Comedy and Tithe 2 dt ‘sbcmemtat deren fm the Woman Writer by Judy Little Pari Bidangemenan” Woolf, Spark, and Feminism arenes ‘suibe raul Gut Maret rabies Temes ate” Rigoalen onde ae Cargrig 198 bye llrightsreserved ‘tantaetaeenche {iain permanence and ‘easy sf Commit om Prediction Gucci Bok Langer othe Coun brary Routes Libre ee dy Soria Irae Theil ae Wane ‘ste: Hay neice Tec sceue ao University mae. tee 8 Pic Theratar (il Lincoln and London of Nebraska Pai Wa es SBN ose. 268-7 Press wa99 a7 178 189 aan Contents Preface Chapter 1 Ritual as Revolution: Comedy and Women Chapter 2 Virginia Woolf: Myth and Manner in the Early Novels Chapter 3 ‘The Polities of Holiday: Woolt's Later Novels Chapter 4 ‘Muriel Spark: ‘The Irrational Norm Chapter 5 Muriel Spark: Takeovers Chapter 6 Feminist Comedy Notes IndexPreface ‘This hook began with an idea of Virginia Woolt's—that comedy ‘written by women may be different from comedy written by men. ‘The huge subject assumed a horizon or two as a result of several Modern Language Association special sessions on Virginia Woolf: uring these discussions, papers by Margaret Comstock, Jane Mar us, and Beverly Sehlack were particularly helpful to me. Two MLA special sessions on “Female Humor,” generated by the ener ay and intelligence of Emily Toth, were extromoly important in the development of the critieal approach which T have taken in this study. These discussions about female humor helped me to ask the right questions. I began to define some answers as a result ofa con ference on "Women and Society" held in 1979 at St. Michael's Co: lege in Winooski, Vermont. At this conference Helen Trobian's paper "Feminism, Humor, and Religion” was expecially stimulat: ‘because of the wide and overlapping impli its threefold subject. Pinally, a rereading of the fietion that 1 planned to consider in my study confirmed my suspicion that the ‘concept of a “norm” required an indepth redefinition, particularly fa distinctively female comie perspective were tobe identified. For this reason my first chapter needed to be more thana friendly grect ing: itis substantive. providing the rationale and apparatus for my discussion. A complete genealogy of this book would bo as extensive as a Biblical series of “begats,” but I do want to thank Eddie Epstein, whose reading of the manuseript at an early stage encouraged me to keep going, and Louise DeSalvo, whose perceptive criticism helped ‘me to finish the book. Alan Cohn, our Humanities Librarian, has x Profuce provided thorough and willing assistance. The English Department at Southern Illinois University has given generous financial sup port for eopying and typing. The College of Liberal Arts has also ex tended financial assistance, as has the university by granting mea. sabbatical leave. I wish especially to thank the typists who have worked on this book: Kay Parrish, Kim Grandys, Angie Spurlock, and Joy Starks. In addition thanks are due to Pauline Duke, the of fice supervisor who seos to it thatthe shuttle keeps going and that nothing gets los in it. Most of all, want to acknowledge the atten tive encouragement given me by the late Virginia Faulkner of the University of Nebraska Press. She saw this book when t was n0 more than an ides, and het matter of faet belief in the book was a ‘continuing support to my owa belief initRitual as Revolution: Comedy and Women ‘As often as comedy has been awarded either firm or faint praise for its conservative and stabilizing qualities, i has also been suspected of subversive and revolutionary propensities. Both the praise and the suspicion are warranted. Subversive comie imagery may give us portrayals of the disillusioned and the oppressed as they mock the hypocritica! or the tyrannous. The “outsider” is inthis instaneo the hero, as Moll Flanders is, or Huekleberry Finn, or any pica rresque hero. On the other hand the more conservative comie state ments take the very opposite approach; they direet our laughter against the outsider, against the one who deviates from a norm of beauty or appropriate behavior. Both of these comic attitudes or ap- proaches have been variously explained and defined as rooted in celebrations of human vitality, or linked to a satirie purpose, or re- leased as wit from the psychological censor responsible fr the eivil Lutteranee of sexual and aggressive impulses. Although T will have ‘occasion to draw upon these various attempts to define the comic, my primary concern in the present study is with the kind of eomic imagery that is present in the work of Virginia Woolf, Muriel Spark, and some other writers. This imagory is usually that of fes tive license or of an important “passage” in life. Further, such im gery —imagery of revolt and inversion —is ordinarily not resolved in the fiction of these authors. In this respect the imagery differs from the license of traditional festive holidays, and certainly it differs from rounded-off comic fietion in whieh the hero is utimate- ly reintegrated into society. The comedy I am considering here is renegade comedy. [t mocks the deepest possible norms, norms four ‘thousand years old 2 Comedy at Women Such radical denials have a precedent in the context of com- ‘dy, but for the most part the overturning of accepted values has ‘occurred within the carefully defined license of holiday eclebr tions. Comedy derives many of its characteristic motifs from the rit- ual practices belonging to “liminality.” The word describes those ‘threshold oceasions in human experience which are marked by or- eal or celebration; these include initiations, weddings, or the ariv al of a new season. In some sovieties these events give rise to prac tices which have become stock motifs of comedy: the blurring oF reversing of sex identity, the inversion of the usual authority so that clowns mock kings, and a festive sense of community which ‘eclebrates a shared humanity rather than respecting the distine- tions of elass, prestige, and roe. Such occasions are, in a stable $0- cioty, surrounded by a context of order. The mocking is hedged ‘with divinity and taboo; ultimately; the initiation, or other liminal ‘event, is comploted, and the festive license fades into the common day of soeial structure and orderly behavior, Comic literature, and tragic literature as well, often draw upon these liminal motifs, Com: ‘edy in which the lminal elements are never resolved, comedy. whieh implies, or perhaps even advorates, a permanently inverted world, radical reordering of sovial structures, areal rather than temporary and merely playful redefinition of sex identity, a relent less mocking of truths otherwise taken to be self-evident or even ‘sacred —such comedy ean well be called subversive, revolutionary, or renegade. Ina sense all comedy might be said to mock some norms and to affirm others, but I want to emphasize that the comedy written by ‘Woolf, Spark, and some other novelists mocks norms which have been considered stable values for millenia. Since comedy of this kind is intricately interlocked with everything else that is happen ing in the fletiona! medium, a rather substantial ertical examina tion ofall the novels written by Woolf and Spark is the best way to define and describe the eomedy, and to show how itis functioning, Each of these two novelists isa major writer of her generation, and for that reason alone her complete opus deserves reassessment ‘whenever scholarship or a ertieal model emerges that can illumi rate her work. Following «close look at Woolf and Spark, I want to ‘examine inthe fins] chapter the appropriate novels of several other writers in whose work feminist comedy hs emerged with vigor. InComedy and Women 3 the fiction of these writers, such as Penelope Mortimer and Beryl Bainbridge, the comedy once again is a fairly extreme kind: the in versions continue as if all the year were playing holiday. The novels affirm—when they affirm anything-only a state of continuing Jiminality, betweenness, of being "between the acts.” to use the t- te of Woolf's last novel. For these writers, in their most striking ‘comic work, the basic comparison, or juxtaposition, which is essen tial in perceiving tho comie, oF in making the joke, is not usually the ‘traditional one of instinet versus its civilized expression, or cecen: tricity versus a socially acceptable norm; instead, the deeply rooted norms themselves are the objects of attack. The other half of the comic juxtaposition, the affirmative half, varies with the author, ‘but ean be generally described as a reinterpretation of liminality it self,a hint of new motifs, new myths, often expressed in a distinetly {omale imagery. Before turning to the novelists, I want to examine the social and literary implieations of liminality, and then draw upon socio ists as well as literary erities to clarify the term norm; finally, in this introductory chapter, Iwill consider the issue of s women's tra ition in literature, and especial Liminality deseribes a threshold llimen).a transition, a border- line area or condition. Strictly speaking, the word applies to the middle portion of each “rite of passage” as described by Aroold van Gennep. Rites which accompany major transitions in life—birth, initiation, weddings, death have a tripartite structure of separa tion from soeiety, transition oF liminality, and finally reineorpora ‘tion into society. For instance. during the liminal phase of a ritual, individuals to be initiated have neither their old selves and old posi ‘tions in socioty nor their new ones. The liminal phase ofa rite char aetoristically emphasizes the annulled identity of the persons un ‘dergoing the rite and expresses sometimes their freedom {rom the usual norms of behavior. The anthropologist Vietor Turner de- scribes the features of the middle, or transition, phase ofa rite of passage: “The intervening liminal phase is thus betwixt and be- tween the categories of ordinary socal life. Symbols and metaphors found in abundance in liminality represent various dangerous ambi guities of this ritual stage, since the classifications on which order normally depends are annulled and obseured—ather symbols desig- nate temporary antinomie liberation from behavioral norms and ‘comic fiction 4 Comedy and Women cognitive rules." Since persons in the liminal stage are “betwixt and between,” socially and psychologically. they are temporarily stripped of identity, role, even sexual identity. They are outside the usual behaviors. Each sex may, in some eultures, dress in the other's clothes at this time, or both may wear identical robes. The period of license, of freedom from behavioral norms, is also typieal of seasonal rituals, and may express itself by means of “inversion” and “community.” The jester will mock the king, the boy may pose fas bishop, and lower-class persons may mock and playfully torment those normally in authority over them: further, the general merry- ‘making will express a sense of community in which all are united as ‘equals, rather than bound by hierarchies of privilege and elass.* (Certain features of liminality obviously translate readily into liteFary patterns, especially the patterns of quest and festive com- edj.)During rituals of initiation. Turner writes, “liminality is fre- (quently likened to death, to being in the womb, to invisibility, to darkness, to bisexuality to the wilderness, and to an eclipse of the sun or moon.” The paradigm of the hero's quest, which I wil ex: amine more closely a litte later, incorporates these liminal motifs of ‘esth, a journey through wilderness or darkness, and often a jour- ney into landseapes vaguely female or maternal in imagery. AS Northrop Frye observes of literature, such archetypal imagery is likely to appear in the proximity of weddings, deaths, initiations, ings, and oeeasions of seasonal colebration® The archetypal (quest pattern isin essence rite of passage, and displays liminal mo tifs in common with those of initiation rituals. The imagery of sea. sonal liminality and the inversions of hierarchy make a large contri: bution to Shakespeare's plays, and C-L. Barber has aptly deseribed its expression thore as “festive comedy."" Further, and in a femin ist content, Annetie Koloday has appropriately given the designa- tion “inversion” to certain images in novels written by women images which attack and sometimes parody such traditional modes ‘of feminine fulfillment as pregnancy and large families* Liminal motifs do not always fall neatly into place within a lit- rary context that affirms order or within a society that does so. Although the customary explanation of festivity offered by both the anthropologists and literary scholars is that t ultimately affirms the established social structure? this interpretation has received somo challenges. Jan Donaldson suggests, in his examination of theComedy and Women 5 “world upside down” motif in English comie drama and fition, that inthe past the literary use of inversion has sometimes probed ques: tions which are not entirely answered by a conventional happy end: ing of reestablished order; further, Rabelais could aim a sharp attack against medieval institutions, Mikhail Bakhtin argues, hecause this irreverent comic writer drew much of his material from folk festivals which had traditionally attacked prevailing so: ial structures." Anthropologists and sociologists have recently pointed to the liminal aspects of most religious or secular reform ‘movements; these often proclaim the values of “equality.” deny dis tinetions of class and prestige, deny the socially expected expres sions of sex,and advocate a community of sharing rather than an or ‘ganized structure of authority. Saint Francis, John Wesley, George Fox, modern Beats and Hippies ~all manifested in various ways the Jiminal opposition to herarehy and to worldly norms, Aseeticism, voluntary poverty of a religious community, and the paeifist coun- torculture's adoption of sexually ambiguous clothing (a uniform of blue jeans for both sexes, for instanee) ean be deseribed as liminal estes, as symbolic statements of opposition to the prevailing order; these statements have in common with initiation rites, and with festivity, the elements of inversion, of annulled or blurred sex {dentity,and the rejection of elass distinctions. Such manifestations of liminality are a potential threat to the ‘established sovia structures, For this reason literature which uses liminal images can be ealled “political,” and when I use the word politics or politica in this study, Lam using them inthis thematie sense. Obviously, neither a festive celebration nor a novel is politi ‘alin the sonse in whieh a ballot is, Nevertheless, there is some indi ‘ation that liminal images in a popular medium can have an effect ‘on institutions. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries broad: sides using the topos of the “world upside down” were extremely popular; these portrayed, for instance, a child feeding the mother, fish nesting in tree, an ox slaughtering a man, a child beating the father, an army of women attacking a fortress, a woman bearing, arms and standing beside her husband, who is spinning. David Kuncle argues that these popular publications made a large contri- ‘bution to Lutheran propaganda against the pope and may have ‘been associated also with the peasant revolt of 1525.® Further, the motif of the “woman on top." politically and domestically, a motif 6 Comedy and Women frequent in festive celebrations and in popular iconography, may have encouraged women to join inthe riots of laborers in preindus ‘ial Europe. Although the motif~a woman vigorously thrashing a keeling man, for instance—was supposed to symbolize a quite reprehensible anarchy, the very existence of the idea in popular art, as Natalie Davis observes, may have rendered “the unruly op: tion a more conceivable one.” Lina ty is the most ambiguous, the most potentially anar- ‘ehic phase of ritual: itis also the most ereative, When liminal ele ments are prominent in social movements, the result may be new institutions, new norms, new myths. While a traditional initiation rite wll, after the iminal “death” and inversions, bring the individ. ual toa “rebirth” and a new identity within the soca! structure, a social erisis may manifest liminal elements whieh do not finally be ‘come resolved into the former structures: instead, the liminal motifs themselves enter and change social institutions. Turner sum: ‘marizes the potential reversals: "High status wll have become low status and vice versa... Insttutionalized relationships will have become informal: socal regularities will hive hecome irregularities New norms and rules may have been generated during atemps to redress conflict; old rule will have fallen inte disrepute and have been abrogated. The bases of political support will have beon al tered." Liminality tends to gonerate not only new norms, but also ‘new myths, whieh may find expression in rituals, philosophy, and art. In fact, we ean expect that such “exceptionally liminal think fers” as poets, writers, and prophets will find new metaphors and archetypes—as Turner observes while he draws upon Shelley — since these ar, afterall, the “unaeknowledged legislators." We can expect also, especially ina time of social change, that the work of writers who perceive themseives as “outsiders.” as per- sons assigned tothe threshold ofa world that isnt theirs, will mani fest the distinctive features of inversion, mocked hierarchies, om: ‘munal festivity, and redefinition of we identity. If the work of sue writers is comic, it will be comedy that mocks the norm radically, and perhaps generates hints and symbol of new myth. The novel {sts with whom this study is primarily eoncerned all perceive them> selves to some extent a8 outsiders, though the term is Virginia ‘Wools Of the two she enunciates more direetly hee perception of the liminalty of the womaa writer. In an early review (1918) sheComedy and Women 7 ‘considered the reasons that might have led women to become novel ists:"The capacity to criticize the other sex had its share in deciding ‘women to write novels, for indeed that particular vein of comedy thas been but slightly worked, and promisos great riehnoss.” Later in her earoer, it was not only the “richness” of the opportun- ity for comedy that attracted Wool’s attention. By the time she ‘wrote “Women and Fiction” (1928), she suggested that criticism of: {fored by one sex about the other might substantially alter the pre vailing notions of what is serious; a general inversion of valves ‘might result. The reason for this is that women’s values are differ ‘ent from those of men: “Thus, when a woman comes to write a nov el, she will find that she is perpetually wishing to alter the estab: lished values —to make serious what appears insignificant toa man and trivial what isto him important." As her work demonstrates, by “established values.” Woolf implies basic attitudes, beliefs. and ‘behavior, rather than the surface artifiialities and eccentricities of ‘ particular generation, for instance, although these eccentricities ddo also appear in her novels. In much of her most exciting and crea tive eomedy she engages in a lyric and bemused moekery of voner able heroie (maseuline) imagery. Like Muriel Spark, Virginia Woolf mocks even the mythie pat toms of male, o patriarchal, liminality. The long-standing, ancient ly derived pattern of the quest—a pattern whose heroie figures hhave been overwhelmingly male—contains elements that have an- alogues inthe liminal phase of ritual. In stable societies, and certain- ly in long-enduring eultures, such as the one roughly designated as “Western,” these liminal motifs dovetail safely and conventionally into an ultimate affirmation of a culture's deepest values, in this ‘ase patriarchal ones. [tis only when liminality gets out of hand, so to speak, that its ereative aspects, described by Turner, Davis, and ‘thors, begin to emerge as social reform and perhaps as major now cealtural symbols. When Virginia Woolf in her eomie fition, moves subtly against “established values,” she moves against some of the ‘most deeply established ones. She mocks the male hero even in his ‘traditionally sacred archetypal landscape; in effect, by so doing she mocks the male-imaged pattern of the “hero with a thousand faces.” of what Joseph Campbell calls “the norm of the mono- myth." Woolf, along with Spark, mocks many of the deeply estab- lished motifs which sociologists would say belong to our primary 8 Comedy and Women beliefs. especially when these beliefs cancern sex identity and the roles of mon and women, ‘Tho revolutionary laughter occasionally heard inthe fiction of ‘ther women writers will further illustrate the point. The female warriors in Monique Wittig’s novel Les Guérilldves prepare them: selves for battle (against men) or rest from it, by means of games which build their psychological muscles. In one of these games the women laugh ferociously at questions like the following: “Who ‘must observe the three obediences and whose destiny is written in their anatomy?" Laughing, the women slap each other on the shoulders, and “some of the women, lips parted, spit blood." A larly violent and shocking laughter is described by Doris Les- sing in The Summer Before the Dark Although Kate Brown felt guilty about it she and another London housewife used to indulge in “gow sessions": “They began improvising, telling ancedotes or ‘doseribing situations, in whieh eertain words were bound to come ‘up: wife, husband, man, woman. they laughed and laughed. “Phe father of my children,” one woman would say; ‘the breadwinner,’ said the other, ard they shrieked like harpies."® ‘The uneamfort- ‘able humor described here results from a very radical perception of the comie: Kate, hor friend, and the mythical women in Wittie’s book, are mocking the norm. The housewives “shrieked like harp- les,” the radiealy irreverent laughter bosmirehing the respeetablo, ‘culturally saretioned imagery of the male as conqueror, father, pro- vider (breadwinner). Ina similarly shocking episode of Virgil’ epi, the female harpies dirty the meat prepared by the pious Aeneas, later tho heroie fathor of his country. The women in Wittig’s futur- istic epie and in Lessing's novel of contemporary vension between the sexes are mocking conventions, values, and stabilities against whieh a comie writer traditionally would judge some odd deviation, It is one thing to find “manners” amusing, to “scourge” viees ax ‘the satitiet claims todo}, or to mock the follies of lovers it is a much more drastic wet of the imagination to mock the very nerms against whieh comedy. i a tradition centuries old has judged the vices, the follies, the eccentricities. To suggest, without the protective con text of courtly revel ora Mardi Gras, that words such aa wife, bus band woman, father, are funny hilarious deviations from some unstated standard—is to make a real gesture against established values. any norms and eonventions are established, those listedComedy and Women 9 by Lessing's Kate Brown and her companion certainly are.Or. they ‘have been established until the very recent past, and still are estab: lished for a majority of both sexes in Europe, England, and the United States. ‘And yet some erities argue that our modera era —post New: ton, post God, and even post-Einstein—has rendered even the es- tablished beliefs and behaviors relative and confusingly diverse; comedy, they assert, can no longer structure itself around the tradi tional idea of violating a norm. Crities, attempting to deseribe mod: cern comedy, or modern fiction generally, have variously affirmed ‘that for the novelist there is “nothing at the center,” oF perhaps only a variety of implied aorms at the center Strietly speaking, true comedy is no longer possible, some argue, sinee there are no ‘commonly held values." Comedy, and the more virulent and topical satire, both used to thrive on the ridiculing of some recognizable “deviation”; if we ean pereeive a bent stick, there must be a straight stiek somewhere, as Plato noted, and as literary erities ‘maintain when discussing elassical comedy. In the comedy of man- ners and in the drama of Jonson and Moliére, the “satirical theory of comedy” follows elassical principles, and the deviants are ridiculed for violating accepted norms." Sociologists affirm, how ‘ever, that these elassicprineiples are sill at work in life, whether or not they obtain in literature; ridiculing a deviant is still a means of social control—if the group is small enough. Even individuals, in ‘order to shake off some doubt about behavior oF attitude, will rid ccale their own misgivings and laugh themselves back into the eom: munity of belief which their group of friends accepts." In effect, sociology confirms the claims of satire, in a small, or very homoge: neous, group. ‘Tho classic principles are still at work, but they nowadays just hhave more to work with:2 modern, multicultural society will have ‘more than one touchstone, more than one norm, for testing the com ie oF satiric comparison, and the resulting forms and meanings will ‘be more complex and slippery. The critic's difficulties in describing ‘or perhaps even in perceiving modern comedy become even more formidable when the norms under attack are so basic, so routine, ‘that we don't even see them as norms. The norms —and they are of ‘ten the subject of mocking for the writers here examined are inti mately accepted patterns of belief and behavior. patterns usually 10 Comedy and Women linked to the roles that we assign to each sex. Allowing always for some exceptions, such norms are analogous, in the socal sphere, to ‘the allotments of tasks and identities. with respect to the sexes, ‘which characterize the heroic figures of the male quest myth Simone de Beauvoir has thoroughly examined this division of historical and mythlogial labor; the man is typically the hero, the subject. the representative of humanity, the winner and con queror, while the woman is mother, background, landscape, temp- tress, oF goal Sho is 50 much an outsider that she is not human. She {s“other"; she is “natural” or ehillike or holy or evil, while the man is “man” (humanity)*® These sexassociated norms have, with mi: nor variations, survived substantially intaet all the major revolu- tions whieh give chapter headings to history books and which do Indeed indicate major social or intellectual changes: Copernican as- tronomy, Newtonian physics, the industrial revolution (though this did change the location to the faetory—of "women’s work’, the Darwinian theory of evolution, and the “doath of God.” Human bo- ings in the twentieth century may worry about the relativity of time, space, morals, and the habits of small particles, and they may well fear their own capacity for self-destruction, but their expecta- tons with regard tothe baste identity and behavior of cach sox are ‘still remarkably constant. In Women in Love, Birkin, the character ‘who most nearly resembles Lawrence himself, explains that he hopes to make his love for a woman “the eentre and core" of hs ie, “seeing there's no God."