Love in Ian McEwan’s Novels

“When it’s gone, you’ll know what a gift love was. You’ll suffer like this. So go back and fight to keep it.” (Ian McEwan, Enduring Love) Does Ian McEwan present love as a positive or a negative emotion in his novels?

Ian McEwan’s collective works explore the very depths of human emotion and experience, occasionally stretching in to the bizarre and contentious realms of the psyche, and exposing hidden desires that popular culture would condemn the protagonists for having. McEwan’s original and sometimes controversial writing style and selection of subject matter have determined his place among the most recognisable authors of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, yet it is his ability to capture the rawest and unblemished aspects of human relationships that establishes his being one of the greatest authors of his generation. Throughout his career, McEwan has written on politics, cultural difference, family relationships, sexual awakening and historical events, imbibing some of these issues with a gothic inflection which earned him the nickname of ‘Ian Macabre’ in his early career; yet for all his diversity, there is a central theme running throughout all of his novels, that of love. McEwan examines love in unflinching detail, exposing its romantic and fantastical influence as well as documenting its destructive power over protagonists in his narratives. For McEwan, love may heal and destroy, comfort and enrage, and so demonstrates human emotion at its purest heights of passion. In order to gain a comprehensive overview of McEwan’s varied presentations of love, his novels Atonement,[1] The Cement Garden[2] and On Chesil Beach[3] will be examined for their individual representation of love and its effects on the narratives’ protagonists.

Atonement, a historical novel of lies, passion and irrepressible romance demonstrates the destructive and equally preserving power of love between a family and young couple, torn apart by the imagination of a thirteen year old girl. McEwan’s style is at its best throughout the narrative as the reader is drawn in to the harrowing tale of Robbie and Cecilia’s love for each other, set against a backdrop of World War Two death and destruction. The fact that the narrative has been written by Briony consequently alters the tale’s effect, and forces the reader to judge whether her account is accurate. Furthermore, the emotion Briony relays to reader is only her interpretation of what she believes Robbie and Cecilia to be experiencing, and so the novel becomes an account of Briony’s impression of love while her sister and Robbie essentially become her protagonists.

Atonement is not necessarily a romantic novel, as defining it as such would detract from its other issues, but the possibility of a romantic narrative is snatched away as Cecilia and Robbie are prevented from being reunited. The novel’s unconventional ending highlights Briony’s authority as the narrator, suspending her readers’ sense of disbelief as the concluding paragraphs alter the reception of the novel and allow the reader to reflect on the power of love. Briony’s decision to divulge that Robbie and Cecilia both died before they could rekindle their relationship demonstrates that she finally understands the significance of love, and therefore refuses to falsify his and her sister’s relationship in the name of fantastical literature.

Briony seeks to demonstrate that she appreciates the significance of love with the quotation, ‘Finally he spoke three words that no amount of bad art or faith can ever quite cheapen’,[4] and it is her love for Cecilia and Robbie’s relationship that allows her to recognise her sin and atone for it by writing the novel. She does not marry nor have children, which can be argued is a penance for her sin, or perhaps a knowledge that she does not deserve to fall in love. Robbie and Cecilia’s love is the only example that Briony sees, yet she is to experience a different kind of love when she meets Luc, compassion. It is this encounter with the French soldier that awakens Briony to the full gravity of her behaviour, and when he asks her deliriously if she loves him she replies ‘”Yes” […] for that moment, she did’.[5] After Luc dies Briony resolves to go to Balham to confront Cecilia and Robbie, and it is this fictional meeting which provides the contemporary twist to a novel that has all the elements of classic romance.

Briony’s conception of love is inaccurate at the beginning of the novel, as her childish imagination leads her to construct her own ideas of romance and passion, consumed by fairy-tales and her own writings. Yet she believes she is an authority on relationships, as her play, The Trials of Arabella, was written to teach her older brother Leon the value of romantic love; she preaches to those who have a far greater understanding of love than she does. The older Briony recognises her teenage naivety and writes of her play, ‘She was Arabella’,[6] illustrating her juvenile belief that love belongs to the same world as fairies, knights and princesses. Somewhat of an outcast in her own family, Briony only feels strongly about mundane things, such as ‘Her passion for tidiness’[7] and ‘A love of order’,[8] so when faced with a loving relationship she behaves erratically, her naivety fuelling her decisions. Her leaping in to the river to see if Robbie would save her and her misinterpretation of the scenes by the fountain, and in the library, perpetuates her fantastical theories of love.

The concept that love can be dangerous may be explored with Briony’s fervent protestations that she saw Robbie attack Lola by the lake. She did not see him, but her excitable brain is charged with memories of the scene in the library; it may be argued that she is in fact jealous of her sister’s relationship with Robbie, and it is this which prompts her to incriminate him. Briony, writing as Robbie, confirms her own emotions at discovering him and Cecilia, explaining, ‘[…] she had […] been disgusted, and in her obscure way felt betrayed’.[9] McEwan addresses the difference between love and lust in Atonement, considering the letter which causes all manner of turmoil for Robbie and the Tallises; if Robbie had picked up the correct one Briony would have had no inkling of his sexual attraction to Cecilia, and would therefore not view him as a sex maniac. This part of the narrative reinforces McEwan’s championing of deep love in his novels as opposed to superficial lust.

The notion that love in a romantic sense is a product of twelfth-century French poetry reinforces the reason why Briony idealises it in her writings; instead of consigning it to fantasy she fetishises chivalry and romance, viewing anything else as immoral, hence her gloating after disturbing Cecilia and Robbie in the library, ‘”[…] I’ve done nothing wrong”’.[10] As an adolescent, Briony puts the idea of love on a pedestal and does not connect sexuality with romance. Her gradual sexual maturity is demonstrated with the quotation ‘[…] made love to Cecilia – no […] they had fucked while others sipped their cocktails on the terrace’,[11] demonstrating Briony’s changing attitudes to love in the novel as she removes romanticism of the moment and brings it back to realism.

Briony writes that Robbie believes in the redeeming power of love with the simple quotation, ‘His business was simple. Find Cecilia and love her, marry her and live without shame’,[12] and his pseudo-religious touching of his breast pocket containing her letters indicates that it is their love which literally keeps him alive. Briony moves throughout the novel from an imaginative teenager who idealises a fantastical impression of love, to an older woman who has a clear and accurate conception of it, epitomised with the quotation ‘That he could be cleared had all the simplicity of love’.[13] When Briony discovers them in the library, Robbie experiences ‘[…] a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and cruelly irrational’;[14]  love is recognised in Atonement as a positive emotion but equally as powerful as hate. Love for Briony becomes the strongest of human emotions, beginning as a fanciful impression brought about by reading too many fairy-tales, and ending as a means to perpetuate the lives of two people whom she loved dearly and longs to immortalise in happiness.

Ian McEwan says of the permanency of love in Atonement, “[…] these two lovers will survive to love […] They will always live”,[15]  and the reader is left to decide whether delusion or reality is more palatable as the novel ends. Atonement communicates the strength of love as an adoring, comforting emotion while also demonstrating its danger if those who do not understand it pretend to do so. The positive effect of love in the novel comes to fruition gradually, as Briony begins to understand and appreciate its strength outside of fantasy. McEwan’s The Cement Garden will now be examined for its example of familial love, and the consequences a deficiency of parental affection brings about.

The settings in The Cement Garden establish the sense of unease and lack of familial stability in McEwan’s narrative, as the children do not respect their father and the eldest son, Jack, seeks to subvert his authority at every opportunity. The novel is a tale of juvenile anarchy as both of the children’s parents die and they are left to their own devices, but there is the distinct impression that their relationships with each other are not conventional. The lack of parental authority in the house leads the children to construct their own microcosmic culture to which the laws of greater society do not apply. Jack and Julie’s ultimate descent in to incest provides a disturbing interpretation of love in McEwan’s narrative, as the two eldest children apply to each other the titles of Mother and Father in their distorted little existence. Dominic Head supports this concept, writing, ‘[…] they must reconstruct the bedrock of family security […] by becoming ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’’,[16] in order to preserve some kind of familial stability.

The most unsettling part of The Cement Garden is the distinct apathy Jack feels towards his mother and father; it is not merely a conventional teenage male rebellion against his elders, but a complete disregard for the family unit they represent. McEwan employs his methodical writing style present in all his novels with Jack’s recounting his father’s death. He states, ‘I am only including the little story of his death to explain how my sisters and I came to have such a large quantity of cement at our disposal’;[17] in the grand scheme of things his father’s death ‘[…] seemed insignificant’,[18] and his first action after his father’s death is to smooth away his imprint in the wet cement. McEwan’s recurring theme of the absent father in his narratives is felt most keenly in The Cement Garden, as it is this lack of ‘alpha-male’ control that leads Jack to pursue his darker desires concerning his sister. In addition to this, the notion of repressed masculinity is detailed in the narrative, as although the father has some influence over his children, he is viewed as a somewhat comical character, ‘[…] self-important and foolish’[19] when he tries to assert himself over his wife. Jack is emotionally numb towards his parents, in particular his mother, whom he views as irritating and meddlesome; it is only Julie who excites emotion in him, and it is this sensation that is freed with the death of their mother. Jack reflects, ‘When Mother died, beneath my strongest feelings was a sense of adventure and freedom’,[20] which suggests that the disintegration of what familial love there was removes all discipline from the house, and in Jack and Julie’s case enables them to unlock their desires.

Eyal Amiran suggests of the children’s situation, ‘Jack and Julie develop an incestuous relationship which refigures the sexuality of Eden, while Julie is being courted by Derek, a pool-playing, sports-car driving, cigarette-smoking, hissing Satan’,[21] suggesting that Jack and Julie’s relationship is innocent and that Derek is the true demon of the narrative. This argument is difficult to agree with, as the children are aware that what they are doing is innately sexual, and while Derek is not exactly an angelic figure, he recognises Jack and Julie’s actions as inherently wrong. Head contributes a more plausible argument to Jack and Julie’s behaviour, proposing, ‘In ‘normal’ family life the path to sexual maturity involves moving away from the family and […] discarding the parents […]’,[22] but, ‘In The Cement Garden the family unit dissolves at precisely the point where Jack and Julie are discovering their emergent sexuality’.[23] Head therefore argues that Jack and Julie turn to each other to exercise their sexual curiosity, which is more credible than suggesting they are innocent in their actions.

Jack and Julie’s relationship becomes further sexualised when they assume the role of Mother and Father to younger siblings Sue and Tom, and it may therefore be argued that their love for each other has a positive effect on them, until they are able to realise its sexual elements. When their parents were alive, Jack and Julie’s relationship was mischievous and their behaviour was playful, but when they have to assume the authoritative roles in the household their innocence gives way to jealousy, suspicion and covetousness. Dominic Head argues that ‘[…] the eventual incest between Julie and Jack […] is the culmination of the book’s Oedipal theme’,[24] proposing that with the disintegration of familial love, the narrative becomes about sexual power, as Jack subconsciously seeks to subvert his father’s place as head of the household, and his incestuous feelings towards Julie are intensified when she takes on the Mother role.

Ian McEwan comments that he is “interested in relationships (for) […] how they absorb pressure, influence politics and, again, history”,[25] and this is certainly apparent in The Cement Garden, as Jack and Julie’s relationship absorbs the pressure of having to run their household. It therefore may be argued that it is the anxiety of social conformity, felt keenly by their geographical alienation from greater society, that induces them to succumb to the love they feel for each other, and in so doing be able to bear their isolation. In this sense, the love in this novel is positive, as it provides Jack and Julie with the strength to endure their situation. McEwan also illustrates in this narrative the dangers of passion; just as Robbie and Cecilia’s outburst of love proved their undoing in Atonement, Jack and Julie’s yielding to their incestuous inclinations brings about the end of the family unit they struggled to sustain. The final novel to be observed is On Chesil Beach, which also demonstrates the adverse effects of passion, as well as the delicate balance between love and lust.

