is possibly quite interesting to look at now:

‘… Patriarchal ideology suggests that there are only two identities a woman can have. If she accepts her traditional gender role and obeys the patriarchal rules, she’s a “good girl”; if she doesn’t, she’s a “bad girl”… “Bad girls” violate patriarchal sexual norms in some way…’.

I think it is important to consider this element of the play, even if it may seem a minor point to some other readers. It all comes back to an analysis of the strength of gender confines; Maggie cares for her own sexual needs but is unable to convince her husband to sleep with her, thus failing to be ‘sexually attractive’. In addition, Maggie has yet to conceive a child, which, in comparison to Mae and Gooper, means that both Maggie and Brick have failed to achieve something which is essential to their fulfilling their gender roles, albeit it in different ways. A woman’s femininity is partly expressed through her child-rearing, while a man’s masculinity is partly expressed through his virility and ability to ‘sire’ a child.

One final point I would like to touch upon is the question of who is responsible for one’s happiness. Brick’s failure to support Skipper, and his rejection of his friend, had an unfortunate result. Brick is obviously feeling very guilty, as though taking on a belated responsibility towards his friend’s happiness. However, he does nothing to make his father’s life easier and more comfortable and is, at times, actually cruel to his wife. Meanwhile, Big Daddy treats his own wife appallingly, while she herself still hangs upon his every word and whim to reach her own satisfaction. The entire dysfunctional family is so uncomfortably close to one another, while all the while plotting against, and failing to take any responsibility for, each other.

Ultimately, I understand the appeal of Williams’ work and his play was fairly enjoyable. I suspect it simply wasn’t to my own personal taste, and, after all, a play is generally written to be performed instead of read. I would be very interested to see what others have thought on the ideas I have mentioned so, as always, feel free to leave a comment.

Thanks for reading,

-      -  K