® The hero ean lose God, but nat the cen- tral emotional support ofthe male's world, a woman. This expecta- tion, this right to seek such a center, is, to apply the words of Vir sinia Woolf, one of those “established values.” ‘These values, or norms." are in the first place what sociolo- sists would call “institutions; thoy are solidly entrenched and are very nearly “religions.” Secondly, the norms that are often mocked bby Woolf, Spark. Margaret Drabble. and others, arise from our ear Lest perceptions, from our “primary socialization.” For this reason, these norms are closoly tied to our sense of what makes life comfort. able, secure, and even eredible. They make up the eore of eivlizay tion's structure for us. They represent firm and reliable order. and canbe contrasted with those dangerous or ereative occasions of lim inality when "the rules” are temporarily suspended. Such norms are the order that we expect to return toatter the festive disorder.Comedy and Women 11 ‘The word norm has not settled into a single definition among, sociologists, any more than among literary scholars. A sociologist's use ofthe word will vary with the particular experimental contest, ‘but the polarities of meaning for worm usually involve belief and ac- tion. In the following chapters, [will be looking at the social iden- tity of characters as expressed through belief and action, especially when these things are used as comie material. The ehief focus of my study will be on a deeper level, however. By normi,T mean especial ly “sex identity” (to which the social identity of occupation is usual ly related), and even “arehetypal identity.” I need to use this last concept, because the novelists here being studied often use arche typal images or patterns of aetion. In most of these novels the char- acters and the patterns of action are relatively “undisplaced,” to use Northrop Frye's terminology: that is, the nearly allegorical pat: terns, the mythie images, associated with a character's identity or actions. are prominent and often contribute much tothe meaning of the novel, and to its comic aspeet, More often than not, the mythic imagery is itself mocked, inverted with regard to sex, or entirely reinvented. Generally, when srchetypal imagery occurs in & modern novel, ‘the imagery implies a lost and noble glory, an anciont greatness in relation to which the pettiness of modern lives is mourned, asin The Waste Land, or benignly mocked, as in Joyce's Ulysses, Neither Eliot nor Joyce aetually mocks the basic idea and value of, say, the Grail quest or the quest of Ulysses or Penelope's faithful waiting. Neither of these writers implies that our modern culture's lost inti macy with mythic imagery is good riddance. By contrast, Woolf and ‘Spark often mock the archetypal imagery itself; they mock a char acter's arehetypal identity —that is, the mythic, spiritual, and cul: ‘ural norm which a character has accepted or is struggling with or is trying to reject. When these writers aro not mocking the myths, they are radically altering them, especially with regard to the sex Identity of the questing and conquering figures. In other words, the norm being tested in the eomic novels of Virginia Woolf and Muriel Spark isa very central one. We probably begin to learn it in infaney. It belongs to our primary socialization, tothe values, the identity, and the beliefs which we learn in our ear liest interactions with our parents, with those “significant athers” who provide our first contaet with society, who in fact constitute 12 Comedy and Women ‘our first, small society, We have no hice about this Fiest limited so- ciety towhich we belong, ths first world. as sociologists Berger and Luckmann point out: "The child does not internalize the world of his significant others as one of many possible worlds. He internal- ines it as the world, the only existent and only conceivable world, ‘the world fout court Its for this reason that the world internalized {in primary socialization is so much more firmly entrenched in con seiousness than worlds internalized in secondary socialization." Secondary socialization gives us our education, provides us ‘with the knowledge which we use in our adult occupations, and eon- tributes to our sense of taste and personal siyle.* It contributes the ore prominent aspee!s of our sccalidemtity."The world of primary socialization, however, is a more intimate one. Our emotions are firmly planted in it, and it apparently remains for us the root of all nostalgia. Borger and Luekmann say that we remember this pr ‘mary world as the place where “everything is allright”: it remains ‘the “home world, however far one may travel from it in Inter life {nto regions where one does not feel at home at all” This world is ‘ot xs amenable to change as the world of seeondary socialization is; swe may, for instance, change jobs. Ia another book, Peter Berger describes a continuum of identities. some of which are products of ‘secondary socialization, others rooted in primary socialization. He suggests that a person could change fairly easily from a trash collee- {or to night watchman, but then he describes progressively more difficult transitions: "It is considerably more difficult to change from clergyman to military officer. It is very, very diffiealt to change from Negro to white, And itis almost impossible 1o change {rom man to woman." Even so, Berger notes, our sexual identities are toa great extent molded by society rather than by hormones or anatomy." This fact is carefully documented by Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jaeklin, who have gathered and presented recent studies ‘that confirm the large part played by society Inthe determining of sex identity The “society” that makes the most fundamental con- tribution toward sex identity is that very first society, the parents, ‘the instructors in primary socialization. ‘The world of primary socialization has recently been serutin {ned by Dorothy Dinnerstein in her book The Mermaid and the Min- ‘otaur, She emphasizes that the primary world i especially the World of the infant's relation to the mather— not to both parents.Comedy and Women 13 ‘Since the mother, or nurse, eannot constantly be feeding the child fr giving it attention, the child experiences its first sense of betrayal at the hands of a woman, Dinnerstein argues that most of ‘the ambivalence whieh human beings of both sexes feel towards ‘woman—those ambivalences eulturally documented in mythic ‘symbols of woman as guide, fate, temptross, betrayer are rooted in the very young child's earliest interactions with the mother.® On the other hand, the father is perceived as being outside the ‘world of nature, flesh, mortality; he takes an active role in history, ‘The male-female division of labor during infancy and childhood, Dinnerstein suggests, ultimately yields most of those mythie images which characterize our expectations regarding the sexes, ‘Men adventure and conquer, being sure to depart from the female ‘world in order to accomplish their ordeals and quests. Dinnerstein ‘thus implies that there are important links between myth and pri ‘mary socialization. by “According to elassial sociological theory myth and socializa tion are indeed elosely connected, Whe most extreme view is that of Emile Durkheim, who affirmed that human beings in effeet. wor ship society. religion and its symbols being merely an expression of socia! norms and institutions. ‘These norms include the behavior expected of each sex|In her book Sez and Caste in America, Carol “Andreas links sex rofes tothe rigidly defined limits associated with “easte.” She observes: “It is unlikely that the sexual easte system could survive ina society that did not manufacture an unimpeaeh- able source of authority to justify its existence. The oldest such authority is religion." And the more contemporary authorities, Which Andreas goes on to describe, are Freudian psyehoanalysis land the Madison Avenue advertiser. These latter day institutions are authorities comparable in funetion to religion Following a similar line of thinking, Eva Figes argues that Christianity, in its ‘medieval institutions especially. refleeted the imagery and values ‘most advantageous to the men of the patriarchal society for whom it ‘was enunciated and projected: with the retreat of religious belief, a consumer society, wherein men achieve a secular immortality through control of eapital and of women, became in effect the new religion: Whether faith or consumerism inspires him, the man tends to have the controlling role, the woman the passive one. ‘And yet, limiting as the normative roles for each sex may seem, M4 Comedy and Women such eareflly defined roles, by virtue oftheir strict dependability, have one very positive function: they have a stabilizing effet on & society or an individual during a crisis. At the death of a close rela- tive, for instance, individual will mare easly recover from the loss if their community, or group of friends, holds in common a “symbol ie universe”—an explanation or ritual, whether religious or human istie-” Institutions, “normal” behavior, and myths are constantly warding off the intrusions of such disasters as wars, assassinations, and death, or an individual's disturbing nightmare. Berger and Luckmann observe: "Al social reality is precarious. All societies fare construetions in the face of chaos." And against this chaos, ‘marriage and family —or at least our ideas about these institutions —have loomed especially large as fortresses that can ward off the ronpersonal world of a bureaueratized polities and a competitive ‘economy, sgainst the “homeless” quality of life outside the fam- ily: The conservative and even rigid nature of anything so institu tlonalized as sex roles and the mythological imagery that expresses them, is understandable in the light of the dangerous social and psy bologial forees which “normality” holds at bay. Understandable too is the fact that the ritualistic o festive suspension of usual roles and rules is, on most oecasions, an ultimate affirmation of the or dered world. Inversions of behavior, and threats to the ordinary so cial o even psychologieal order, are more comfortable if they mere: ly release rathor than wreck. If the socially provided myths and institutions funetion in a sort of negative and defending eapacity, as a protection from crises, they may also—Co certain people In the society —give impetus to personal growth and self-discovery. The institutions and norms may thwart and limit an individual, or encourage a creative ful: filed life. Berger sums up: “Just as society eam be a flight from free: ddom or an cecasion for it society can bury our metaphysical quest fr provide forms in which it ean be pursued." Society does not, however, encourage the “metaphysical quest” equally in men and ‘women, as Beauvoir, Dinnerstein, and others have nated. The ma: jor and recurrent myths, the allegories ofthe soul's progress, the hheroie monomyth, all testify to tis inequity inthe distribution eul- turally, of quest” roles among men and women. Traditionally men, ‘not women, have been encouraged to sce themselves as the hero ‘who adventures into the privileged, institutionalized liminalities ofComedy and Women 15 self discovery: knightly quest, ardent pilgrim in a divine comedy, Romantic hero in quest of lassy sins, Sisyphus as absurd rebel— “Everyman” has usually beens man. This mythic, literary, and so cial Inequity, with its psychological roots deep in early childhood, and in the primary socialization process, is Ube norm that is often smocked by Woolf and Spark. Distnet from this norm, although at some point merging into it,are the "manners," which have weighed heavily in British fiction ‘ofthe realistic and psychological tradition (or instance, inthe nov tls of George Eliot and Henry James), and in comic ition as well ‘Moat erties, when they describe the objects of comie attack, up describing social features and personal behaviors which derive largely from secondary socialization. A “comedy of manners." ‘whether we limit the term to Bnglish Restoration comie drama or ‘expand its area of reference to include the comic fiction which re ‘els in socal behavior peculiar toa given era and class, nearly a waysisa comedy that derives raterial from elements of secondary socialization. A person's class profession eccentricity or obsession dress, end mannerisms come ia for much comic play" The ruthess ‘or fawning social climbers in Dickens’ novels are characterized largely by reference to these features of social and economic lite Very often, a socal eccentricity that becomes extreme or vicious will be satirized. while a deeper value will be affirmed. In Mo Iere's Misanthrope, for instance, and in Tartufe, villains and fools are mocked, but love is not: writing of these plays, Benjamin Leh mann observes: “Society is brilliantly satirized in the interest of something which is not satirized but approved—the love of a man and a woman." Moliere ean assume that the relationship be twoen the sexes isnot going to change in any remarkable way, and ‘that what is meant by man and woman is constant, «trusted norm Lehmann, in his remarks, states the two classic halves of the mechanism of satire: something is mocked, but inthe name of some thing else which affirmed asa norm, rom the pool of traits ereated by secondary socialization, 1 suggest, a classe comic writer draws something to attack; from the pool ofp thing to affirm-a norm, Ofcourse these two categories are going to fade into each other. Secondary soralzation usually builds on primary socialization: similarly, the manners of a society are the socialization, the elassie comic writer draws some- 16 Comedy and Women varied, frequently changing expressions of a deeper cultural myth which may be buried in literature, dream. or everyday assumption, but which the society implietly aeeepts and approves. In any given instance, in literaturo or in experience. it might be very difficult to identify just which trait or behavior belongs to secondary socialization and which to primary socialization, Nor would this be a useful exercise, The ever-changing manners as well as those centuries spanning and more or less constant identities — ‘man, woman, hero, breadwinner —both fuse into an individual's sense of self. My eoneern in this study is not to trace the fine