The beginning sentence of On Chesil Beach captures the apprehensive mood of the wedding night, beginning, ‘They were young, educated, and both virgins […] and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible’,[26] communicating the intense awkwardness, embarrassment and expectation felt by Florence and Edward as they embark on their first night as husband and wife. There is a sense of juvenile, innocent love about the couple as they sit quietly, eating their pitiful meal, all the while conscious of what one expects of the other. Their relationship is not unlike Cecilia and Robbie’s, the former being a virgin before their encounter in the library, and both their and Florence and Edward’s interaction is equally disastrous, as Tim Adams comments, ‘McEwan is word-perfect at handling the awkward comedy of this relationship and, as ever, turning it into something far more disturbing’.[27]

The historical context of the novel demonstrates the obstacles that mar Edward and Florence’s relationship, as Florence struggles to straddle the two poles of femininity and Edward is terrified of ‘arriving too soon’. Colm Tóibín writes that ‘[…] Florence’s frigidity is partly a function of her class and is shared by her parents’,[28] proposing the greatest hindrance to their relationship is the taboo of sex; Florence cannot get past these upper-class implications and is permanently haunted by the bride’s manual, with its ‘[…] garish red covers’[29] and talk of mucus and glands. McEwan suggests that Florence’s relationship with her father may have contributed to her terror of sex, evoking the disturbing impact of deficient familial love, as in the previous texts. In The Cement Garden the father dies, Mr Tallis in Atonement is permanently absent and having an affair, and the hint at an incestuous assault on Florence in On Chesil Beach demonstrates the potentially disastrous effect of distorted familial love.

Florence and Edward’s naivety of sex and innocent relationship lead them to attach a stigma to love, so they enter their relationship, like Atonement’s Briony, with an inaccurate impression of a loving relationship. Florence is expected to seduce her husband and be the dutiful wife, and her nervousness communicates the same innocence that Briony feels, hence the reason both young women construct an idealised image of love. As a consequence, Florence is incapable of connecting love to sexuality, and Edward cannot disconnect them; he reflects after the incident, ‘Love and patience […] would surely have seen them through’,[30] which proposes the argument that for him and Florence, love, regardless of its strength, was not enough to save them. Florence and Edward’s relationship is either comical or fearful, and it is their inability to find a common ground that leads to their undoing. The quotation, ‘For the first time, her (Florence’s) love for Edward was associated with a definable physical sensation’,[31] demonstrates McEwan’s ability to tempt the reader with a happy ending and then snatch it away, as in Atonement also. Florence and Edward’s love for each other begins as a positive emotion, until they attempt to express it physically; as soon as Edward loses control, their love is tainted, the innocence lost to a pang of lust. Adams recognises this disaster as consistent with McEwan’s style, writing ‘(his) subject has often been the way in which innocence goes bad’.[32]

The lack of familial love in On Chesil Beach makes for a mundane household, as the children in The Cement Garden are permanently bored, and Cecilia longs to leave home in Atonement and begin her life away from the Tallis estate. Likewise, Florence feels stifled in her family home, and so love for the protagonists in all three narratives becomes an escape. Jack and Julie turn to incest to overlook their situation, there is certainly a Lady Chatterley-esque[33] inflection to Cecilia’s attraction to Robbie, and Florence feels Edward saves her from the monotony of family life. David Malcolm maintains that McEwan argues for the ‘[…] redeeming power of love’,[34] and also ‘[…] suggests love’s fragility’,[35] reinforcing the argument that Robbie feels he will be saved by Cecilia’s love, and the ease with which Florence and Edward’s relationship was tainted by an unfortunate event. Edward understands Florence’s desperate need for his affection afterwards, reflecting, ‘All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance’,[36] similar to Robbie’s desire for Cecilia’s love; with this reflection, Edward is finally able to view sexuality and love as separate emotions. However, in typical McEwan style, he realises this too late.

In conclusion, McEwan presents love as a positive emotion in these three narratives, as a means of escape and comfort, but also demonstrates its inherent frailty; it may be made negative by lust, cruel words, jealousy and crippling pride. Frances Ferguson writes ‘What McEwan means when he speaks of the impulse to love […] is (that) Love […] is timeless’,[37] and it is love’s timelessness that demonstrates its power as a literary tool, as well as a “gift”[38]of human relationships. Regardless of culture or social norms, McEwan’s protagonists have the choice of clinging to love to sustain their relationships, or falling foul of lesser human emotions and losing what could have saved them.

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[1] McEwan, Ian, Atonement, IL, Vintage, 2007

[2] McEwan, Ian, The Cement Garden, NY, Picador, 1980

[3] McEwan, Ian, On Chesil Beach, IL, Vintage, 2008 

[4] McEwan, Ian, Atonement, IL, Vintage, 2007, p.137

[5] ibid., p.309

[6] ibid., p.13

[7] ibid., p.7

[8] ibid., p.7

[9] ibid., p.139

[10] ibid., p.129

[11] ibid., p.227

[12] ibid., p.228

[13] ibid., p.226

[14] ibid., 139

[15] Silverblatt, Michael, Ian McEwan, Interview with Michael Silverblatt, Bookworm, KCRW, California, Santa Monica, 2002 (page numbers not specified)

[16] Head, Dominic, Ian McEwan, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2007, p.48

[17] McEwan, Ian, The Cement Garden, NY, Picador, 1980, p.9

[18] ibid., p.9

[19] ibid., p.10

[20] ibid., p.64

[21] Amiran, Eyal, Against Narrative Poetics: Postmodern Narrative Returns, SubStance, Vol. 25, No. 3, Issue 81, 25th Anniversary Issue, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press, 1996, p.99

[22]Head, Dominic, Ian McEwan, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2007, p.48

[23] ibid., p.48

[24] ibid., p.48

[25] Hunt, Adam, Ian McEwan interview with Adam Hunt, B&A: New Fiction, 21, 1996, p.47-50, p.48

[26] McEwan, Ian, On Chesil Beach, IL, Vintage, 2008, p.3

[27] Adams, Tim, The Observer, Sunday 25 March 2007, page numbers not specified

[28] Tóibín, Colm, Dissecting the Body, Vol. 29 No. 8, 26 April 2007, pp. 28-29

[29] opcit., page numbers not specified

[30] McEwan, Ian, On Chesil Beach, IL, Vintage, 2008, p.166

[31] ibid., p.87

[32] Adams, Tim, The Observer, Sunday 25 March 2007, page numbers not

[33] Lawrence, D H. Lady Chatterley’s Lover, re-print, London, Penguin Classics, 1994

[34] Malcolm, David, Understanding Ian McEwan, SC, University of South Carolina Press, 2002, p.156

[35] ibid., p.156

[36] McEwan, Ian, On Chesil Beach, IL, Vintage, 2008, p.166

[37] Frances Ferguson, The Way We Love Now: Ian McEwan, Saturday, and Personal Affection in the Information Age, Representations, Vol. 100, No. 1, 2007, p.42–52, p.42

[38] referring back to the question’s quotation

Gender and Contemporary Writing: Poetry

‘Re-vision – the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction – is for women more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of survival.’ (Adrienne Rich).

Adrienne Rich continues to state that the act of revision is essential to the politics of Feminism, as it gives women the opportunity to challenge male-defined conventions of womanhood and essentially what it is to be ‘feminine’. Such notions born of myth and culturally-prized narratives serve to perpetuate the stereotypes that Rich argues contribute to female subjugation in a world of supposed equality.  Rather than actively disconnect themselves from this ‘Man’s World’ and achieve nothing but marginalisation[1], Rich proposes that the most effective method for women to challenge these notions of femaleness is to engage with the texts that preach them, and revitalise their messages through alternative interpretation. Poets such as Margaret Atwood and Carol Ann Duffy are recognised as such standard-bearers for reinvention, namely in their poems ‘Manet’s Olympia’[2], ‘Pygmalion’s Bride’[3] and ‘Standing Female Nude’[4], which aggressively and poignantly grapple with the presence of the clichéd female in Art, and give her a voice that she uses to subvert any preconceived notions of the passivity of womanhood. The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate how Atwood and Duffy perform such acts of re-vision throughout the aforementioned poems, and the way in which notions of femininity, woven throughout Myth and social politics, are reflected in Literature.

The female writers’ relationship with the Canon of great works of literature is one fraught with controversy. T S Elliot’s opinion that authors must adhere to the traditions of stoic writing, and not engage emotionally with their texts further supported the notion that there was no place for female authors and their creations in the Canon; with their tendencies towards asininity, anything produced by a woman could not possibly be deemed worthy of entrance in to the great works of history. Perceptions of women’s liberation throughout the last century with its many falsehoods, such as mythical ‘Bra-Burning’, have only served to further develop the notion that any consequence of women being given more freedom in their fields of creativity would end in disruption, with the subversion of tradition and the upheaval of sexual politics.

Linda Nochlin argues that women’s absence in the Canon is not necessarily negative; she writes ‘…there is a different kind of “greatness” for women’s art than for men’s’[5], but should women’s art should be judged differently? One can argue that judging talent according to gender implies that segregation is essential and is therefore necessarily perpetuated. Nochlin suggests that women have been pushed out of history and so seek revenge by subverting epic tales through reinterpreting their messages; this will be explored in Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Pygmalion’s Bride’.

The debate over what is deemed a Canonical text is fuelled by the culturally-constructed regulations of gender politics, in which men and women are expected to behave in a manner suited to conventions of their sex. Samuel Smiles’ Self Help[6] taught gentleman of the nineteenth century the nature of masculinity. Smiles based his work on the concepts of Empire and Englishness, creating historically-constructed ideologies of masculinity and using these theories to promote his quintessential notion of what a Man was. The nature of Womanhood was also explored with such creations as Coventry Patmore’s The Angel in the House[7], describing the saintly wife and mother whose devotion to her husband and children earned her sublime status. Yet for all Patmore and Smiles’ preaching, these idealised notions of the sexes live only in literature, as such a flawless person cannot possibly exist. Thus one comes to the concept of reinterpreting literary ideologies of gender.

Alicia Ostriker states that alternative writing makes ‘cultural change possible’[8], demonstrating the importance of epic writing such as myths and fairytales to a society; for example, fairytales were taught to children to reinforce gender stereotypes. These stories, seen as ‘…old vessel(s) filled with new wine’[9], demonstrate the flexibility of myth for Ostriker; contemporary parodies are enriching for literature, and enable women to assert a voice to break through the barriers, subverting the original mythical story of female subjugation. This is certainly true of Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Standing Female Nude’ which will be examined later. Susan Sellers supports Ostriker, writing that reinterpretation of myth is ‘ironic mimicry’[10] and ‘provide(s) evocative points of reflection’[11], relating to the reinforcement of gender stereotypes throughout classical literature, such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses[12]. This fascination with the mythical god and goddess of gender is precisely what Margaret Atwood and Carol Ann Duffy seek to subvert in their works, exploring the depths of male voyeurism and the fruitless theories of perfection.

The poems to be examined in this essay are ekphrasic, in that they engage with works of art, and this is aided by Atwood and Duffy’s use of self-reflective narratives, in which the audience reads personal responses to what is occurring, and the poem is placed in context. Not only do these poems ‘evoke(s) the power of the silent image’[13] from an ekphrasic point of view, they also powerfully engage with the reader through first-person narrative.

Margaret Atwood’s poem ‘Manet’s Olympia’[14] describes a painting conscious of its fakery; with its systematic construction the reader is immediately aware that there is nothing natural about the scene, and there is a mocking tone to the lines. The model is not relaxed; her pose is artificial, her form is made of “sharp angles”[15] and the “flower behind her ear is naturally not real”[16]: with this line Atwood exposes the duplicity in great works of art. Manet used a courtesan to model for the painting, and perhaps Atwood saw this work as an example of realism in Nude portraits, the subject being an unashamed slightly arrogant woman devoid of the usual timidity in classic paintings of its style. Indeed, the audience is addressed, “You, Monsieur Voyeur”[17], and thus the narrator of the poem asserts the power of the model by directly interacting with the traditionally unseen voyeur.

There is nothing retiringly feminine about the subject of the painting; her body “unfragile, defiant”[18], she is bursting with sexuality and dominance. “The body’s on offer, but the neck’s as far as it goes”[19] is a direct address from Atwood to the male voyeur observing the model, demonstrating that the model is conscious of being an object of the male gaze, but she is not a victim of it. She is exploiting her own body to gain sexual dominance over her male audience, hence the second part of the quotation stating indefatigably that it is her form and not her mind that is being examined. Furthermore, Atwood emphasises the importance of female autonomy with the penultimate two lines of the poem, writing, “I, the head, am the only subject of this picture”[20].

Atwood’s line “Put clothes on her and you’d have a schoolteacher”[21] demonstrates the cultural power of the Nude; the model becomes artistically significant when naked, a detached spectacle of the female form. To bring this statement in to context, Manet’s choosing a courtesan to be the model subverts this theory of the sublime, untouchable Nude. With reference to the statement this essay is written around, ‘Manet’s Olympia’ is indeed concerned with ‘entering an old text from a new critical direction’, as Atwood explores the presentation of the sublime woman in art, but she does so by choosing an unconventional painting that has itself challenged archetypal presentations of the Nude. Atwood’s ‘Manet’s Olympia’ is less concerned with exposing the ignorance of the artist, but focuses more on women’s own controversial autonomy, using their sexuality to demonstrate the hypocrisy of what is deemed classical art.

