Dr. Howe's comment to Liana's post reminded me of something I've been thinking of since I first read Oroonoko as an undergraduate; our readings of Watt's opening chapters to his Rise of the Novel focus on it, as well. Certainly as modern readers we find ourselves reading to connect - we're all indebted to Freud, among others, for that. I find it a particularly valuable way to read. Yet the revolution of the novel in the 17th & 18th centuries strikes me as one of a very different type.
Defoe's Journal, as well as Oroonoko, owe much of their importance to the ways in which they transformed the historically and realistically unconcerned arts from the Greeks and Romances and such into representations of reality. DeFoe's use of charts of deaths in specific districts strikes us as dry, and even cold, but its inclusion in his account gave a journalistic air of authenticity the readership was not used to. Behn bored me to the point that I stopped reading the book for a week when she began Oroonoko with a lengthy account of the colorful birds she saw. It bored me at first, but it must have thrilled the reading population when they encountered pure sense perception in a "fiction" work (if indeed, they were even considered such at the time). Even the striking titles of these "histories" and "romances" lend a sense that the title page is the only thing that was written with the intent to publish. The title to Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, for instance, ends with the simple words, "Written by Himself." It's as if an editor took the pages Crusoe wrote and created a title page for it that would explain the historical document it contained. It's been done since with much success - Nabakov's Pale Fire, The Blair Witch Project, etc. In much the same way that grainy, dark filmstock makes film viewers feel they are in the midst of real events, I imagine 17th and 18th century readers must have reacted to the charts of Defoe's Plague Year. Defoe's concern seems less with emotional resonance and more with sensory curiosity. The rise of the novel coincides with the Enlightenment, and logic was the order of the day (pun very much intended).
I appreciated Watt's explanation of the philosophical foundations for the rise of the novel in philosophical realism and the deeper focus on sense. I am eager to examine Pamela as an epistolary novel, for it seems to be a prime example of the Enlightenment's desire to sift through evidence for itself. It also speaks much to the rising importance the new middle-class must have been feeling about itself. Reading was no longer meant to be entirely didactic or escapist - it encouraged the reader to glean understanding from sensory experience. Also, the focus on character, rather than the theological or philosophical importance of the plot's events (as we saw even in Fantomina), seems to have derived from what Watt explains is the novel's tendency to identify particular times and settings.
Watt expounded on much of what I had been thinking of in his essay, but I hope I contributed a little to the conversation.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Defoe's Dry Poetics: The Journalism of Enlightenment Experience
Keeping With the Trend: Defoe's Narrator, the Journalist
After reading Lennard Davis' Factual Fictions, I have a better understanding of Defoe's style in A Journal of the Plague Year. Last week, Liana brought up an interesting point regarding Defoe - the narrator is much like a journalist.
Defoe's narrator does not get emotionally involved with the stories he is telling. He simply presents them to the reader and lets him or her decided how to interpret them. Also, he gives detailed reports on the deaths, which is similar to something we would see in today's newspapers (an emphasis on hard facts and details). A Journal is full of anecdotal stories and other little details, which, when taken together, encompass the entire story as a whole. Last week, many of us raised concerns with regard to Defoe's style. His material is dense, hard to absorb, and we were having trouble reading into it. It's hard for us to read A Journal as a "novel" when we consider the other materials we've read as modern readers. It doesn't look like or feel like a "novel". However, Davis has given me a new appreciation for Defoe's style in A Journal. He outlines a history of the "novel," pointing to various origins of the word and what was considered entertainment and prose from the 16th century and beyond. What I found particularly interesting was the idea that novels developed from journalistic pieces, such as criminal histories and the like. If we can see Defoe's narrator as a journalist, I think we can look past the difficulties we are having as 21st century readers and have a much better appreciation for his style. After all, keeping what Davis has presented to us, Defoe's style appealed to the audiences of his time. What may seem boring and dry to the modern reader, was a fascinating page turner for the 18th century reader. I understand now why A Journal is written the way it is. We should keep in mind that Defoe wasn't thinking about his works surviving centuries to come - he was thinking only about his immediate time and what would appeal to his audience. The fact that it has survived to be read by us attests to the greatness of his narrative style.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Defoe and postmodern expectations
Lennard Davis's chapter "Factual Fictions" lends some interesting insights into how a novel like Defoe's could be conceived of, and I think it also lends some clues to our difficulty in connecting with Defoe's narrative.
In our last class, we talked about how our expectations as modern novel readers affects the way we reacted to Defoe's Journal. I will even go so far as to propose that it is the expectations of the audience that, in part, shapes the style of narrative. As a postmodern 21st-century readers, I expect emotional, confessional material within the novel. What I interpret as Defoe's detachment is initally somewhat shocking. I expect H.F. to be more personally affected by the plague, perhaps through a family member's sickness, and to react to the plague much more emotionally than in his rather journalistic style of narration. There seems to be a lack of connection between the narrator and the events he is narrating. Why would I expect this? Because the vast majority of novels created for popular consumption today offer this emotionalism to the reader. It is what I expect, and not finding it in Defoe's work feels initially like being tricked, as though the title and the subject matter had prepared me for a certain type of narration which wasn't delivered.