divid- ing line between manner and norm, between socondary and pri mary socialization; this dividing line is not fine, actualy, but a broad, blurred band. Iam concerned, not with the middle, but with the polarities of the socialization phenomenon, and particularly with the comic capital which women writers have recently made from the imagery of primary sorialization, imagery which for cen- turies has provided the norm. Such imagery has not been the object of comic attaek except during festivities, other liminal oecasions, or In the broadside eartoons, described earlier, which were popular in anera of socal upheaval, an era not unlike oursia this respeet. By way of introducing the issue ofa woman's tradition in itera ture, particularly comic literature, I want to emphasize that the monomythie norm—the varied quest myth deseribed by Northrop Feve and Josoph Campbell-has allotted to women 2 peripheral role. In itself, this myth hardly gives women the rudiments ofa tra dition. The myth has been dominated by a male hero for the last 4000 years or more. From Achilles to Dr. Strangelove, as Vivia Gorniek has ebserved, the hero has been male, and if women enter tho plot at all, they function a lures or guides for the hero, The fo- male eharaeter “is only the catalyst for man's struggle with hiea- sell. Tt is never too certain that woman has any self at all™* The woman as a subject, as a hero, as a "sell." is rendered especially problematic by Frye when he applies Jungian archetypes to the ‘characters who conventionally appear in a “romance” plot (a quest plot whieh gencrally employs a stylized or allegorical eharacteriza- tion), Frye suggests that the hero (male) is a symbol for psychie energy (“libido”) and the heroine, a symbol for the “anima,” oF un- conscious self." Jung himself, describing the Christ story and sto- ries of similar god-heroes, writes: “All over the earth, in the mostComedy and Women 17 various forms, each with a different time colouring, the saviour heroappearsas a fruit of the entry of libido into the maternal depths of the unconseious."* The woman is eatalyst, landseape, or "mater zal depths,” but not herself the adventurer. In popular and secular {ned literature the allotment of sex roles refleets that of a eulture's sacred documents. Considering the pattern of New Comedy. Frye observes: “The crudest of Plautine comedy formulas has much the same structare as the central Christian myth itself, with its divine son appeasing the wrath ofa father and redeeming what is at once a society and a bride.” In his later book, The Secular Seripture Frye notes that characterization and behavior of the heroine in a romance necessarily conform to certain “social” facts of a "male oriented society." And even more recently, Charney remarks the ‘important faet that New Comedy, from Plautus to the English Res: ‘oration, expresses the values of a male-dominated soeiety women characters play no decisive role in the drama, although some like Congrove's Millimant, wax very witty as thoy reconcile themselves tomarriage and maternity." In more realistic literature, there have been spurts of interest in the female hero.* and there are some fa: mous ones, Austen's Elizabeth Hennet and James's [sabel Archer for instance. Literature that moves away from realism and toward myth, however, literature that approaches the schematization and styliza tion of myth or archetype, tends to be dominated by a male hero. In this connection, Joseph Campbell describes what he terms the “miracle” of Greek and European contributions to the quest myth: the occidental world portrayed the hero as an individualized being, ‘ot merely an impersonal representative of the community. Even ‘though this male individual was allowed a quest, others were de nied: not everyone whether socially, or symbolically through lit ‘erature could embark upon the course of spiritual rebirth, “as, for ‘example, ifthe individual chanced to be a woman or a slave:"® In ‘Western culture for hundreds of years the early socialization of lt tle boys has typically prepared them to sec themselves as brave ad venturers. Usually boys are given a more lavish respeet and sup port than girls are, and a majority of mothers prefer sons to daughters. Rather than boing socialized for maturity and respon: sibility. Phyllis Chosler observes, girls are trained to hecome the supporting and selfsacrificing nourishers of the male enterprise 18 Comedy and Women religious imagery confirms ths rale dichotomy, giving us paintings And sculptures that “portray Madonnas comforting and worshiping their infant sons." The monomythie norm of the Western world is hound to refieet the social faet that until very reeenthy women were not perceived as having a quest that might serve as paradigen for a “tradition” in literature. Women had no life-adventure considered ‘worthy of being used as a symbol fora divine adventure, ‘There is no reason, theoretically though there are many social reasons, some of which we have already examined), why a pattern of events and images symbolizing a spiritual rebirth could not be expressed by a female hero, The Sumerian female god Ioana, for instance, descends into the underworld of death and i slain there: Iher body is hung from a stake for three days (ef. Christ hanging on the eross and then Iying in the tomb three days) before she is re- stored tolfe by subsidiary friendly agents whom she had previous ly alerted to the hazards of her journey. The more familiar story of Payche, as Lee Edwards has shown, ean be interpreted as a well laborated statement of liminal ordeals and of the heroic achieve- ment representative of human, not merely male or female, aspira- tion and peychologieal growth.” As Gail Sheehy and Penelope Washbourn have given attention to the “passages” of women's ex- perience, other scholars, such as Carol Christ and Annis Pratt, have ‘enunciated the patterns of rebirth or quest in literature by women authors. Using the Demeter myth, Grace Stewart discusses the character and quest ofthe woman artist in fiction. Certainly one of the most famous and widespread myths of the ancient world i that ‘of the Kore maiden, of the deseentand ascent pattern ofthe com- hined stories of maid (Persephone, Kore) and mother (Demeter) Between them, the two gods, who were two aspects of one god” cover just about the same territory. psychologically speaking, as docs the Christ story. That is there isa descent into the underworld 148 separation of parent and ehild (by means of rape or of sacifi cial deathl then there is an ascent and a reunion of parent and child, In both stories the dying and rising god can be read as a symbol for the transformation, or rebirth, of the self; in faet, the Mysteries ‘once eclebrated at Eleusis evidently incorporated this meaning into tho ritual, a moaning of persons! regeneration whieh is akin to the symbolism of suerfice and transformation found in the Mass! ince several of the authors considered in this study do sometimes.Comedy and Women 18 draw upon fragments of the DemoterKore myth, it will be ex- ‘amined in more detail as the context calls for it in the following ‘chapters. Here it is important to emphasize that female imagery predominates in the myth the story of a woman's adventure i ‘this myth the story ofa divine adventure and ofthe regeneration of the self In the more familiar imagery, on the other hand, the story of, ‘the male's adventure is paramount. The female imagery which ‘complements this adventure—that is, the imagery belonging to the ‘male myth—is often a variation of the imagery of motherly protec tion. Some attempts to define a “woman's tradition” in literature ‘draw on these patterns and archetypes complementing the male quest myth. For instance, the role of the woman as someone who spends her life taking eare of others is a prominent theme in wom: €er’s novels of the nineteenth century; Patricia Spacks finds the ‘major female characters of Austen, Gaskell, Aleott, and Glasgow struggling against the restrictions of a domestie or supportive role and yet ultimately accepting this role as a woman's best source of fulfillment and of moral development. In their book The Mad- ‘woman in the Attic, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar pereeptively document the subtle attacks which writers such as the Bronte sistors directed against the submissive roles expected of women. ‘Many nineteenth-century women writers parodied certain pathol: ‘gies linked to female socialization (anorexia, agoraphobia, amne- sia): in fictional “re-visions” oftheir world, as Gilbert and Gubar ob- serve, these writers emphasized strong female images of goddesses and rebirth, or sometimes asserted an ideatifieation with the rebel lious figure of Satan.® One of Elaine Showalter's most interesting, in A Literature of Their Own is an era of snappy comic criticism among women novelists whose protagonists direct much anger at the male-ordained female roles. These ite knowa writers, ‘among whom Mary Braddon was prominent, flourished just after ‘the era of the “feminine” novel, the novel of submission to women’s ‘supportive role. This brief comic tradition in women's literature is ultimately not very cheerful. however. The female protagonists sseribed by Showalter protest in vain: that is, they are always punished." Recently Emily Toth and other critics have clarified the character and point of the eomie mode of protest among women authors of Canada and the United States. In her diseussion of eon 20 Comedy and Women temporary American authors such as Didion, Shulman, and Bu- chanan, Josephine Hendin finds a masochistic comedy which she calls "she wit" A selfdostructive, masochistic comedy is not typical of British women authors of the twentieth century. This is one consideration among others (ineluding the elemental consideration of space) whieh argues for limiting the present study to British authors." Focussing on Woolf and Spark, each a major writer of her genera tion and each a writer with a preference for comedy, I find very lit te that can be categorized as masoehistie, desporate, oF eynicsl. ‘The comedy is sometimes uncomfortable, however. The British critic Siriol HughJones, in her brief survey of wit among Ea- land's literary women. calls attention to the disconcerting comedy in the fiction of Penelope Mortimer and Muriel Spark. Hugh Jones observes that Mortimer's novela “can make you laugh heartily in a terrified sort of war,” and with Spark, the laughter “freezes in the throat." The unnerving quality of Spark's fietion, and some of Mortimer's, results from the elose-shave of eomedy's razor. Spark, and to some extent Mortimer, mock what another writer would al Jow to stand as a norm, as something in which everyone could still trustand believe. More consistently and ferociously than Mortimer, “Muriel Spark insists on leaving her comie world stranded inthe up- sidedown anti-order of liminalty, and for this reason she, along with Virginia Woolf, receives extended discussion in this study. Several authors, such as Dorothy Richardson and Doris Lessing, who have developed distinetly feminist themes in their novels are not included here because their mode is not for the most part com: ie! Lessing and Richardson, as Annis Pratt obsorves; ike the ear lier novelists Fanny Burney and Ann Radeliffe, do battle with the norms of a pairiarchal society, with “stingy fathers, brutal broth- fers, violent sedueers, flattering fianees, aunt toms, and false friends, all of them aeting in accordance with accepted sexist norms.” Lessing's attack, however, is earnest and even solemn, though her characters often talk about laughter. My particular interest is the ‘work of writors whose comedy sounds the depth of the images, biases, and nostalgis whieh we aequire through primary socializa- tige and which constitute those archetypal, long standing, and ven erable norms ‘After HughJones muses upon the slender contribution of wom-Comedy and Women 21 ‘en authors to comic literature she observes: “The pity of it to me is ‘that wit, satire, irony, a way of saying serious and indeed perhaps ‘unpopular, controversial and dangerous things obliquely and to all appearances lightly, are the best possible methods for a woman who ‘wishes to make some communication in this country.” These ‘words, written in 1961, are not far from those of Virginia Woolt in 1029 when she suggested that women writers may discover that something trivial to them is important to men, and may want to alter the “established values.” Woolf, Spark. and some other novel: ists to be examined in the final chapter all say some things obliquely"—dangerous because the comie context is nal one in which inversions are not turned upright again; instead, the distorted quests or bizarre festivities persist in the transition phase and are not resolved into an orderly lose that would reaffirm ‘at least the traditional, most intimately learned, norms of primary socialization. For these writers, the liminal motifs of inversion, of blurred or unusual sex identity, of a classless community, of an- nulled normality, are given the kind of radical freeplay that allows ‘comedy to live up tothe very best ofits bad reputation, Virginia Woolf: Myth and Manner in the Early Novels In ber novols, Virginia Woolf makes good use of comedy for saying many "dangerous things obliquely.” so obliquely that readers have ‘often missed both the comedy and the “dangerous.” oF revolution: ary, implications. For the most part she follows her own advice ‘against using fietion as a vehiele for grievance and instead uses a subversive strategy of imagers and irony whichis infrequently ree- ‘ognized as comic. The mockery in Woolf's novels is direeted, with considerable tension and ambiguity, chiefly at those cultural images which derive from primary socialization, While she also ‘makes comic capital out of manners, as British fiction traditionally does, Virginia Woolf's most devastating mockery is directed at archetypal imagery, a questing hero, a scapegoat, an Angel in the House or in the soul Her fetion is profoundly irreverent, attacking ‘many of those norms of family relationship, of aex identity and sex boehavior, which are reflected in the narrative paradigms of West: cern literature, in seripture, “tragedy,” and “comedy.” For the writer who sees some reason to work loose from the plot patterns of the past two or three millenia for the “free” writer, Vir frinia Woolf remarks in Modern Fiction" (1919), there would be no plot, no comedy. ao tragedy, no love interest or catastrophe in the accepted style."