Carol Ann Duffy explores the concepts of myth and pretensions of art in her poem ‘Standing Female Nude’[22], in which her narrator’s blunt, analytical language dovetails to juxtapose the perception of the sexless Nude against the inherent sexuality of the artists’ model. ‘Standing Female Nude’ is a concrete example of gender imperialism, in which the model is stripped of her sexual identity and reproduced to become a two-dimensional representation of artistic womanhood. “Belly nipple arse in the window light”[23] is an example of Duffy’s using contemporary slang to expose the pretentious nature of art in her poem. The male artist removes the model’s identity, as Duffy writes, “he drains the colour from me”[24]: thus she is altered, her sexual vivacity removed. The model says “I shall be represented analytically and hung is great museums”[25], alluding to the constant battle running through this poem of myth versus realism, in which it is the “river-whore”[26] that is genuine, but the “bourgeoisie will coo”[27] at something quite different, born of artifice.

The male preoccupation with dominance is demonstrated in ‘Standing Female Nude’, as the artist becomes fixated on his female model. She remarks “He possesses me on canvas as he dips the brush repeatedly in to the paint”[28]; this image is fraught with sexual energy which the model is acutely aware of. In this poem, Duffy subverts masculine authority so that it is the female model that is dominant; although the artist is commanding her, she is quietly superior, anticipating his thoughts and silently mocking him: “Little man, you’ve no money for the arts I sell”[29]. The use of the word ‘arts’ further demonstrates the juxtaposition of art and realism coursing through poetry that seeks to reveal the tangible flesh behind pompous daubs.

Duffy uses myths to assert female dominance in the poem, referring to tales of male weakness, such as that of Oedipus; she writes “Men think of their mothers”[30], which also brings the poem in to historical context. If ‘Georges’[31] is the artist Georges Braque[32], the poem is set in the early twentieth century, and one may make reference to Sigmund Freud’s Oedipus Complex[33] to expand Duffy’s notion of male sexual frailty. Furthermore, if the portrait concerned is Braque’s ‘Large Nude’[34], his aim as a Cubist painter to present objects differently, including the female form, explains why the model states at the end of the poem, “It does not look like me”[35].  Duffy’s re-vision of the process of Braque’s composition in ‘Standing Female Nude’ therefore serves to give the model a voice, after she has been rendered unidentifiable by the brushstrokes of Cubism.

The final poem, Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Pygmalion’s Bride’[36] relates to the tale of Pygmalion who falls in love with an ivory statue, the embodiment of idealised femininity. John Ruskin’s[37] inability to consummate his wedding-night after realising his wife had pubic hair demonstrates the absurdity of women’s artistic representation. The reader has a candid view of the man’s fascination with the statue as he explores her body, safe in the knowledge that she cannot, as yet, respond to him. Through this poem, Duffy portrays the metaphorical silencing of women throughout art and suggests that for men, the ideal woman is one who is passive and compliant. The statue decides to ‘…lay still’[38] with the hope that the man will leave, but he is encouraged by her passivity; there is a perversely child-like edge to his investigation and the statue remarks, ‘He thumbed my marble eyes’[39], as one would imagine a toddler with a doll.

The poem becomes sinister with the nameless male telling the statue ‘what he’d do and how’[40], hinting at sexual deviancy and taking pleasure in her silence. The lines ‘He let his fingers sink in to my flesh’[41] conjure images of violence, emphasised with brutish force by his nails being ‘claws’[42].  Like ‘Standing Female Nude’ the poem is concentrated around male dominance and kicks against the conventionally feminine image in art; the statue’s ears are ‘shells’[43], emphasising her innate femaleness and weakness in equal measure. Duffy includes this reference to accentuate the moment when the statue comes to life. The idea of a living woman breaking through the ivory and becoming animated is precisely what Adrienne Rich is referring to with her words ‘act of survival’. Duffy’s image of the woman destroying the stone is a metaphor for the feminist revision of gender-biased works of literature that paint women as helpless, impassionate creatures permanently in need of rescuing.

In conclusion, Margaret Atwood and Carol Ann Duffy immortalise the women in the aforementioned works of art, through subverting female stereotypes and giving them a voice so that they may be remembered as women, and are not lost in the archives of art. Their works create poignant messages of female autonomy and assertion that reinforces Adrienne Rich’s benchmark statement, that the re-visioning of texts is an act of survival for women. Liberated by these women poets, the models’ hearts beat in their frames, while Atwood and Duffy continue to challenge constructions of femininity through revising classic literature, and ultimately survive themselves.

…

[1] Cixous, Helen, ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’ in Feminist Literary Theory: A Reader, ed. by Mary Eagleton, 2^nd edn (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996) p.320-321.

[2] Atwood, Margaret, ‘Manet’s Olympia’ in Eating Fire: Selected Poetry 1965-1995 (London: Virago) p.306

[3] Duffy, Carol Ann, ‘Pygmalion’s Bride’ in The World’s Wife (London: Picador, 1999). p.51-52

[4] Duffy, Carol Ann, ‘Standing Female Nude’ in Sixty Women Poets ed. by Linda France (Tarset, Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 1993) p.113

[5] Nochlin, Linda, ‘Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?’ in Women, Art and Power (London: Thames and Hudson, 1989) 159.

[6] Smiles, Samuel, Self Help (London, 1859)

[7] Patmore, Coventry, The Angel in the House (London, 1854)

[8] Ostriker, Alicia, ‘The Thieves of Language: Women Poets and Revisionist Mythmaking’ in the New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature, and Theory ed. by Elaine Showalter (London: Virago, 1987). 317

[9] ibid., 317

[10] Sellers, Susan, ‘Myth and Fairytale in Contemporary Women’s Fiction’ (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001). p.29

[11] ibid., p.29

[12] Ovid, Metamorphoses, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998)

[13] Heffernan, James, Museum of Words: The Poetry of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993) p.1.

[14] Atwood, Margaret, ‘Manet’s Olympia’ in Eating Fire: Selected Poetry 1965-1995 (London: Virago) p.306.

[15] ibid., line 3.

[16] ibid., line 6-7

[17] ibid., line 27

[18] ibid., line 15

[19] ibid., line 21-22

[20] ibid., line 30-31

[21] ibid., line 24-25

[22] Duffy, Carol Ann, ‘Standing Female Nude’ in Sixty Women Poets ed. by Linda France (Tarset, Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 1993) p.113

[23] ibid., line 2

[24] ibid., line 3

[25] ibid., line 5-6

[26] ibid., line 7

[27] ibid., line 6

[28] ibid., line 18-19

[29] ibid., line 19-20

[30] ibid., line 17

[31] ibid., line 15

[32] Braque, Georges, French Cubist Artist (1882-1963)

[33] Freud, Sigmund, The Interpretation of Dreams, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) Chapter V, p.296; originally published 1900

[34] Braque, Georges, Large Nude, Paris, Spring 1908, Oil on canvas, Collection Alex Maguy, Paris, Romilly 5

[35]Duffy, Carol Ann, ‘Standing Female Nude’ in Sixty Women Poets ed. by Linda France (Tarset, Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 1993) p.113, line 28

[36] Duffy, Carol Ann, ‘Pygmalion’s Bride’ in The World’s Wife (London: Picador, 1999). P.51-52.

[37] Ruskin, John, English art critic and social thinker, 1819-1900

[38] opcit., line 5-6

[39] ibid., line 8

[40] ibid., line 10

[41] ibid., 26

[42] ibid., line 32

[43] ibid., line 13

Harry Potter Fanfiction

Hi all,

For anyone who likes a bit of Harry Potter fanfiction, I’ve been writing it for five years and you can read it all here: http://quizilla.teennick.com/user/dracoqueen/

I create the main protagonist in all of the 8 stories I have on the go, but you’ll know every other character! Have a look-see and let me know what you think.

Perversion in the 20th Century

In popular culture, the central theme of what one would call ‘deviant’ sexuality revolves around the consensus that the practise in question does not result in pregnancy, and therefore any sexual encounter that does not produce a child is viewed an unnatural, and as such, ‘perverse’. Modern Gothic texts utilise this notion of unnatural sexuality by harnessing the taboos of the age and channelling them in to the central protagonist of the narratives, whose character may exhibit such deviant qualities in a manner designed to challenge popular culture, or they may be the villain intended for condemnation. As attitudes towards sex and sexuality alter through the decades, an audience’s propensity to be shocked has dwindled, as censoring laws are softened and society becomes progressively immune to deviance in all forms. The notion therefore that it is impossible for authors to write about sexuality without the forces of deviance and perversion sneaking in to the narrative, communicates society’s demand for evermore contentious entertainment, while proposing that deviance is more appealing than traditionalism. This essay will examine two modern Gothic narratives that exhibit deviant sexualities, Mo Hayder’s Birdman[1], and Will Self’s Dorian[2], the former demonstrating that for some, deviant sexuality is more palatable than the conventional, while the latter documents the horrors of alternative sexuality, while proposing that conformity is merely a cultural requirement, not an absolute.

Igor Primoratz writes that the connection between the notion of sexual perversion and that of unnatural sex is the lack of procreation, ‘[…] that natural purpose or function of sexual organs and acts’,[3] reinforcing this notion of deviant sexuality defining any practise that is not procreational. This concept applies to both Birdman and Dorian, as Hayder’s characters Malcolm Bliss and Toby Harteveld’s practises of necrophilia, and Self’s Dorian Gray, with his homosexual exploits and veritable sprees of AIDS-spreading, pursue deviance to excessive heights.

Mo Hayder proposes the disturbing notion that there exists in all humans an example of the deviant in Birdman; her central character DI Jack Caffrey, a disillusioned wretch who has a better relationship with a bottle of Glenmorangie than his girlfriend, is forced to engage directly with the world of deviance when he is called to investigate a multiple murder case. Throughout his enquiries, Caffrey develops a pseudo-obsessive relationship with former stripper Rebecca, whom awakens in him passions that he associates formerly with the deviants he is trying to apprehend. Although Caffrey has a sexual relationship with girlfriend Veronica, there is no passion or love in their acts; Jack feels chivalric towards her and obliged to remain in their relationship in case of another cancer scare, but it is apparent that Veronica does not value him sexually. She attempts to de-gothicise Jack by transforming him in to a typecast male, as she is a typecast female; she wears ‘[…] a cream linen suit’[4] and ‘Armani sunglasses’,[5] shops at ‘Chelsea boutiques’,[6] drives a sportscar and tastes of ‘lipstick and methol breath spray’[7], a polar opposite to Jack’s scruffy appearance and surly demeanour. Veronica has a veneer of convention about her, which Rebecca, with her paint-stained jeans and paintbrushes in her hair, does not. For Caffrey, Veronica is dull, and Rebecca offers unexplored territory, territory he soons discovers excites in him unexpected behaviour.

Queer Theory[8] plays a large part in all gothic narratives, as the protagonists realise their repressed desires through another character, and this longing is usually unconventional, or at least contradicts the protagonists’ nature. In this exmaple, Caffrey moves between life as a vulnerable man and a resilient policeman, exposing his personal deviance in order to do his job; his relationship with Rebecca would suggest that Caffrey comes to prefer his darker side, as does his violent treatment of Veronica when he evicts her from their house. Hayder writes of Caffrey and Rebecca’s sexual encounter in her hallway, ‘[…] suddenly, unexpectedly, an urge kicked off in him’,[9] indicating that Rebecca’s sexualised past evokes a sense of animalism in Caffrey that his biege-wearing girlfriend does not: Caffrey’s own surprise at his actions demonstrates that Rebecca is the catalyst through which he realises his desires. This part of Hayder’s narrative highlights the fact that although Caffrey is the ‘hero’ of the piece, he is not immune from deviance; his physically violent sexual encounter with Rebecca not only illustrates his repressed tendency to violence, but also alludes to heterosexual aggression being equally contentious as the brutality of homosexual acts, and the hideousness of Bliss’ ‘surgeries’ on his victims. In this sense therefore, the repressed pyschology of individuals makes it difficult for an author to write about sexuality, even when their protagonists are ‘good’.