But perhaps we interpreting Defoe's narrative through an inappropriate paradigm. I make this suggestion after ready what is implicitly expressed in Davis's chapter. Davis makes a connection between the expectations of the audience and the content of the "newes and novels" created for them. The audience craves new, titilating, exciting "newes," hence the controversy surrounding whether or not something was "true" and the efforts that creators of ballads and newes went to to assure their audience of the authenticity of their pieces. Doesn't Defoe do the same thing? Above all, he strives to surround H.F.'s narrative with authenticity and plausibility. Therefore, while Defoe may report the more sensational events that occurred during the plague, we noted in class that he always careful to be skeptical of such events, even though the very presence of H.F.'s skepticism heightens our belief in what he reports.
In other words, it is not Defoe's narrative that is deficient but perhaps that our expectations are different. We turn to novels for entertainment, excitement, or a sort of emotional experience (experienced perhaps by proxy through the narrator), whereas Defoe's audience may have turned to "newes" and novels for a sense of authenticity and continuity, such as Davis mentions in "Factual Fictions."
Monday, February 5, 2007
Ballads and Broadsides
In preparation for our next class on Defoe, when we'll also be reading Davis' chapters from Factual Fictions, please take the time to read over in more detail the plague ballad we examined briefly in class:
"A Recollection of the Times: or, Englands Looking-Glass"
The Davis chapters are available on Blackboard, under course documents/"origins of the novel."
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A lack of empathy in a Journal
Also in agreement with Alana’s post, I cannot connect with Defoe’s writing in the same way as I connected with Behn’s. I chalk this up to writing style: I find his longwinded, clause-filled sentence structure to be distracting. Defoe’s thoughts seem to be all over the place; his narrative is disjointed.
Laura, I also see myself as a romantic reader. I was very excited when I saw this book on the reading list. I hadn’t read it, but I imagined it to be a sort of cross between Stephen King’s The Stand, the Resident Evil game/movie, and Joss Whedon’s Firefly series (regarding the Reavers, for those of you familiar with the plot.) Well, I was mistaken. Journal of the Plague Year, while certainly about an apocalyptic disease, lacks the emotional impact and complexity of the other works I’ve mentioned. (Can you tell I’m addicted to Pop Culture?) This book should have been harrowing and unforgettable, but instead I found it ponderous and difficult to absorb. I found myself reading a few pages, then having to go back and re-read, as nothing had sunken in.
I wonder if the emotional disconnect I feel from Defoe’s work is due to his methodical approach in writing. His style is almost journalistic in nature, except for the constant interjections of personal (dry and cumbersome) thought. Defoe’s voice is distracting, as is his seeming lack of empathy for those suffering around him. The main character seems cold to me; more concerned with possessions and economic goings on than the suffering and death surrounding him. While I applaud Defoe’s desire to chronicle the devastating events of the plague, I think his effort is strangely indifferent to the very thing he is trying to chronicle.
Sorry for the negativity, let me know your thoughts!
Poem: "Journal of the Plague Year"
Ploughshares, Spring 2006 v32 i1 p73(1)
"A Journal of the Plague Year" by Ben Lerner
We would walk with it into the open
Look down and read the shadows
Of the clouds passing over it
The birds sang dial tones
The infected birds
Gray sentences uncurled
As we smoked our manuscripts
The cattle went mad
Their blue lips smiling
At a sign in the distance
We slaughtered the distance
It was not given us
The magic of numbers
We who slept in swaying
Towers underground
Defoe: Novak: Innovator of Fictional form
I must say that I agree with almost everybody else about The Journal of the Plague Year. Defoe was not particularly captivating or engaging to me. However, I did appreciate his sense of accuracy in describing environments, as I felt that I could hear the sounds he heard and feel the things he felt. Yet, at the same time, his obsession with detail frustrated me and almost lost me early in the work.
However, I chose to examine Defoe's work in light of Max Novak's essay "Defoe as an innovator of fictional form." Novak points out that Defoe seems to achieve his purpose of describing the years of the plague in London in a way that was not just purely entertaining and that sucked the gravity of the situation in London at the time out of the story. He postulates that Defoe wrote to adequately portray the city of London in those years of plague. I found this to be particularly true, at least in my opinion. I feel like Defoe used his narrator H. F to show us the city in a way that was descriptive in deep depth as well as plausible and almost realistic. By this I mean that - as Novak points out - Defoe writes about the scene in which certain women raid his brother's warehouse, and amidst the disease and plague indulge themselves in trying on the hats in the room. So, as a reader I felt like this was a brief comic relief, if I might call it that. In essence, while it is apparent that Defoe is using his narrator H. F to tell of the calamities of 1665 London, he does it in a way that provides the reader an expansive view of the events of the Plague including the acts that might be considered too ordinary to attract attention in view of the death and dying taking place. I will say that I was engrossed by Behn's Oroonoko as well as Haywood's Fantomina. Defoe was markedly different to me. This was mainly because he described in too much detail things that I did not particularly care too much about and his story was not of a bright and sunny event. However, I still managed to be able to appreciate his writing style and can see why Novak refers to him as "innovator of fictional form." I see Defoe, at least in relation to the two other authors we have read, as a slight departure from the romantic style, with its fanciful descriptions and common themes to the narration of an event that is ugly and unappealing. I think he performed the task well in that he succeeded in entertaining his readers as well as enlightening them. I think that this might be why Novak sees A Journal of the Plague Year as the first historical fiction. He also tells his story using detail that a reader might not see as useful or just as burdensome, which brings the story closer to everydayness, as numerous events are always taking place around us at any given time, though we might not pay as much attention as Defoe's narrators do to the intrinsic details. His plot also contains some events that I think the story can do without; yet he tells them. I can see how he finds that necessary because life is actually full of such details. In drawing the curtain to a close, I did not really enjoy the reading but I do appreciate Defoe's style.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
The Writing Parallels the Illness
The writing style and plot seemed to parallel the coming and going symptoms of the plague. Not just the physical (body) signs of the illness, but the psychological and geographical signs as well.
