How can you tell that the Author is male?

 

 Madame Récamier
by François Gérard (1805)
Carnavalet Museum, Paris

When the messenger returned her mistress gave directions that if a gentleman called he was to be admitted at once, and sat down to await results.

Sentimentally she did not much care to see him—his delays had wearied her, but it was necessary; and with a sigh she arranged herself picturesquely in the chair; first this way, then that; next so that the light fell over her head. Next she flung herself on the couch in the cyma-recta curve which so became her, and with her arm over her brow looked towards the door. This, she decided, was the best position after all, and thus she remained till a man’s step was heard on the stairs. Whereupon Lucetta, forgetting her curve (for Nature was too strong for Art as yet), jumped up and ran and hid herself behind one of the window-curtains in a freak of timidity. In spite of the waning of passion the situation was an agitating one—she had not seen Henchard since his (supposed) temporary parting from her in Jersey.

She could hear the servant showing the visitor into the room, shutting the door upon him, and leaving as if to go and look for her mistress. Lucetta flung back the curtain with a nervous greeting. The man before her was not Henchard.

The perfidity.  The scheming powers of the women to trap and ensnare.  The poor helpless victim.

The Power of Genetics

How does he regard those cubs?

 The Mayor of Casterbridge reflects that his remarriage was chiefly for the sake of their daughter, Elizabeth-Jane.  When he discovered that she is not the Elizabeth-Jane he fathered, he became hard-hearted and then rejects her.

This is a terrible indictment of parental love.  I am reminded of the wild fact that dominant males in a pack of lions will find the cubs that it as not sired and execute them.  There is an evolutionary explanation as expounded by Richard Dawkin's book, 'The Selfish Gene'.  

Evolutionary forces lurk beneath human waters too.  Adoption stands against this iniquity. The love of genetics is purely selfish, but the love of people through simply choosing to love them, is a much higher thing.  Perhaps it is unnatural?   It is certainly wonderful.

After Elizabeth-Jane's mother death Henchard tells her that he is her father.  She agrees to take his surname.  

“Now,” said Henchard, with the blaze of satisfaction that he always emitted when he had carried his point—though tenderness softened it this time—“I’ll go upstairs and hunt for some documents that will prove it all to you. But I won’t trouble you with them till to-morrow. Good-night, my Elizabeth-Jane!”

Whilst searching for a birth certificate (or the suchlike), Henchard finds the letter his wife wrote revealing Elizabeth-Jane's true parentage.  Henchard is completely changed. 

Her husband regarded the paper as if it were a window-pane through which he saw for miles. His lips twitched, and he seemed to compress his frame, as if to bear better. His usual habit was not to consider whether destiny were hard upon him or not—the shape of his ideals in cases of affliction being simply a moody “I am to suffer, I perceive.” “This much scourging, then, it is for me.” But now through his passionate head there stormed this thought—that the blasting disclosure was what he had deserved.

Henchard instantly about-faces, but Elizabeth-Jane has not yet been told.  She reflects:-

“I have thought and thought all night of it,” she said frankly. “And I see that everything must be as you say. And I am going to look upon you as the father that you are, and not to call you Mr. Henchard any more. It is so plain to me now. Indeed, father, it is. For, of course, you would not have done half the things you have done for me, and let me have my own way so entirely, and bought me presents, if I had only been your stepdaughter! He—Mr. Newson—whom my poor mother married by such a strange mistake” (Henchard was glad that he had disguised matters here), “was very kind—O so kind!” (she spoke with tears in her eyes); “but that is not the same thing as being one’s real father after all. Now, father, breakfast is ready!” she said cheerfully.

Henchard bent and kissed her cheek. The moment and the act he had prefigured for weeks with a thrill of pleasure; yet it was no less than a miserable insipidity to him now that it had come. His reinstation of her mother had been chiefly for the girl’s sake, and the fruition of the whole scheme was such dust and ashes as this.

The curse is in this kiss.  There is an assumption that genetics is the dominate force of love.  But the love depicted here is week in every respect.

The Life and Death of the Mayor of Casterbridge. A Man of Character

Arriving in Weydon Priors and heading
for the Furmity Tent.

Michael Henchard was a fool of a man from the start.  He sold his wife for a bowl of Furmity.