R. Scruton argues ‘Necrophilia shows the process of perversion at its most accomplished, with the separation between sexual impulse and interpersonal emotion made absolute by death’,[10] demonstrating Toby Harteveld and Malcolm Bliss’ depravity as the worst kind of deviance, but also proposing such perversion may have arisen from social ineptitude. Harteveld’s disturbing relationship with his mother and Bliss’ shame at his appearance inhibit their individual social development. In addition, D. Levy supports this notion of social inadequacy, writing that the necrophile ‘has lost the ability to love another human being sexually’;[11] Bliss and Harteveld are incapable of loving another human, with the exception of Bliss’ obsession with Joni: ‘[…] she was his reason for living’,[12] but it is the idea of her that he loves. This further demonstrates Bliss’ social inexperience, as he falls in love with an idealised image of a woman untouched by society. Indeed, Caffrey’s relationships with Veronica and Rebecca are connected to this notion of lost sexual love, as both women are essentially ‘good’, but Caffrey prefers Rebecca with her sexualised past, and his fancy for her is not what one would call ‘love’.

Levy writes that the ‘[…] basic human good’[13] of love is lost on those of deviant sexuality, yet it is credible to suggest that Joni is to blame for Bliss’ behaviour as she exploits his naïvety, which excites his violent nature. Sex leads to death in Birdman, as Harteveld comes to fetishise murdering the prostitutes, as the act of murder becomes a hideous kind of foreplay for him, in which he is in total control of a person that cannot deny him; this links back to Levy’s essay, as the person becomes a body with which Harteveld need not converse. The entire body is fetishised in the novel, as it becomes a symbol for Bliss and Harteveld of dominated femininity, and David Winter supports this idea, writing that men may overcome insecurities of sex by ‘[…] fetishising the partner’ that ‘[…] sexualised violence can be interpreted as a much more extreme form of fetishism’.[14]

Toby’s childhood traumas concerning his mother are contextualised in the novel with the connections to the post-Sixties attitudes towards sexuality. When Toby walks in to the deliberately unlocked bathroom and is accosted by his mother, who demands, ‘”Are you a little poofter, T?” […] “Are you a little buggerer?”’,[15] Hayder is alluding to the view of homosexuality in this period as a deviance. Joshua Gamson refers to this ‘[…] “deviance” […] of the homosexual sort’[16] as Toby is weakened in this scene, and hence seeks to assert himself in his dealings with women as he matures. After this intrusive adult input in to his sexual development, heterosexuality for Toby becomes associated with threat, which is integral to the plot of Birdman as Toby’s notion of what is and is not taboo is reversed; he fears conventional sexuality and therefore pursues the path of deviance, with his ‘pale hands’[17] suggesting his perversion at a young age.

After his encounter with the woman in the Makati whorehouse, Toby ‘[…] was overwhelmed with the sense that something abnormal was being born in him’,[18] as the abnormal hatred of his mother becomes channelled in to a desire to always be obeyed, but Toby comes off worse when Rebecca resists him, and he is reduced to calling her names in a typically juvenile manner. Yet, as with Bliss and Joni, it is this relationship with a woman that sparks Toby’s deviant behaviour at a young age, and one therefore may further contextualise the narrative by suggestinng that Hayder proposes that it is the rise of female power throughout the twentieth century that certain males cannot accept. Indeed, Winter suggests that ‘[…] sex becomes a hierarchy of power relationships’[19] for weaker males who seek to assert themselves over females and reclaim their sexual dominance. Here the reader recognises further connections between the deviants Bliss and Harteveld with the hero DI Caffrey, who violently reclaims his territory from Veronica and proceeds to sexually re-assert himself by advancing on Rebecca.

On their first meeting, Rebecca mocks Caffrey’s assumption that she and Joni are lesbians, challenging him, ‘”[…] that’s what you wanted to hear, isn’t it?”’,[20] to which Caffrey replies, ‘”Yes […] I’m human”’;[21] with these lines Hayder connects the two deviances, combining the act of homosexuality with voyeuristic masculinity. In addition, DI Diamond is a deviant himself, sexist and racist, yet his is socially acceptable. Harteveld and Bliss are seen as the true deviants because of their crimes and social inadequacies, and here one recognises the impact of popular culture in society. Harteveld and Bliss are the ‘losers’ in the narrative, ostracised from society with their ‘receding hairline(s)’,[22] and ‘bad teeth’,[23] while Diamond’s confidence and misogynist attitudes lend him the social title of ‘wide boy’, instead of ‘pervert’. It is this challenging of social conformity that leads this essay on to Will Self’s Dorian, in which the protagonists’ deviance is connected to a complete disillusion with modern popular society.

The Gothic has always been an area of taboo, documenting forbidden sexualities and in this poly-sexual society it also becomes a vehicle through which authors seek to reaffirm the worth of heterosexuality. This constant desire to vamp up ‘normal’ sexual practises coupled with the readers’ desire to be increasingly shocked, it can be aruged, leads authors to produce novels concerning deviance and perversion in order to reinforce what is good in society, regardless of its mundanity at times. Will Self’s Dorian does so with his main protagonists rotting in their drug-fuelled decadence, as Henry Wotton exclaims, “I feel Gothic with disease”,[24] and persecuting those of conventional society for their normality. Self also harnesses the terror of AIDS as his narrative moves in to the Eighties and several of his characters succumb to the virus. The spread is metaphorically connected to the transmission of ‘”art fetishism”’[25] Cathode Narcissus, an installation depicting the source of the infection twirling and dancing, mocking those whom he has condemned to death: the erotically and statically charged Dorian Gray.

Writing in The New Statesman, Hugo Barnacle argues that the character of Dorian Gray is ‘[…] a zeitgeist figure, representing a corrupt culture obsessed with youth and appearances’,[26] allying him with degenerates who reject society and create their own culture which feeds on the vices of humanity, homosexual practises and excessive drug use. The connections of homosexuality to drug addiction in Self’s narrative is integral to this notion of apathy, as Mara L. Keire proposes that drug use is generally affiliated to prostitution, and disillusioned young men would ‘[…] incorporate drug use in to their rejection of conventional male gender roles’.[27] Hayder’s Toby Harteveld regularly takes cocaine and his weakness as a masculine character connects him to Self’s homosexual protagonists, whom embrace their deviance and ‘underworld addiction’[28] as a method of coping with their position as ‘losers’ of society.

The homosexual characters of Dorian delight in their deviances, as Henry Wotton brags to Dorian of his association with ‘”[…] profligacy drug addiction, sodomy, and even more exotic vices’”,[29] yet there is an element of self-hatred in most of the characters who recognise their segregation from greater society. Dorian identifies this most acutely and resolves to avenge himself by vigorously spreading his virus throughout his sexual conquests. Yet Self is careful not to ally his protagonists against a seemingly homophobic society, but rather demonstrates that there is no solidarity in this group of disillusioned men. It is therefore credible to suggest that if one were to write a tale of homosexual love, popular culture would demand that with the protagonists’ sexual diversity there be an element of perversion, as with disaffection comes deviance. Indeed, Dorian, like Hayder’s Bliss and Harteveld, is incapable of loving anyone as he refuses to be drawn in to a ‘conformist’ emotional relationship. Self writes, ‘Baz would always love Dorian, Henry would never love Dorian but would want him consistently, and Dorian would betray Baz and never love anyone at all’,[30] illustrating that in his narrative the wretched Baz Hallward is the only character who truly loves anyone and dies as a consequence, suggesting that pure love cannot survive in a deviant environment.

As with Hayder’s Birdman, Queer Theory may be applied to Self’s narrative in terms of examining the relationship between hetero and homosexuals, where the latter’s seeming lack of masculinity denotes his deficiency as a member of society. In addition, the notion of ‘queerness’ concerns the power of anthropology with the application of people in to categories as a means by which society may judge; Henry Wotton’s acute awareness of his sexuality leads him to crudely mock this practice, while subtly underlining his vehemence that such a system exists. Self writes of Wotton, […] there was a deeper, stranger ambivalence at work in him than straightforward and manly homosexual self-hatred’,[31] which he channels through misogynist attitudes towards his wife whom he refers to as ‘Batface’:[32] misogynist attitudes that Dorian shares. Self documents Dorian’s sexual first sexual encounter with a woman in a pointedly disinterested manner, as Dorian is merely lying with this woman as a matter of conformity. Like Wotton’s sexless relationship with his wife, Dorian views making love as ‘’Making’ in the sense that he was making it up as he went along’;[33] Self refers to the woman who is deliberately not named, ‘[…] assembling a prefabricated illusion for herself to inhabit’,[34] illustrating that in his novel what is conformist is for his main protagonists perverse.

Self connects Wotton’s drug addiction with his sexual disinterest toward his wife, writing ‘[…] his raving, rampant and still rambunctious drug addiction took up much of his energy’[35], and in so doing proposing that were Wotton not an addict, he may, despite his homosexual tendencies, have a healthier relationship with Batface. In this sense, the ‘spectres of deviance and perversion’[36] are not associated with sexuality, but rather drug use, as it is this addiction that consumes Wotton’s life and divides him from society. In the grander scheme of the narrative however, any chance of heterosexual affection is quickly obliterated as Gray reflects ‘‘Love’ in no sense at all’,[37] about his young woman, leaving the reader with a skewed view of human relationships only.

Henry Wotton’s complete disregard for the intimacy of sexual encounters lead him to reflect on ‘[…] which human gender he preferred, or even if he liked sex with his own species at all’,[38] illustrating Will Self’s object in his narrative of removing the romanticism of the act and drawing attention to its horrors. Carolyn Snee recognises the sub-plot running through the narrative, writing after reading Dorian “How we hate the diseases that come from sex! And, under all the titillation and exploitation and pornography, […] how we hate sex, of any and every kind”.[39] Snee identifies that popular culture paints sex with a pleasing veneer to make it more palatable and not just confined to modern Gothic narratives. The men and women who belong in the disaffected side of society are plagued with numerous sexual infections and diseases in this pseudo-incestuous community, and all the while are blinded by the beautiful Dorian Gray moving through their ranks and infecting them one by one. With the quotation ‘”He looks fucking dodgy […] like a junkie as well as a toff”. “And a queer – you forgot to say queer”’,[40] Dorian is identified as the ultimate deviant of the narrative, symbolising all aspects of society that popular culture would deem perverse. Yet Dorian would not have become this emblem of monstrosity if Wotton had not taken him under his wing. Baz anticipates Dorian’s impending immorality, saying ‘”He’s sweet and charming and naïve […] but I expect he’ll turn out to be a vicious little bitch […]”’,[41] as it his naivety that proves his undoing. As Joni exploits Bliss in Birdman, Wotton virtually salivates with delight at the prospect of introducing Dorian Gray to his world, and with both narratives the reader is left pondering what the outcome would have been if Bliss and Gray had not met their tormenters.

In conclusion therefore, the notions of ‘deviance’ and ‘perversion’ may be applied to several elements of Hayder and Self’s narratives, as the inexperienced Bliss and Harteveld forever struggle against a society that demonises weak men, while Dorian’s perversion results from Wotton’s exploitation of his naivety for his own means.  In this sense it is the deviance of popular culture that produce in these men what they come to be vilified for. The non-procreational practises they indulge in further exclude them from society, which embitters them towards conforming in any way, yet their ‘queerness’ does not excuse their depraved behaviour. The presence of deviant and perverted behaviour in film and literature reinforces the greater integrity of society and reassures audiences by segregating said deviants to the role of criminal, rapist and stalker. Just as it is reductive to refer to Dorian as a ‘gay novel’, it is just as counterproductive to ignore the fact that Queer Theory, Hayder and Self’s narratives emphasise that there exists in humanity an element of the perverse, and that is the stronger division of civilisation that controls the id. Deviance and perversion are needed in narratives concerning sexuality to separate Man from the Beast.