The jumping back and forth in time, in setting and internally for H.F. was fascinating and tiresome throughout this reading. However, I can manage to accept that Defoe's intent was well established with his number lists and ever-changing character decision of whether to venture out on the streets of London or stay indoors.
Emotionally speaking, I found this novel to be depressing not because of the death aspect as much as because of the illness aspect: illness of the mind, spirit and population in the face of a bio-threat such as the Plague.
God, can you help me - H.F.'s struggle for survival
I agree with Alana's post in that I am not finding Defoe to be as exciting a read as Behn. That said, I think his writing should be commended by us 21st century readers. After reading the first half of this narrative, I feel as though I've traveled back to London during the time of the plague.
Defoe has painted a vivid picture for me. Although A Journal is fictional and lacking in certain areas, I nonetheless am able to take myself back to the 17th century. As unbelieveable as it may sound to some of you, I see people scurrying to leave town, I hear the cries of those whose family and friends are dying around them. (Perhaps, I am too much of a romantic reader, wanting to get myself lost in each and every book that I read.) As H.F. walks down a London street, noting the drastic changes in scenery, he says: "... the Voice of Mourning was truly heard in the Streets; the shriecks of Women and Children at the Windows, and Doors of their Houses, where their dearest Relations were, perhaps dying, or just dead, were so frequent to be heard" (18). It is phrases such as these that enable me, as a reader, to feel the fear and desperation of the people. This sense of entrapment and fear of never returning to normalcy are what lead me to understand why God appears so frequently throughout A Journal. To answer Alana's question, I do not see A Journal as a testimony to God's mercy. Rather, I see H. F.'s trust in God as an individual reaction to a catastrophic event. I don't believe that he suggested that everyone should trust in God as a means to survive. Instead, he turned to God to help guide him through his decision to stay in London. I'm sure every person dealt with the plague in their own way. After all, his brother preferred to leave town and he was in good company. H.F. chose to stay, for it was "the Will of Heaven" that he not go (12). On the other hand, one could argue that he was forced to stay due to his own fault - he was unable to get a horse and his servant left him before he embarked on the journey. The bottom line is that it is hard for us to correlate God, mercy, and the plague in the same sentence. With so many lives lost, it does make the reader wonder how H. F. survived the epidemic. Was it pure luck or Divine intervention?
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Defoe and Ethics of Plague-Morality and Sickness.
I'm afraid I'm not as connected to Defoe's novel as I was to Behn's Oroonoko. Journal of the Plague Year strikes me as a sort of fever dream, in which Defoe
wanders through plague-stricken London, observing the ravages of the disease. Amazingly, despite wandering here and there throughout the stricken areas, he never contracts the plague. (Convenient, no?) I think there are some interesting observations to made about Defoe's treatment of what he views as ethical violations during the plague-time. Defoe reports snippets of hearsay and rumor, as well as bits of pronouncements and news article, and he often mentions the crimes he has heard rumors of. Defoe relates hearing of houses plundered, servants left to die, and neighbors turning against each other, but he is quick to reassure the reader that these are only rumors, and besides he has known of many instances of kindness and goodwill. He relates an incident in which he returns to check on his brother's property and finds a group of women trying on hats from his brother's warehouse of goods. Although Defoe's narrative is rather detached for the most part, a sense of incredulousness and indignation seems to permeate this event. Defoe seems to shy away from acknowledging the breakdown in public order that occurred with the first wave of plague to hit London. (The plague returned to Europe repeatedly over several decades, but not to this extent.)
Another question I would like to ask of Defoe's novel is, what exactly was his purpose in writing it? An historical account? Defoe mentions God often in his work, but I have a hard time accepting Journal as a testimony of God's mercy, considering the ravages of the plague. I haven't entirely finished the work, but I read the stanza Defoe includes as H.F.'s parting words. Is H.F., after all, just delighting in surviving the plague unscathed? He seems to make no deeply emotional connections to anyone affected by the sickness. He mentions no family members or friends killed by it. Perhaps he is merely serving a journalist to record this extraordinary historical event.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Alphra Behn: Unbiased Narrator or Omniscient Story-teller?