! The obliqueness of Woolt’s comedy, and the subtloty ofits social implications aro linkod vo the experimental quality of her fiction generally, to hor deliberate rejection of the “accepted style.” Although Wool’ formal and stylistic experimen tation has received considerable critial attention, the ramifications of the persistent and varied comedy in her novels, especially its 80- cial ramifications, usually receive only the briefest aside or are over-Myth and Manner in Woolf's Barly Novels 23 looked altogether:* Very recently eritics have shown a greater sen tivity to Woolt’s social comedy, and to her wit and humor. Maria DiBattista, discussing a selection of Woolf's novels in relation to British literary tradition, emphasizes Woolf's antecedents in that tradition, including comic writers such as Sterne and Meredith; the essentially conservative model of comedy which DiBattista uses tends to throw light on the more benign aspects of comedy in ‘Woolf's fietion® On the other hand, Margaret Comstock, who ex amines biographical as well as literary linkages between Meredith land Woolf, points to the radical and politieal elements in Woolt's Teminist comedy.‘ Feminism is indeed a major presence in the com: cedy of this writer, who was at least moderately aetive in organiza tions dedicated to suffrage and to other concerns of women. Al though she found the rhetoric at a suffrage rally distasteful full of| “indisputable platitudes; her feminist tracts, A Room of One's (Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1997), demonstrate that politics and wit can reinforce each other. Virginia Woolf did not think that pas- sionate polities and good novels were compatible. however, and she ‘accused Charlotte Bronte of having muddled the two in Jane Eyre! Nevertheless, a very thorough and depth-sounding political ‘comedy—a liminal comedy of unresolved, reversed, or radically ‘questioned, values and roles— emerges in Wools mature novels. ‘The inward and mythie characters ofthis author may not seem carthy and active enough to earry much soeiologieal weight, and many erities have accused Woolf of having little or no concern for Ihuman beings as social, industrialized, war-ravaged, modern peo- ple.’ Woolf's concern in her novels is with the mythic paradigm be hhind the moros and institutions: she examines the psychological “quest,” the mode of spiritual growth, that Vietorian and wen tieth-century institutions allow, or forbid, to men and women, lovers, businessmen, visionary soldiers, and others. She examines ‘the imagery and ritual of various modern festivities, of those iminal ‘and renewing occasions, such as dinners, parties, and pageants. Her ‘social criticism is perhaps too radical to be obvious; nevertheless, her laughter touches the deepest nerves of Western culture ‘Although Virginia Woolf did not write a “theory” of comedy, her essays and criticism contain intriguing remarks about the sub- {Ject, She porsistontly probes the distinetion between a fietion of ex- ‘ernals and a fiction of consciousness, between the “materialist,” 24 Myth and Manner in Woolf's Barly Novels as she called Bennett and Galsworthy, and those who, like the Rus sian writers so popular among the English in the early twentieth century, portrayed the “soul.” As sho writes in her famous essay, “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Broven” (1924), the typical English novelist ‘would portray a hypothetical character's eccentricities, giving ws “Mrs. Brown” in all her particularity, “her oddities and manner- ‘sms: her buttons and wrinkles; her ribbons and warts.” The Froneh writer would focus, Woolf says. on the more general quali: ‘es of human nature, and the Russian author would probe the soul and the large questions it asks of life (CE, 1325)" I British fetion "in the accepted style” concentrates on dress, habit, and the partie- larity of seis! mores and manners, British comedy in the aecepted style uses much the same materials, Woolf implies. In an early es say, “Modes and Manners of the Nineteenth Century” (1910), she ‘questions the assumed links between manners and character, and affirms that people are not necessarily or adequately expressed by ‘lothes and social gestures, though these elements are the tradi- tonal materials ofthe satirist ® ‘These are slso the materials which inspired Wool's own come jibes at a2quaintances, and the materials of previous English comic ‘eritors whom she admirod. Her senso ofthe come, which pervades her letters and which delighted her friends, expresses itself in exu- berant and often malicious attention to eccentricity, to literary and {ntolleetual posturings— to the "manners," in other words, of her Vietorian relatives, her Bloomsbury friends, or her peripheral social ‘acquaintances. She was, as her brother in aw Clive Bol recalled, "a ‘bora and infectious mocker.”™ Comedy in the accepted style, deft: ly employed by Austen or Peacock, received Wool's admiring erti- ‘al response. Reviewing a biography of Sterne in 1908, she noted ‘Sterne's eomie thrusts st great wigs, solemn faces, and deeeit gen- erally (CE, 390), She admired the seventeenth-century letter: ‘writer Dorothy Osborne for pouring "a fine rallery over the pomps and ceremonies of existence” and for choosing William Temple fora husband rather than men who styled their lives after certain exag- ‘erated fashions of the time, the pompous justice, the town gallant, fr the travelled monsieur (CE, 02-63). Wools own practice as 2 comic writer is sometimes quite close to that of Austen and Sterne, In The Voyage Out many of the hotel guests at Sania Marina are stock comie figures, as Avrom Fleishman and others have pointedMyth and Manner in Woolf's Early Novels 25 ut: these bored British tourists havea history among English satir- ists.!" The characters represent comic protrusions of a society which identifies certain things as reasonable and good, and other things as peculiar or grotesque. The ley, in To the Lighthouse receives simi “admirable” Hugh Whitbread in Mrs. Dalloway ‘Suppose, however, that a socicty's notion of what is reasonable ‘and good changes, or that @ woman's view of reason and goodness develops differently, as Woolf says it does, from a man's ideas on ‘these matters. Different traditions yield difforont notions of what is funny. Woolf points to the advantages of a sotid norm for comedy. ‘Such a standard permits the keen comic observations of the French letter writer Madame de Sévigné: “She is always roferring her impressions to a standard —heneo the incisiveness, the depth, and ‘comedy that make those spontaneous statements so illuminating” (CE, 3:69), In an essay on Oliver Goldsmith, Woolf observes that “one advantage of having a settled code of morals is that you know ‘exactly what to laugh at” (CE, 1:110). The earlier writers— Meredith, Wordsworth, Scott —had such 2 code. In "How It Strikes 4 Contemporary,” Woolf deseribes the condition of the older Ex: lish writers: “They have their judgment of conduct. They know ‘the relations of human beings towards each other and towards the universe" (CE, 2159). But, as Virginia Woolf is famous for having announced, “in or about December. 1910, human character changed.” With this ‘change, all those relationships which seem to be 50 secure in the works of Goldsmith also underwent a metamorphosis. “All human relations have shifted~ those between masters and servants, hus bands and wives, parents and children. And when human relations ‘change there is at the same time a change in religion, conduct, poli ties, and literature” (CE, 1:320-21). And in comedy as well. Among ‘the changing modes of relationship one that particularly interested ‘Woolf was the code that governed behavior between men and wom: ‘en, As we sav in the previous chapter, Woolf mused on the possi- bility that women novelists might find an especially rich vein of ‘comedy by observing and criticizing men. Since hoth sexes are now literate and verbal. the distinctions between the two traditions of perception and experience will emerge in the literature that each sex writes, A woman will want “to altor the established valuos to 28 Myth and Manner in Woolf's Early Novels make serious what appears insignificant to a man, and trivial what Js to him important" (CF, 2:148) Virginia Woolf is specie about some of the values whieh in her view, the sexes do not share. Ina letter of January 1916 she refers to the war as “this preposterous masculine fetion,” and she ‘observes in A Room of One's Own that “the valves of women differ ‘very often from the values which have been made by the other ‘sen; henee, a eritie will consider a book important if it deals with ‘war but dismiss another book as insignificant “because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room." Avoiding overt politi- cal pleading or denunciation, Woolf approaches political issues at ‘more buried and basic level: she euts tho root and branch rather ‘than the leaves, the myths instead of the manner. She frequently inverts conventional literary and social judgments about the rela tive values of war and parties of the activities, roles, and spiritual ‘commitments of each sex. The “feelings of women,” their values and their culture, are juxtaposed. often in a sprit of impudent hoi ‘day, against the earnest herolsm of mea and few rigidly “herole” women sueh a8 Miss Kilman) whother that heroism attempts war, fame, or martyrdom. Particularly in her firs five novels, the questing male scholar or lover isa source of amusement, either tothe narrator or toa wom fan character. The ritual activities of women, on the other hand, ‘are presonted as liminal occasions for colobration, and even for some antimale flyting. Beginning with Orlondo, however, and to some ‘extent in To the Lighthouse, the mockery undercuts even female festivity. or at least its expression inthe socal rituals of dinners and parties, For Virginia Woolf, the “two cultures” are not those of seionee ‘and the humanities, but those of men and women. She tells women, ‘authors, in A Room of One's Own, that we think baek through our mothers,” since the great male writers do not help a woman writer in any essential way." Later in her career, Woolf makes an angry diary note about "my civilization” and the unpaid work women ave done, within the male evilzation, for the past two thousand xyears." And in 1987, facing yet another world war perpetrated —as she felt—by men, in Three Guineas she urges women to joina soe ‘ely of pacifist, feminist "Outsiders." She identifies a women's trad ition oF civilization. More recent feminists have pointed to the ex-‘Myth and Manner in Woolf's Early Novels 27 istence in the nineteenth century of a female subculture o ‘separate women's culture.” The female counterculture functions in Woolf's novels the way a counterculture usually funetions in society: it mocks and inverts the socicts's established values, espe cially its codes of what is trivial and what is important, its institu tionalized assignments regarding sex identity, lifework or life quest, “heroism.” Virginia Wools perception, and expression, of liminality in her fiction did not occur in a vacuum. She lived and wrote in an era ‘of disconcerting change. Her attitude towards her Vietorian family, particularly after her mother's death in 1895, was one of resistance and rebellion. She has seorn for her stepbrother George Duekworth, a classic, nearly mythie Vietorian hypocrite who sexually molested Virginia and her sister and then “jumped through hoops” of the social eireus adroitly enough to gain ultimately 2 knighthood: a ‘mere spectator to this “patriarchal machinery.” Woolf experi enced, she says, a “feeling whieh I later ealled the outsider’s feel ing." She and Vanessa were misfits in their Vietorian family. "By ature, both Vanessa and I were explorers, revolutionists, reform cers.""! When, after Leslie Stephen's death in 1904, his four young: ‘est children set up house in Bloomsbury, their revolution gained a new autonomy and self-definition. ‘The Bloomsbury friends, drawn initially from Thoby Ste- phen’s acquaintances at Cambridge, constituted a living counter culture. The radieal position of the group was deseribed by John Maynard Keynes: "We repudiated entirely customary morals, co: ventions and traditional wisdom. We were, that is to say. in the siriet sense of the term, immoralists."* The expression of this re pudiation assumed an ancient and festive form when Virginia and several friends successfully impersonated a delegation of Abyssin fans, and requested and received a tour of the HMS Dreadnought Virginia, disguised as an African man and speaking in a low, gruff voice, was ina liminal role analogous to that of a Boy Bishop, as she barely restrained her laughter, grecting the flag commander, her cousin William Fishor.