Hannah Light

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[1] Hayder, Mo, Birdman, London, Bantam Books, 2000

[2] Self, Will, Dorian, London, Penguin Books, 2003

[3] Primoratz, Igor, ‘Sexual Perversion’, American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 2 University of Illinois Press, 1997, pp. 245-258, p.246

[4] ibid., p.15

[5] ibid., p.15

[6] ibid., p.15

[7] ibid., p.15

[8] Queer Theory, heavily influenced by Michel Foucault; a theory that explores ‘queer’ texts referring to unconventional sexualities that emerged in the 1990s

[9] opcit., p.333-335

[10] Scruton, R, Sexual Desire: A Philisophical Investigation, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986, p.248

[11] Levy, D. ‘Perversion and the Unnatural as Moral Categories’, in A. Soble, (ed.), Philosophy of Sex, Totowa, Littlefield, Adams & Co., 1980, p.179

[12] Hayder, Mo, Birdman, London, Bantam Books, 2000, p.300

[13] ibid., p.253

[14] Winter, David G., ‘Power, Sex, and Violence: A Psychological Reconstruction of the 20th Century and an Intellectual Agenda for Political Psychology’, Political Psychology, Vol. 21, No. 2 International Society of Political Psychology, 2000, pp. 383-404, p.394

[15] Hayder, Mo, Birdman, London, Bantam Books, 2000, p.105

[16] Gamson, Joshua and Moon, Dawne, The Sociology of Sexualities: Queer and Beyond, Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 30, Annual Reviews, 2004, pp. 47-64, p.47

[17] opcit., p.106

[18] ibid., p.107

[19]Winter, David G., ‘Power, Sex, and Violence: A Psychological Reconstruction of the 20th Century and an Intellectual Agenda for Political Psychology’, Political Psychology, Vol. 21, No. 2 International Society of Political Psychology, 2000, pp. 383-404, p.389

[20] Hayder, Mo, Birdman, London, Bantam Books, 2000, p.75

[21] ibid., p.75

[22] ibid., p.100

[23] ibid., p.305

[24] Self, Will, Dorian, London, Penguin Books, 2003, p.236

[25] ibid., p.17

[26] Barnacle, Hugo, ‘Wilde time’, The New Statesman, 07 October 2002

[27] Keire, Mara L., ‘Dope Fiends and Degenerates: The Gendering of Addiction in the Early Twentieth Century’, Journal of Social History, Vol. 31, No. 4, Peter N. Stearns, 1998, pp. 809-822, p.809

[28] ibid., p.810

[29]Self, Will, Dorian, London, Penguin Books, 2003, p.17

[30] ibid., p.16

[31] ibid., p.39

[32] ibid., p.5

[33] ibid., p.41

[34] ibid., p.41

[35] ibid., p.39

[36] From the original essay question

[37] opcit., p.41

[38] ibid., p.39

[39] Snee, Carolyn, Review of Dorian, The Washington Post, date unknown

[40] opcit., p.34

[41] ibid., p.13

The Role of Women in Jacobean Drama

The role of the woman in Jacobean drama serves a multi-faceted purpose; she is whore, mother, prostitute, gold-digger, innocent, corruptible prey, and predator. Occasionally, a single female character adopts all of the above and becomes a beacon for all aspects of womanhood, whether pleasing or not. Yet regardless of female vice or virtue, a woman in Jacobean drama stands as collateral to be divided up by and between male characters in the drama, to settle scores, or provide a tempting incentive for reconciliation. Elements of sexism and misogyny are prevalent in most Jacobean drama, where the female characters are portrayed as embodying the above traits, and whose sole purposes are to be divided off in to pieces that please their male counterparts. Yet also some women of the Jacobean period end up subverting gender roles, and using the conventions of masculinity to play against their male opposites. The purpose of this essay is to explore two Jacobean texts and examine the extent to which women are used as commodities in an overtly misogynist theatrical world.

Thomas Middleton’s The Revengers Tragedy[1] is racked with sexism and misogyny, with the main character Vindice’s quest to avenge his murdered bride, Gloriana. Although Vindice is plagued by rage and possessed by revenge, he forsakes the love he has for Gloriana and uses her skull as a kind of disturbing fetishised prop in his game of deception. The fact that Vindice abducts Gloriana’s skull from the rest of her skeleton not only portrays the morbid use of the woman in Jacobean drama, but also stands as a physical representation of the metaphorical ‘splitting up’ of women to serve the untoward purposes of men. Vindice plans to use Gloriana’s skull against the murdering Duke, whom commanded her death for her refusal to succumb to him, “[…] the old duke poisoned,/ Because thy purer part would not consent/ Unto his palsy-lust”[2]; yet while Vindice’s quest for revenge may be seem honourable, it can be suggested that by murdering the Duke he is not defending Gloriana’s honour in death, but satisfying his own quasi-lunacy. If Vindice’s sole aim is to avenge Gloriana, why does he decimate her tomb and commit a hideous crime by using a piece of her to enact his retribution? Why, as a virile young man, cannot he accost the Duke and murder him in cold blood? As it occurs, Vindice does not actively murder the Duke, but poisons him; this could be construed as an ironic method, evoking memories of Gloriana’s demise, but also it can be proposed that Vindice is not strong enough both physically and mentally to aggressively kill a man. Instead, he directs his passionate energy in to an effigy of his wife, through which he channels his soliloquised hatred towards the Duke, but he does not get his hands dirty. On the face of it, Vindice’s plan is full of Machiavellian artifice, but in reality, he allows a poisonous substance to exact the fatal revenge that could have been felt by his own hand. This is an example of the Jacobean woman being used to a gruesome end, as Vindice sexualises her dead skull, and facilitates his loving memories of her to direct him towards a path of murder and repugnance bordering on necrophilia.

Laurie A Finke writes, ‘Gloriana’s skull fucntions here throughout the play as a grsily emblem untitng two dialectical notions of femininity: woman as ideal, an object of adoration, and woman as death’s head, a figure which evokes fear and hostility’[3] , aptly demonstrating the multi-faceted impression of women in Jacobean drama, especially tragedy. Women must be all things to all men, evoking the notion of the Madonna Whore, which is the notion that women must conform to the concept of wife and mother, whilst being sexually voracious. In this sense, Vindice sexaulises Gloriana even in death, parading her to the Duke as a whore, “Faith, my lord, a country[4] lady, a little bashful at first […] but after the kiss, my lord, the worst is past with them”[5]. Linke says of Gloriana’s skull, ‘It has become a fragment of a once whole, living woman’[6], highlighting the notion that every part of the body contains the essence of that person whom it belonged to; this supports the idea that while Vindice believes he is simply using Gloriana’s skull as an object, Gloriana is present in it, and it is her essence as well as her skull that Vindice violates. It could be suggested that Vindice is slightly feminine in his murder of the Duke, as he does not do the conventional masculine thing and challenge him to a duel, but like a scorned woman, opts for trickery instead; his name, a play on the word ‘vindictive’, is also usually employed to describe a wayward child, or spiteful woman.

The character of Antonio’s wife in The Revengers Tragedy is not split up, but in death she is used as a physical representation of the perfect wife. Antonio and his peers crowd around her corpse and exclaim grief at her death, yet what they are doing is far from respectful. Antonio even mentions her sexual chastity and the instance of the rape in melodramatic detail, “He harried her amongst a throng of panders […]/ And fed the ravenous vulture of his lust”[7], by which he seems to be attempting to direct sympathy on to himself, as the bereaved husband of a sexually compromised suicidal wife. This is similar to Vindice’s descriptions of Gloriana and her skull, as he uses heavily sexualised imagery to describe the reasons for her death, as if he is glorying in the misery that it brings him; furthermore, this manner of behaviour is not conventionally masculine.

Vindice and Hippolito’s sister Castiza is a good example of women being passed around and offered to disreputable men, in that she is the object of desire to Lussurioso, the Duke’s son. When Vindice, disguised as Piato, goes to his mother Gratiana and Castiza with messages of love from Lussurioso, Castiza demonstrates her strong character as a chaste woman by hitting Vindice. Her anger at being propositioned by the notorious heir portrays her sturdy solidarity and highlights her as an unusual Jacobean woman, as she is not to be tempted by false words, “Bear to him/ That figure of hate upon thy cheek/ Whilst ‘tis yet hot […] Tell him my honour shall have a rich name/ When several harlots shall share his with shame”[8]. Vindice’s cruelty as a Jacobean man is marked in this scene, as he thinks not of his sister’s honour, but of how he may twist her standing with Lussurioso to his advantage; his character in this scene further emphasises Castiza’s female strength. Vindice practises his gift with words on his mother, playing to her misfortune of poverty, “Madam, I know y’are poor, And, ’lack the day,/ There are too many poor ladies already”[9], and Middleton portrays in Gratiana the weak woman present in Jacobean drama with her response: “Men know […] /We are so weak, their words can overthrow us. […] /When his tongue struck upon my poor estate”[10]. When Vindice succeeds in persuading Gratiana that Castiza should receive the attentions of Lussurioso for financial means, her daughter reacts with vehemence, “I cry you mercy, lady, I mistook you; / Pray, did you see my Mother? Which way went she?”[11] In this scene Castiza and Gratiana are wonderfully juxtaposed, representing the two moral poles of Jacobean womanhood.

Throughout Jacobean drama, women are often compared to money and gold, reinforcing their position as material objects, and judged by their ‘value’ as commodities. Vindice states in The Revengers Tragedy, “We must coin./ Women are apt, you know, to take false money”[12], and Patricia Joplin writes ‘As the sign and currency of exchange, the invaded woman’s body bears the full burden of pollution […] if marriage uses the woman’s body as good money and unequivocal speech, rape transforms her in to counterfeit coin’[13]. Joplin concentrates on women representing money; she embodies the same value, and is used as such in bargaining, and also is offered money in exchange for her chastity, as with Castiza and Gratiana in The Revengers Tragedy. In additional to the aformentioned play, Middleton’s A Chaste Maid In Cheapside[14] draws more parallels between women, money and gold, and deals with masculine ownership of their female counterparts.

Vindice says of age in The Revengers Tragedy, “age, as in gold, in lust is covetous”[15], comparing age and gold, and drawing parallels between money and lust, demonstrating that these things are inextricably linked throughout Jacobean drama. In  A Chaste Maid In Cheapside, there are several examples of women being used as pawns in male relationships, and the comparisons between female value and gold. The play is full of sexual innuendo, centred around the character of Moll, who is being forced in to marriage with Sir Walter Whorehound, whose name demonstrates his character perfectly.

The title of A Chaste Maid In Cheapside is proof enough that the play is going to concentrate around the male quest for a ‘chaste maid’ in an area that is known for vice and prostitution. It is inevitable therefore, that Middelton would focus on the sexuality of his female characters, and portray each of them as embodying particualr feminine traits; Moll is the young virgin, Mrs Allwit the sexaully voracious older woman, Lady Kix the barren aristocratic woman, the Welsh Gentlewoman the whore, and Maudline the goldigger, since her daughter refuses to do so herself. Things that should be romantic are not, such as Mrs Allwit being  a ‘kept woman’, and as Rick Bowers states, ‘marriage is not romantically realised; it is as contrived as playing dead or of making a whore “honest” through logic or matrimony.’[16] Bowers’ notion on marriage in the play reinforces the ironic setting of Cheapside in a play concerned with the search for virginity. In addition, Bowers perfectly sums up the perverted mentalities of the play’s characters, remarking on their quest for wealth, rather than pursuit of goondess, ‘Marketplace power, material wealth, and individual prerogative circumscribe a newly emergent reality within London and within Middleton’s city comedy’[17].

Moll’s mother, Maudline, says of her daughter, “You are a dull maid a-late, methinks you had need have somewhat to quicken your green sickness […] A husband!”[18], illustrating her desire to have her daughter marry Sir Walter, regardless of romantic attachment, and fund her family. Sir Walter demonstrates this misogynist attitutde towards women in the Jacobean period, as he is only interested in marrying Moll because she is a virgin, while he engages in extramarital affairs. Of course, his surname, ‘Whorehound’, portrays him as a sexual predator. Moll’s father, Yellowhammer, is equally financially minded regarding his daughter, stating, “Has no attorney’s clerk been here a-late […] changed his half-crown-piece […] cozened you with a gilded twopiece”[19], and continues of his son Tim’s great match to a seemingly wealthy woman, “‘Tis a match of Sir Walter’s own making/ To bind us to him, and our heirs forever”[20]. The latter quotation demonstrates that Yellowhammer sees women as metaphorical purses, to be opened up and drained of fortune; he only becomes interested in the Welsh Gentlewoman when it is revealed that she in fact has no fortune and is a whore.

Moll, like Castiza, is a strong young woman, rebelling against her parents’ mis-guided wishes; she escapes from her house to meet her true love, Touchwood Junior, after her father states, ‘In the meantime, I will lock up this baggage, / As carefully as my gold”[21], (again portraying the relationship between women and money in Jacobean drama), and her punishment afterwards demonstrates the violent wishes of her parents to link her to money. Moll is called, “Dissembling, cunning baggage!”[22] by her mother and “Impudent strumpet!”[23] by her father when she shows an ounce of wilful feminine power, and is then literally dragged back to the house to await her wedding to Sir Walter. Ironically, Yellowhammer calls her a “minx”,[24] which is the antithesis of what she is; her parents would have her prostitute herself while she wishes to remain chaste and marry her true love: this demonstrates the hypocrisy surrounding Jacobean women.