As Grace mentioned, readers of Oronooko can’t help but to become enthralled in the writing style that Behn incorporates into the narrative. Her style is captivating, which is important because, as readers, we must rely on a well-informed narrator to guide us through the narrative since there are no clear divisions and it at times can be confusing to follow. However, as a reader, I found myself also questioning some areas where I thought Behn was blurring the line between fiction and fact, which led me to further ponder the question of her role as narrator. Ultimately, is she an unbiased narrator, strictly adhering to Oronooko’s account or is she an omniscient story-teller, crafting her story from various accounts and adding details as she saw fit, or is she a combination of the two?
One of her most important assets is the detail with which she spends describing the various characters. We not only know what their outward physical appearances are, but we are given a glimpse into their inner workings. Behn alludes to this notion in her dedicatory to Lord Maitland: “An ill hand may diminish, but a good hand cannot augment history. A poet is a painter in his way, he draws to the life, but in another kind; we draw the nobler part, the soul and mind” (3). This level of detail enables readers to have a well-rounded perspective of each character and allows them to make judgments for themselves regarding these individuals. For example, several people have noted the detail with which she describes Oronooko. She uses the same level of detail when describing those around him as well, as seen in the description of Oronooko’s new owner, Mr. Trefry. Of his physical appearance, she writes: “… so extraordinary in his face, his shape and mein, a greatness of look, and haughtiness in his air” (41).
However, I would argue that there are areas where, I find myself questioning Behn as the narrator. For example, Behn does not meet Oronooko until he is on Surinam. Yet, the level of detail in the first half of the novel does not change or become greater in the second half. Also, with regard to her level of detail, how did Behn so accurately know the feelings of her characters? For instance, she writes: “Trefry soon found that he [Oronooko] was something greater than he confessed; and from that moment began to conceive so vast an esteem for him that he ever after loved him as his dearest brother, and showed him all the civilities due to so great a man” (42). Unless Behn was present at that exact moment, I find it hard to believe that she knew exactly how Trefry felt. Yet, the narrator does not appear to be unsure of herself when making this declaration.
Thus, I would argue that Behn’s narrative is somewhat biased in the sense that we are only being told the story through Oronooko’s eyes, and as such, it is a limited perspective. That said, Behn does her best as an artist to paint an accurate portrayal of Oronooko’s life as he has told it to her. Although there are some embellishments and exaggerations, these are elements of the story that make it so great and have allowed it to be passed on through generations of readers. Nonetheless, from the simple fact that we are still reading Oronooko today, it can be said that Behn, as a narrator, achieved her ultimate goal. That is, creating a narrative with the “power to preserve this great man” (5).
Behn's narrator
I found Oroonoko to be a particularly interesting read because I think it is a story told in a simple way that strikes a cadence with its readers. As we briefly discussed in class on the 23rd, as a reader, I can hear the voice of the narrator quite clearly throughout the story. It is as if the narrator wishes to tell the story of Oroonoko and Imoinda but wants us to know only as much as she knows, or in the light that she chooses. It seems as if she wants her audience to learn to idolize Oroonoko as she does without giving the reader much of an opportunity to explore any other option or opinion about the main character in her story.
Oroonoko is presented from the very beginning as "the hero himself," "[a] great man" (9), framing the opinions of the readers before the character is even introduced. The narrator then describes him lavishly, praising his appearance, his character and his knowledge as she tells her story. In fact, it almost seems as if she puts off her story to appropriately give her character the accolade she deems him worthy of. In listening to her voice, one can begin to see her (the narrator) as a character in the overall story itself, and hence the story Oroonoko could be seen as a story within a story.
We learn to understand the narrator and to appreciate the magnitude of the role she plays in the unfolding of the tragic story of the prince who became a slave. Even when Oroonoko performed acts of bravery and maybe even heroism - like when he killed the tiger - as a reader, I felt like I was not permitted to properly "see" and "hear" this gallant act as plainly as the narrator saw and heard it, for the "sounds" of the act were drowned out in my ears by the narrator's words. It almost seemed to me like the narrator's purpose of telling the story was more to tell of her affiliation to this character who she claims is "worthy of a better wit and a more sublime wit than [hers]."
Considering the role the narrator played in telling Oroonoko's story, it had me wondering how the story would have been told had it not been told from her point of view. It also had me wondering if I would have truly thought of Oroonoko as a hero had the story been told from an unbiased perspective.
Also, the tragic death of Oroonoko caught my attention. I think it is interesting and even significant that he was not so brutally executed by any of those he had planned to take vengeance upon. I think it is even interesting how his executioner was identified as "an Irishman... a fellow of absolute barbarity..." (76), a man brought from elsewhere to commit this gruesome act. Oroonoko murdered his wife and even severed her head from her corpse for the sake of the vengeance he wished to commit. In the end, he used the knife that had spilled his wife's blood on himself to mutilate his flesh and open his bowels, rather than for revenge. He also used it on an over-zealous Englishman and on Tuscan, who had been for a brief time, a friend. I think it is ironic how he met his death at the hands of a stranger to the animosity and intrigues of the lives of the slaves and their masters, and how Imoinda's death (murder) seemed almost to have been meaningless.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Final Project: Assignment Sheet
This term, each student will have the option of completing either a traditional seminar essay of 15 pages in length, or a hypertext project.