* In this escapade, the elements of disguise of sexrole reversal, and of impudent mockery of respected institu tion such as the British navy, all expressed the festive and revolu: tionary import typical of liminal celebrations. A revolutionary in a Vietocian household, then an active member of the lively counter 28 Myth and Manaer in Woolf's Early Novels culture that was Bloomsbury, Virginia Woolf was thoroughly im- ‘bued with both the attitudes and the ritualized forms of liminal pro- test and satire, of comedy that mocks the norm The Voyage Out and Night and Day "The comedy in Wool!’s first two novels snot as radical as it be- ‘comes inher later work, but in both The Voyage Out and Night and Day the major female character is suspicious not only of manner but of the deeper, “normal” expectations with which society con- fronts her. By its title The Voyage Out adumbrates the unresolved nature of the quest that ists principal subject matter: Rachel Vin- ‘ace voyages out, but docs not return, finally, t0 life and to love. Like the initiates of exotie cultures, Rachel leaves society and centers the jungle for liminal period that should lead her to an un: erstanding and acceptance of her new role in society (for her, the role ofa mature and married woman). But Rachel violates the ritual bby not returning to society. She evidently contracts fatal disease Jn the jungle. Symbolially, she may have contracted an austere judgment against the human rules for molding her identity. Like ‘the author of her story, Rechol resists the accepted style of comedy, of tragedy, ofthe young woman's initiation pot. "The comic olements in the novel evaluate on several levels the ini ‘tiation effort, the adventurous attempt to become human. The art ficial manners of the hotel guests who have in gencral filed the attempt by defining their social humanity too rigidly — come infor ‘raditional mockery. Rachel given a more fully portrayed con sciousness than that of the guests, gradually develops judgment and a perceptive eye forthe comic, qualities reminiscent of the her- fines of Austen and Meredith. Finally, however, the comedy ‘swoope beyond the human altogether as the eheoriess laughter of ‘the jungle eries seems to attack human socialization itself and to imply thatthe basie myths of initiation, love, and identity are mere human artifice, ultimately presumptuous ‘Rachels introduetion to a soeioty different from her own very limited one (her father and her aunts heyins as she meets the Dallo- ‘ways abourd the ship. The Dalloways introduce Rachel not only to the manner and conversation of high society but to passion, and ‘specially to 4 man's Interpretation of what sexuality means to aMyth and Manner in Woolf's Early Novels 29 rman and toa woman. As the ship lurches in the uneasy aftermath of the storm, Richard Dalloway suddenly embraces Rackel with fierce intensity, explaining in a choked voice, “You tempt me."® Rachel's ‘excitement following this event includes exultation and wonder as well as her subsequent nightmare of being trapped in an oozing vault where a deformed animallike man gibbers. For Rachel. sexuat felingsare inked toa sense of her own vulnerability and to the idea that a passionate man is one who may abruptly possess her. The op- pressive dream imagery of fear and cavernous dead ends oceurs later in the novel, as almost al erities observe, particularly during Rachel's fever. Hut tosee the kiss as associated with a fatal timidity about life relationships, and sex isto forget the ambiguity of Ra: chel's response to Richard Dalloway's sudden embrace." After she leaves Richard, she looks atthe distant seabirds riding the peaceful waves, and she becomes “peaceful too, at the same time possessed with a strange exultation, Life seemed to hold infinite possibilities the had never guessed at.” Sho continues looking atthe waves until she is “cold and absolutely ealm again. Nevertheless something ‘wonderful had happened” (76-77). The phrases “at the same time” and “nevertheless” are too important to disregard. She is upset by the circumstances of the experience, and beeause of her ignaranee, is quite unprepared for Richard's behavior. She isnot, on this occa sion, expressing a coolness towards, and a rejection of, «formalized Edwardian social ritual for the introduetion of the sexes to wach cther. She is responding to something more deep and ancient ia Westorn culture, to the notion of a man as having the passionate right 1o dominate a“temptress” who isall the more tempting for be ing completely innocent, completely naive. Rachel's ambiguous feelings are a response, not to sensitive courtship or even to seduc: tion, but to assault. It is remarkable that she finds in such circum stances any feelings of wonder and exultation at al: the fact that she does indicates brave vigor and a readiness for selfiscovery. ‘The otherwise miscellaneous episode of the Dalloways is hooked into the structure by means of Rachel's need to grow inset knowledge and to achieve a discriminating judgment of people. She is “taken in” by the couple, as she admits to Helen soon after the Dalloways are set ashore. Responding to Rachel, Helen observes ‘that “one has to make experiments” and that her young niece must learn to “discriminate” (82-83). Yet an understanding of people is 8) Myth and Manner in Woolf's Barly Novels you ean go ahead and be a person on your own account.” At this Suggestion Rachel suddenly has a “vision of her own personality, of horse as areal everlasting thing, diferent from anything el, un: morgeable, like the sea or the wind” (4), Rachel here sees the core ‘of herself, and of hor autonomy, as analogous to nonhuman, natural phenomena. Its from this remote and mystical core that she judges people's behavior and judges also society's assumption that the ba- sie myth of her life will be engagement and marriage. ‘Maturing soclally on the boiday island and under the tutelage ‘of Helen Ambrose, Rachel makes few errors of judgment as serious as her complete rapture for the Dalloways. Indeed, she develops a ‘sense of the comic which resembles that ofthe narrator, The narra tor, for instance, had been comically euphemistic about Mr. Dal. loway’s losing an election: “Unable for a season, by one of the accidents of poltiel lif, to serve his country in Parliament, Mr. Dalloway was doing the best he could to secve it out of Parliament” (99) Sometimes the narrator introduces diction which is more so: phisticated than the natural speech af her characters would be, and this diction ean penetrate comie ambiguities which the characters could not perceive in themselves. Por instance, as Rachel and the ‘others at Santa Marina emerge from the chapel. they are “greeted with curious respectful glances by the people who had not gone to chureb, although their clothing made it clear that they approved of Sunday to the very verge of going to church” 22). Like the narra tor, Rachel contributes her own mocking criticism of pose and blind spots, She had evidently neither laughed nor thought much as she ‘grew up among her aunts, nor di she find the Dalloways amusing. Helen di, It is during the dance celebrating the engagement of Susan land Arthur that Rachel becomes detached enough to laugh at her~ self for the first time, After an ungratifying attempt, she and Hirst sive up trying to waltz together, and Rachel dutifully tries to make commonplace conversation. Hirst is bored and iritated. He praises Helen's beauty and taetlessly comments on Rachel’ lack of educ tion and her “absurd life until now.” Then, promising to improve hher with his books, he rises with the remark, "I'm going to leave you nove (155-55). The scene is very reminiscent of the episode in rade and Prejudice (vo. L, chap. 2) in which Darey makes blunt‘Myth and Manner in Woolf's Early Novels 31 statements, in Elizabeth's hearing, about her lack of beauty; he re fuses to dance with a second rate woman, and thus his “pride” gives the impetus to Elizabeth's “prejudice” which it takes her many ‘thoughtful chapters to lose, Rachel also is immediately prejudiced against Hirst; to herself she uses some of Helen’s words on him: “Damn that man... Damn his insolenee" (155). But when she tries to explain her anger to Terence, she thinks of the way Helen would have mocked the situation and remarks, “I dare say Im a fool” (55), Rachel has never heen able previously to say such a thing, but Helen's buoyant sense ofthe ridiculous here pases to Rachel in ‘a moment of perception and spontaneity. Soon Rachel and Terence are laughing at Hirst's brusque and insensitive ways: Rachel veered round suddenly and laughed out too. She saw that there was something ridiculous about Hirst, and perhaps about herself “It’s his way of making friends, I suppose,” she laughed. “Well I shall do my part. I shall begin—"Ugly in body, reput- sive in mind as you are, Mr. Hirst —"” “Hear, heat!” cried Hewet, “That's the way to treat him..." 156) Rachel is mocking both herself and Hirst. She stages a light-hearted mimie revenge on Hirst and never treats him thereafter with the seriousness that he nearly always thinks he deserves. While the narrator mocks and judges her characters, and Ra chel wards off the wounding egotism of Hirst, the jungle itself be comes the final judge and moeker of the vacationing human beings. ‘whether they are iling away this potentially liminal and renewing ‘season or, like Rachel and Hewet, voyaging thoughtfully along the deep psychological and mythie course of soll-discovery. The jungle laughs at both manner and myth and provides the beyond:the- human norm which reappears, usually a8 a more ineffable and mys tical ultimate, in Wools later novels. ‘The presence of uncivilized nature—a presence which be comes especially real allencompassing, and even sinister, during the trip up the Amazon gives an ironic background even to the norms of love and integrity by which Helen, Rachel, and Terence hhave been judging the deviant oF cecentrie manners of the hotel guests. The laughter inthe jungle is cynically alien and harsh. One 82 Myth and Manner in Woolf's Early Novels morning as Rachel, Terence, and the others move quietly up the river, Terence fels that he and Rachel are being drawn on irre Diy: while he reads, "a bird gave a wild laugh, a monkey chuckled a malicious question” 267). During a walk into tho jungle, as the lovers become immersed in their own happiness, the forest sounds recge in sinister way with the voices of the other strollers who ‘walk behind them and call from time to time. The “repetition of Hewet’s name in short. dissevered syllables was to them the erack of dry braneh othe laughter ofa bed” 283, Although the narra tion bosomes indirect shorty after this, Rachel is spparentiy {hrown Lo the ground by Helen, whose presence coztinues tobe ap brent above the waving grasses and above the two lovers {253-841 The evidently sexual episode overs just afer, and is fol lowed by, alirmations of love ané happiness, but the implicit vio lence realls Richard Dalloway’s sudden embracing of Rachel. In the jungle it sas though Rachels raped by passion iseltif the jun tle san image of passion, ofthe instinctive chemistry that takesits ‘own way through human veins. The abrupt los of independence this episode implies—oecurs ata deeper and more drastic level than that caused by Richard Dalloway’s grabbing ofa woman in a storm, The jungle and the impersonal surge of human feelings mock not just the artifice of the socal ritual of courtship but the presumption that detinitions of ove and marrage ean adequately protect the in tiates, Rachel and Terence, from the overwhelming povter of this particular ile passage. The wild world scems to be laughing at the Civilized one and mocking it for its presumptions af love, of names, ‘of communication, and of tenderness. ‘Rachel Resels inked to the aimallimages ard tobe ture ofthe jungle world. Critics have pointed out the sea imagery swhich is invoked while Terence and Rachel walk inthe forest. In {beir absorption in their happiness they sem to bo “walking at the bottom of the sa” (270) Later, atthe Ambrose vila, when they are ‘iseussing thoir future relationship, Reehel and Terenee strugyle playfully she i thrown onto the foe, but clams a vietory by rede- fining herself, “Tm x mermaid! I can swim” C961 Her triomph necessitates an ambiguous image, half hurnan and helf lien, a mer ‘aid Rachel is, more than anyone else, associied withthe nonbur ‘man worl of nature, and she seems to cherish a reservation about human closeness, even with ber fianeé, Terence.