The situation of the Allwits in the play is an interesting one, as Mrs Allwit is effectively prostituted to Sir Walter as a kind of perverse payment for his ‘keeping’ the family. Mrs Allwit consequently becomes a kept woman, but in a sense as far from the romantic as possible. Mr Allwit is aware that he is being cuckolded by Sir Walter, but does not care, even when Sir Walter refers to his wife as “my mistress”[25]; he in fact idealises their warped situation, “Lie soft, sleep hard, drink wine, and eat good cheer”[26]. Sir Kix is also cuckolded, this time by Touchwood Senior, who impregnates Lady Kix; this is not an instance of women being split up, as Lady Kix consents to Touchwood Senior, but demonstrates the loose morality connected to fortune and inheritance that circulates around Jacobean drama. Furthering the sexist tones in the play, Tim’s marriage to the Welsh Gentlewoman is more serious for the Allwits than anything else; it is made clear that male misfortune is more important than female in the play, as Mr and Mrs Allwit do not attend Moll and Touchwood Junior’s funerals because they are involved with Tim’s marriage.

Ingrid Hotz-Davies writes of misogyny in A Chaste Maid In Cheapside, ‘[…] there are significant differences in how these anti-feminist attitudes seem to be closely connected to different modes of representation rather than different ideological positions’[27], recognising Middleton’s use of a range of female characters to highlight the differing representations of misogyny in the play. Middleton creates female characters from the innocent Moll to the aristocratic Lady Kix, to emphasise the presence of anti-feminist male characters on all levels of society. Hotz-Davies continues, ‘It is in the satiric world of A Chaste Maid in Cheapside that we find the most severe exploitation of misogynist sentiments […] For Middleton, feminism is a result of his sympathetic involvement with his characters’[28], demonstrating Middleton’s awareness of his characters’ positions, and drawing attention to the aspects which society should take heed of the most. For example, he empowers Moll with the strength to escape from and deceive her family, and demonstrates that it is Sir Oliver, not Lady Kix, who is infertile, contrary to popular opinion.

In conclusion therefore, women in Jacobean drama are ‘[…] parts to be split up and circulated around […]’, but some attack these patriarchal, misogynist methods of perverse payment and rebel, such as Middleton’s Moll, while others enjoy the idea of being passed from man to man, such as Mrs Allwit, and some are so assimilated in to the grasping miserly culture that they do not care, as is Maudline. Finally, some women surpass their ill treatment and through male interference, take on a masculine role, however indirectly, and avenge their own selves in a metaphorical sense, such as the spirit of Gloriana.

Hannah Light

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[1] Middleton, Thomas, The Revengers Tragedy, Glasgow, Bell & Bain Ltd. (1996 edition)

[2] ibid., Act 1 Scene i (p.32)

[3] Finke, Laurie A, Painting Women: Images of Femininity in Jacobean Tragedy, Theatre Journal, Vol. 36, No. 3, Renaissance Re-Visions (Oct., 1984), John Hopkins University Press p.357

[4] the term ‘country’ was usually an allusion to sexual intercourse

[5] opcit., Act iii Scene v, p.91

[6] Finke, Laurie A, Painting Women: Images of Femininity in Jacobean Tragedy, Theatre Journal, vol. 36, no. 3 Renaissance Re-Visions, John Hopkins University Press, 1984, p.357

[7] opcit., Act i Scene iv, p.54

[8] ibid., Act ii Scene i, p.57

[9] ibid., Act ii Scene i, p.59

[10] ibid., Act ii Scene i, p.60

[11] ibid., Act ii Scene i, p.62

[12] ibid., Act i Scene i, p.35

[13] Joplin, Patricia writing in Neill’s, Michael, Bastardy, Counterfeiting, and Misogyny in The Revenger’s Tragedy, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol.36 no.2: Tudor & Stuart Drama. Rice University. 1996. p.39

[14] Middleton, Thomas, A Chaste Maid In Cheapside, London, 1630

[15] Middleton, Thomas, The Revengers Tragedy, Glasgow, Bell & Bain Ltd. (1996 edition) Act i Scene i, p.32

[16] Bowers, Rick. “Comedy, Carnival, and Class: A Chaste Maid In Cheapside, Early Modern Literary Studies 8.3 (January 2003)

[17] ibid., p.4

[18] Middleton, Thomas, A Chaste Maid In Cheapside, London, 1630. Act i Scene i. p.5

[19] ibid., Act i Scene i. p.6

[20] ibid., Act i Scene i. p.7

[21] ibid., Act iii scene I, p. 47

[22] ibid., Act iv Scene ii, p.85

[23] ibid., Act iv Scene ii, p.85

[24] ibid., Act iii Scene i, p.47

[25] ibid., Act ii Scene i. p.47

[26] ibid., Act ii Scene i, p.22

[27] Hotz-Davies, Ingrid, A Chaste Maid In Cheapside and Women Beware Women: Feminism, Anti-Feminism, and the Limitations of Satire: Cahiers Ělisabéthains, No. 39 (April 1991). P.29-39

[28] ibid., p.29-39

19th Century Mystery & Melodrama – The Female Vampire

The female vampire embodies taboos more fearsome than those associated with the male.

The Vampire, ‘A person of a malignant and loathsome character, especially one who preys ruthlessly upon others’[1]; a beast, a predator, a thing of Hell, are such terms associated with the creature known as the Vampire: an unholy demon that sneaks out at night and preys on the innocents. The concept of the Vampire is one that has terrified humanity for centuries; the notion of a being posessing a psuedo-animalistic nature and feeding off of humans evokes memories of other feared creatures such as the werewolf, and other mythological beasts that fuelled religious and societal doctrine and superstition. Typically, the connotations of a strong, predatory, sexual being is associated with the masculine sex, so how do the definitions of ‘vampire’ change if one proposes that not only men, but women also embody such traits?; likewise, how will the definition of the archetypal maternal, caring, submissive ‘woman’ be altered and possibly inverted, if this is suggested? In this essay, the notion of the Female Vampire will be examined, with emphasis on the social, sexual and political ramifications of the proposal that women also embody a predatory sexuality that nineteenth-century audiences would class as an overtly male trait.

The end of the nineteenth century was fraught with paranoia as fear of degeneracy and the weakening of the race preyed on the mind of society. In the 1880s and nineties, anticipation of the new century heightened uncertainty and societal self-questioning led to the Crisis of National Efficiency of 1904, which addressed concerns surrounding Britain and Her empire. Thus, novels began to emerge throughout this period that dealt with such issues of degeneration and provincial paranoia, concentrating on the notion of collapse, whether social, political or related to empire. Some of these works focussed the misgivings of society on typically taboo or frightening subjects, such as that of the Vampire. Sheridan Le Fanu’s collection of short stories[2], in particular Carmilla, focus on such disconcerting notions of degeneracy and national contamination. A contemporary of Le Fanu, Bram Stoker’s work Dracula[3], was published on the cusp of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries[4], making his novel a prime example of the exaggerated woes of Victorian society. Le Fanu and Stoker’s works will be addressed further in the latter part of this essay.

As well as the questioning of national identity, the end of the nineteenth century saw pioneering work on the status of women in society, which led to the conception of the New Woman Question. This concept dealt with the emergence of a new type of woman, one who was liberated and freed from the fetters of domesticity. Sadie Grant wrote in 1898 of the emancipated woman rejecting domesticity and becoming single by choice[5]; the new age notions of the New Woman and Decadent Man gave titles to both sexes’ altered social persuasions, with the concept of the Decadent Man further fuelling the female desire to become liberated. The notion of the New Woman was packed with controversy, as Victorian society was not accustomed to the idea of female autonomy and the concepts of desire and terror, the fear of the unruly female body that was now sexual, and entirely free from constraint. This liberating sense of female power challenged patriarchal assumptions, as women appeared to morph from entirely maternal, submissive beings in to sexually independent, masculine creatures of fancy: an example of such a woman lies in the character of Marian in Wilkie Collins’ The Woman In White[6].

Ellen Moers broadened on the New Woman thesis, writing of sexual repression in her work, ‘The Female Gothic’[7], in which she proposed that in the Gothic novel, the castle represents a domestic space of confinement in which women are imprisoned and must escape from, with the view to asserting an individual sexuality. Feminist critics propose that the Gothic genre subverts patriarchy and allows gender transgression[8], in which women become equally as assertive as men, as in the Gothic genre, the boundaries of propriety and meaning are limitless. This statement leads on to the concept of the feminine male, present in the form of Jonathan Harker in Stoker’s Dracula.

Just as the new women of the late nineteenth century embody masculine traits, Harker personifies the weak man, as apposed to the Decadent Man, possessing notably feminine attributes and maladies. Harker is subject to fits of fainting, as he states after his encounter with the female vampires, “[…] I sank down unconscious”[9]; fainting was in the nineteenth century associated with young women and was a by-product of hysteria. As Harker’s encounter was of a profoundly sexual nature, it is notable that he faints afterwards, sinking down in a swoon, as young ladies were known to do during heightened excitement, the catalyst for hysteria. Harker’s femininity can be starkly compared to the masculine nature of the female vampires whom he encounters, all three of whom represent the terror of a sexually liberated woman to a (predominantly male) Victorian audience.

Worryingly for such an audience, the poet and author Lord Byron included vampires in his works and transformed them in to Romantic figures[10], increasing their popularity with novel readers, who of course were mainly women. The idea that women were reading about the sexually liberated, Romantic character of the Vampire and finding a kind of empathy with such figures would have been a terrifying reality to a religious or male audience.  James B. Twitchell argues that “the femme fatale is wonderfully attractive…but she is too powerful, too threatening to the male ego […] she can only be an ‘object’ of male fantasy, not reality”[11]; thus, the concept of a strong woman is something to be imagined, but never realised.

The female vampire as a predator is one of the ways of examining such a taboo subject, as Harker pointedly refers to the animalistic qualities of his seducers in his memory of the encounter; “Two […] had high aquiline noses, like the Count”[12]; Harker compares the women’s bestial, predatory appearance to that of the Count’s, thus enforcing the gender slippage in the passage, as he is become the passive female. Describing the female vampires thus, Harker affiliates them with the masculine physiognomy of the Count, such as his profusion of hair, and “broad, strong chin”[13]. He writes that one of the female vampires “[…] licked her lips like an animal”[14], emphasising the huntress-like nature of these women projecting an overtly masculine role. Later on in the novel, the un-dead Lucy expresses the hypnotic command of “Come to me”[15] to Arthur, demonstrating her post-mortem character alteration, as in life she was mainly described as explicitly feminine and sweet; as Doctor Seward states of the encounter with Lucy, “There was something diabolically sweet in her tones”[16], alluding to her transformation. The male vampire’s gift of hypnotism is put to good effect when concerned with Lucy, as it was the Count’s hypnotic power that led her to him, and post-transformation, Lucy then uses the same power to attempt to ensnare Arthur and feed on him. While the concept of a woman possessing such masculine traits is awkward enough for a Victorian audience, the fact that she is endowed with an hypnotic ability emphasises the unmatchable power of the female vampire.

Le Fanu’s character of Carmilla further heightens the sense of the female vampire as predator and seducer, endowing her with an hypnotic quality also, “[…] murmured words […] sounded like a lullaby in my ear”[17]. Like the Count in Dracula, Carmilla is described with an ironic reference to her age; Laura says of her that she has “[…] a coldness […] beyond her years”[18], as Harker states that the Count’s lips “[…] showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years”.[19] Writing previous to Stoker, Le Fanu plays with the 1870s societal and national concerns of degeneracy and contamination; he is deliberately nondescript about Carmilla’s origin, “Her home lay in the direction of the west”[20]. Suspicions surrounding the Jews and general concern over the ambiguous areas of the world are addressed in the passage concerning Carmilla’s heritage, emphasised by the fact that she is a vampire. The contamination of blood is a key issue in Carmilla, as it portends to illness and degradation; the notion that Carmilla could be a Jew is a direct play on nineteenth century provincial and religious disquietude. In addition, the physicality of blood itself is a vital concept in relation to ancestry, bloodlines and the notion of the maternal woman.

Nineteenth century paranoia over ‘good blood’ in relation to marriage and child-bearing is virtually satirised in Carmilla, as Carmilla’s loving feelings towards Laura are maternal as well as sexual, yet as a vampire, she does not reproduce as she has no need, and instead wishes to feed on precious lifeblood rather than preserve it; in this sense, Carmilla the vampire is an emblem of anti-maternal femininity. It is beneficial to include a reference to the Spermatic Economy[21], in which quantities of blood in relation to semen are measured; with this in mind, it could be suggested that as the female vampire thirsts for blood, her overtly sexual nature thirsts for semen also. Referring to blood in a female sexual sense, one must include the subject of menstrual blood; in Dracula, Harker compares the smell of a female vampire’s breath as having “[…] a bitter offensiveness as one smells in blood”[22], emphasising her innate female sexuality. Therefore, embodying masculine attributes by no means implies that female vampires lose any of their femininity; on the contrary, their feminine sexuality is heightened so that they are literally coursing with female sexual prowess. This statement leads on to the notion of the female vampire as an autonomous sexual being.