Traditional seminar essay option:
Your seminar essay for this course should be 12-15 pages in length. It should give a sustained literary analysis of one or more primary texts assigned within a literary-historical or theoretical context provided by the secondary material read in class. Outside of the secondary material read in class, your essay must include at least one additional reputable secondary source. Your seminar essay must substantially engage with both primary and the secondary sources, though the secondary sources should above all be contextual.
Hypertext option:
Alternatively, you may construct a hypertext of one assigned reading that presents a sustained literary and/or historical analysis. Because the “novel” is first and foremost a “new” medium for the exploration of individual experience in a rapidly changing world, the web presents a unique opportunity for us to investigate the strengths and limitations of a new and increasingly commonplace medium. Like the eighteenth-century novel, hypertext not only requires new modes of reading, but it also represents changing patterns of human thought. As Marshall McCluhan famously argued, the medium is the message; we see the world—and our roles in it—differently in different media.
You may complete this option either individually or in teams of two. While we will not devote course-time to learning the basics of website construction, Marymount has several resources available for such a project; you may also use Microsoft Word to create such a text. I will make how-tos and other guides on this subject available as well. If you choose this option individually, your hypertext must be accompanied by a 5 page overview that describes, in miniature, your argument and what function you see such a project performing (If you choose this option in teams of two, your overview must be 10 pages in length). Did you confront and overcome any specific obstacles, especially in your conceptualization of the project? What does the hypertext as medium allow you to do or see differently, as you read and interpret your text? If you elect this option, you must use at least two reputable secondary sources (for each person contributing to the project), either assigned or researched on your own.
You might begin by examining several existing hypertexts and similar web-based projects, like the student projects included in “Eighteenth-Century England,” an online collection of undergraduate and graduate work by students at the University of Michigan. You might also take a look at the ongoing Pierre Marteau hypertext 1719 edition of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. You may also take a look at a few substantial projects created by advanced undergraduates at Washington & Lee University for ideas and inspiration; available projects are on the 18th century novel and Restoration and 18th century drama. Finally, you can examine sample hypertexts constructed by students in English 200 last term, each of which were created using Microsoft Word. As graduate students, however, I expect your work to be significantly more rigorous than several of these existing projects. Ultimately, I will post these projects online, beginning a dedicated site for hypertext readings crafted by graduate students at Marymount University.
Many, if not all, of the primary sources we are reading this term are available online from Project Gutenberg; you should feel free to use this resource as you construct your project.
It should go without saying…
Whichever option you decide to complete, your work must be completely compliant with MLA formatting and citation guidelines, free of grammatical and stylistic errors, and written in lively and engaging prose.
Of inhuman bondage
Oroonoko and Imoinda are bound to the traditions of their people in the first half of the novel, and to the whims of Oroonoko's despotic and senile grandfather. In the second half of the novel, Behn states that Oroonoko/Caesar and Imoinda/Clemene are slaves by name only. An argument can be made that Oroonoko's bondage is of a greater degree before he is shanghaied and transported to Suriname, and that rejecting the taboo in his homeland feeds the impulse to go back on his word not to take arms against his masters. It is not the purpose of this missive to make light or in any way exonerate the institution of slavery, but to point out that a man of high rank and stature can nonetheless be controlled by desire, culture, circumstance and tradition to as great if not greater an extent than one who is labeled a slave. Imoinda receives the royal veil and is bound by traditon and law to report to the king's otan. Though the king is over a hundred years old, already possesses numerous wives, and is apparently impotent, he nonetheless exercises his absolute authority as monarch and summons Imoinda to be his wife. "... [T]he obedience the people pay their king was not at all inferior to what they paid their gods, and what love would not oblige Imoinda to do, duty would compel her to." (Behn, 19) Imoinda and Oroonoko have no recourse but to submit to this whim of self-gratification. The narrator informs the reader that Imoinda would be executed should she refuse the invitation. Oroonoko is bound by the custom that a descendant is forbidden to marry a wife of his anscestor, and for him to pursue Imoinda would be to violate a sacred cultural taboo. Oroonoko declares himself bound by the taboo to his friends, stating that he could not violate the code without setting "an ignoble precedent for [his] successors." (21) Behn tells us that the people of Coramantien possess a native justice unpolluted by concepts of fraud and deceit; the natives rebuke a governor who fails to keep his word that he shall arrive at a certain time. (11) I suggest that among Oroonoko's European attributes, which for the most part Behn lauds as charismatic, there exists an inclination for Oroonoko to go back on his word. Twice he does this, to the great detriment of his fate. Driven by desire, Oroonoko pursues Imoinda and consummates his marraige to her despite acknowledging the cultural stricture. Once he is a slave in Surinam, he tells the narrator that "he would sooner forfeit his eternal liberty, and life itself, than lift his hand against his greatest enemy on that place." (49) Even though Oroonoko/Caesar "suffered only the name of a slave," (50), and his wife is reprived daily of her chores by fawning admirerers, he is overcome by his fear that his agreement with Trefry will not be honored, and that Caeser, Clemene, and their unborn son will remain slaves in perpetuity. While in transit to Surinam, the captive Oroonoko speaks to the importance of honor to the captain, in an effort to bargain for freedom aboard the ship. Oroonoko declares that a man without honor has greater concerns than punishment in the afterlife; he has lost credibility and is subject to the derision of those honest people who know him and his breach. (39) Despite his freedom to hunt and engage in whatever diversions he wishes, Caesar incites the slave community to rebellion, apparently motivated only by the fear that his family will not be granted freedom. Oroonoko's/Caesar's sense of honor is tainted and diluted by the society that has bound him; the betrayals he repeatedly suffers from Europeans instigates his own breach that leads him and his wife to their brutal deaths.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
A Narrator-Oroonoko-Imoinda Power Triangle?