‘Myth and Manner in Woolf's Early Novels 33 Rachel's death is a final echo of the jungle's mockery, and to some extent an echo of Rachel's own capacity for mockery. The fact that her death happens in the same book that shows us her unvill: ingness to draw close to another human being suggests a symbolic connection etween the event and the attitude. Louise DeSalvo's recent study of the novel's extant versions presents evidence that Rachel's social and sexual reserve, as well as her death, find their origins in Virginia Woolf's tense family relationships: as the novel evolved, Rachel's death became a logical extonsion of her sense of powerlessness with regard to men" Other erties see Rachel as sex ually restricted, and perhaps morally eulpable for the ineompatibi ity between her new senso of freedom and the social duty and op- portunity for relationship. Does Raehel, as well as the jungle itself, deny and mock even such “normal” and basie socialization myths as a young woman's “sexual awakening,” her diseovery of ‘identity ina loved man, and her engagement to him? Rachel's story and the imagery of the jungle eries are perhaps Wooll's vehiele for attacking this basic myth, a myth that seemed to have destroyed her stepsister Stella, who married and then died three months later Purther, the elassie notion that a woman's awakening to life and to her own identity is inevitably part of her awakening to love is the Sleeping BeautySnow White paradigm defined by 4 maledomi- nated culture. The story of a woman's passage to maturity, how fever, may differ in cireumstances and values from the "story" de- fined for her by a man. Annis Pratt has pointed out, for instance. that the male hero in a Bildungsroman must subdue nature, while the female hero most characteristically identifies with nature. ‘Typically. the woman does not give herself completely or eternally toa man, but toa loved landscape instead, toa green world in which sho finds her identity. Few women in novels written by women ever say yes to a man with the total submission that Molly Bloom says it Rachel's death is an analogue, though not a result. of her reservations about the mannered behavior of socal intercourse and. leven about the myth of love itself as defined by her society. Rachel is like Septimus in Mrs. Dalloway in that sh: ing to let others define tho terms by whieh her life is to be ordered. Before he jumps from the window, Septimus thinks, “It was their dea of tragedy." Rachel in effeet says, “It is thelr idea of love,” I society's ides that she must answer the artifical notes eongratu: is unwill: 34 Myth and Manner in Woolf's Early Novels lating her upon her engagement: it is society's idea that she mast find herself by restricting her lifeand love to one man, Rachel's owa {ideas on these matters are images of autonomy, of a wildly free na tural landscape. She soes her unmergesble self as similar tothe "sea fr the wind.” Terence speculates that she is aot in love with him, thal she will always want something more than he ean be. And Ra ‘cel though she does not say it aloud, agrees. "It seemed to her now that what he was saying was perfoetly true, and thet she wanted ‘many more things than the love of one human being —the sea. the sky” 802) Both Rache!’s newly discovered passion and her sense of an “unmergeable” identity are often symbolized by vast natural imagery —the sea, the jungle, the wind, he sky. and the storm that ‘sweeps across the island some hours after her death. In The Voyage Out Rachel embarks on what seoms tobe avery typical liminality initiation into maturity. Naive and untried she leaves England. She learns to discriminate, and her sense of the comic evaluates the social posturing of those around her. Eventual: ly, she leaves the vacation community of Santa Marina and travels deep into the primitive wildness of the nonhuman jungle, Psyeho- logically she remains in liminality; she romaias among the symbols fof ehaos and of freedom; she remains on the “margin” of the initia: tion passage and does not return. For her—as for other women in Woolf's novels—liminality, or the green world, is not a temporary. {festive escape. It is a revolutionary eountry. It isa place from whieh to evaluate “eivilization.” the male civilization and its traditions which, as Woolf noted, differ considerably from those of women. If Virginia Wool’ first novelisa voyage out, her second, Night and Day (1919), isa voyage baek, at least in form. Katharine Hilbery, ‘member of a tradition respecting family that maintains a ceremo- pious attitude toward its famous Victorian forbears, a first accepts dutifully an engagement to the qualified but stuffy William Red- ney; when she subsequently decides on the honesty and eomfor- table freedom ofa lfe with Ralph Denham (whose family is less well off and less formal), she and her mother sucessfully oppose the pride and will of Mr. Hilbery, the “blocking” father figure. Kathe arine and Ralph apparestly bring the "vision" from the liminal and "side of life back into the structure of an ordered commua- ‘day” side. The form both releases ~as it traditionally shouldMyth and Manner in Woolf's Barly Novels 35 ~a festive questioning of social conventions, and then gathers back the green world of magic and tempest into the steady structures of ‘community renewed, but not radically changed, by its glimpse of brave new world. ‘The images of opposing forces in this novel, which was once ‘entitled “Dreams and Realities,” constitute a major part of the book's symbolic and psychologieal import, and erities have often discussed the several polarities in the work, pointing to the charac- ters efforts to reconcile night and day, femininity and masculinity vision and faet, consciousness and coavention.® The diffieulty of resolving these polarities expresses itself in Katharine's complex psychological life, and in Ralph's also. Such complexity, as many crities observe, seems inappropriately stuffed into the rigid formal ties of a comedy of manners.® And yet, since the traditional comic form does incorporate a rebellion into its strueture, the ideological revolt of Katharine and Ralph receives in this novel a schematic framework that at least calls attention to the revolt, Theoretically the “night” side of consciousness, the liminal, upside-down world of life's great passages—in this case Katharine’s successive engage ‘ments ~do have a built-in place in traditional comic structure, They constitute the ordeals the journeys, or the holiday revels. Indeed, Mrs, Hilbery (modeled after Virginia Wools Aunt Annie Ritchie, ‘who was part of the Stephen household for many years) fits quite ‘well into the pattern. She is the magician-fool who journeys to ‘Shakespeare's tomb and earries away from it some symbolic green ery: this she bears home and offers her renewing vision, whieh brings the action toa satisfactory resolution. She isthe magician o Priest of the liminslity in the novel, guiding and encouraging the chosen couple in their intistory confrontations with the old order as represented by Katharine’s father. As Josephine Schaefer says of Mrs. Hilbery, she “is humanity turned inside out and upside down until what matters most (love, poctry, music) become the only things that matter at a” And Margaret Comstock notes that Mrs. Hilbery “makes a new order by creating disorder.”” She isa sys bol of creative liminal inversion. Hut what the conservative comic form here gives with one hand, it takes away with the other. Sut ‘mitting to the comie plot, the liminaity must be, and is, resolved Considered in the light of the novel's aetion, Katharine's only revlt is toget away with choosing her own husband instead of bending to 36 Mythand Manner in Woolf's Early Novels hor father's choleo. The only person to escape into social change is ‘Katharine’sfriond Mary Duchet, the sulfragette, who suffers some: ‘what from the satire thatthe author directs at Mary's colleagues in ‘the movement. ‘Just as Mary's actions take her outside the come plot, 30 Kath. farino’s moral and psychological growth continues above and ‘beyond the demands of New Comedy. Much of the meditative sel searching in the novel plays with the favorite Shakespearean theme of lies masquarading as truths. This theme itself certainly has «traditional place ina comic plot, but the amount of psychologi- cal energy expended overloads the structural cireuits. Among the ‘band, Ralph is the major speaker for truth He insists that honesty and freedom are possible, and he puts before Katharine the “terms for a friendship which should he perfectly sineere and perfeetly straightforward." Her acceptance of these “terms” leads Kath: arine to question the discrepancy between her private world of free- ‘dom and the public one of dishonesty. In an often quoted passage she considers the problem: “Why. she refleeted, should there be this perpetual disparity between the thought and the action, be: ‘ween the life of solitude and the ife of society, this astonishing pre cipice on one side of which the soul was active and in broad daylight, ‘on the other side of whieh it was contemplative and dark as night? Was it not possible to step from one tothe other, ereet and without ‘essential change?” (358-50). The great difficulty which confronts ‘both partes to this pact of friondship is that neither can move easly from tho night world of contomplation—whieh is haunted by the loved one's “ghost” to the day world in which they try to see ach ‘other as they really are. Both Katharine and Ralph are true to the terms of thor friendship in that they are hovest with each other; ‘hey admit theie lapses into dream or selfabsorption, and they try to overcome the lick of communication which threatens them when they suoeumb to thei illusions. “The ambiguity of these illusions is sharply defined by Kath arine when she zecuses Ralph of seeing her through an exotically romantic atmosphere: ‘You call that, I suppose. being in love:as a matter of fat ‘being in delusion. Allromantie people are the same.” she added. “My mother sponds her life in making stories about the peopleMyth and Manner in Woolf's Early Novels 37 she's fond of. But I won't have you do it about me, iT can help it” “You can't help it," he sui. “warn you t's the source of all evi.” “And of all good,” he added. 404-5) Ralph, from the beginning of his acquaintance with Katharine, has been “making stories” about her, imagining her with darker hair, a taller build, a more exalted and infallible mind (17-18); inevitably this “ghost” often comes into conflict with Katharine's actions and her real, physieal presence, Katharine, for her part, has for a long time entertained an idealized image of passion—a “magnanimous hero,” a horseman, riding beside the sea or through the forests (107-8, 145,205) ‘These illusions seem at first to inhibit honest communication between Katharine and Ralph. By the end of the novel, however, the internalized images of their relationship begin aetually to aid in ‘communieation. When Katharine looks at Ralph's drawing of the little dot with flames around it, an image which is Ralph’s inartieu late expression of his love for her, sho says, “Yes, the world looks ‘something like that to me too” (622). When Ralph urges her to tell, him how she came to love him, she resists, saying that she would have to speak of ridiculous things—"something about flames— fires” (6341, But this imagery of fire makes Ralph feel that he can ‘top Into her mind; the “illusion” this eroative and shared one— unites rather than separates them. Their ereative use of the ‘night” side of consciousness actually helps them to understand ‘each other. The moral status of illusion in this novel holds a position similar to tho one it holds in Shakespeare's comedies: as Avrom Fleishman suggests, the interruption of usual life by romantie love results ina transformation by means ofthe illusions, and these sions are not mere errors but a means of access to certain realities lunavailable to ordinary experience.” The novel's incorporation of ‘soveral kinds of illusion allows us to go further; we can abserve the circumstances which render the untruths “mere errors,” and ob- ‘serve also those contexts which allow the illusion to be, as Ralph in sists, “the source of all good.” The Hilberys, proud descendents of ‘the poot Richard Alardyce, tend to mako up stories about him and about illustrious relatives. The false stories are maintained because 38 Myth and Manner in Woolf's Early Novels 67 they become traditions; the illusion is kept up for the sake of fomily pride only. The illusions which perpetuate the past are, i this nov- cl, portrayed as potentially harmful, oppressive, ot at best comic and innocuous. Yet those illusions that allow Katharine and Ralph to communicate with each other and to envision their future are seen as fruitful and life giving. The tr ‘guises, the liminal fantasizing during this period of the marriage in itiatioa, is « way of keeping the future fresh and open. Both the “night” and the “day.” both the private vi the family relies tend tobe the di swciety, its “manners.” and these are the subject of subtle mockery. In contrast, the subjective illusions, the fantasies of Katharine and. Ralph, tond to be reeognizably arehetypal: for Katharine, i is the heroic horseman and for Ralph, the vision of a tall, idealized Kath- rine, The lovers recognize that such imagery is romantie and false. ‘Yet neither they nor the narrator counter this imagery with more than mild amusement, even though in her later novels Virginia Woolf elaborately and subtly mocks the dream manners of human. beings, the mores of the “night” sie of conseiousness, the habits of the soul. With a few exceptions, the only symbols that are some- times allowed a complete and iyric seriousness in Woolf's fiction are ‘those thet do not involve the image of a human beinga globe, lighthouse, a painting. In Night oxd Day, for instance, the flery halo, the orderly flames circling a do represent an almost mystical ‘communication botweon tho lovers. Such images secm to be a further expression of the "globe" which Katharine feels that she holds “for one brief moment.” It is “the globe which we spend our lives in trying to shape, round, whole, and entire from the confusion ‘of chaos” (633). Jungian analysts and erities would find in this image a mandala, a deep and cross-cultural symbol of the Self, of psyehologieal wholencss.