As Jonathan Harker lies submissively back with “[…] some longing and […] some deadly fear”[23] and a “[…] wicked burning desire”[24] falling prey to the three female vampires, his language expresses their sexual dominance and the imagery is heavily sexualised; he waits with an “[…] agony of delightful anticipation”[25], and his detailed description further heightens the sexuality of the passage and the predatory nature of the demonic women. He states of the nearest woman to him that she has “[…] brilliant white teeth […] voluptuous lips”[26], and that “(he) could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips”[27]. Their bestial persuasion is demonstrated with passages such as “[…] red tongue […] lapped the white sharp teeth”[28], as they approach Jonathan while he adopts the role of a conquered female: “[…] approaches nearer- nearer […] languorous ecstasy […] waited- waited with a beating heart”[29].

The concept of the voracious female vampire in Carmilla is slightly different to that of Dracula, as Carmilla preys on another female, Laura. Carmilla was the first overtly lesbian vampire in Gothic fiction, and represents the sexual awakening of the nineteenth century woman. At this time Lesbianism was associated with insanity, and Karl Von Vespel suggested that lesbianism subverts gender roles, and that ‘normal’ women did not have sexual desires and only responded to men[30]; therefore any woman who exhibited signs of Lesbianism was instantly branded a lunatic. In 1811 two female schoolteachers were tried for sexual acts but the court Judge overruled the case, stating that the crime simply had no existence; the relationship between sex and death was an equally taboo subject in ‘polite’ society, so the idea of a sexually ambiguous un-dead woman would have been unthinkable. In addition, the orgasm represents the release of constrained desires; in Dracula and Carmilla, the vampire represents the outlet for said desires, as Carmilla repeats to Laura, her heart will “[…] die – die- sweetly die in to mine”[31], which is a reference to the French term for orgasm, ‘le petit mors’.

As well as the female vampire representing sexual liberation and dominance, it can also be argued that she embodies the notion of the liberated woman. Adèle Gladwell writes in her article ‘The Erogenous Disease’[32], ‘The female vampire remains an intriguing character, as she was perceived to be the “metaphor of female liberation” in a period of complete patriarchy’[33]; ‘Her sexuality and cunning nature were seen as the antithesis of Victorian women […] her behaviour caused a sense of fear in men due to the power she exuded […] could seduce men and women alike, making her a formidable foe […] the male vampire is a frightening figure to men […] he can show women their own masculinity, including their innate sexuality as a member of the human species’[34]. She continues of the sexual awareness of the female vampire, ‘The female vampire, on the other hand, is already aware of this sexuality […] capable of destroying and emasculating the male character. This masculinity of the female goes against the framework of Victorian standards […]’[35], this ‘emasculation’ of the male character is demonstrated in Stoker’s Dracula, and in Le Fanu’s Carmilla; both instances portray male impotence, both in a sexual and corporeal sense juxtaposed against the strength of the female vampire.  In her article, Gladwell perfectly summarises the character of the Female Vampire, capturing all of her elements and highlighting her existence as taboo.

Gwendolyn Whitehead develops the thesis of the domestic representation of the female vampire in her reference to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre[36], in which she suggests that the character of Bertha Mason is in fact a vampire[37]. She writes that Brontë employed the traditions of Coleridge[38] and Le Fanu to create a character that drew to attention the issues of gender politics in the mid-nineteenth century, channelled through the taboo form of the female vampire: ‘Jane Eyre takes on the subjects of patriarchy and sexuality with the use of vampires’[39]. Whitehead states, ‘Bertha is a caged animal, a blood lusting creature, who longs to escape the world in which her patriarchs, her brother and husband, have created for her in Thornfield. She remains locked away for her madness, whether self-induced or environmentally forced […]’[40]; Bertha’s ‘madness’, it could be suggested, is far from a medical psychosis, but is in fact a manifested method of restricting her sexual power as an aggressive, foreign female. Whitehead presents Bertha[41] as a predatory female, akin to those present in Dracula and Carmilla, stating, ‘Bertha crawls out at night and attacks those who keep her at bay’[42], representing the fury of the sexually empowered female[43] trapped in a cage of domesticity. Whitehead references Adriana Craciun’s theory of the female vampire, stating that the notorious Elizabeth Bathory[44] and Marie Antoinette[45] were themselves political and literary vampires: ‘[They] were women of authority, playing masculine roles in a patriarchal society […] posed a considerable threat, and were condemned to death’[46]. Through this, one can recognise the political hatred directed towards the metaphorical ‘female vampires’, living and literary.

As to the female vampire representing the liberated woman, she is still limited, just as the male vampire is, as she is dependent on regular ingestion of blood. In addition to this, however strongly the parallels are drawn between liberation and vampirism, the Victorian audience’s loathing of the Vampire, it cannot be contested, would increase with the notion that a woman would engage in such acts of barbarity. The concept of a Victorian woman preying on human beings would have been likened to the inconceivable notion of Lesbianism, demonstrated in Le Fanu’s Carmilla, with Laura’s father’s naivety as to his daughter’s illness; it never occurs to him that their foreign female guest could be the culprit of Laura’s malady.

In conclusion therefore, the concept of the female vampire is more taboo than that of the male, as she embodies not only the barbaric connotations of the Vampire, but lives expressly against the conventions of Victorian womanhood. However, her very existence portrays the hypocrisy of Victorian audiences, as she is imagined in to life by those who would profess to despise her. A quotation from Jonathan Harker perfectly demonstrates this duplicitous attitude toward the female vampire, echoed in Laura’s feelings toward Carmilla, “[She had] a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive”[47].

 Hannah Light.

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[1] The Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford, 2003 edition

[2] Le Fanu, J S, In A Glass Darkly, Oxford, Oxford University Press, (1993 edition)

[3] Stoker, Bram, Dracula, Bath, Artswork, (2007 edition)

[4] first published 1897

[5] Sadie Grant & the New Woman Question referenced from Caroline’s lecture, 31/10/2008

[6] Collins, Wilkie, The Woman In White, Oxford, Oxford University Press, (2008 edition)

[7] Moers, Ellen, ‘The Female Gothic’, Literary Women, New York, Anchor Press, 1978

[8] Referenced from Caroline’s lecture on the New Woman Question, 31/10/2008

[9] Stoker, Bram, Dracula, Bath, Artswork, (2007 edition). p.81

[10] Byron, George (Lord), ‘The Giaour’ (Collected Works), New York, Routledge, (2002 edition)

[11] Twitchell, James B. The Living Dead: A Study of the Vampire in Romantic Literature. Durham, Duke UP, 1981. p.66

[12] Stoker, Bram, Dracula, Bath, Artswork, (2007 edition).  p.78

[13] ibid., p.58

[14] ibid., p.79

[15] ibid., p.256

[16] ibid., p.256

[17] Le Fanu, J S, Carmilla, (In A Glass Darkly), New York, Routledge, (1993 edition). p.264

[18] ibid., p.262

[19] Stoker, Bram, Dracula, Bath, Artswork, (2007 edition). p.58

[20] opcit., p.262

[21] Reference to Spermatic Economy, William Hughes’ lecture, 21/11/2008

[22] Stoker, Bram, Dracula, Bath, Artswork, (2007 edition). p.79

[23] ibid., p.79

[24] ibid., p.79

[25] ibid., p.79

[26] ibid., p.79

[27] ibid., p.79

[28] ibid., p.79

[29] ibid., p.80

[30] Reference to Karl Von Vespel (German Sexologist) and his thesis from Caroline’s lecture 07/11/2008

[31] Le Fanu, J S, Carmilla, (In A Glass Darkly), New York, Routledge, (1993 edition). p.263

[32] Gladwell, Adèle, Olivia, & James Havoc, ‘The Erogenous Disease’, Blood and Roses: The Vampire in 19^th Century Literature, New York, Creation Books, 1992

[33] ibid., p.14

[34] ibid., p.9

[35] ibid., p.9

[36] Brontë, Charlotte, Jane Eyre, London, Smith, Elder & Co. , 1847

[37] Whitehead, Gwendolyn, “The Vampire in Nineteenth-Century Literature”, The University of Mississippi Studies in English 8 (1990), p. 243-48

[38] Coleridge, Samuel T, English Poet and Philosopher, 1772-1834

[39] opcit.,

[40] ibid.,

[41] “[…] foul German spectre – the Vampire […]”, Jane Eyre, chapter 25

[42] opcit.,

[43] ref. to Moers’ thesis

[44] Bathory, Elizabeth, Countess of Hungary, 1560-1614

[45] Antoinette, Marie, Queen of France, 1755-1793

[46] Craciun, Adriana. Fatal Women of Romanticism. New York, Cambridge UP, 2003. p.78

[47] Stoker, Bram, Dracula, Bath, Artswork, (2007 edition). p.79

Counter-Writing: Imagined Chapter from Melvin Burgess’ ‘Doing It’

In my first year of university I had to create a chapter of Melvin Burgess’ Doing It as part of a counter-writing module. This is what I decided on…

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She spent breakfast the next morning imagining all the kitchen utensils aiming themselves at her mother’s head: knives, corkscrews and frying pans quivering with malicious excitement. She found it comical that her mother was busying herself with her usual pointless breakfast-time ritual, unaware she was being stalked by this army of domestic weapons. Maybe she should just go and do it herself, take matters in to her own hands? Fate obviously wasn’t on her side. Both her parents were still alive. And so was she. The glass of orange juice on the spotted tablecloth was congealing slowly in front of her, the citrus bits floating on the surface like bits of driftwood. That was her. Driftwood bobbing about on the acidic mix of her mother and father. Savagely, she stuffed a slice of untouched toast in to the glass, sending the juice spilling over the top.

“Oh, Zoë, really! What need was there for you to do that?” her mother scolded, bustling over, cloth in hand, hurriedly dabbing the juice before it had the chance to ruin her best tablecloth. Zoë merely rolled her eyes, smiling at her mother’s pathetic panic over a simple spillage. She liked to torment her mother; when she was younger one of her best taunts was to go out in her best dress and role in something filthy. She’d then find malicious joy in seeing her mother’s face, contorted with anger. She never shouted at her daughter, her lovely little gift of a daughter.

“I don’t want my toast and I fucking hate orange juice with bits in”, she growled.

“Ok then, I’ll fetch you some apple juice”, her mother answered primly, nipping to the fridge and pouring the yellowy liquid in to the sticky glass.

Zoë watched her bustle around and felt a roughness in the back of her throat. Why did her mother care so much? Why didn’t she ever yell at her, tell her she was a bitch? There was no hope of getting her useless blusterer of a father to do it so maybe if she was a total cow to her mother she might eventually crack and scream at her.

“What are you doing at school at the moment?” her mother asked, sitting down again and smiling that toothy smile. Zoë looked up from the orange puddle on the tablecloth. Hamlet.

“Why do you care? It’s not like you give a shit”.

“Of course I do. You’re my daughter and I want to know what you get up to”.

“Oh right so you want to spy on me then! That’s it! Sly woman” Zoë glowered at her mother, watching her powdered face turn as pale as her apron.

“Of course I don’t want to spy on you, Zoë, I wouldn’t do that. You’re becoming a woman and need your space. I understand that, I was your age once you know”.

“Oh don’t talk bollocks, saying that shit like you know me! You always spout that crap at me! You speak like a fucking text book!” Zoë shouted, shoving the glass of apple juice away from her and rooting in her pockets for a cigarette. Her mother uttered a strangled sound as though she was swallowing hard. Before she could speak the kitchen door opened and her husband emerged, looking flustered, his glasses poised on the end of his nose.

“Zoë, you know we don’t like you using that language”, he said, looking down at his daughter.

“So why didn’t you react last night when I said pants, and shit and cunts then?” she asked, fiddling with the cigarette, twirling it between her fingers. Her parents didn’t answer; both were staring in horror at the white stick in her hand. Zoë waited for the anti-smoking screams to start.

“Because we know that when you make a scene the best thing is to not make you even more angry”, her mother recovered, fixing a sugary smile on her lined face.

“Wow, that’s parenting! Don’t bother asking me why I’m so pissed off all the time then, just ignore it!” Zoë shouted, clenching her fist so that the cigarette bent and split.

“Don’t speak like that to your mother young lady!” her father shouted back, “You’re still a child, don’t forget that!”

“Tell that to Dino”, she growled under her breath.

“What was that?” her mother’s ears pricked up.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” the glass of apple juice tumbled off the table as Zoë sprang up and stormed out of the room, leaving her parents alone, her mother still clutching the faintly orange cloth.

“What are we going to do about her?” her father asked, flinching as the front door slammed.