Although he attempted to improve himself in the sight of God, he did not succeed.  But how could he have thought that Elizabeth-Jane was his daughter?  He may have been a very neglectful father and not paid attending to her date of birth.  She apparently did not look like him.  He had such a blinding belief, but her age would betray that she could not be his daughter. 

When did JK Rowling read the Mayor of Casterbridge?  In Chapter XX we read...

The sharp reprimand was not lost upon her, and in time it came to pass that for “fay” she said “succeed”; that she no longer spoke of “dumbledores” but of “humble bees”; no longer said of young men and women that they “walked together,” but that they were “engaged”; that she grew to talk of “greggles” as “wild hyacinths”; that when she had not slept she did not quaintly tell the servants next morning that she had been “hag-rid,” but that she had “suffered from indigestion.”

"Like Prester John's, his table had been spread, and infernal harpies had snatched up the food."

Henchard is powerless to prevent his attempted at joy dissolve away in front of him.

Infernal Harpies

Elizabeth-Jane enters a room in Mr Henchard's house and looks round.  I notice the three books left out on the table.  These are highly symbolic.

It was furnished to profusion with heavy mahogany furniture of the deepest red-Spanish hues. Pembroke tables, with leaves hanging so low that they well-nigh touched the floor, stood against the walls on legs and feet shaped like those of an elephant, and on one lay three huge folio volumes—a Family Bible, a “Josephus,” and a “Whole Duty of Man.” 

Josephus was a Victorian fascination, providing evidence for the voracity of the gospel stories.  The bible, a vital book in a middle class home. And Whole Duty of Man, which symbolises the conservative establishment.

The passage continues

In the chimney corner was a fire-grate with a fluted semi-circular back, having urns and festoons cast in relief thereon, and the chairs were of the kind which, since that day, has cast lustre upon the names of Chippendale and Sheraton, though, in point of fact, their patterns may have been such as those illustrious carpenters never saw or heard of.

This picture speaks of an attempt at aspiring respectability-  

Driving back to Sheffield

 I took Liz back to Sheffield today and in the car we discussed the fascinating subject of gender.  Liz explained to me why she, despite lots of persuasive criticism, will continue to write stories with gender neutral pronouns.

It reminded me of one of the main arguments in Emma's Dabiri's book, "What White People Can Do Next".  This book discusses the invention of the power politics of 'Whiteness'.  Dabiri notes that the concept of whiteness was used to explain why as the indentured white workers (aka slaves) on the Caribbean plantations were replaced by black enslaved people, an explanation was concocted to describe why the whites were treated better than the blacks.  The colour of the skin made a very useful defining distinction to justify this separation.  A ridiculous distinction of course, as humanity easily mixes, (especially with dominate white males in the picture).  A famous example is the story of 'The Black Count', or the father of Alexandre Dumas, also called Alex Dumas.  Alexandre Dumas' father was a French Count, who married a black Haitian enslaved woman.  Alexandre inherited the estate in Normandy.  His father was a general in Napoleon's Army and the inspiration for Dumas book, The Count of Montichristo.' For a while, the French state held that to be French, was to be Free.  Indeed, the etymology of the word Frank comes from the Latin 'to be free'.

My discussions with Liz reminded me of this, because we wondered about how the use of gender might also be used to create this distinction.  The 'power' associated with gender began to slip when farms became mechanised, and the power of an average woman became very similar to that of an average man.  The same applies for warfare, and virtually all other occupations.  Physical difference has lost any distinguishing difference.

We see how discrimination between gender and race actually has a subtle impact on the whole system and ultimately affects all sides.  Can similar principles be applied to other forms of discrimination?  What about the way prejudice in favour of beauty operates?   Is it important to define a difference in order to allow distinctions to be legitimised?  I do not see this with beauty, or disability interestingly.  It is the discrimination that can not be spoken.

On my drive home today, on a reasonably empty road, there was one hold up.  It was made by about 300 cars from the Free Palestine Protest, making a protest on the motorway- a very French experience.  

An interesting Picture from yesterday in London.
The Free Palestine Rally included Orthodox Jewry.

 .  

Driving Home

I'm  Listening to a book by John Adair called 'The Art of Judgement'.