® At the level of mysticism, Wool's mockery ceases, though it remains quite active among the classic, humanly imaged archetypes—the horseman, the magnanimous hero.Myth and Manner in Woolf's Early Novels 39 Jacob's Room One of the more renowned literary permutations of the arehe: typal quest is the Bildungsroman, and in Jacob's Room (1922) Woolf thoroughly teases this classe structure. Under the guise of narrat ing the story of a young Edwardian “inheritor of all the ages,” she writes the first of hor novels demonstrating hor resolve to be a “tree” writer—free to coneontrate on conselousness and to dis pense as needed with transitions, chronology, and traditional plot. ‘Jacob's Room has no tragedy, comedy, of love interest “in the ae cepted style.” And yet the paradigm of the “accepted style” —in this ease the Bildungsroman structure—hovers like an antique frame that doesn't quite fit Jacob's actions or personality. Many of the novel's peculiarities in form, point of view, and characterization are linked to the element of parody. since the “form derives partly from a strategy of literary attack. The novel shows very clearly the marks of a playful rebellion; itis held together by the shadowy strueture ofthe very thing itis against, the Bildungsroman. ‘The parodie mocking of the form generates some mocking of subject as well. The Bildungsroman, when it concerns a capable Edwardian male, must deal in part with the hero's experience of British institutions of higher learning, for instanee. In Jacob's ‘Room the traditional male growth pattern full of great expectation {alls like 4 tattered mantle around the shoulders of the indevisive hhero, heir ofthe ages. The musing and amused narrator mocks the structure of her story: she mocks the conventions of the hero's progress; and, by implication, she mocks the values behind those conventions. Frequently calling attention to the fact that she is an ‘outsider observing Jasob's room and world, the narrator is a lyeie Jester who seems to observe a world the natural world of sea and Stare —that is ina state of continual celebration, though it has its melancholy aspects also. Looking into Jacob's life from this pro foundly liminal vantage point, the narrator finds his life curious, funny, sad. A distinet though mild feminism often coincides with the narrator's bemused wrenching of the traditional male growing, ‘up paradigm, For most crities Woolt’ rejection of traditional “realistic” style in Jacob's Room is at least a thoroughly interesting experiment, although some find weaknesses in Jacob's characterization.” Yet 40. Myth and Manner in Woolf's Early Novels ‘Woolf deliberately aimed at 2 main character who would have an ‘empty self, an identity promaturely vacated, not just because the “plot” leads him to inevitable death in World War J, but because his ivilization—of manly “honor” and intellectusl achievement — clicits no real commitment from him. The satire on the values and expectations typical of males in prewar England is adroitly realized in the comically attenuated structure of the novel, although few crities have looked favorably at the comedy in Jacob's Room. In fact. Phyllis Rose feels thatthe soeal satire on male honor cannot be ‘made to coincide with Woolf's sophisticated style” T would argue, fon the contrary, that Woolf's style in this novel is quite Mlexible ‘enough to accommodate the wide range ofthe narrator's conscious- ‘ess from lyre description to lyrie mockery. a mockery reinforced by the losely architeetured life novel form, T have discussed elsewhere Woolf's manifold acquaintance with the form of the Bildungsroman among her contemporaris.™ In Jacob's Room the famous conventions are introdueed only 10 be ‘mocked. Jacob walks through his archetypal story as though he doesnt sce the traditions. He isan orphan, or partly an orphan, be cause his father has died: but nothing Dickensian is ever made of this, Jacob being acither better nor worse forthe fact. As a Young ‘man he moves from the provinces to London, but the narrator ‘mines no moral riches out of tis eireumstanee. Tom Jones and Pip would have gone badly to seod, and would have emerged with a greater knowledge of humanity and of themselves. But Jacob is not ‘corrupted, and his move to the ety s not made into one ofthe sign posts of the novel. Jueob's education is something that barely hap- pens to him, yet all the scenery is there—all the scenery for the awakening of his mind and for his rebelling against stodgy tradi tions. Finally, Jacob receives no revelation, no “epiphany.” Oppor- tunity after opportunity is supplied by the author, but she deliber- ately makes Jacob look the other way, or she ignores the offered ‘moment. Virginia Woolf drags in all the Bildungsroman seenery: then she lets Jacob walk aimlessly about as though the stage were bare. The elfect is remarkable tension that gives fictional embod! ment to the pathos, and comedy. of Jacob's life—a life which be- ‘comes emblematic ofall lives to the extent that they do not fit ex pected patterns. The mockory against the form, the puncturing ofMyth and Manner in Woolf's Early Novels 4 the paradigm, elaborates the narrator's assertion that “it is no use trying to sum people up. ‘Jav0b's university experience, for instance, nover assumes the Importance of a solemn milestone. Moved on some occasions to a Aeeting appreciation of the atmosphere of Cambridge, Jacob must also tolerate carieature dons and oppressive luncheons. The comedy ‘of some of the Cambridge episodes may indeed be, a Aileen Pippett ‘suggested, Woolf's “mocking revenge upon the ancient institu tions where she was never able to study." The narrator of Jacob's ‘Room is outside the male institutions through which she moves the hhoro, Even the hero, hough sometimes stired by his college exper ienee. is oddly unteansformed by it. He too is somewhat on the out ‘side. Jacob's education neither crushes him nor ennobles him: it perhaps has not very much to do with him. Unlike Stephen Deda. lus, Jacob apparently develops no potent and complex theory of art ‘or philosophy. Nor dows he moet a G. E. Moore. To Jacob, Cambridge offers Huxtable. Sopwith, and Cowan, who are figures of inadequacy —inadequacy rather than destruc tiveness. These scholars do not display the thindipped, rigidly re strained asteticism of the priests in A Portrait of the Artist ae a Young Man, for instaneo, We aro not made to fee! that Jacob must ‘eseape from the Huxtables and Sopwiths or risk injury to his soul Jacob's orientation is not religions, so there is no solemn moment uring which someone approaches him about a possible vocation ‘Both the narrator and Jacob have s easual though sensuous atitude ‘toward intellectual endeavor: both seem to take lightly the notion of ‘Jacob's being the heir ofthe ages. H. G. Wells, on the other hand, ‘writes in Joan and Peter of the war's fect on young people, and he loads with irony the idea of inheritance. After Peter is badly wound- ‘ed, his guardian Oswald reflets bitterly on the way the world has treated its “bele." Well’ Peter and Wooll's Jacob are brutally de ‘eived heirs, but the narrator in Wells’ novel provides voluminous hortatory comment on the failures of British education and on the ‘need for the young heirs to rebuild their world. In Jacob's Room, neither Jacob nor the narrator reaps any edification out of the no tion of inherited responsibilities or opportunities, As Jacob comes ‘tothe window of his friend Simcon's room. the narrator observes his face: he looks satisfied, “indecd masterly: which expression 42. Mythand Manner in Woolf's Barly Novels, changed slightly as he stood there, the sound ofthe clock conveying ‘to hm it may be) sense of old buildings and time: and himself the ‘nhoritor; and then tomorrow: and friends atthe thought of whom, in sheor confidence and pleasure, it scemed, he yawned and stretched himself” (4), The narrator offers only tentative interpre- tations here, but Jacob's actions are described without ambiguity. "The notion of his being “an inheritor” ix very much underplayed, ‘The two undergraduates continue their discussion, and one of them mentions Julian the Apostate. The narrator s more interested in the lyrie atmosphere of midnight and wind than she isin obsory- Ing which man spoke the name. Novertholes, she defiaitely asserts ‘that Simeon isthe one who says, "Somehow it seems to matter." Of the two, he is evidently the more interested in the philosophical ‘ramifications of the emperor's baehaliding. Jacob says, "Well, you ‘500m to have studiod tho subject." Then something in both Jacob's ‘eonceiousness and that of the narrator experiences the pleasureand intimacy which pervade the room following this intelleetualdiseus He appeared extraordinary happy. as if his pleasure would brim and spill down the sides i Simeon spoke. Simeon said nothing, Jacob remained standing. But int rmacy—the room was fll oft, still, deep like a pool. Without need of movement or speech it rose soltly and washed over everything, mollifying, kindling, and coating the mind with ‘the lustre of poarl, so that i you talk of alight, of Cambridge burning its not languages only. I's Julian tho Apostate. (14) ‘A discussion that might have been the springboard for Jacob's now erviam, or for his defining of a “Yorm” for his life, is instead en- Jayed as a sensuous event —by Jacob and by the narrator. Jacob ar- Tives at no great sense of purpose and identity.as Stephen Dedalus ‘docs in his lengthy deliberations with Cranly. Jacob does not live up tothe responsibilities of the well brought-p Western male hero: he undertakes no egodefining rebelion and no mythie quest. He tends ‘o-enjay his mind and the ideas that he “inherits” from the past he does not do anything so practical as te together his own ego with thee. A lator image suggests that the heritage of the ages sto Jacob «neutral pleasure, something tobe enjoyed rather than shouldered‘Myth and Manner in Woolf's Early Novels 43 and carried onward as part of the white man's burden. After leaving Florinda at the Guy Fawkes party, Jacob and Timmy are in high spirits, quoting Greek and feeling generally exuberant: “They were boastful, triumphant: it scemed to both that they had read every book in the world: known every sin, passion. and joy. Civiliza tions stood round them like flowers ready for picking. Ages lapped at their feet like waves fit for sailing” (74). Por Jacob, intellectual ‘conversition ix valuable because it creates intimacy between friends. Ages lap at his feet, beckoning this Cambridge sportsman ‘toa pleasant pastime of sailing. His sense of being an heir is linked, in his own mind, to the fact that Florinda called him by his first ‘name, and sat on his kneo. “Thus did all good women in the days of the Greeks” (75). Jacob here stereotypes both Greece and Fiorinda. Like the female statues ofthe Erechtheum, Florinda is pedestalled, 42 feminine prop for the structure of ancient civilization as envi sioned by Jacob Flanders. This recent Cambridge graduate, unlike the narrator, is only too ready to sum people up especially women, and especially "the Greeks.” Ironically, Jacob is disillusioned a little later when he sees Florinda "turning up Greek street upon another man's arm" (98)! ‘Once in a while, Jacob and his Cambridge friends do approach ‘serious cerebral maneuvers, but the hint of youthful discovery or youthful rebellion is immediately plowed under by a context of ‘shared laughter and sensuous enjoyment. The narrator's frequent shifts of distance contribute much to the short duration of any phil: ‘sophical or rebellious musings. Moving back alittle, she suggests that the story may be following a typical Bildungsroman patter ‘she hints that Bonamy or Jacob may be resenting the fet of Keats ‘early death perhaps her characters are about to raise clenched fists against God or the nature of things. But no. she moves in loser, and without any hedging tells us that Jacob, “who sat astride a chair and ate dates from a long box. burst out laughing” (2, ‘True, this method of narration, this inconsistency with regard to distance. is perhaps confusing. I'm not sure tha it is necessarily anineffective approach, however. Hafley is right when he says that “while one narrator insists on the impossibility of knowing Jacob, another narrator does a good job of disproving this by moving easily into the minds of other characters "There are two.narrators,or one 44 Myth and Manner in Woolf's Early Novels narrator who insists on giving us a twofold vision of Jacob vision that shows the conventional pattern whieh he “should” follow, and almost simultaneously points out that he is not following it. This ‘method is an extended version of what Woolf does in “An Unwrit ten Novel” Phere, a narrator within the narrator's head invents an elaborate story about a woman, "Minnis Marsh,” who happens to ide opposite in a train. But when the unknown woman leaves the train, the frame-narrator must admit that the supposed *Minnie” really scems happier and more at ease in the world then the story making imagination had envisioned. The frame-narrator must con {ront the mystery which results rom the discrepancy between the ‘two portraits, the imaginary one and the one revealed briefly and in- completely by the facts. A similar doublenarrator prevails in Jaco’ s Room. She is continually sketching the mythic pattern that ‘young men are "supposed to follow: then she provides suddenly a ‘close-up of Jacob esting dates or finding inthe eheap Florinda the ‘emblem of ll things Greek, ‘Even when he is aetually in Greece, Jacob—and the narrator —are bemused by the disjunction of emblem and reality. He visite ‘the Acropolis, emblem of all things Greek, and as he sits down to read, expects tobe inspired: ‘And laying the book on the ground he began, as if inspired bby what he ad read, to write & note upon the importance of his- ‘ory —upon democracy —one of those seribbles upon which the ‘work ofa lifetime may be based; or again, it falls out of a book ‘twenty years later, and one can't remember a word of it. [Lisa 1itle painful Te had better be burnt. ‘acob wrote; began todraw a straight nose... (149-50) AL this point democracy and the straight nose are interrupted by ‘women on tour. The comedy is doubled and tripled, First Jacobite terrupts himself by turning from democracy to a straight nose: then the sightseeing women interrupt the drawing ofthe nose. To bbe fair to Jacob, we would have to point out thatthe narrator may be responsible for the comic thoughts about jveniia on demoe- ey: she doesn't say definitely that Jacob himself writes sueh a “painful” note. She moves in eloser, however, and we do see Jacob drawing a straight nose, His meditations on history are probably not those ofa future Gibbon ora Clive Bel. Jueob eurses the women.