Both Alana's and Kris's posts make very interesting points about the "commodification of women"--especially in light of our discussion last class about female authorship. I wonder what you think about the fact that it is Behn, a royalist and a Tory anda woman writer in a man's literary world, who creates the characters of Oroonoko as well as Imoinda?
A lot of research has been done on Behn's narrator's relationship to Oroonoko, and some has been done on her relationship to Imoinda. In general, she seems to use the conventions of amatory fiction and traditional romance to identify with Oroonoko's nobility, though this is not without its tensions. Critics are often interested in the "likeness" and the "difference" between the narrator and her chief subject, a black royal man who has become a slave and yet is "naturally above it." Yet, the narrator is also using Oroonoko to make narrative, specifically narrative from a "female pen" (40). Similarly, the narrator places herself in an ambiguous position vis-a-vis Imoinda--with much less "idenfitication" than in Oroonoko's case. Imoinda seems repeatedly, as Kris mentions, "killed off"--first by Oroonoko's grandfather, then by Oroonoko, and ultimately, by Behn. How can we read this in terms of the narrator's power, her agency? Thoughts?
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Oroonoko: A Reminder of Cultural Differences
I agree with Alana's points that she brought up regarding 'honor killings' and the plight of Imoinda at the hands of her husband.
This action was just one of many cultural differences I noted in this story and although I struggled with many of them--it was a reminder of how cultural differences have always existed between our different sub-societies throughout history.
In addition to how Imoinda died, I also recall the beginning of the story when Oroonoko's grandfather was overcome by his desire to have the prize that was Imoinda.
Because it was custom, the grandfather claimed his right as acting king to send the veil to Imoinda--the equivalent of a subpoena, only it was most immediate and could not be denied except by death. I don't know about my colleagues, but this idea of being summoned was revolting to me. Still, I remembered that my horrific reaction stems from what I know as acceptable social customs--thank God our President can't do that!
Ultimately, this story was amazing to me, I even learned more history than I knew when I began it. Again, it was truly a reminder of the differences that did and still do exist in our various cultures on Earth.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Oroonoko, honor killings, and Shakespeare: If I can't have you, no one can.
I find the death scene of Imoinda very interesting, and I think it's worthy of close consideration within the theme of the entire work. In particular, I would like to focus on the sense of "ownership" by Oroonoko of Imoinda and how that plays out in her death scene. I find very similar themes in the death of Lavinia, Titus' daughter in Shakespeare's tragedy, Titus Andronicus.
I confess that here I am thinking particularly about the film adaptation of Titus, directed by Julie Taymore (Anthony Hopkins, Alan Cumming, Jessica Lange). Titus is hosting a banquet for the ceasar, Saturnine, and his Goth (barbarian, not funereal subculture) queen Tamora. Unknown to those assembled, Titus has killed Tamora's murderous sons, Chiron and Demetrius, and they have been cooked and served up as the main course. As Saturnine and Tamora eat, Titus asked Saturnine if a certain Roman was justified in killing his daughter after she had been raped. Saturnine says yes, because the daughter is a constant reminder of the father's grief and shame, and this can only be eased by killing her. In the film, Titus responds by embracing his daughter, who was raped by Tamora's sons, before snapping her neck and then revealing what those assembled have been eating. The ending is predictably gory.
Compare this to the scene of Imoinda's death:
"He considered, if he should do this deed...he left his lovely Imoinda a prey, or at best a slave...'Perhaps,' said he, 'she may be first ravaged by every brute, exposed first to their nasty lusts, and then a shameful death.'...he told her his design first of killing her...he found the heroic wife faster pleading for death than he was to propose it..." (Behn 71). Oroonoko's fear is that Imoinda will be subject to sexual violence, which at its core would be an insult to him as her possessor. Imoinda has worth as possessed by him and only him. This hearkens back to the struggle between the old chief and Oroonoko over who would possess Imoinda. When the chief conspires to sell her into slavery, she begs instead for death, and much emphasis is placed on her virginal state when Oroonoko succeeds in bedding her. After Oroonoko has claimed her in this manner, she becomes literally his property to dispose of: "when a man finds any occasion to quit his wife, if he loves her, she dies by his hand, if not, he sells her" (Behn 71).
After Lavinia is raped by Tamora's sons, she becomes literally worthless. In Taymor's Titus, her death is shown as a relief to both to herself and Titus. Is Lavinia's value is in her virtue, what is the purpose of continuing to live after what has happened to her? Similarly, any violation of Imoinda is a direct insult to Oroonoko, as it devalues her as a possession.