In it he quotes CS Lewis who said that it is impossible to experience 'hope' and think about being hopeful at the same time.  It reminded me of Schon's (1991) learning model which compares reflecting  'in action: and reflecting 'on action', two parallel processes.  This is either through active experience (by touching the kettle), or learning through contemplation ('don't touch the kettle!')

I though that this was true of many experiences in life, such as humility.  You can't be humble, and think about being humble at the same time.  Also fear.  It is difficult to feel fear, and also contemplate being fearful.  Adair notes that it's like eye direction.  You can't concentrate on look forwards and backwards at the same time.  

Waiting by the traffic lights on the inner ring road I noticed that as my lights approach the change from red to green, the behaviour of the cars turning in opposite lane in front of me becomes predictably more erratic.  They speed up to the extent that they are really taking the corner at some considerable rate as they jump lights.  I smiled at the irony that traffic lights are a safety device that actually intensifies the risk for these drivers.  As the light changed and I drove forward I heard the horns behind me of many cars  negotiating the congested road they had just joined.

Cycling yesterday through the country roads of Harborough district I notice that the council had put up a sign on every gate saying 'No Fly Tipping'.  I was reminded of the cartoonist Gary Larson (Farside) and thought that this sign could also be erected in a local restaurant where a 'fly' waiter secretly rubs his two pairs of hands as he  receives a tip from a grateful customer of a pile of rotting fish bones.

My attempt with help from Cartoonstock

The Invisible Man

 Have you ever read H.G.Wells story 'The Invisible Man'?

I thought of it again when watching a fascinating documentary on Frank Lloyd Wright by Jonathan Adams, architect, and Welshman.  Frank Lloyd Wright's parents journeyed from Llandysul, Wales in a migration of the Lloyd Jones clan in 1844 to Wyoming in Wisconsan USA.  Lloyd Wright's father had been a Baptist minister, but converted to Unitarianism when he married  Lloyd Wright's mother, and joined the clan.

The family bought land which became the valley where his second family home was built- Taliesin (which is said to mean 'Shining Brow' in welsh, though Adams and googletranslate could not corroborate this. Google suggests Ael Disglair instead.) The second home was for Lloyd Wrights second family.  In 1914, the tragedy of the murder of his second wife and her children was made all the more poignant by the fact that it was a senseless murder by a trusted servant.  Julian Carton had been given notice to quit, because he had been behaving strangely, but the Lloyd Wright servants lived as relative equals in their large egalitarian household.  Carlton never explained why he committed the murders, and then burnt down the house.  He died from starvation having drunk bleach, which damaged his oesophagus.  Carlton was a black American of Barbadian decent.

I am amazed that Lloyd Wright went on to restore Taliesin.  This must have been a very brave act.  The house caught fire again in 1925, but this time it was an electrical fault.  It must evoked painful memories.  

In the Invisible Man, Wells eludes to skin colour.  People see darkness in the Invisible Man's body after a dog has torn at his trousers, they remark that his nose is pink.  Perhaps he is 'piebald' and ashamed of his skin.  After the Invisible Man, who we discover has the name Griffin, is felled and killed by a navy's spade, his lifeless body becomes visible, and we discover that he is albino.

Why are American jails full of black men?  The right wingers point to their criminal culture.  The left wingers note their position at the bottom of society - invisible.  The right wingers say 'join us- get on your bike'.  The left wingers say 'what have we done?'

Perhaps the opposite of the Invisible Man was the 'Elephant Man', who was the most wonderful and beautiful person by all accounts.  He was noticeable, but had to become invisible to protect himself, wearing a bag on his head.  Perhaps 9 invisible men lash out and attack, and 1 is extraordinary and restrained.  But the lashing out is to be expected.

I wondered whether Lloyd Wright was able to resist the racism of the age despite the powerful generalising  associations of skin colour?

And what about Jonathan Adams?  Do his building evoke Lloyd Wright?

Sherman Theatre - Cardiff (Adams)

Marin Civic Center-
San Rafael (Lloyd Wright)

The Stannary - Falmouth University (Adams)

Taliesin West - Arizona (Lloyd Wright)

Welsh Joint Education Committee HQ Llandaff
(Adams)

Johnson Wax HQ - Racine, Wisconsin
(Lloyd Wright)

The Ivisible Man?  No don't bother reading it.  Watch Jonathan Adams on Frank Lloyd Wright instead.