“I don’t think there’s anything we can do”, her mother replied, stooping to mop up the fresh juice from the linoleum floor.

A Taste of Capote’s Childhood: Children on Their Birthdays

Anybody who has read Capote’s novel, Other Voices Other Rooms, will know that he initially denied that the narrative was autobiographical, or at least was partly the story of his childhood. He eventually surrendered and admitted that it was based largely on his experiences growing up in the Deep South of the United States, so part of me came to Children on Their Birthdays wondering if the tale was also rooted in Capote’s personal history.

Whether it is or not, Capote’s brilliance trickles throughout the short, the tale of which is filled with such atmosphere and realism that you’d be hard pushed to believe that none of the narrative is influenced by his childhood. Children on Their Birthdays tells the story of the effect a young girl has on a hot sleepy community near the town of Mobile in the Deep South. Capote commences the tale by instantly putting the reader ill at ease with the line, ‘Yesterday afternoon the six-o’clock bus ran over Miss Bobbit’, and so we naturally spend the entire time knowing that this little girl with her blonde curls and pretty dresses is going to die, and die soon.

This hook of a line seems to be a Capote staple, and this sense of unease is present in all of his major works, mirroring the writer’s personal anxieties and further fuelling suggestions that his tales are at least semi-autobiographical.

It is summer when the story takes place, ‘[…] the summer that never rained’, where ‘[…] rusted dryness coated everything’, in the town, a town which has all the signs of being a child’s paradise, but quite clearly is not. We know upon reading the first sentence that a child is going to die here, and all the plates of cakes and tutti-frutti seem to have a soporific effect on not just the children but the entire atmosphere. The town is not a comfortable place to be, and it is as though all of the protagonists have become passive through a lullaby, with the addition of Miss Bobbit mesmerising them further. The porch becomes still upon her arrival and all of the boys are transfixed.

Initially hypnotising those who see her, Miss Bobbit eventually rouses the town’s inhabitants, especially the children; the girls despise her for her proper ways and pretty dresses, while the boys compete voraciously to impress her. Billy Bob and Preacher Star’s very friendship is threatened by their adoration of Miss Bobbit, who does not walk, but ‘prances’. Billy Bob in fact seems to suffer from with what can only be described as the convulsions of drug addiction, writhing on his bed ‘[…] as though he were in pain, doubled up on the bed like a jackknife’, and it is this longing for Miss Bobbit that spells her doom.

Her own impetus is totally ambiguous throughout the story, as we never truly know her reasons for her actions. Capote’s children are never completely naïve; they are complicated, intelligent, ruthless human beings who are incredibly self-aware, and in Miss Bobbit’s case, know exactly how their actions affect others, though they feign innocence. She even has Billy Bob and Preacher Star work for her, paying them a wage, which results in the two friends fighting and hating each other. Miss Bobbit scolds them and tells them that she is not interested in either of them, pretending to be abashed at their violent outburst, but, in my opinion, she knows precisely what she is doing.

Miss Bobbit is indeed the architect of her own demise, becoming involved with Manny Fox, an unscrupulous showman whose show she performs dance routines in, allowing her to further mesmerise the crowd. She also sings, shocking the older members of the audience singing lyrics such as ‘…if you don’t like my peaches, stay away from my can, o-ho o-ho!’, in her ‘rowdy’ voice, before throwing up her skirt and displaying blue-lace underwear. Her presence in the town is a complete shock; she unsettles the adult population, enrages the young girls and arouses the boys, all of which combine together to produce a dangerous cocktail of insecurity, cultural diffidence and suspicion. The only person who loves her innocently is Rosalba, a little black girl who is merely glad of a friend.

The day Miss Bobbit is killed is the same day that she is meant to be leaving, and the bus that kills her is the very vehicle that would take her away from the community she has upset so keenly. Her death is slightly ambiguous, matching her personality throughout the tale, as she is killed running towards the two boys who adore her. They are both holding bunches of roses intended as parting gifts, so I wonder if her enthusiasm running towards them was a genuine desire to say goodbye to Billy Bob and Preacher Star, or a childish longing to own something pretty. The boys’ faces are masked by the roses, so it is totally credible to suggest that Miss Bobbit is merely running toward them to snatch these gifts away, and if so, it is her lust for material baubles that cause her death.

Again, the ambiguity of her character makes it impossible to judge Capote’s motives at the end of this tale, but if Children on Their Birthdays is at least partly autobiographical, we can assume that he knew an equally complicated little girl. Either way, the tale matches all other narratives that Capote wrote before and since, all of which read easily, but are in truth incredibly complex – the sign of a gifted writer.

We’ll never know the truth, and that’s the way I like it.

A Week in The Peaks Part 2

Dovedale

Dovedale, where do I start? Well, it’s stunning, simply stunning. I have been before, but I was 11 months old, so I don’t suppose that counts. The route to Dovedale gives you some clue as to what it’s going to look like, with the rolling hills and green fields (not to mention dozens of pheasants) surrounding you on every road. The car park is beautifully leafy, with maple trees acting as parking space indicators rather than ugly pillars, and from here we strode off into the Dale, keenly aware of the calls of pheasants and ‘baas’ of sheep.

The whole route through Dovedale follows the river Dove, which on a gorgeously sunny day like the Wednesday we were there made it even more perfect. Everywhere we looked was the reflection of the water, shining on everything it could reach. One of the brilliant things about Dovedale also is the fact that no matter how busy it is, it’s very easy to lose the crowds.

Half the people that go to the Dale make use of the extensive greens, setting up little camps and having picnics, and the rest fall into two categories; 1. bonafide ramblers who stride off very purposefully with their sticks, and 2. the rest of us. In my humble opinion, Dovedale is not a place to stride around. It is a place to be appreciated, where every scene is a photograph. There is one moment for striding, though, where a series of steps take you up to the highest point of the Dale. When I, eventually, got up there, it’s beautiful. Just beautiful. There are also huge shards of rock that jut out of the landscape, making for a very striking prospect.

The walk around Dovedale is not strenuous, it’s dog-friendly, child-friendly and creaky-knee-friendly, and whether you are a serious walker or not, it’s a beautiful place to stride, or stroll around.

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Thursday saw us do a spot of retail therapy in the Peaks Outlet Centre, which is near Chatsworth, and have lunch in the Chatsworth café, adjoined to the best farm shop I have ever visited. Everything in the shop is locally grown or produced, and if you are remotely into your food, it’s a little piece of heaven. The presence of the farm shop was the reason we ended up having three cream teas during our stay in Derbyshire, I might add. Everything in the shop is wonderful; the butcher and fish counter is manned by professionals who do not hesitate to recommend things to you, or just pass the time of day. The farm shop is so worthwhile in fact, that we visited it every day.

Friday was spent watching the Royal Wedding (along with 2 billion others!) until the early afternoon, where we ventured once more to the farm shop and picked up goodies to take home with us, as well as a final lunch at the café.

Our week in the Peak District was fantastic. Bakewell is a place that we feel so comfortable in, the local people are incredibly friendly, and, of course, the landscape is, in my opinion, unmatched. The week went far too quickly, as always happens when you have an enjoyable holiday, and we’ve already checked out whether our cottage has been booked in November, which sees a Bonfire night display at Chatsworth followed by its decoration for Christmas! This year the decoration will be inspired by traditional carols.

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A Week in the Peaks Part 1

At the end of last month, my family and I went to Bakewell in the Peak District for a week. I thought I’d write something about it..

Bakewell

Bakewell is beautiful. It’s the kind of place that you could spend an entire day wandering around in. The cottage we were staying in was half way up a road called North Church St., and the actual cottage was situated right by the church. The oldest part of the church was dated from the Saxon period, and it had been added to throughout the following centuries, with the most notable part of it dating from the Victorian period. This accounted for the rather austere facades, which made up most of the church’s exterior. The churchyard itself was beautiful, and the views from it, well, the pictures speak for themselves.

The Sunday after we got to Bakewell, there was a duck race taking place down the river that runs through the town. It was absolutely hilarious! Dozens and dozens of little yellow rubber ducks (and one very large duck I might add), bobbing down the river, being shepherded by two men armed with sticks, poking at them and trying their best not to topple over in the rather chilly river. What was so funny was that the ducks were treated to a rather violent ride down a mini cascade that saw all of them bobbing along the remainder of the course on their sides. It looked like half the town had turned up for the race, and the air was full of people laughing at the two grown men, who seemed to take their shepherding duties very seriously.

We came across a gorgeous café in one of the side-streets of Bakewell on the Sunday, called the Lavender Tea Rooms. It was decorated beautifully; white benches adorned with plush cushions, ribbons hanging from shelving, portraits of Napoleon and the Mona Lisa hanging from every available wall space. The café was owned by a flamboyantly brilliant man who spent the whole time playing show tunes and singing along to them. The Annie soundtrack seemed a particular favourite of his. Naturally. The square where the café is was decorated with bunting in preparation for the Royal wedding, and there were union flags all over the place.

Chatsworth House

Monday was Chatsworth day. Anybody who has been to Chatsworth doesn’t need me to describe the overwhelming splendour of the house. It’s simply stunning. The road to the house takes you through a part of the estate, and I can only imagine what it would have felt like for visitors to the house hundreds of years ago when it was built (the mid-1500s) as they rose above a hill and looked down at the house, nestling in a basin and surrounded by trees.

The main entrance hall is, for me, the highlight of the visit to Chatsworth. Huge and beautiful frescos decorate every wall and the ceiling of the hall, gloriously detailed and still of vibrant colours, despite its age. Everywhere you look there is a photo opportunity, not to mention the fact that every door and window frame is coated in gold leaf, which literally glows in the sunshine, which we were lucky enough to enjoy on our visit.

The chapel of the house is equally beautiful. Beneath the main piece in the chapel is a sculpture by Damien Hurst of John the Baptist, described as one of Hurst’s best, and most significant works. All of the rooms are filled with prime examples of art and treasures from five hundred years of history. There are coronation thrones, Rembrandts and all manner of other artworks by critically acclaimed sculptors, painters and illustrators. There are also ancient sculptures dotted around the house, some dating from 2000 BC. The last room you come to is filled with ivory sculptures of characters from Greek and Roman mythology, such as Achilles, and these are truly beautiful.

  A quick peruse of the gift shop and we’re once more out in the open, presented with a stunning view across the grounds, with the orangery on our left and a track to our right that leads down to a huge fountain. Gravity-driven, this fountain propels water a hundred feet into the air, where it falls as mist across where we’re sitting, giving us much needed refreshment!

The Chatsworth estate is lovely to wander around; there are numerous walks that take you as high as you want to go, as well as a maze, and a gorgeous cascade that runs all the way down from the highest point of the green. When it’s hot this cascade comes in very handy, as children and the more daring of adults go for a paddle to cool down.

Regarding this cascade, it’s also lovely to see that the health and safety brigade haven’t swooped in to prohibit people from enjoying this little bit of fun. We all know that stone and water is a recipe for slips and slides, and there is a sign warning us of this, but that’s where the warnings end. This is a reflection of the entire feeling at Chatsworth; the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire who own the house and estate want everyone to enjoy it, all of it. That’s one of the main reasons why we keep going back.

Haddon Hall

Tuesday saw a trip to Haddon Hall, one of the oldest houses I have ever visited. It was once the home of William the Conqueror’s illegitimate son, so you can imagine the age of the eldest parts! The entire building feels heavy with history as we walk across the courtyard to the chapel, the oldest part of this which dates from the 1100s. There are frescos on the walls of the oldest parts as well; St. Christopher and some rather ghoulish skeletons which don’t appear to have any meaning behind them, other than their location in a chapel.

Inside the hall we visit the kitchen, where the wooden original benches still remain, covered in score marks from hundreds of years of chopping, as well as scorch marks from tallow candles. The first thing we notice in the main hall is a huge tapestry that is reported to have been gifted to the house by Henry VIII, though the tapestry itself is older than that. Everywhere in this house are clues to its age, and in the dining room we see a Tudor Rose on the ceiling as well as wooden reliefs of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York in the panelling. The long gallery houses a pianola dated 1289, and yes, it still works!

Outside the house is a very pretty garden with magnificent views across the Derbyshire countryside, guarded by a very sleepy dog, presumably owned by a man doing small repairs to a wall. On closer inspection of the windows of the house, we see that each individual pane has put set at an angle so as to maximise the amount of light going into the room. Practical and attractive!

Haddon Hall is clearly not as striking as Chatsworth, but I actually found it more interesting. You can feel the history of the place as soon as you pass through the huge wooden doors, and if you happen to be in Derbyshire and have a couple of hours to spare it is certainly worth a visit.

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