Lavinia and Imoinda's deaths, I think, could be viewed in the context of honor killings. But whose honor? Titus kills Lavinia because she has no prospects for marriage after what has happened to her, and she serves as a constant reminder of his pain. A formerly valuable property, she is valueless. Likewise, Oroonoko kills Imoinda ostensibly to save her from what might happen after he dies. But one wonders (at least I do) what would have happened if Imoinda had wanted to live and take her chances? What happens to property after the owner is gone?
Monday, January 22, 2007
Early Women Writers and Self-Representation
In recent decades, a host of feminists and canon-revisionists have taken up the questions posed by the many neglected and effaced women writers who saturated the early modern marketplace with their work. Ros Ballaster, Jane Spencer, Janet Todd, and Catherine Gallagher are among the most significant of these critics.
In a review of Gallagher's Nobody's Story: The Vanishing Acts of Women Writers in the Marketplace, 1670-1750, Ros Ballaster summarizes her colleague's argument:Nobody's Story offers a fascinating and complex exploration of the textual strategies adopted by five 'representative' women writers of the Restoration and the eighteenth century in order to produce effective 'imaginary' identities for themselves as authors. Both male and female writers in this period, Gallagher asserts, represent their experience of authorship as one of dispossession, a form of disappearance under the commodification of the book as a product of their alienated labour; however, women sexualize and exaggerate this rhetoric from a gender-specific perspective. The negotiation with a sense of dis-possession, from Aphra Behn's cryptic self-inscription as 'prostitute-nothing' through Frances Burney's youthful construction of the addressee of her journal as female 'nobody' to Maria Edgeworth's expressed anxiety over 'absenteeism', was formative, Gallagher discovers, in the promotion of fiction as a place of self-production for reader and author alike, a century-long process which results in the dominance of the novel form and...pre-eminence of feminized 'virtues' within it.... Manufacturing selves from 'nothing', the anonymity of print culture, the gap between the representation and the real, these are productive mechanisms for these women writers, enabling them to figure power in the marketplace through their acts or re-enactments of vanishing.
In Oroonoko, one of the most notable narrative strategies is the way that Behn parses out the relationship between her narrator and her subject. Hers is but a "Female Pen" (40), telling the story of a "Royal Slave" that bears a striking conceptual resemblance to James II; in the end, she hopes that "the reputation of my pen is considerable enough to make his glorious name to survive to all ages" (73). At points, we are confronted with the sneaking suspicion that Oroonoko is really less about this royal slave, however, than the woman writing his story. Given what Gallagher is arguing about the way that women writers play this game of vanishing, how might Behn's narrator be figuring herself as an author? How can we begin to understand the narrator's construction of authorial worth in print?
And finally, considering the ending of "Fantomina," we might very well ask the same thing--how does Haywood seem to use the images of feminine insubstance that haunt her fiction? After all, as Gracie noted in her post, we don't ever know her real name--all we have are her constructions, which themselves emphatically gesture toward an almost performative subjectivity. It is significant, too, that Fantomina's false name is the title of Haywood's text. But even at the end, when we think her body is about to ground her evermore in the real world she so desperately seeks to evade by self-construction, Fantomina disappears into a not-undesirable convent. How might we read the endiing of "Fantomina" in terms of the woman writer's construction of self in a marketplace of print?
Fantomina; female strength
While reading this story, I was entertained as well as intrigued, all the while wondering how the story would end and the portion that would be allotted to this mysterious female character, identified by the author in the title of the story as Fantomina. Initially, it seemed to me like the story was not going anywhere definite. By this I mean that it seemed that the writer's intent was to tell of a young woman who seems to be of some means and some class, who in her boredom decided to explore the life of a "street-woman" and where that led her. But as the story unfolded, it seemed to tell of a young woman who aware of her power over the opposite sex used it to the fullest.
The story seemed to tell of a woman who in her free time and maybe even loneliness (if I dare surmise so much from what the author provided) became attached to a particular gentleman and strove to keep him at all costs, not necessarily to have him as a respectable man that could stand by her side as a husband. Her distinct qualities including her apparent strength, cunning, art of manipulation, independence of thought and unique manner of accomplishing her goals almost completely evaporated into thin air towards the end and she came under the whims and direction of her mother as the story came to a close.
The story had me pondering why the name Fantomina stuck to the main character more strongly than Celia or Mrs. Bloomer, as the author used that name as the title to her story. It had me wondering much more, because we are not given any reason to believe that Fantomina was her real name. It could be possible that the author was showing the power of first impressions, the first words spoken from one to another, and the power they have to influence the light in which an individual will be viewed. The first name our main character gives us is Fantomina and that is what we learn to call her regardless of whether or not this is her name. Even the presence of her mother later in the story could not clarify that particular mystery.
Also, in my opinion, Fantomina is introduced as a whimsical person, who gave full vent to her curiosity without thinking too far into the future. If by chance her character did think into the future, I think she must have had a nonchalant attitude, thinking that regardless of what she did, the future would somehow shape itself separately from her actions. I think that in her pursuit of Beauplasir, her thoughts were only filled with the pleasure of the moment. I see her as a person that embraced instant gratification. While she chased after Beauplasir, she seems charmed by her ability to tactfully disguise herself, and sees herself as "More Pruden[t] than all her Sex beside" (Fantomina 234). She seems to bask in her, for the most part, self-acclaimed wisdom, and uses her brashness and ability to pursue what she wants till she possesses it, to define herself.
Again, I wondered what would befall this apparently decisive "go-getter," who knew what she wanted and uses whatever means to achieve her goals when the story came to a close. The entrance of her mother grabbed my attention because the tone as well as the path of the story changed pronouncedly. Fantomina lost her influence, seized from treading along the path she had been following and bowed to her mother's authority. It was almost as if the earlier strength that had been portrayed and that we had learned to respect (whether or not it was admirable) had been sapped from her. She resigns herself to do her mother's bidding without resistance, as is shown when her mother commands her to reveal the name of her lover, and forces her to look up and explain the truth to Beauplasir and herself (Fantomina 247). Fantomina at this point seems to be an ordinary 18th century child taught to obey and respect one's parents without challenging orders or negotiating parental decisions.
However, it could not be completely fairly said that Fantomina lost all her power and her influence when the story ended for she did not lose her power over Beauplasir. She did not reveal the truth about herself until she was compelled by a strength that was higher than her own - her mother. Even after her child is born, a little girl, Beauplasir is still not free from the power of Fantomina extended in her little female child.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Taming Don Juan, Being Don Juan: The Tragic Feminism of Haywood's "Fantomina"
I stated so in a response to Alana's post, but one of the more striking aspects of "Fantomina" was the curious ending. While I found the story quite comical, the ending brought a dose of seriousness that caught me by surprise. From the moment her mother comes back into town the mood shifts drastically and the final moment comes rushing to a close. This first astounded me, but it provided me a helpful context for interpreting the actions of the piece.
At first I was prepared to view Haywood's novella according to John Richetti's terms, that is, "where sexual freedom and mastery of her male lover are temporarily and subversively achieved by the heroine's clever machinations" (Richetti xvi). I failed to register the key word "temporarily" in first reading that statement. But, as I said in my comment, the ending's transformation of the story's sexual freedom and subversiveness seems to ring false. The Fantomina that we have come to know, more or less, is utterly weak and dejected when her mother returns. It's almost pathetic. In fact, the reader is forced from her viewpoint and Haywood writes the last pages largely from the mother's side. Where are the "clever machinations" now? Fantomina gives up.
Upon further reflection, though, I began to interpret the story according to the actual ending rather than according to how I thought it would have ended. The clever "machinations" of Fantomina are cast in quite a new light according to how she feels she must act when her mother returns. Beauplaisir's ultimate rejection of her is quite conceivable - given the choice of marrying any one of his old affairs would have been difficult enough, but all of them at once is I'm sure overwhelming. And it was this bit of comic realization on my part that unified the work for me. From the beginning of "Fantomina," Haywood criticizes men and their loose and insincere dealings in love. Her subsequent relation of a tale wherein a woman constantly reinvents herself to keep the man she loves interested in her reveals the darker themes of Haywood's work. For though Fantomina is willing to reinvent herself for his amusement, she finally decides that men, and Beauplaisir particularly, "still prefer the last Conquest, only because it is the last" (Haywood 240). She even feels she has "outwitted even the most Subtle of the deceiving Kind," that he is "the only beguiled Person" (Haywood 239). But she ultimatly deceives herself into believing she could maintain his interest by constantly playing a variety of parts for him. Her failure to obtain him in the moments before childbirth signifies her inevitable failure in this quest. In this sense, "Fantomina" is quite tragic. She tries to keep the man she loves by any means she can, and in cutting to the root of the problem she still finds it impossible. There is a kind of tragic irony in even the title of the work. For Fantomina is not her real name, but the first of her fake names. I will leave that thought here, but I think there is certainly something further to be discussed there.
In terms of her guises themselves, Fantomina moves first from a prostitute, to a country maiden, to a widow, to a mysterious socialite temptress. In each successive case, Fantomina improves the social status of her personalities, and withholds more from Beauplaisir's advances. Beauplaisir, for his part, changes the forwardness of his actions according to the social status of his paramours. When Fantomina incarnates her final guise, she seems to have inhabited her in a higher social sphere than Beauplaisir, for he becomes her possession finally. But even in this case, as the others, though she is masquerading she seems to forget Beauplaisir's own masquerades of fidelity - she merely laughs at them in disbelief, but falls for it each time. Certainly each of them is enjoying the pleasure of trying to outwit the other. And though we witness the elaborate nature of Fantomina's attempts, it is ultimately difficult to claim her as the victor. Fantomina, through her disguises, cannot escape her own passion for Beauplaisir. And though she is much more capable and unrestrained than her contemporaries have been portrayed, the social system has been set in such a way that even when a woman can move freely between any social status and constantly change identities, she remains socially repressed in a way a man will never be. Beauplaisir has the many affairs under his own name with no secrecy but that of his own infidelity. Everything else may be known to the world and he will not suffer for it. But though Fantomina is capable of such action, too, she is stunted by her society, and even if she finds masterful ways around it, she is doomed to her biology and social status.